Ki jan ou di "Haiti" nan kreyòl ?*

*Credit for spelling, and all blame for incorrectness goes to Google Translate...

Late last month (May), Jennifer, Isabelle and I had the pleasure of spending some time with friends Kirsten and Jesse Lancour and their little boy Joseph. They have a small cement walled home in the southern mountains of Haiti, a region called Gwo Cheval. They run Cornerstone Church Haiti ministering to the people in their community. 

Many Planes make Flight Work
As anyone who has had the experience can tell you, flying with a one year old isn't entirely pleasant. Now, Isabelle is of course an angel, but she is an angel overstuffed into a tiny body that screams for constant motion. This conflicts a bit with the necessities of commercial flight and the sanity of her parents and fellow passengers. We had a longer layover in Fort Lauderdale where we could get a hotel and take a 4 hour nap before catching our last leg to Port Au Prince. The hotel didn't make it terribly clear that their hotel shuttle does not run 24 hours a day. This gave us an excellent opportunity to try out Uber for the first time.

Phone /fōn/ noun
1.object capable of producing brief seconds of entertainment for a child. 2.object that a child will seek out at any cost. 3. projectile

 
It should go without saying that the difficulties of traveling were more amply compensated by the joy of spending time with friends such as the Lancours who really strive to lay the weight of their lives on the strength of the Gospel. The joy of eating a breakfast sandwich from the Food Network Kitchen was pretty cool too.

Port us in the right direction
We were picked up at the Port Au Prince Airport by the Lancours and together the six of us made our way out of the city.

"Toussaint Louverture International Airport" by Didier Moïse (picture not by us). We apologize for not have any pictures of this particular event, but the airport is surrounded by people who are extremely insistent about helping you carry your bags.

The city of Port Au Prince is itself a bit of an experience.

 The Port Au Prince metropolitan area is home to more than 2 million people. There are no widespread sewer or water utilities, electricity is available only at scarce, random points throughout the day, trash is basically not collected by any central body, leaving it to be piled and then burned in the streets. The roads are poorly maintained, if at all, and traffic is just plain anarchy. There are maybe a dozen traffic signals in the whole city, most of which are non-functional anyways.

Then, there's the weather: hot, humid and plenty of both. We were very excited to find the weather up in the mountains was much cooler.

There are a handful of stores in Port Au Prince that approach western/US standards. These include a handful of hardware stores and grocery stores. They have onsite generators to ensure a consistent power supply. The truck was guarded by a shotgun wielding security guard while shopping in one of these grocery stores before heading up the mountains. The Lancours tend to make a trip down to Port once a month for supplies. They try to line this up with incoming visitors whenever possible.

Take a ride in a washing machine
Before heading up the mountain, we stopped by to see a local friend of the Lancours named Jean Wesner Jolimeau, a local minister in Port. John Wesner has 7 children of his own and 1 adopted from a poor family in the mountains. We arrived in time to play with some of the kids and get some Haitian food for lunch!

 The mountain road leading to Gwo Cheval was a bit rough. As Jennifer's Grandpa would say, it was "a pile of rocks, not a road." Miraculously (thank the Lord for Dramamine) Neither Jennifer nor I vomited during the trip. Somehow, virtually the only time Isabelle slept during this entire trip was while traveling on this bumpy road. Head bouncing against the window and all.

We didn't take any pictures of the road on the way up, so here's another picture of Isabelle climbing up a walking trail near where we stayed.

The Lancour Home. Note the solar panel in the upper right hand corner and the PVC pipes used for rain collection gutters.

A house on a mountain
The Lancour's home is simple, but quite sufficient. They have a cistern that collects rainwater from the roof, a few solar panels to power a mini-fridge and a pump for running water to their kitchen faucet. The outhouse building is split into two rooms: one is obviously for the toilet, the other for showers. Showers are taken by heating water on the propane stone and filling a bucket. The house has a loft where they store some supplies and tools and where they house visitors when they come. Just recently before we arrived they housed a mission team who built a roof onto their church building.

Here's a picture of Isabelle walking down the Lancour's driveway. Oh, and the new church roof too!

I think I'll split this into a few posts to keep them a quick-readable length. Please check back soon for more updates. Please post comments below if you have any specific requests for information we could pass along here.

Thanks for reading!