Day 1 - Tuesday

Pictures from Port de Paix:

We got off to a slow start. The boys were up until 4 AM talking to 30 High school kids from "The Amigos." They are from all over the US and come thru Miami on their way to 8 week mission trips in Paraguay, Nicaragua, and other points south. There is a stream of them all thru the summer. The boys were troopers, though, and were up at 6:30. We had a good breakfast at the hotel, then missed our shuttle because Sandi's jam jar had been "inspected" by TSA and she had to clean the mess out of her suitcase. They were nice enough to leave a note! Caught the next shuttle - all ok.

Check-in was confusing, but we patiently worked through it. I think we are all tired. While waiting to load, we worked our way through customs and immigration forms in French and Creole, but not English. We never were quite sure whether we had more than Gdes 100,000.00.

A Haitian Christian apostle was working on two young women in the airport -- converted one and went to work on the other.

I called the church to report our progress, but only the FAX answered, so I left that report on Rev Dail's voicemail.

Nice flight to Port au Prince - Air France folks were very kind to us. Had an interesting sandwich for lunch, with turkey, eggplant, mystery veggies on wheat toast.

We landed at Port au Prince (PaP) and Theodore met us to whisk us through immigration and customs. Stepping outside with our three baggage carts, we were descended upon by crowds of redcaps. Despite our protests, they took control of two of our carts immediately, while Fred manhandled the third despite three guys hanging onto the handle, until he looked behind and saw five more were in hot pursuit. Pastor (Dr.) Dave Schmidt from the theological seminary in PaP came on the scene to rescue us, fortunately, and fought off the onslaught. Someone had shown a $10 bill and a bagful of money, and a small feeding frenzy started -- more! more! me! me! Even Pastor Schmidt was buried beneath the melee briefly, but he quickly brought the situation to a simmer.

Our baggage was now in two pickup trucks and we headed off to the local airfield where yellow shirts descended upon us to claim a hand in carrying or wishing our luggage inside. A more manageable situation here, with well placed "Non, merci" driving most away. Dave selected two guys to help us out.

We put our baggage on a belt where it was run through an X-ray machine with no viewing capability. Rescuing our stuff on the other side, we found confirmation of our ticket purchase had only that moment arrived. A few administrative issues, and our bags were collected, and tied shut. (Some had been opened and rifled on the way into PaP -- mine were not even closed back up.)

We waited and waited, one plane then another were called for Port de Paix, but were not ours. Frere Lamour, the driver (a good man!) called Bruce and we were comforted to know he was at Port de Paix airport waiting for us. The weather here is hot, but about the same as Newport News when we left. The trip to Port de Paix was exciting, in a high-wing two engine prop plane that barely cleared the first range of hills. We bounced around over the ranges and under the cumulous for something over an hour, then turned to follow the river and suddenly down on the dirt strip at Port de Paix. The airport there is built like a fortress, with the waiting room outside under the trees. The trip to Passe Catabois was very bouncy! We forded the river in the Land Rover, with water above the floorboards. Off-roading is done on the roads here! We were glad to make it to Bruce and Deb's compound and to meet Mike and John, two engineering students working on a survey here. They are our house-mates. Cold showers are great! We were all ready to hit the beds after dinner.

That is all for Day 1 (I think).