When I left you last, we were boarding a charter bus heading
to Ile a Vache. Two of our suitcases had just been stolen, but surprisingly, my
family was in good spirits. Unfortunately, we weren’t quite out of the woods
yet. Our bus driver, as it turns out, must have been employed as a racecar
driver in his previous life, because he whipped that charter bus around sharp
turns and up mountains at 70mph. I began to feel a little sick as we drove, so
I laid my head down on my dad’s shoulder to sleep. After a few minutes he
pushed my head off his shoulder, hurriedly said that he needed to check on mom,
and ran off. Jake walked up to me and nonchalantly said, “So you know that pretzel
bag? We won’t be having anymore pretzels… Mom threw up,” and he resumed playing
with his phone. Could this day get any worse??? I felt awful. This trip was NOT
turning out the way I had planned or pictured.
I’m so thankful for my wonderful family. They took this all
in stride. They kept smiling and comforting me, though they were the ones
having a miserable vacation. After four hours, we reached the city of Cayes. A
driver that worked for Abaka Bay was supposed to be at the station to pick us
up. If you had a guess, according to the way our trip was going so far, do you
think he was there? Nope. I could see that this fact made Mom and Dad nervous.
We waited somewhat patiently for about twenty minutes before he showed up. At
this point, I’m just thanking God that he actually DID show up. He puts our
suitcases in the back of a pick-up truck and we all just about have a panic attack.
Jacob and I spent the whole drive turned around in our seats watching to make
sure we didn’t have a repeat of this morning’s events. The driver got a kick
out of this, repeatedly assuring us that we had nothing to fear. To be honest,
before 6:00 that morning I would have had nothing to fear. I’d lived in Haiti
for four months and never had heard of anyone getting their possessions stolen.
In fact, before 6:00 that morning I was the one assuring Mom and Dad that there
was nothing to fear. It’s sad how one desperate person and one desperate act
can change your whole view.
Next thing we know, the driver is dropping us off at the
pier, where six Haitian men are waiting to help us with our bags. We hop onto
the boat and sit like a bobber on the end of a fishing pole in the ocean. Up
and down. Up and down. Up and down. My poor mom’s stomach can’t handle this
movement on a good day, let alone on a day where she’s already feeling queasy. We
sat for a half hour before we actually began moving. Twenty minutes later we
arrived at the most beautiful place I have ever set my eyes on. Wow. We were
greeted at the pier by flowers and drinks, just like in the movies! Unfortunately,
everyone was too grumpy and tired to really appreciate these tokens. We were
lead to the most adorable little beach houses. Holy moly guys, this place was
spectacular. We spent the rest of the day swimming, napping, and trying to
recover from this morning. 
This part is the part that cracks me up every time I look
back, the only part that I didn’t have to wait five years to be able to find
funny. Dinner was served at 7:30, so being the Americans that we are, we showed
up promptly at 7:29. All four of us were wearing our travel clothes- black
sweatpants and t-shirts with light jackets. On our way to the dock that held
the restaurant, I asked an employee if we were dressed okay for dinner. This
place seemed pretty fancy. He looked me up and down and said, “Of course!”
Wrong. So, so wrong. My face turned redder and redder as I watched the guests
enter the dock in formal attire. Wearing suits and ties, formal dresses, heels,
and pearls. I was so incredibly embarrassed and wondered if this night could
get any worse. The funny thing with that question is that while it is often
meant as a rhetorical question, it almost always is answered with a yes. It
turns out that we were seated at a table in close proximity to a speaker
blaring the saxophone that was that night’s entertainment. We couldn’t even
hold a conversation, even when we were yelling across the table. For the next
two hours, we sat in silence. Occasionally, someone would try to cheer everyone
else up with a joke or attempt a small conversation but after a few tries, even
that ceased. We were tired, grumpy, embarrassed and hungry, with some of us on
the verge of being hangry. It was 9:00 before the appetizer of clam salad was
served and 9:30 before we received our actual meal, though dinner was supposed
to begin at 7:30. Haitian time is NOT American time. Finally, at 10:15 we made
our way back to our beachfront cottage and tried to erase the day’s memories
with sleep. It was a crazy Christmas Day; one I will never be able to forget.
It’s been two weeks now, and I’m still not laughing about our experiences yet,
but I know it was all part of God’s plan. It was definitely not how I wanted to
spend my first day of actual vacation with my family. 
I’m thankful to say that the rest of the trip brightened
considerably after Christmas Day. We spent our days in the ocean and our nights
together watching movies in a giant king bed. Each day, we went on some sort of
adventure. Jacob, Dad, and I went out in a water taxi to find a good place to snorkel.
