First Impressions

Today marks my fourth full day in Haiti. What a busy and crazy four days it has been! I'll start from the beginning.

I woke up at 3:00am Friday morning to get ready for my big adventure. My stomach was a crazy mess. I can't even begin to describe what it feels like to pack up your whole life, say goodbye to everyone you love, and leave. Even now thinking about it, I get emotional. So fair warning, this won't be an extremely deep or detailed paragraph. I will start crying in the middle of the teacher's lounge and everyone will look at me, which is not my favorite thing in the world. Anyways, my best friends in the world dropped me off at the airport- my mom, my dad, my brother, Makenzie, Stephanie, and her husband Zac. It was so much tougher than I thought to hug my favorite people goodbye for the year. I know that God wants me in Haiti for a reason and it is my duty as a Christian to drop everything and say, "Yes Lord", but that morning at the airport I was definitely praying for God to change His mind. The walk from the lobby through security and to my gate was one of the toughest walks of my twenty-two years. I am so thankful for the support I received on Saturday- from the people who came to see me off and from all of you who blew up my phone and facebook with sweet, encouraging notes.

I slept the whole way from Cincinnati to Atlanta, and was feeling much better about this trip when I woke. I found my way lugging a guitar case and a rolly suitcase to the gate that I needed to be at and sat for the next three hours. I, for one, think this was a major win! I felt like such a grown up, which probably sounds silly. But that was my first airplane ride alone and my first time finding my way around an airport alone. Yay me! Anyways, I borded the next, and final plane. I hadn't cried since saying goodbye to my family that morning and was feeling pretty good.... until the planes' engines roared to life and I realized what was happening. This plane was taking me away for a year. Right now, I was still in America. I could still turn around. Cue panic. I cried from the time the engines started until the time we had reached cruising altitude and I fell asleep. Leaving home is scary. But to me, disobeying God is even scarier.

After some tears about filling out the green card (I didn't remember how to completely fill it out) and some help from a nice missionary couple (thanks!) I landed in Haiti. The airport was SO much better than when I came in 2011. It actually looked like an airport, with a real luggage belt and everything! I was amazed! Praise God, because the Haitian airport was something I was really nervous about. Praise God for the several missionary teams I met that looked out for me on the plane, answered my questions, and even kept an eye out for me after we landed. I was talking to a Haitian man trying to find my driver, and one of the ladies I met on the plane caught my eye to ask if I was okay. Thank You, God for putting these kind people in my path to make sure I stayed safe until I got to the school!

Finally, I made it to the school. My roommate, Ashleigh, and some of the boys that were hanging around the school helped me carry my luggage upstairs to the room. Listen y'all, that room is tiny! For all my EKU friends, it's smaller than commonwealth. We have two beds, a sink, and a small three shelf closet. If I sit on my bed and stretch my foot out, I can touch Ashleigh's bed. This will take a while to get used to, coming from an apartment where I not only had my own room, but my own closet that was the size of a bedroom. Ashleigh and I share a bathroom with a woman named Tammy, who has become my momma down here. Praise God for her! But I'll talk more about her later. Back to the bathroom. Our bathroom consists of a toilet, which is broken, and a shower made of PVC pipe. But Brittany, how do you use a broken toilet?? Well, here in Haiti, we have a saying- if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down. So yeah... there's that. If we do need to flush, we have to fill up a bucket with water from the shower and pour it into the toilet and it automatically flushes. I don't know if every toilet is like this or not, but I'm insanely curious! Will one of you courageous people try it for me and report back?? Anyways, sorry, sometimes I get super distracted and off topic. Bear with me. Back on topic... the shower. Showering is quite the experience here too. It's literally a PVC pipe with a small handle. We turn the shower on (no temperature knob.... if it's later in the afternoon/night it might be warm. Might. But mostly it's always cold. Back on subject now...) and rinse our bodies and hair. Then we turn the shower off and lather up with shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. We turn the water back on to rinse off, and then our shower is over. My first night, I almost cried. How was I going to do this for a year?? Thankfully, God is with me and I am learning that there are worse things in the world than having to shower like this.

I am extra thankful to report that we have wifi here nearly all the time! Sometimes it goes in an out, but hey, this is Haiti. I am also extra thankful for the electricity we have at the school, and the fans that have been provided. This makes it much easier to sleep. It has been about 100 degrees everyday here. H-O-T hot. I don't think I've stopped sweating since arriving! I'm hoping my body adjusts soon- Ashleigh wears jeans and has her hair down some days. Maybe that will be me in 10 weeks too!!

