The first time I went to Haiti I went with Morning Star Church through an organization called Next Step Ministries. I signed up for the trip in October of 2016 and left on June 25, 2017. After months of waiting, a typhoid shot that made me sick, and some extremely last minute packing it was finally time for me to leave for Fond Blanc. I couldn't sleep at all the night before from my nerves, and my excitement (not that I got much sleep because I had to wake up at 2:30 AM). I met my team led by the amazing Hayley Garr at the airport at 3:45 AM to begin our journey to Fond Blanc. We started with a flight from the St. Louis International Airport, to the Miami airport. Then we had a flight from Miami to Port au Prince, and finally, a two (ish) hour Tap Tap ride through the mountains to the small, but beautiful village of Fond Blanc. The ride to the orphanage was my first glimpse of Haiti, and Haiti was both everything and nothing like I had expected. It was a huge culture shock because I had never experienced poverty at that magnitude before, but I was also in awe of how beautiful the country was. I had never seen mountains before and let me tell you, the mountains in Haiti are breathtaking. The houses are colorful (something that I think we in the U.S. need to start doing), and the culture is rich.

When I first reached the orphanage, many of the children ran to the Tap Tap to help us unload our bags and carry them up to the missionary quarters. As we were walking up the stairs to where I would be living for the next week, one of the kids stopped me and in perfect English asked me if I loved Jesus. I was shocked, to say the least, but answered with "yes, I love Jesus very much. Do you love Jesus?" The child nodded excitedly, told me that Jesus loves me too, and then ran off to play with her friends. That experience confused me because I had expected the kids to be asking for things, but instead, that little girl wanted to make sure that I loved Jesus and knew that he loved me. It was in that moment that I knew that that trip was going to change me and my perspective on life.

At worship that night we were split into our work crews and came up with our team names (shout out to my Mango Maniacs!). This first night of worship was a little awkward because I was surrounded by people who I did not yet know (and I made the mistake of sitting in the back row so I couldn't see the video on the screen). But throughout my week in Fond Blanc, I learned that worship is my love language with God. Worshipping him each night while being surrounded by beautiful mountains, brought me closer to God than I have ever been. One part of our worship each night is known as "yay God!" we went around our work groups and each person had to say one thing that they saw God doing today that they wanted to praise him for and then we'd all yell "yaaaayyyy God!" after each one. This is something that I have since added into my everyday life as a way to remind myself to be grateful to the Lord.

Each morning at the orphanage we woke up at 6 AM and began our workday at 6:15. We spent our first work session (6:15- 8:30ish) passing buckets of rock across the orphanage that would later be turned into concrete to help build the new school. Once we finished the rock we straightened rebar, cut wires, and did basically whatever the Haitian carpenters needed us to do. I loved that we were working with the Haitians instead of just for the Haitians. After the first session, we ate breakfast which was typically spaghetti noodles and mangos (don't knock it 'til you try it). During our second work session (9:30-12ish) we all took the truck and a small tap tap to a local village to help repair the only road leading into Fond Blanc. At 12 we ate lunch and then our final work session was from 1-3.

We spent hours passing large rocks down the river (yes we actually stood in the river and it was great) so that the Haitians could put them in large wire cages to make the foundation for the road. To pass the time, Doug and I compared rocks to organs. It was unusual for us to crack a joke about a rock looking like a kidney, or calling the extra large rocks Hayley Stones. The rides down to the river were always interesting. Some of the boys from the orphanage came with us each day to help out and were always hilarious. Some days they'd be singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight, and other times they'd be yelling "Jesus is coming, prepare yourselves" into empty water jugs.

I loved working down at the river because we were able to talk to the locals and it wasn't uncommon for me to end up in a water fight with one of the kids. On our first day down in the river, I got in a water fight with this girl that lasted a good five minutes. Even when I stopped splashing, this girl continued to splash me. When she finally decided that the fight could be over she looked at me and said "respect," and then just walked off. After that day, we would have short conversations in French anytime we saw each other. It still amazes me that God uses little things such as water fights to show his love to others. He helped me befriend a local within the first hour of us starting our work in that community and I'm still in awe of that to this day.

