The Four Hour Trip (that took 10...)

We were glad to have a bunch of adventurous people with us recently.

We'd planned with Stewart Dawson (working with us in the Resounding Hope initiative) that the team coming to Haiti with him would be 'guinea pigs' and come with us into a new area for evangelism & giving out solar radios. Four guys from the UK were also here at that time, so with three guys from our church in Columbus, the youth team with Stewart, Medson (head of our evangelism/radio distribution program), a few co-workers, translators and us, there were 30 of us on this adventure.

Our destination? Our partner (downlink) station 4VEN in Mirebalais, in the Central Plateau region. It's the newest of 4VEH's downlinks, started in 2011, and this trip was our first opportunity to meet Kevin & Tracy Bolin with 4VEN, and their partner ministry Global Vision Citadel Ministries. And our goal? To take 100 solar radios tuned to 4VEN, and work with them to share the Gospel and give out the radios in an area they had already identified.

But the challenges had begun before we even set off on this trip, the main problem being the arrival of the solar radios from our partners at Galcom. With challenges on their end with production, then set-backs in shipping to Miami (the radios were held up in customs in Miami), then praise God, they were released in time to get on the weekly cargo flight to Cap-Haitien, then another customs set-back in Cap. Someone did not want those radios to get here.

So, by the time we got in the truck and van early Saturday morning, we were ready for our adventure. Just didn't realize how much of an adventure it was going to be.

The first hint that things weren't going to go as planned - this high river crossing at St. Raphael. When we saw that even the big trucks were turning around, we knew we'd have to do the same.  The van would never make it (though there were guys willing to be hired to lead/direct/carry the van across :)

 So, we headed in the direction of St. Michel de l'Attalaye, somehow thinking it was a similar length route than the one we'd planned. Not too long after, we had to stop again.

Another high river? Nope, a collapsed bridge. It occurred to me (not for the first time that day) that perhaps we'd be just turning back to where we came from and admitting defeat. Nope.

What's going on??

Turns out, the guys at the collapsed bridge were working on a solution.  Knock down part of the bridge that had not been destroyed, and create a path through the riverbed and up the other side. Sounds simple. It was not....

Stewart Dawson's passion for telling people about Jesus was not hindered by the delay.   On the contrary, he had a captive audience and didn't waste a minute. As we later reflected on our day, it was perhaps for this opportunity to speak with these people that God has sent us on a different route.  

It was good entertainment watching the local guys destroying a bridge and watching a bunch of "blans" (foreigners)  watching the local guys destroying a bridge. 

Ok, so there's barely enough space now to squeeze the van through the mud/stream and up the other side, avoiding the tree, the side of the bridge and the hundreds of people wanting a closer look. Glad Storly was driving and not me. 

Push!!!!

Pull!!!!

Pull!!! (Good job, Rob Simpson!)

So, the van and then the truck squeezed through, and we're all set to continue the journey. 

About five minutes later, our guys got in position again, this time to pull us (in the van) out of the mud.

The kindness of strangers! It's true that Medson knew him, so when we stopped outside his wood shop, he welcomed 30 of us into his yard in St. Michel de l'Attalaye so we could eat our packed lunch. As we were leaving, he wanted to show us the best way to continue through the high rivers. His 'best way' was to walk through the river, showing us the way. What a gesture of grace! 

 Many more rivers to go through, many other opportunities to pull others out of the middle of the river.

Yep, that's us in the van! (Thanks to Rob and Elijah Simpson for some of these photos)

After our guys pulled us through the river, they helped this guy who'd been stuck a while too. 

All the visitors with us got to see a lot more of Haiti than they'd anticipated. 

After recovering from all the river encounters, I managed to get some shots of the gorgeous countryside. 

...including the rice fields of the Artibonite, Haiti's "rice basket". 

Man, were we glad to finally reach Global Vision Citadelle Ministries (Radio Vision Globale 4VEN) in Mirebalais.

Good to meet Kevin & staff of 4VEN!  (Not so good to look at the map and realize just how far - the long way round - we had come).

Storly with the 4VEN team. 

 So, we'd arrived at our destination, exhausted. Our plans had been changed. That happens sometimes. We were still thrilled to hand over the 100 solar radios to Kevin, who was more thrilled than we were. (Kevin: "We just gave away our last 4 radios last week, then we heard you were coming to bring us these new ones! We know exactly where we're going to give these out.")

There's still more to this adventure, but I'm exhausted just thinking about it. It was a good reminder of just how hard it can be to travel in Haiti (and other places in the world). Not just for us, traveling with visiting teams. But for everyone, traveling to get a sick kid to a hospital, or crops to the market. A night of rain can stop you in your tracks. Wash out a road. Force a change of plan. We had another option, albeit a long, challenging, wet option. Many people have no other options.