Oops!

So, if you follow me on facebook, which why wouldn't you?! Seriously, I'm a hoot! So yeah, if you follow me you'd know that a few weeks ago, I took my team to climb this waterfall in Haiti.

It's called Saut d'Eau waterfall.

And today we googled it... maybe we should've done that sooner?! (nah!) Need to know basis remember?!

It's actually a very famous spot here in Haiti. A very famous VOODOO spot that is!Here are our findings:

"Haitian pilgrims gather at the waterfall at Saut d'Eau every year on the anniversary of the 1983 sighting of the Virgin Mary, alternately identified as the Vodou loa, or spirit, of Erzulie Freda, the Goddess of Love..The waterfall at Saut D'Eau is the site of the largest Vodou and Catholic pilgrimage in Haiti. Each year, thousands of Haitian pilgrims make their way to Saut D'Eau to bathe in the sacred water and revel in the presence of the loa, particularly Erzulie and Damballah the Serpent, father of all life and keeper of spiritual wisdom, who is said to live in the falls. The water is believed to be curative and many women come to Saut d'Eau seeking fertility."

Yep I took my team to the home of voodoo baptisms! oops!

What can wash away my sins? Nothing, but the blood of Jesus!!!

A Closer Look

I took this picture from the top of one of those mountains I was surprised to see in Haiti. While my photography is not so great, you don’t need a fancy camera to really capture the greatness of God’s creation. I mean I stuck my hand out of a moving car and snapped the picture and it could be a postcard, no?

We’ve spent a lot of time between the top of this mountain and that ocean you see down below. While at a glance it could be the cover of a brochure for any Caribbean destination, if you were to zoom in and take a closer look you’d see what we’ve seen. You’d see what lies between…

An impoverished nation, ravished by an earthquake, corrupt government, and voodoo. You’d be outraged by the injustice, you’d be compelled to some sort of action, you’d possibly give the shirt off your back, the shoes on your feet, or the lunch you had packed for yourself, you might write a check, or a letter to the President. You’d fight for justice like you’ve never fought before.

You might meet my friend Benita or Popeye-eye or Solemn Sam and fall in love, suffer a broken heart, and cry because you have to leave them in the despair they know as life! You will lose sleep. You may feel compelled to start the long, expensive, quest of adoption. You’ll love like you’ve never loved before.

You would see my friend Magdala who has sores and a belly full of worms from an unsanitary living environment, nearly blonde hair and not even the energy to cry due to malnourishment. You’d insist on footing the doctor bill and vow to find her a suitable place to live. But she’s only ONE. You’d call your dr. friends and plead their case. You pray like you’ve never prayed before.

You’d see bare feet and bare bottoms, and you’d email everyone you know asking for soles for souls and all the new undies they can send! You’d go home and empty your closet of the excess. You’d give like you’ve never given before.

Sometimes it’s much easier NOT to take a closer look. But I think we’re supposed to.

A closer look at our own family, a closer look at our co-workers, our church, our community. Maybe it’s to zoom in on the nations we share this globe with, maybe even our enemies! While the post card view is pretty sweet, and a closer look is not exactly for the faint of heart; zooming in will compel you to a greater cause, a deeper love, a more fervent prayer, a bigger blessing.

I was blind, but now I see.

How to get Giggles in Haiti

Believe it or not this mask is NOT how to get giggles in Haiti, I just knew his cuteness would make you giggle! Each week we head out to new school or orphanage. This past week we were in a town called Cabaret. I opened the program with, "I am from Convoy of Hope." The room roared with laughter. I gave my translator a look like, 'did you just say what I said or did you tell a joke?!' I repeated myself, I am from Convoy! More giggles. I checked my fly, I looked behind me to see what my team might be doing, no clues!

Convoy means two things here in Haiti... 1. food 2. gas

We ask the kids about their favorite foods and many times they just shout, "convoy." You manje Convoy (eat Convoy). They have no idea that Convoy of Hope is a faith based organization with a driving passion to feed the world thru disaster response, community outreaches, children's feeding initiatives, and partner resourcing!