We found a reef and spotted all sorts of beautiful, if small, fish. We had so
much fun playing around with the go-pro underwater- taking videos and photos of
each other swimming, or diving down to try to get up close and personal with
the little fish. I could have spent all day out in the water. We got a tour of part of the island and I got to actually sit in grass for the first time in over four months! (Side note: It was not as grand of an idea as I thought because of the crazy amount of bug bites that resulted from it!) We also walked up the side of a mountain in order to get the most breathtaking view of the island. We passed goats, cows, horses, chicken and sheep. Children ran out of their houses yelling "Bonswa!" (good afternoon) about 100 times each. One day, we
rented small, yellow kayaks and took them out into the ocean. We went out about
a mile from the shore and enjoyed paddling around and being pushed by the waves….
Until a wave pushed water into the hollow underbelly of Dad’s kayak. He couldn’t
stay upright for more than a few seconds. With so much water inside it, a
slight shift to the left or right sent the whole kayak toppling over. We
struggled with the dumb thing for a solid hour- each of us tried to get in the
kayak and balance in case the others were lying about how difficult it was- to
no avail. After an hour of sitting in the middle of the ocean, I began to get
that queasy feeling that was plaguing Mom on the bus and the boat. Crap.
Thankfully I was able to think quickly and dove into the water to cool my body
off and prevent myself from spewing all over the place. We eventually gave up
trying to sit inside the kayak and decided that Dad would swim to shore towing
the kayak behind him. We were about ¾ of a mile out from the nearest beach and
probably another half mile from the Abaka Bay beach. Tell ya what, ¾ of a mile
seems like an insanely long way in the ocean!! Long story short, we finally
made it to the beach and walked all three kayaks back in waist deep water. We
pulled the kayaks through a group of Haitian children swimming naked and Jacob
made a friend when one hopped on the back of his kayak, hooting and hollering
to all his friends. I’ve never seen my brother so embarrassed! “Ok, he can get
off now.” “Okay, I’m definitely not touching the back of my kayak anymore…” “Ok
but really, when is he going to get off?” Well, at least I had fun on the
kayaks!
My mom loves to get up early in the mornings, while the rest
of us prefer to sleep in. It turns out a lot of other people like to get up
early too, so Mom met a lot of new friends in the five days we were on the
island. She met a family from New York, a group from Ohio, the owners of Abaka
Bay, and the sweetest and most interesting couple, who it turns out was on
their flight from Haiti to Atlanta! We made fun of her for being such a Chatty
Cathy, but it turns out God was using all these encounters for our good and His
glory. I know, I know, this shouldn’t be such a surprise, but sometimes I
forget that everything that happens is for God’s glory and is part of His plan.
So on the morning that we were waiting for the kayaks to be
ready, one of Mom’s new friends asks to speak with her alone. They walk to a nearby
tree and I see the woman hand my mom a small bag and see my mom dissolve into
tears. They speak for a little while longer before hugging and parting. Mom
walks back over to us and chokes up again as she tells us of the exchange. A
few days earlier, Mom told this woman our story about the stolen luggage and
how now Mom is sharing clothes with me and she doesn’t have a toothbrush or enough
sunscreen to last but one more day. Mom opens the bag and we see a skirt, brand
new underwear, a tank top, a new toothbrush, toothpaste, sunscreen, mouthwash
and crackers. Now we’re all in tears…. well, three of us are and Jacob is
trying really hard to look like he doesn’t know us. I’ve only seen my dad cry a
few times, but this small gift meant so much coming from a complete stranger.
My God provides for all that we can ask for or even imagine!
It’s safe to say that we made so many memories on this
vacation that will be impossible to erase. While I anticipated it would be a
vacation to remember, I never imagined it would be quite like that. I never
anticipated our suitcases would be stolen. I never thought we would spend two
hours a night waiting for dinner to be served. I never imagined that there would
be lizards inside our bedrooms and coconuts falling on our tin roofs. However,
I never imagined how many people we would meet and how God would provide for
our needs. I never thought that we would make friends on this trip or that it
would be so hard to leave. I never
pictured how close our family would get on this trip and how much we would
learn about each other. We laughed with each other, cried with each other, and
felt just about every other emotion in between. I wouldn’t have wanted to share
this experience with anyone else in the world. Saying goodbye to my family and
knowing I won’t see them for the next five months is incredibly difficult. I
never realized how much I needed them. Isn’t that true of so many things in our
lives? We take it for granted until it is taken from us. I’ve said it before,
but I want to say it again- how lucky I am to have something that makes saying
goodbye so difficult.
"Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and
not for men.... You are serving the Lord Christ." ~ Colossians 3:23-24
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