St. Patrick's Day

This year St. Patrick's Day fell on a weekend, so that meant a weekend draped in green. I don't usually celebrate this holiday but it happened to fall on the same weekend my cousins came to visit.

Matt, Rachel, Matthew, Jesse, Issac

My cousin Rachel, her husband Matt and their kids came up for a weekend of fun and relaxation. I'm not sure how much relaxing they did because I'm sure we walked several miles.

We started out Saturday morning with going to Rock City, which is on the top of Lookout Mountain. The entire area was decorated for St Paddy's with all kinds of fun things for the kids to do.

Playing dress-up

They even had a band with bag pipes, it was Rachel's favorite part.

I think the deer park was Matt's favorite feature.

They had a climbing wall and all the boys gave it a try. All three of them did a good job but Jesse climbed all the way to the top and rang the bell twice ... Way to go Jesse!

Jesse reaching out to ring the bell

I think everyone enjoyed Rock City.

Issac, Matthew, Matt and Jesse

After we got through Rock City we got something for lunch then headed to Ruby Falls.

This was kind of taken in the dark, point and shoot

We had a good time looking at all the strange rock formations.

I think the boys enjoyed climbing on the rocks ... right where they weren't suppose to :)

It was a beautiful day, perfect to spend with family.

Sunday morning we went to church then out for lunch. We had planned on going to down town Chattanooga however Saturday wore us out and Rachel had homework to do. So after lunch we parted ways, I went home to take a nap and the Warren family started their long drive home. Happy St. Patrick's Day :)

JMM trip D3

Monday morning marked our first day of clinic at the village Lastik.

This is the riverbed that we had to drive through

In order to get to Lastik we had to drive down in the riverbed. During the rainy season you can't drive to this village.

When we arrived the people were already waiting.

Just the beginning of many

So we had to unpack our trucks and quickly set up.

We set up in the church/school building

Our group did a great job of getting it all organized and very quickly the clinic was ready. The crowd grew quickly once we arrived.

More people came

That day 422 people received medical care.

Patiently waiting to see a doctor

Our dentist, Dr. Uvoh, saw 44 people,

This is the line for the dentist

And extracted 80 teeth! He was a busy man :)

Poor fella getting a tooth pulled

The pharmacy group was very busy and handed out 1,398 prescriptions.

Things went really good for it being our first day.

JMM trip D2

Waking up in New York, it was cold! The ground was covered in snow. It was only about 2 inches so a small amount for the north.

Snow at JFK airport

But I was finally headed to Haiti!!

The pilot checking out the plane

When I arrived in Haiti I was a little nervous because I had missed all the introductions and orientation. Most of the mission trip I have been on the group is relatively small with no more than 20, this group had 30. That is a lot of names to learn.

What a great group of people!

By the time I arrived everyone was getting medication ready for the clinics.

Busy workers :)

The medicine arrives in bulk and has to be divided up and labeled so we can hand it out to the people.

I was very happy to see some familiar faces ... some of the same interpreters that had gone to Covant were there.

Nixon

Daniel

JMM trip D1

Almost as soon as I got home I started looking for another trip to Haiti. I looked at LAC website to see what trips they had to offer for 2013. To my surprise all the posted trip to LAC were either already full or were only open to a certain church group. My heart began to sink as I looked at the list of closed trips. The only spot that was open was a medical trip with Joyce Meyer's Ministries and it was in February. I began to wonder if I could go on another trip so quickly. Of course I wanted to but I was broke and I wondered how people would react, I temporarily got my eyes off God.
Thankfully people responded positively to my excitement and I applied for the trip. I began to make plans to go and actually started packing very early, I had lots of donated items that I needed to make sure I had room for without making my luggage to heavy.

Finally the day came, I was headed back to Haiti!! I was so excited, I got up early in the morning to start my next adventure. Then things started going in the wrong direction ...

