Saturday

Saturday, November 18

Clinic has come to another end.  We saw roughly 600 people and I stand amazed knowing that means each provider saw 100 patients each.  I do not typically like to cite numbers but something my Pastor said before we left has me rethinking it.

“Every number has a face; Every face has a name; Every names has a story;  And every story matters to God.”    ~Des Wadsworth~

Every one of us matter to God and He, in His wonder, sent the 10 of us to make sure the 600 and all those involved and watching, including the team, could see His Truth in action.

How cool is that?

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It is a holiday in Haiti commemorating a famous battle in the fight for Independance.  We leave early for Port au Prince (PAP) to avoid the rallies, protests and crowds that might complicate our journey.  We arrive easily and without delay.

The Palm Inn is a sweet, little, gated  hideaway off a nondescript rocky road.  There are idyllic trees and a lovely pool and patio with sitting areas and peacefulness.

Some of the team decide to soak up the loveliness, while the rest go out into the city in the van to explore.  

We stop at the site of the Presidential palace that was eminent in my memories after the earthquake with its sunken, smashed edifice.  I, not realizing we are there, look all over to find it to see how they have rebuilt.  I am puzzled when I do not see it but find out later that it has been demolished because of the damage and not yet rebuilt.  

Next, we have a visit to the Hotel Oloffson.  It is an historic hotel from yesteryear where all the famous and dignified have stayed and movies have been made.  It is a grand, white wooden porched hotel with the flavor of a French Quarter or Casablanca beauty.  We sit on high backed chairs under the iconic ceiling fans and are treated to tea and coffee on the veranda.  The towering, flowering trees and palms in all their splendor redeem the raucous and creepy Voodoo art and statues that fill the garden and hallways.  

It is a holiday so many of our intended stops are not open but we manage to fill the morning with interesting history and shopping.  Haitian coffee, Rum and chocolate are on most everyone’s list and we accomplish this in the local grocery store:  The Caribbean, before going up the mountain to lunch.

We drive a narrow, winding road up, up, up out of PAP.  It is like the road to Flagstaff on a summer weekend, crowded and traffic jammy.  Lush, tropical glory falling away sharply into valleys with abrupt inclines on their other sides and crazy housing on the edges.  It is a marvel that there is any room for air on some of the curves.

At 1500 feet, we eat lunch at a restaurant on one of the more stable edges: The Observatoire.  It is owned by a friend of Suzette’s and has a breathtaking view of the city by the sea.  It is breathtaking in its beauty, not in its edgyness.

From a distance it all looks so blue and green with soft whisps of clouds blowing in from below.  Enormous freighters can be seen at the docks and the mountains of my heart rising from the plain just beyond the airport.

We have been in the mud and details and now we see it from above in its purity and beauty.  It gives me a bit of a glimpse of what it might have been like for Jesus.   Jesus saw the view from Heaven and chose to come down to the mud and details and mix it up with the locals. It makes me smile that the dust from which God made man has become the mud of life in the trenches and yet Jesus chose us any way.