Where to start and where to end.

We finally made it to the mountains! Andremese and I went up in a charcoal truck on Saturday, July 5, and I sorted, cleaned and reorganized the depot. We distributed some boxes of food and got everything ready for the rest of the group.

That was 3 full days of work. Exhausting.

Tuesday, July 8 the rest of the group made it to Jolie Guilbert - Miriam, Lisa, Dr Schroering, Bill, Mark, Jim and Leo. We did a lot of driving around, checking out the feeding programs and the health of various communities, meeting with the nurses and the doctor in the communities, and setting up hospital beds at the hospital in Pestel.

I got a spider bite the first night in Jolie Guilbert - and it got a bit infected. By Wednesday nigh, I was in so much pain, I barely slept. Thursday made it worse, and Dr Schroering said that is had turned into an abscess and we would have to open it up when we got the hospital in Pestel on Friday. Friday morning, it had started leaking, and Dr Schroering helped push ALL of the stuff out of my leg. Oh my goodness. It was so so painful. I took pain meds AFTER the whole process.

So anyways. It was gross. It hurt so much. Today, the draining has finally slowed down, I am almost done my antibiotics (4 times a day!) and I can walk normally. I am slowly recovering from the trip, and I am almost ready to go back to the mountains. Ha!

And I have to say, if I had ever been doubtful that spiritual warfare was real, I am now convinced that it is real. I have never had such a hard 3 months. With the amount of things going wrong, and sicknesses that I have had to deal with? I have not had to go to the hospital for myself (except once when I was a toddler and needed stitches after falling on ice) and I have not been on antibiotics since I was little and was getting ear infections. In the last 2 months, I have been on antibiotics twice, and had some sort of stomach virus, never mind everything else that is going on outside of my body.

I know I keep saying this, but Haiti is a hard, hard country to be in. And even with all of this happening to me and around me, I am just so thankful that I am here. I would rather have all of these issues and be in Haiti than stay in Canada and be comfortable.

I have seen things in Haiti that shouldn't exist, that aren't the way God created the world to be. There are so many injustices and so much pain, and I can't turn my back.

Once our eyes are opened, we cannot look away.

I fall more and more in love with this country and these people everyday. I get to see the beauty and life and energy of this country and these people, but I also get to see the poverty and death and squalor around every corner.

Once our eyes are opened, we cannot look away.

I am constantly evaluating how we can make things more efficient, more useful, more sustainable.

Once our eyes are opened, we cannot look away.

And when we cannot look away, we either become overwhelmed and close our eyes, or we DO something about it. I choose to DO something.

This is my season of learning the absolute most that I can, and holding it all in my heart until God gives me the opportunity to act. There are so many wise people surrounding me, and I am thankful that I get to serve them, and serve alongside them.

My eyes are opened, I am not looking away.

I am praying and meditating on what God has opened my eyes to.

I am waiting and listening to discover what my role in this country is.

There is no room for being self conscious, no room for pity.

We wait in anticipation, preparing to act at the drop of a hat.

When God says "Go!", we go.