The days here are a little odd. This has been unlike any mission trip I've ever been on, where you hit the ground running. I've been able to relax, take some time to adjust, and just chill on my own. Some days, it's frustrating because I don't have anything to do. If you know me, you know I like to stay busy. Down time is not my specialty, unless I'm napping! HA! However, it has been so good to meet people, learn rules, and figure things out before I have responsibilities piled on me. The past few days have been filled with drinking water, making friends (yay!), reading, napping, a few meetings, and taking a few inventories of desks and books. The sun is up when I wake up at 8:00 and begins setting at about 7:30 or so. By the time 9:30 rolls around, my body is so confused. The sky has been dark for several hours, therefore it must be time for bed... except it's wait, 9:30 and I haven't gone to bed at that time since like middle school! Oh, the adjustments!

Yesterday, I had such an adventurous day! I went to the children's home with my friend, Michelle. We held the cutest little baby boy named JW. He's one and a half but he's such a cuddle bug! I could have stayed down there for hours but Michelle had been teaching all day and was needing to head back and rest. The heat down here absolutely wipes you out. As soon as we reached the school, Tammy and Ashleigh told me they were going to the store and invited me to go with them. I literally sprinted to my room and grabbed my purse... I was that excited. We walked about two blocks and then caught a taptap. A tap tap is the Haitian version of a taxi. It looks like a pick-up truck that has an awning over the bed. People hop in and then when they want to stop, they tap the glass on the cab to let the driver know they want to get out. After about a 6 minute ride, we were at the store. I walked in the front doors and guess what..... they had..... air conditioning!!!! Hallelujah!!! I think I'll be volunteering to go to the store every week! :) Inside the store, everything is labeled in gouds, which is Haitian currancy. It takes 44 gouds to make one American Dollar. I was so overwhelmed that I just bought a few drinks and some cookies because the conversions were taking me too long. I hope to get better at that as the time goes on! We paid and took the tap tap back to the last stop and then walked the two blocks back to the school. So. Much. Fun. I know that going to the store won't always seem like such an adventure, but it definitely seemed like one to me. It's the little things in life, it really is.

Today, we met the Haitian teachers that we will be working with. I finally got the confirmation that I will be teaching Reading and Math in English to the 2nd to 5th grade students. I will come into a teacher's class and take a small group of students out to work on reading or math skills. Right now, we're still trying to figure out my schedule, but I'm hoping to get it ironed out soon! I am so excited to have met the people I'll be working with this year. They are so sweet and they are just as excited to work together! Tomorrow, we meet the parents. I am extremely nervous about this- I don't speak a lick of Creole or French, so I'm not really sure how this meeting will go. But, I have God on my side, so I know that He will be with me and allow the day to run smoothly. In just 5 days school starts!! Please please be praying for this. There is so much that needs to be done in a super short amount of time. We need to buy and rearrange desks, receive and distribute uniforms, and I need to plan lessons for 4 grade levels! Ahhhhhhhhh! Since this is my first year teaching, I really have no clue what I'm doing. Please pray for me and for my future students. This could be an interesting year!

Wow, I feel like I've typed out a novel. There is so much more that I want to say but I know that a) you're probably wondering if this will ever end and b) my fingers are about to fall off because I bought a tiny keyboard for my kindle fire so that I didn't have to lug around my computer that may or may not die at any moment, but it's so tiny my fingers are cramping!! I would like to leave you with some prayer requests.

* Please pray for my family,close friends and I. While we can use technology to facetime and text, it is still extremely hard being away from them. I'm trying to take it one day at a time. This trip is forcing me to rely fully on God, instead of relying so much on my family and close friends. It's a good lesson to learn, but a difficult one.

* Please pray for me as I begin to prepare lessons this school year. I basically have 8 classes... reading and math in four grade levels. I'm already beginning to feel overwhelmed and the school year hasn't even started yet.

*Please pray for all the students coming to school here. Pray that they come to know God as their Lord and Savior and that they grow to be Christian leaders in this country.

*Please pray for good health. Being here where it is so hot is taking a toll on my body. I feel tired and lethargic by about 2:00 in the afternoon. The heat also makes it difficult to eat. Don't worry Mom, I am eating! But if you could just pray for sickness to stay away and that my body adjusts soon.

Thank you for your prayers!! I truly felt them on the way down here and know that God is hearing them. God is blessing me through little things like rain, cupcakes, and trips to the grocery story :) I will try to post again soon with pictures and stories of school starting!!! I can't wait!!

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters. ~Colossians 3:23