They equate the word convoy with food. "Convoy is coming" means food is coming.

The second thing convoy means here in Haiti is gas... and not the kind for your car! Evidently after eating the convoy (food) there's a flatulence problem. And by that I mean....

Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply (in American English) gas. The gases are expelled from the rectum in a process colloquially referred to as "passing gas", "breaking wind" or "farting". Flatus is brought to the rectum by the same peristaltic process which causes feces to descend from the large intestine. The noises commonly associated with flatulence are caused by the vibration of the anal sphincter, and occasionally by the closed buttocks.

Yep Beans, beans, good for the heart....

So when the classroom becomes odorous here in Haiti, you might hear this, "Who convoyed?" (Seriously. I'm not making this up!)

So, when I got up and said, I'm from Convoy , I said one of two things....

I made a fat joke... I'm full of food, I'm from food, I'm made of food eat me.

OR I'm from a toot. I have to toot. I stink. (You get the idea I'm sure ... gas plus students =s laughter, so this is how you get giggles in Haiti, just tell them you're from Convoy!

From now on, I'll stick to I'm Mary Beth or sometimes I just tell them my name is Yor Beautiful, because sometimes you just need to feel good about yourself ya know?

A City on a Hill!

When I imagined Haiti, I imagined a desert land. I didn’t imagine beautiful green mountains being the back drop of nearly every view, nor did I imagine seeing the sunset over the ocean every evening. And while I’d heard about the voodoo here, I didn’t imagine I would HEAR the voodoo in the middle of every night or pass a voodoo temple nearly every day! I know, I know, you’re asking if I’ve ever heard of Google Earth, or Wikapedia, or seen a map for goodness sake!?

I’m the team leader, I research the important stuff who we’re working with, where we’re staying, currency exchange rates, safety issues, language stuff, transportation logistics, how close the nearest hospital is, and of course the availability of internet, nearest beach, and possibility of AC & indoor plumbing, but I don’t GOOGLE it! And sometimes I wish my team wouldn’t either! But oh do they! They know every disease, kidnapping, horrific event, and possible natural disaster we may face. One time a team member argued with me that he was sure we were at the wrong hotel because when he had used Google Earth to see it the roof was green and this hotel did NOT have a green roof! (Shaking my head!)

I’m not sure it’s a real concentrated effort that I don’t Google, it could be that my computer instinctively goes to Facebook or Jon Acuff’s Blog when I turn it on. I mean I know everything I read on the internet is true, but let’s face it, if I had known before I came that Haiti has rats the size of possums and that I would see them with my very own eyes just feet away from where I lay my head to rest every night, I would have feigned illness and another team leader would have had to have been brought in! Me and the 3^rd world, we’re on a need to know basis!!

Wow! I got way off track… like I said I didn’t imagine the big green mountains. One night, my co leader, Becca Jantz to name names, did us the favor of taking us to her secret spot on the Mission of Hope compound where we stay. It happens to be a concrete slab half way up the side of a mountain, between where the water truck comes every day, the windmill, and the neighboring village. We went up at night, she had us turn off our flashlights and just listen in silence. We soaked it in, the part of mission of hope we stay in is literally like grand central station! It’s beside the kitchen, where the Haitian ladies like to SCREAM at each other (especially around 5am), where the loud American teams like to congregate at night, where the goats evidently try to kill each other, and sometimes packs of dogs like to come in, it’s beside the basketball court where very former athletes like to relive their glory days which involves a lot of grunting, yelling, and trips down the hill to the clinic! Oh and it's in the middle of an orphanage of Haitian children! It’s NEVER quiet! We got to the top and our devo time was to just be still! Best devo we’ve had, I think!

