Christiana's Blog

Today I experienced a Haitian church service. It was beautiful to see all the little children dressed up with their parents early in the morning walking to church. As we walked into church several children I recognized from the village came and grabbed my hand. One little girl about 3 years old came and took my hand and walked into church with me wearing a pretty yellow dressing clutching her kreyol children’s bible. She had so much fun dancing to the hymns and wanted me to take her picture. My favorite part was my mother getting up in front of the church- a native to the country of Haiti- to translate for my American pastor who preached. The sermon and the choir were wonderful. The children sang beautifully. It was also wonderful to meet the birth family of Tim Wampler’s adoptive children who came to church today.

We then traveled to Port au Prince and passed through Cite Soleil. It was unbelievable to witness the amount of devastation, ruin and trash. The city smelled so bad and the amount of poverty seemed so much worse than the other parts of Haiti we have visited.

(Photo courtesy of UNICEF)

We saw the damage of the capitol building. We traveled to the marketplace to buy souvenirs and it was nice to see all of us look out for each other to make sure we stayed together and were safe as we walked around to bargain with the vendors.

There were two sad parts of the day….my mother looking for her family home (since she left Haiti 42 yrs ago) and the community being completely gone…homes torn down or destroyed and the neighborhood unrecognizable to her. This brought us to tears. Driving home through the city in the dark, was quite an experience and somewhat scary. It was also very difficult to witness a motorcycle accident in which 3 men were killed, laying in the street.

It was a full day, with many different emotions but it was a good day. I’m sorry the week is almost over.

-Christina