Best Bits: Being Home in Haiti

We've been back in Indiana about a month now, after spending June and July in Haiti. Time to share some of our best bits from our trip.

Home

If you've been around us very long, you may have noticed that we talk about home in a whole bunch of ways. For 14 of the last 15 years, I've lived in a country other than my country of birth (Wales/UK, actually for a lot longer if you think of England as a foreign country to Wales, but that's a whole other discussion!).

You'd think I would know by now how to answer the question 'Where are you from?' Nope, every time someone asks, whether it's the checkout lady in our local Walmart, a fellow traveler on a plane to Haiti, or someone in a church congregation where we're presenting the radio ministry, I stumble every time I answer. Do they really mean 'Where are you from?' or do they mean 'Where is home?'

Home is where the heart is. Cheesy, maybe, but so true. But I love this perspective, too, from American poet Robert Frost:

"Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." 

And we're so grateful for all 'our people' in different places who would take us in!

Now to Haiti. One of the best bits of our time there this summer, besides all the awesome ministry stuff and many God-moments was quite simply the blessing of being home. In Cap-Haitien. At Radio 4VEH. At home.

Memories

You see, part of our hearts....and the memories of early years of married life and new babies....are in our house, our home, in Lory, just outside Cap-Haitien. When I first saw the place, just a couple of weeks after moving to Haiti in 2003, it was a piece of land enclosed by a wall, with two huge mango trees and not much else. Storly tried to explain his plans for our soon-to-be home for our soon-to-be united-in-holy-matrimony family. And I had no idea how to picture what it would be like.

The foundations of our home in 2003. Loved the fact there's a banana tree there. 
It's not there anymore, just in case you were wondering.
 But we have others in the garden - bananas and plantains.  

When we moved in four months after our wedding, it was concrete block walls inside and out, and it stayed that way for quite some time, until we were able to get the walls plastered and painted. Building a house in Haiti depends on having cash available (no mortgages here). So, it's usually a long process for the few who can actually afford to start building their own house. Many never finish. (We haven't finished ours yet, either).

But it was home for four years. Our refuge. My refuge. The place where I had a little bit of control (in a country where I didn't speak Creole, the heart language, at least not very well at the beginning). The place where I planted sticks in the ground and watched them grow into gorgeous hibiscus bushes.

These hibiscus flowers would later inspire a new creative venture for me, 
after Hannah was born, of Haiti-inspired photo art - greeting cards, etc. 
One of the cards even has a poem I wrote about a peach hibiscus that I just loved.
After sitting in the garden in those early days of being a new mum, 
I marveled at those flowers. New every morning. Just like God's mercies. 

It's the place I came home to after a week's work at the World Vision office in Port-au-Prince. The place I had to leave every other Monday morning, to catch a tiny plane bumping through the clouds back to the capital city.

The place where we made a little palm tree into our Christmas tree. Where I recovered from dengue fever. And from a car accident. Where we enjoyed the delights of pregnancy (morning sickness when there's no 'honey, run to the store and get me ....'; complete and utter exhaustion in the never-ending heat; and 'did you feel the baby kick then?'). Ahhh, LOTS of precious memories.

First Time Back

But Hannah was 2, and Esther 6 months old, when we unexpectedly left our home in Lory. And this summer was our first time back there together.

Though we were staying at the OMS mission compound a couple of miles away (so we could be close to the teams we were hosting), we got to spend a couple of days and nights at our house and we had a BLAST!

Though we had no water (we're getting the well drilled again, so hoping we'll have clean water instead of muddy brown stuff we lived with for 4 years, and the few families who have rented our house since had to live with too), we got soaked in the outdoor shower (yeh, in the rain, ...'quick, go and get the soap!' oh yeh...).

It's pretty hard to find a shower with great water pressure here.
But the rainwater just shoots off the roof.

Most of us got soaked, and the other one just enjoyed taking photos :)

Coconut trees that were planted when we first moved in now have plenty of coconuts. 

There's nothing like fresh coconut - especially from your own garden. 

One of the many pleasures of Haiti!

The girls loved seeing that coconuts come from real trees.
And that you need a machete to get into one, thanks to Romain, our caretaker.

Yum!

The way to our house, over Haut-du-Cap bridge, which played a strategic role
in Haiti's battle for Independence a couple of hundred years ago. 

These Flamboyant (Flame trees) flower around May/June every year,
and remind me of when I first moved to Haiti. Storly bought me this (now huge) tree
one year for my birthday. It's now so big he says it needs to be cut down :(
I say, just a trim please. 

Going through our belongings, especially for Hannah & Esther, was like a treasure hunt, 
discovering their old teddies, birthday cards (and some junk that they thought were treasures!)

This was taken just a week before we left Haiti, in 2008.

And look at them now, five years later. 

Our life story is quite a journey. And He is faithful. Thank God. And thank you for joining us as the journey continues.

“Great is Thy faithfulness!” “Great is Thy faithfulness!“

  Morning by morning new mercies I see;

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided—

    “Great is Thy faithfulness,” Lord, unto me!