A Very Warm Reception!

Family and Friends,

Greetings from Haiti, everyone!  We have enjoyed a very warm reception so far, not just in temperature but also in the love of our friends.  Despite choosing a hotel almost half an hour from the village where we previously lived, we have been delighted by the steady stream of visitors.

The travel was very uneventful the last couple of days as we arrived in Port-au-Prince on schedule and then rode in a pick-up for about five hours to reach our destination.  It was nice to see the capitol and the changes that have occurred.  Now their streetlights are actually much more sophisticated than our own back home.  It was hard to tell from the vantage point of the road how much the housing situation in the city has changed since the earthquake over 3 years ago, when nearly 1 million people were displaced from their homes, but we did still see a spattering of tent cities along the way.

We stopped in Ti-Goave near the place where the violence and political demonstrations have been taking place.  We were picking up some sleeping mats from one missionary family and taking them to another missionary family further down the road.  The people there told us that the uprisings have continued but overall the situation has never been extremely dangerous.  Unfortunately, there was a man from their church (Haitian) who was detained in prison for three weeks simply because he happened to be on the tap-tap (public transportation) in which a gun was found after one incident.  I'm sure there are many stories like that.

Lucner & Zacharie relaxing on the patio

Yesterday we got settled in to the hotel and did a lot of visiting with Lucner and Zacharie, our main two ministry contacts in Haiti.  The hotel would not meet many people's standards back in the US, but it is comfortable enough for us, and the staff is very friendly.  Last night Zacharie's wife DiDi brought us a fantastic meal of two kinds of fish, a couple types of fried vegetables, and piklis, one of our favorite dishes which is essentially a spicy version of cole slaw.

The most amazing fish you have ever tasted!  Just imagine a flaky, white salmon.

Piklis with tomatoes on top

We are told that the reception at the deaf/disabled school will actually be a full blown party, and the people in the village where we lived (separate location) are also waiting eagerly to see us.  In the next two days we will visit both of those places, hopefully, and it will be quite a mixture of emotions.  We'll try to capture everything on video and post those here at the motel if possible.  If not we will post them upon our return.

Now back to visiting with some of our guests....

We miss you all and wish you the best!
-the grimms