Haiti Day #2: Hearing and Seeing stories.

Today was a long day.  We started at 5:30am leaving the Dominican Republic and heading towards Haiti.  After about 6 hours of start and stop driving including stops  all along the way to buy food we made it to the near the border.  Before we crossed over we visited a medical clinic that had quite a few patients who had all had some sort of surgery.  There was some great video shot at that moment of a patient singing "Redemption Song" by Bob Marlie.  Make sure to check out the FaceBook Page for that at some point. 

After we crossed the border we stopped at a medical clinic right away. It was closed today but yesterday there were 6,000 people there fasting and praying which is pretty amazing.  We met a husband and wife today.  She had been trapped in the rubble for a couple of days and sadly lost her two young twin boys in the same building collapse  As she told us here story it was incredibly difficult to hear.  We prayed for her and her husband and he began weeping and saying "Why God, Why?" 

We later met with about 50 pastors to build connections and to see what kind of ministry partnerships they need and how we could help.  The goal was to partner with them and meet their needs and not have our own agenda.  We also passed out a bunch of supplies.  It was fun for me to see the supplies that my youth group families had dropped off at church on Wednesday night be given out to people who really needed it. 

So here we are sitting on a deck after just eating dinner.  I'm surrounded by people who are trying to tell stories about what we experienced today.  It was a great first day and experience to this trip.  I'm impressed with Adventures in Missions and how they lead teams.  If anyone has a desire to come they would be a great group to explore. 

I'm not sure how I'm going to be tomorrow.  We're going to see a whole lot more of the earthquake damage and hear a ton of stories.  I'm not sure if I'm going to be prepared for it.  Really trying to be engaged and compassionate.  Probably should go read some Nouwen.