There was a breeze, no noise, you could hear the waves crashing, and see the lights of Port au Prince a good 20 miles away in the distance. When the silence broke, our youngest team member made a profound observation, what if everyone had a light? This whole place would be lit up! What she was referring to is one, most Haitians don’t have any sort of electricity (even Mission of Hope where we stay only has it about 2/3 of the time), AND she was referring to the fact that all along the dark mountain where we were sitting there were thousands of Haitian homes! We pass them everyday, but the ONLY lights we could see were from Port au Prince and from one lone fire in a neighboring village!

It hit me hard. It’s dark here! Voodoo, hopelessness, disease, destruction, poverty, it’s pitch black and when it’s THIS dark you think A LOT about light!

Verses about light trampled thru my mind…. God said, "Let there be light!" and there was light and He saw that the light was good! The Lord turns my darkness into light. Let the light of Your face shine upon us Lord. The commands of the Lord are radiant giving light to the eyes. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? He wraps Himself in Light and darkness tries to hide. I am the light of the world, whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. No wonder Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

All I could think about was… THIS City on a Hill…enshrouded by darkness. And all the people living on that hill in the pitch black dark that doesn’t end at day break!!

I began to wonder would happen if every home on that hill, had a light, I could nearly hear children singing, "This lil light of mine!" I mean seriously if every home on these hills had a light the nightfall would be obliterated, there are THAT many people, there are THAT many homes, it’s THAT dark! More than food, medicine, clothes, and shoes, Haiti needs exposure to The Light!!! In providing the former, we accomplish the latter, one child at a time!

When you pray for Haiti, pray for LIGHT. Pray that one heart at a time, one home at a time, one village at a time, that the lights would come on! That darkness would have to flee. A lamp unto their feet, a light unto their path. That blind eyes would see. Illuminate the path of the lost so they can clearly see the way to You! Let there be light, for Haiti!

Tales from Beneath the Mosquito Net

I have a love hate relationship with my mosquito net. I may lean a little more on the hate side on most days, but I have to still appreciate it ya know? One might think that you just string that bad boy up effortlessly, crawl in, and fall into a bug free sleep! But one would be wrong! #1 A mosquito net is powerless against bed bugs, but that's NOT what this blog is about, as I am unable to share my thoughts and feelings on the bed bug topic (appropriately) at this time.

So back to beneath my net, #1 the typical bug net has four lil eyelet doomaflickies in which to place string in and hang over your bed, sounds good, 4 eyelets, 4 corners, right? Wrong! Because when you hang that bad boy up, the middle sags and as you breathe in netting you feel as though you're in your very own coffin! Not cool!

So let's just say you hang it, you duck tape that middle part up and then you crawl in ... you're set right? X (please make the family feud sound here!) One also needs to know that you must tuck in all ends of the net underneath your mattress as some mosquitos appear to have the intelligence level to come in the floor route!

One might think that at THIS point you're set! (I sure hope your remember you're tucked in before you try to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night because if by chance you don't you could rip down your net entirely and teach your roommates new words in the middle of the night!)

So... after a few uncomfortable nights, you figure out how to properly duck tape, tuck, and to stop all liquid intake around 5pm, you're set, RIGHT?! Well, NO!

Evidently the mosquitos in Haiti have gone to special ops training! First off, some of them sneak in when you get out of bed in the morning and hide out till bed time, so after all your net tucking, you're actually sleeping with the enemy! When you awake, somewhat light headed as you have very little blood left, you find the mosquito barely able to keep himself afloat as his gluttony has caused him a heaviness! Two days ago, I took my sheet, and killed my freeloading, unwelcomed overnight guest! There was so much blood on the sheet that you would have thought I had killed a person or at least a kitten (which I sometimes dream of doing!) Sounds gross to use your sheet for such doesn't it? Trust me, when you're in Haiti, that's all that sheet is good for, if you're using covers you have already contracted Malaria and have bigger problems to worry about!

Oh so you're not impressed, you don't thinking sneaking in at 6am and hiding out for 12 hours is special opps material, that I should have checked more throughly?! Well, then what do you have to say about this?

