Here is a photo of me with my pastor's family in September of 2001, on my last Sunday at Community Christian Church before I moved to Haiti. I moved here on September 4, 2001, and had no idea that I would still be here 10 years later. Here is a list of some of the highlights and low points of the past decade. I'll leave it up to the reader to determine which are which:
-waving goodbye to my nephew Lukey at the airport and trying to control my sobs on the plane
-watching the 911 attacks on cable t.v. in the CSI guesthouse living room
-wondering why it hurt to move my eyes, my head, my entire body...then finding out it was dengue fever and I wasn't going to get better for a couple of weeks
-laying on my cot the first night in Seguin, in my damp sleeping bag, thinking "what have I gotten myself into?"
-laying blocks for the walls of my apartment on Christmas day
-meeting Margarethe for the first time and thinking she was so skinny I better do some bloodwork on her before we hired her
-clearing out the rat eaten meds and starting a new pharmacy room
-falling down the stairs of death...repeatedly
-learning to master a stick shift in stop and go traffic on steep roads (I apologize to all the walls and vehicles I gently rolled back on)
-rushing Jean Dony to the hospital to get him treatment for his burned body, while trying to dodge people dressed like bulls and other beasts (it was Mardi Gras)
-delivering my first infant (Idamanthe is a beautiful nine year old now)
-delivering two babies in two different houses at the same time (that involved a lot of running)
-trying to set up the internet (that sentence doesn't convey how much time, effort, and agony went into that process)
-delivering a baby in the back of the pickup, while trying to keep Margarethe from having her baby in the front of the pickup
-living with Chelsea and Jean Dony in a haitian home for two weeks (cooking on a charcoal stove is hard)
-telling Lifrane to stop knocking on my door for cookies (this happened nearly every day for six and a half years)
-teaching my first Sunday school lesson in Creole
-leading my first group of students in a baptism class, and then watching them get baptized
-wrapping 500 presents for school kids on Christmas eve, while listening to Christmas music in Spanish on the only radio signal Seguin received
-watching movies at night to hear people talk to me in English
-asking for a blanket when it was 90 degrees out (malaria makes you do funny things)
-working with Danny and Leann
-saying goodbye to Danny and Leann
-delivering Jabez
-saying goodbye to Jabez
-working with all my wonderful interns
-watching all my wonderful interns go back home
-hiking to Margarethe's mother's house (it's not too far, they said. they lied.)
-watching a witch doctor tell a pregnant lady to put a pot on her head and eat an egg, shell and all
-driving Kenscoff road and getting knocked off course by a boy with a herd of sheep
-walking Kenscoff road and getting schooled by a woman twice my age
-driving a hemorrhaging patient in my brand new truck to four different hospitals before finding her help
-delivering two non-breathing, nearly pulseless twins
-visiting with those twins and their mother a year later, and watching them crawl and smile and play
-praying with Margarethe and her family when the loneliness started taking its toll on me
-waking up each Tuesday thinking "ugh. it's dental day"
-staring at a broken generator. again, and again, and again.
-crying out "Jezi, sove nou!!" as I floated down a river in my truck with a haitian man named Chrisnet and a cat named Blackbeard
-riding on the top of a bus, the back of a dump truck, the bench of a taptap, the spare tire of a mack truck, the book rack of a motorcycle, and the bony back of an emaciated horse (to name a few)
-making the decision to leave Seguin, praying for guidance, and receiving an email from Jim and Sandy asking me to come to Christianville
-meeting an American missionary optometrist and thinking "he's cute, but quiet"
-saying goodbye to all my friends in Seguin
-preaching devotions at the Christianville clinic and seeing patients respond to the gospel
-getting engaged under a waterfall in Jacmel
-flying back to Christianville in a helicopter after our honeymoon
-meeting my baby girl for the first time and thinking "I didn't know I could love something this much"
-surviving the earthquake on January 12, 2010 and still attempting to survive all its aftermath
-sleeping under an avocado tree
-having church outside
-learning how to live indoors again without panicking
-giving birth to my baby boy and thinking "he's absolutely perfect"
-starting up a Sunday school program at church and busting out the ol' felt board again
And that pretty much brings us up to today. Some people have told me that I should write a book about my time here in Haiti. But I tell them, "I don't know the end yet." I felt God called me to Haiti 10 years ago, and I came with the intention to stay until He called me somewhere else. He hasn't called me anywhere else yet, so I'll keep serving Him here, one day (or decade) at a time.
