In September of 2012 I decided to go to Haiti on an upcoming mission trip. People have asked me what made me want to go and to this day I’m still not exactly sure why I went, I just knew had to go. It was a typical Sunday church service for my friends and I. We were sitting together, some on their phones and some, like me, were just starring into blank space waiting for the service to end. Towards the end of the service a church leader usually gets on stage to talk about upcoming events. This time they just so happened to be talking about information meetings for upcoming mission trips.
They got my attention when they proceeded to talk about Haiti and show pictures from past trips. Have you ever had one of those moments where you just knew something was right? That’s how I decided to go on this trip, I just knew I was going. Little did I realize the impact this “feel right” decision would make on my life. On June 20, 2013 at six o’clock in the morning, twenty-four people from Bright Christian Church left for Grand Guave, Haiti. We arrived in the Port-a-Prince airport, which of course did not have air-conditioning.
In my Haiti t-shirt and capris-pants, I carried my luggage through the airport to find our bus. It was a long, hot, and extremely bumpy two-hour bus ride to where we would be staying. Port-au-Prince is heavily populated since it is the capital. The bus ride consisted of heart-wrenching sights as we drove along. Peoples houses were pieced together with what seemed like anything one could find. Old pieces of rusted metal, ripped plastic tarps, and pieces of drywall and cardboard were used to construct some of these homes. The smells of the area also took some time to get use to.
Unlike the United States, they burn their trash in the streets and most do not have plumbing. As you can imagine, the whole area smelt like old, burning garbage and feces. It was horrid to inhale at first, but you did get use to it. While the whole trip was incredibly life changing, our day spent at a children’s home was by far my favorite part. As soon as we unloaded from the bus, I was greeted with a big hug from a little girl. Her hair was done with beads in them and she wore an adorable, green sundress that had beach toys on it.
Not only did all these children live in a poor country, they didn’t have families either. Our group performed some skits, sang some songs, and had the opportunity to help make a mural on one of the classroom walls for them. Later in the day people began to congregate in a room where some of the older children were playing the piano and singing worship songs. There has never been a more humbling and chilling moment in my life thus far. The faith those children had was unreal as they sang loudly, lifting their hands to the sky.
Their beautiful voices filled that entire room. They were not just in an orphanage, but in an orphanage in Haiti singing and praising God with their whole heart. I stood there listening and occasionally singing along to the songs I knew with tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t help but cry because I knew all that I had, yet I never worshipped like they were. My friend Sami was holding a little girl, maybe five years old, in front of me who would constantly reach out her tiny hand to wipe the tears off of my face. I told my best friend Becca about it later that night. When I tried to stop crying, the little girl in front of me would wipe my tears again which made me start to cry more,” I told her. The food we ate at the Lifeline campus where we were staying was delicious, American meals made in the campus kitchen. There was freshly made cake or cookies everyday for lunch and dinner.
Up until this trip I had never had strawberry cake, there was no need to if there was chocolate cake around. In Haiti they did not make chocolate cake for us so I succumbed and ate the strawberry cake. Maybe I was just really hungry, but hat soft, spongy strawberry cake was delicious! I thought I was going to loose weight from all the sweating I did, but because of what we had available to eat I did not. We did however eat one meal off campus at the orphanage. We were told to only take a little bit in case we didn’t like it. It would be extremely rude to waste food in front of any Haitian, but especially in front of the orphanage children. That meal consisted of fried chicken, beans, and rice. The chicken was very small and did not have a lot of meat, which did not help make it look more appealing nor did it smell very good.
The beans and rice were extremely mushy with an awful texture to it. All of the food in general did not have much if any favor, but that is what the children at the home eat all the time. I think it was important for us to be able to do that to realize how ungrateful we are about all the food choices we have. My youth group leader, Keith, was sitting by me and I remember scraping my food onto his plate because I couldn’t stomach it, it was that bad. He remarked, “It’s not that bad you guys, you can handle it.
“Here Keith, you can have mine since you like it so much,” I said as I put it on his plate. This could very much be the reason I stopped liking fried chicken. On another day we spent the time walking around the town and handing out baby blankets. When we gave these out the parents let you hold their tiny, precious babies. Everyday someone would practically throw you their baby to you to hold. I love holding babies so that was never a problem! We were able to learn some of the stories of the families we gave the blankets to.
One girl, about fifteen years old, was raising her six-month old baby brother by herself. Her mother had passed away when the baby was only a few months old. I believe Americans would assume that the people of Haiti live completely different lifestyles than us. What I found was interesting is that they are much more similar than you would think. Surprisingly I saw many Haitian people glued to cell phones like us Americans, some even had smartphones! In fact, I’m friends with some of the Haitian translators on Facebook!
Our building had an open rooftop with astounding views of the town outside the gates of Lifeline. Looking off the roof you could see all the houses that had been pieced together by various materials and barely kept together to forming a house. One evening a group of us were on the rooftop and there was music playing. A few minutes went by when all of a sudden the music was turned up and all you heard was people singing Justin Bieber. It was hysterical. The translators (who were guys) asked if I listened to Justin Bieber because they apparently loved him.
There really aren’t many differences between Haitian and American people besides a language barrier and that was really eye opening for me. For me, comparing my life with Firoozeh Dumas’ experiences was really interesting. I like to see how other people live in different countries. Dumas lived in two different countries so she really knew what it was like to live two different lifestyles. I can relate to several of her experiences, for example, when she tried American food for the first time and how I tried Haitian food, neither of us particularly cared for it.
Also her living in a poorer country, Iran, she could see the abundance of unnecessary items Americans had. I now realize how ungrateful I can be, yet I have so much more than other people in other countries. Not once have I regretted going to Haiti and I know my gut instinct to go was one hundred percent correct Personally, I think it was better than any vacation I’ve been on and I cannot wait to go back in two years! The point of anyone from Bright Christian, not just me, going was for us to serve the people of Haiti in various ways. However, the Haitians had a much bigger impact on me than I ever could on them.