Snow at the Chattanooga airport

First the flight was delayed because of mechanical problems. I wasn't worried because I had a little bit of time to play with once I landed in Atlanta before my next flight. Then this weird snow storm hit, we don't get much snow in my area. It rolled in quickly and almost as fast as it came it left. However by then the flight was cancelled all together! What was I going to do? I started making phone calls, the airline was checking for other flights. There weren't anymore direct flights to Haiti that day.
The only thing the airline could do was redirect me and get me on a flight the next day. There weren't any direct flights to Haiti coming out of Atlanta for another week so they sent me to New York.

I was headed in the wrong direction :) When I arrived it was late in the evening and it was snowing. I was not dressed for NY weather and several people commented on my dress. My flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems and not weather so the airline paid for my hotel room.

The room was nice and I was thankful that I didn't have to sleep in the airport, but I was hungry and a food voucher would have been nice. Thankfully I had snack food packed.

So what should have been my first day in Haiti was spent in airports and ended in New York. I was praying there wouldn't be any delays the next day.

Opportunities

"The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity." Leonard Ravenhill

This is a quote that I heard often when I was in Bible college and have thought about many times since. Last year I had an opportunity come up that has made me ponder this even more. You see many times things will come up and we want to think about them, get others opinions about it, weigh other options, etc. I know that we can't just jump into everything willy nilly but some things require quick decisions. For instance, last year I was sitting in the airport in Port au Prince when an announcement came that the flight had been overbooked and they needed somebody to give up their seat. The compensation for taking a later flight was a meal voucher and a $500 voucher toward another airline ticket. There were times before then I had thought about what I would do if something like that happened and in my mind I always saw myself snatching up the vouchers. I sat there pondering my options, I pulled out my ticket for my connecting flight in the states and did the timeline in my mind, there would still be plenty of time for me to catch my connection. Being in Haiti I didn't rush up to the counter because I didn't think there would be a mad dash for people to accept this offer. I hate to admit it but I even thought that they might sweeten the deal. I was wrong! There was a group there that had been working with a church that week and two of the ladies jumped on it. Like me they had a long layover once they got in the states. I felt like kicking myself and Leonard Ravenhill's saying came to mind.

A couple of months later this whole scene flashed back in my mind. I was going on another trip to Haiti and so I was raising funds again. It was getting close to the deadline and I had everything paid for EXCEPT the airline ticket. Now I was really kicking myself, but there was no way to go back and get the voucher so all I could do was pray.

A very precious lady in our church came up to me three weeks before the trip and asked me if I had all the funds I needed. I told her that I was still a little short but I had prayed and it was okay because I knew that God would provide. She wanted to know exactly how short. When I told her that I still needed $600 for my airline ticket she looked a little shocked. The next week our church took up an offering for the trip and it was exactly what I needed for the ticket. I praise God for providing but I also learned a valuable lesson, if He gives me another opportunity to get airline vouchers I won't hesitate.

Collecting items

After my trip to Covant and my time in the Bahamas it was good to be home with family.

My cousin Tina and her family

Besides, my dog really missed me :)

My sweet dog Buster

I think the cat might have noticed I was gone, but cats are pretty independent.

Tigger thinks he's king

My friends and family were impacted by the pictures and stories of when I was in Haiti. My mom and aunt were talking about it and together decided that they wanted to collect shorts for the boys.

One of the first bunches of shorts

My mom got the word out and people started shopping the clearance aisle looking for swimming trunks.
They were able to get 55 pairs of shorts donated. I went shopping and found some short and t-shirt outfits for $1.

Shorts and t-shirts

My friends from the hospital collected some items and my uncles girlfriend Michele bought 20 dresses.

Dresses and medical supplies

Items were coming in and I couldn't wait until my next trip to Haiti. It touched my heart that people wanted to give to something that meant so much to me.

Good-bye Covant

 My time in Covant was the hardest mission trip I have ever been on, but it was also one of the best.

We didn't have the comforts of home yet we didn't seem to miss them.

The village bathroom ... no kidding

Inside of the bathroom

I knew I would miss this place with it's simple lifestyle and gentle people.

After leaving Covant I headed back to the Bahamas, it was the beginning of the holiday season.