Well, I made it!

Wow! I have had a crazy past couple of days. For all of you who may be wondering, I did make it to Haiti and am officially an intern at Northwest. I cannot believe that it has been exactly a year since I have been here.

I guess I'll start with traveling. I left San Diego with no problem and flew to LAX where I immediately jumped on an overnight flight to Miami. I had no problems so far. The flight went really well. I had a great conversation with a guy next to me and got some well deserved sleep. After a short 4 and a half hours, I made it to Miami.

Everything was going swimmingly. Everyone boarded the plane that was flying to Port au Prince, Haiti with no trouble. The plane was being pushed out of the terminal and just before the pilot was about to start moving out to the runway, the plane stops for about 5 minutes. The plane then parked at the terminal and we were informed that we would be on our way shortly ("Okay, sounds reasonable, I can wait"...or so I thought).

I woke up an hour and a half later and the plane was just sitting there and after about a minute of being awake, the pilot informed the passengers that we needed to get off the plane. My guitar and checked bags were on the plane and I had no way of getting them off. I didn't even know how I was going to get to Haiti. American Airlines finally found another plane that would be able to fly the now disgruntled passengers to Port au Prince and we were informed that our luggage would be transferred.

We waited another hour and a half before we could board the next plane and finally, 5 hours later than when I was supposed to be in Haiti, I arrived (5 hours isn't bad at all in comparison to last year :)  ). I was picked up and taken to the small domestic terminal so that I could fly to Port au Paix, in the Northern part of the island, only to find out that I didn't have a flight reservation. So I had to wait in this small airport until one of the translators from the mission that I was with could call one of the people from the mission to set up a reservation for me to fly. Needless to say, 4 hours later and I was the plane, but unfortunately I had to leave my to checked bags behind. My two bags should be arriving today, hopefully  (you can pray that they do).

Jack, one of the translators I met last year, picked me up at the "airport" and took me out to the "bus" that I thought I was going to take to St. Louis du Nord (where the mission is). The "bus" was actually a quad, a four wheeler, an off road vehicle, you know, those really really fast things.  Yay me!  I had to sit on the back, hold my guitar, my backpack, and pillow while traveling at high speeds on probably the bumpiest, dusty, rock-covered road I've ever been on!  I was most worried that my pillow case was going to fly off!

A half hour later, I was back! I had returned to the place I had left a year ago, only this time my face had more dirt caked on it that a gopher. Time flew by fast and I'm mostly settled in. I'm just waiting on my luggage to arrive and then I will actually have clean clothes and shampoo. :)   Thank God for his faithfulness to get me here and get me here safely.

Keep me in your prayers,
Grace and Peace

Nathan