Reflection On A Mission Trip To Haiti

In September of 2012 I decided to go to Haiti on an upcoming mission trip. People have asked me what made me want to go and to this day I’m still not exactly sure why I went, I just knew I had to go. It was a typical Sunday church service for my friends and I. We were sitting together, some on their phones and some, like me, were just starring into blank space waiting for the service to end. Towards the end of the service a church leader usually gets on stage to talk about upcoming events. This time they just so happened to be talking about information meetings for upcoming mission trips. They got my attention when they proceeded to talk about Haiti and show pictures from past trips. Have you ever had one of those moments where you just knew something was right? That’s how I decided to go on this trip, I just knew I was going. Little did I realize the impact this “feel right” decision would make on my life.
We arrived in the Port-a-Prince airport, which of course did not have air-conditioning. In my Haiti t-shirt and capris-pants, I carried my luggage through the airport to find our bus. It was a long, hot, and extremely bumpy two-hour bus ride to where we would be staying. Port-au-Prince is heavily populated since it is the capital. The bus ride consisted of heart-wrenching sights as we drove along. Peoples houses were pieced together with what seemed like anything one could find. Old pieces of rusted metal, ripped plastic tarps, and pieces of drywall and cardboard were used to construct some of these homes. The smells of the area also took some time to get use to. Unlike the United States, they burn their trash in the streets and most do not have plumbing. As you can imagine, the whole area smelt like old, burning garbage and feces. It was horrid to inhale at first, but you did get use to