The First Days

 Our journey began on Tuesday, June 26 at 4 a.m. We left Fresno early, first flying to Dallas, then to Florida. It was a long day of flying. We had nine suitcases and three backpacks to tote to our hotel for the night.


This was to be a short rest as our next flight to Haiti was leaving at 6:30 a.m. The kids slept great, Claire slept in a chair...I'm beginning to think she can and will sleep anywhere.


We barely made our flight from Florida, only 2 minutes to spare. We were the only white people on the flight. As we boarded and made our way to the back of the plane, we were followed by white eyes and pearly white smiles on deep chocolate skin.


The Haitians were already welcoming us to their country, so thrilled to see our young children.


This short flight, 1.5 hours landed us in Port Au Prince Haiti. As we began to approach the island, Gabe shouted, "I see Haiti!" He was beaming with joy.

Then the cabin of brown-skinned love cheered as we safely landed.

The airport was near-chaos. Hot, dark, crowded. Two men were chosen to retrieve our mountain of bags. They wanted $40 for their services. And the negotiations began. We settled on $20. 


They walked us down a long outdoor corridor to the waiting area. We had to wait about an hour for our Haitian friend, Peter. He is the director of the mission in Haiti. What a relief when we finally saw him pull up in his truck.

 He drove us a mile or so to our next flight which was on a small plane flown by MAF, Missionary Aviation Fellowship. It was a nine-seater flown by a Tennessee native missionary pilot.

 This 22-minute flight replaces the over six-hour drive into the mountains of Haiti. Well worth the money!


As we flew over the outskirts of Port Au Prince, we could see many homes still in ruins from the January 2010 earthquake. Then we saw this....

 This is a huge area outside of the city of hundreds of small shed-like homes and tents. So many Haitians have been relocated here since the earthquake. Remember this, as later I will show you closeups as we returned here on our way home. 


After two long days of travel, our little girl finally fell asleep on our shortest flight. Go figure.

 Then we started getting close to Pignon, our home for the next 10 days. The mountains are more lush and tropical than the city.

 At the top of the picture below is the grass airstrip we landed on. Fantastic! I have not done this since my time in Papua New Guinea, but a first for the rest of my family.

 This is the "airport" in Pignon.

 Our friends, the Gilmores heard the plane fly over and jumped from their shower to come get us. They arrived with hugs and shouts of joy as our children greeted each other with love. The Gilmores have three young daughters, who were eager to have Claire and Gabe to play with and speak English with.


We headed off to their house and the Christian Friendship Ministries compound. We were then greeted by the beautiful children of the orphanage.

 The Christian Friendship Ministries compound was first built by Ericlee Gilmore's grandparents in the 1940s. The original farmhouse is a charming, yet termite-ridden wood, stucco, and metal structure. The house is built on the edge of a valley leading down to the river. A beautiful view!

The compound houses a large school, an orphanage, a church and a medical clinic. 

On this first day in Haiti we got acquainted with the heat, the bug bites, the new food and best of all, the beautiful people!