Last night, I taped, tucked, tinkled, and throughly checked the sheets before entering! I curled into a lil ball and drifted off into a benedryl induced sleep dreaming of (wouldn't you like to know!) Around 1am I awoke to a severe itching sensation on both knees...I wandered into the bathroom for a better visual, to see about 10 mosquito bites on each knee! What could have happened you ask?! Thanks for your concern! Well, there is a skillful art to sleeping beneath the mosquito net, at NO time can any part of your body be touching your net as the special ops trained mosquitos are awaiting. They waited patiently outside my net as I drew my knees upward and they rested barely grazing my cone of silence (we've established that one cannot be addressed while inside their net, it gives us the illusion of privacy!) and yep, they feasted on my exposed knee caps, like the vultures that they are!

Life beneath the mosquito net, well, it requires, grace and poise, brain and brawn, and the ability to sleep directly in the center of your bunk without shifting throughout the night! I'll let you know how that turns out, till then send benedryl, citronella perfumes, and chocolate (I'm an emotional eater!)

Futbol Haiti Style!

We spent Monday thru Friday of this week visiting a school of about 60 children. The school is nestled half way up a mountain beside a flowing river where people from the community bathe and do their laundry and it also supplies their drinking water. We gave this school 4 new water filters which will purify a liter a minute of that river water. We spend our days teaching about the importance of clean water, washing our hands, explaining to them why we built them latrines (before the latrines were built most people went where ever they were whenever they felt the urge!) Nutrition, Cholera, SIDA (AIDS), etc. it can get a little heavy! So we deemed Friday Fun Day! And after several of the students accepted Christ we decided to celebrate with a lil game of FUTBOL. Haitians LOVE soccer!

If this particular tourney had a name I'm pretty sure it would have been The Dust Bowl, as 60 students took the field in a mad frenzy dust flew, kids were trampled, and within 30 seconds the ball was in the river! Eventually however, the younger kids and probably some of the smarter kids went inside to the shade (why did no one tell me that it's ALWAYS 110 degrees in this country?!?) where more than half the interns were playing guitar and swapping English lessons for Creole ones! Eventually, we even broke them into teams (it just seemed like the right thing to do!), the boys all ran to Richard and the girls all ran to me so boys against girls it was! Then it was on like donkey kong!

Did the ball ever end up in the river again? Why yes, yes it did! How did we get it out? Well, funny thing is before I could even jog over to the bank to locate the ball, some lil guy would have already stripped down to his birthday suit jumped in and thrown the wet ball onto our "field" and the game would commence!

Richard and I played goalies and to be honest it was likely the safest position as this particular game of soccer resembled what I imagine MMA / UFC soccer tourneys to look like, the rules were, there are no rules!!!

I shouted in English to my Creole team and they shouted back in Creole as if we full well knew exactly what the other was saying! The boys scored a "few" times....you wouldn't think a barefoot could send a ball flying into your gut so hard the wind gets knocked out of you, but I'm here to tell you it CAN!

You also wouldn't think that lil girls in lil yellow dresses could score on boys with big feet so many times, but we sure did and no worries I taught them how to celebrate humbly! If running a circle around the filed screaming with our hands in the air every time is humble!

I seriously think it may have been the most fun game of soccer I have ever played!!!

The Hardest We've Prayed: The Haiti Goat Story

Ok... so close your eyes and imagine this.... well, I guess you can't very well close your eyes and keep reading so imagine it.... you're in Haiti, the country of voo doo, of chaos, where you have to have multiple armed guards at all times. It's dark. It's 3:30 in the morning. You're asleep in your bunk, beneath your mosquito net. And you hear this noise! Do not watch the video just turn off the lights let the audio play to better understand our degree of terror!

You are sure it is a man screaming help! Images of torture flash through your mind, it's literally right outside your window, he continues to scream, your teammates are awakened... and huddled together in their pajamas. Neither fight nor flight are an option. Welcome to hell... I mean living with goats!

We didn't know for several nights that the screaming was coming from the goats, to say we prayed harder than we've ever prayed before would be a gross understatement!