Just 6 months left...

I can hardly believe that I am down to less than 6 months in Haiti. As usual with time, I can't decide if it has flown by or taken forever. But I have made the comment to a few other missionaries lately that looking back it is hard for even me to understand the ways that I have changed through the things that I have seen and been a part of here in Haiti. I don't think I could ever articulate it into words. It's more like a feeling than a thought- the ways I have changed. I just hope that once I get back to the US that I can be patient with people who will not understand my changes and that people will be patient with me. In a class I had in college with studied culture shock in depth. We also discussed the re-entry phase. This is when you come home and you are all excited about your trip and you want everyone to understand your excitement and to have your same feelings and they usually don't. You have changed but others havn't. This may be what is hard for me. So remember (and I'll remind you again), when I get home in October please be patient with me. It won't be easy.

Let me tell you a little about La Kwa last week. It was pretty weird. It had started to rain early in the week which was a huge blessing. Everyone was really excited and out working in their gardens. But we went ahead and went to La Kwa as promised. We got there about 9:45. Class was suppose to start at 10. But no one was there. The wife of the house said that they figured we weren't going to come because of the rain and they were all in the gardens working. We asked her to send someone to tell them we were here and that we would visit another family and come back.

So we visited another family where we had spent 2 long visits already. The family claims Catholicism. The guys were doing the talking and the husband was agreeing with what the guys were saying about a personal relationship with Christ and baptism and so forth. But he said that he couldn't leave the Catholic church because 2 of his kids were going to get baptized soon. It was another strange conversation to a strange day.

After that talk we went back and sat at the house where we were going to story. At 12 I went to put my stuff back in my saddlebags so we could leave and about 5 guys showed up. It turns out that they have already found a "churched" man to lead on Sundays and they want us to come and train him on Thursdays. It was frustrating. Their are people in Haiti who make a living going around to different areas, trying to play church, then leaving when they don't make any money. This is one of those cases. This man hasn't been going to church lately because he had a "falling out" with his last church. This happens over and over. We go to an area with no church and have the same problems we have every where. The first thing this guy wanted to know was how I was going to help him build his building. We had explained at the first lesson we didn't come with money or anything, just God's word. The guys were so good in explaining that without a church, without people, a building is useless. Just like a house is useless without a family. They took they later took the guy who's house we meet at aside and talked to him about the dangers in letting this man lead. A good surprise for the day was that Jasner knew an older man that showed up. It turns out that he had worked with his son for 3 years and were very good friends. He said that this man would make a fine leader and encouraged him to comtinue meeting. They explained that right now they wanted everyone to come to the class and learn, not just potential leaders.

They teach us certain ways to do things in orientation but these things aren't always real black-and-white and they never happen the way that you would expect them to. So it can be pretty frustrating. I felt like everyone would have been better off if I just stayed at home. (I am sorry that was so long. If you made it this far in the story congrats and thanks for hanging in with me!)