One at a time each work group had the chance to spend their final work session of a day doing VBS with the kids at the orphanage. During my VBS we ended up playing baby, backpack, bronco and let me tell you, those kids take that game very seriously. After that final work session of each day we would eat dinner (usually around 3), and then we had free time to hang out with the kids until worship at 7. This was my favorite time of day. The kids taught me some of their favorite games to play (some of them some pretty difficult hand games) and one of them attempted to teach me Creole. One of the boys somehow managed to convince me that he didn't speak English for the first three days so I struggled through conversations in French with him until one of the other kids told me that he actually is fluent in English. We still continued to speak to each other in French though so that I could learn more, but he did talk to me some in English which made conversations so much easier.

There was one girl in the orphanage who was around the age of 12 that I became very close with. We were attached at the hip when I wasn't working. I taught her how to use my camera which she loved to use. I have so many pictures that she took of herself and her friends on there (Fond Blanc definitely has some future models). She also braided my hair over and over again, while she and her friends continually said "cheveux mal" which means bad hair because it was always knotted no matter how much we brushed it (long hair problems). Some of the kids loved telling me about the bible. They would tell me story after story that they had learned and we talked about how amazing Jesus was.

At night the orphanage had power made by the generator for a few hours for the lights, but once the generator turned off most people went to bed. However, a few of us stayed up each night and sat on a bench. Sometimes we would quietly sing worship songs, sometimes we would have deep conversations about our faith and life in general, and sometimes we would just sit and look at the stars. Each night more and more people began to join us and I quickly became close with many of my teammates.

For this trip, I made the decision to leave my cell phone at home and it was one of the best decisions that I have ever made. Without my phone, I was forced to be fully immersed in Haiti and its culture. I didn't have my phone to distract me from what God was trying to teach me and I was able to be completely focused on him throughout this trip. If I had brought my phone, I definitely would not have spent as much time with the kids or my team as I did because I would have been stuck in America.

That short week in Haiti broke me but also gave me a deep love for Haiti and its people. God taught me so much about myself and about the relationship that he wants me to have with him. By the fourth night, I had experienced God move so much in the Fond Blanc community and in my own heart that I was crying during worship (those of you who know me well know that I rarely cry unless I'm hurt). I learned that I love being outside in the morning and the evening to watch the sun rise and set because that is when God's creation is most beautiful. God helped me hike to the top of a mountain and I know that I could not have made it all the way to the top without him. He showed me that while the Haitian people may physically have less than Americans do, they may actually be better off because what they do have is faith. Watching those people worship Him in church was so beautiful. I had never seen such genuine love for Christ before Haiti and I strive to love him as much as they do every day. I learned so much from those 60 beautiful children in the few days that we had together and I cannot wait to continue to watch them grow.

After an amazing week of hard work, playing, and more beans and rice than I've eaten in my whole life, my team and I headed home. My notebook was full of journal entries from myself and notes from the children (one wrote vocabulary words in Creole for me), a song that one of the local women wrote in my notebook at church, and a very interesting song about a belly button. My camera was full of pictures of the children who had so quickly formed a place for themselves in my heart, and my heart was full of so many emotions. Our departure was full of tears but I left knowing that I would be coming back.

By the end of the trip, the phrase "I need Haiti more than Haiti needs me" was beginning to make sense to me. I learned so much from the Haitian people. I saw Christ every day in each and every one of the children at the orphanage and I hope that people are able to see Him in me the way that I saw Him in them. I learned to appreciate all of His beautiful creations. I came back from that trip with a new perspective on life and how I God wants me to live, and let me tell you it was much different from how I was living. I am so blessed that God called me to go to Haiti. Look out for more blogs to read about some of my other experiences in Haiti both from my first trip to Fond Blanc, and to my other trips.