Today ended up being solely a travel day. We arrived at Port au Prince around 9:00am. After dealing with our mosquito net not making it and “filing a claim” at the Port au Prince airport (where the look that was given to us from the airline baggage representative taking our claim basically said, “yeeeeah, you’re not going to be seeing that mosquito net again”), we met up with our World Vision colleague Guy. He had sandwiches for us for our lunch on the road, which we were thankful for.
We traveled about an hour and half to a tiny little port where we would depart from by boat to travel to the island of La Gonave. We were supposed to take a little 4 seater airplane with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) to the island, however the plane was undergoing a maintenance day. So we were told we would be taking a ferry.
Our “ferry” turned out to be a little motor boat filled with local Haitians returning home to their island after going to the mainland of Haiti. You would think that I would have learned by now that when I’m told we’re going to be taking a ferry across the ocean, that it won’t be the typical ferry boat that I imagine. In fact, David asked Guy if it was a ferry we would drive onto or walk onto. We later laughed at how that question must have come across to Guy as we learned what our “ferry” would be. We squished onto the little boat with about 21 Haitians and hunkered down for our 1.5 hour trip to the island of La Gonave. Thankfully it was a beautiful and smooth ride. We then traveled by car to the World Vision office where we took a bathroom break and checked in with local staff. It was there that we learned that the plan had changed to not shoot any video today, because of the time of day. It was early-mid afternoon and the location where we would be shooting video was a 3 hour drive away. So we will be getting an early start tomorrow morning to head over to the town of Port-de-Bonheur. We were thankful for an easy and restful evening after a tight connection from our red eye flight to Miami.
I’m continually reminded of God’s provision on these trips. Even though our mosquito net didn’t make it, we were able to carry-on all of our other bags that were essential equipment. And we’re staying in a room with windows with screens, where it is harder for bugs and mosquitoes to get in. Trusting God is key in traveling to and throughout Haiti, and it’s a great exercise in putting faith into practice. Praying that God will take care of us, and then giving it to Him and not worrying or stressing about it.
