Thursday, June 21, 2018

PLC Day 4: Grace Village and Elder Visits!

Day 4: June 21st, 2018

So there’s this Spanish magician right? He is about to do his final act and says he is going to make himself disappear for the grand finale. He says “Uno, dos…” and POOF he is gone without a tres.

That was Barry Gerst’s joke tonight at dinner and Nelson though it was the funniest thing he had ever heard!

Welcome back to another blog extravaganza with your boy Mizzle Nizzle. (It’s Max guys don’t worry and no one has ever called me that… like ever.) (No for real like never in my entire life) Tonight I am joined by the gals from the most West of the Virginias, Brae and Maria! It is Maria’s first trip to Haiti and Brae’s fourth trip. Nelson and I got up with the boys nice and early for a quick ab circuit and “morning yoke sesh” because we are such superb athletes. Our lesson from this morning: take something ordinary and do just a little bit extra, and you get something extraordinary – Abraham Lincoln (Probably) – Nelson Linscott. Here’s another quote Nelson shared with us this morning: “Those were really good tacos” – Martin Luther King Jr. (Probably said that at some point, he seemed like a taco guy).

Let me just pause for a moment to address the fact that as I am trying to write this blog, Nelson is making a “strombony of himself” by attempting to do a british accent that really just sounds like an Italian Borat. Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

After our morning workout we had a pancake breakfast and loaded up on the TapTaps to head north to visit Grace Village and the elders in Titanyen. On our way, we stopped at the 2010 earthquake memorial and mass graves which serve as the final resting place for an estimated 300,000 Haitians who lost their lives during the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that changed the lives of Haitians forever. One of our Haitian guides shared his brief recap of the events on that fateful day and it was a great experience for everyone. We then headed to Grace Village where we got to play and spend time with all of the kids. I met a little boy last year when I came down to Haiti and I we had a great reunion this morning when I saw him for the first time in a year. Brae also had a similar experience when she saw a girl that she hadn’t seen in five years! We all had a fun time getting to interact with the kids with games like tag, thumb wars, soccer, and dance offs.

After our morning stint at Grace Village we had the opportunity to do 8 different elder visits split between the two halves of our team. I was back at it learning more creole phrases with the kids, but I also got to put lotion on a few of the elders which really took me out of my comfort zone. There aren’t many things that are more intimate than putting lotion on another person and it is one of the few opportunities we can truly be the hands and feet of God when we are down here. Brae and Maria had another valuable experience working with the elders by washing their feet and painting nails. We also ended up bringing picture bibles for the elders who are illiterate and other household supplies that they were in need of.

After our elder visits we got a tour of Fleri Bakery and Restuarant in Titanyen. This was a super cool experience for us to see how much work goes into making the bread for a community. Fleri has 26 independent clients who the sell wholesale to, who then resell the bread into the community in Titanyen. Fleri goes through 110 pounds of flour an hour and crank out bread everyday of the week. Business has been booming and they directly put $10,000 back into the community of Titanyen just from buying the supplies needed to make the bread last year. After Fleri, we spent more time at Grace Village watching Croatia upset Argentina 3-0 in world cup group play while the staff fixed a flat tire on one of the TapTaps. On our way home from Grace Village it started pouring rain. And when I say pouring I mean raining cats and dogs with a 40 mph crosswind that was blowing sheets of rain into the back of the open air TapTap. Luckily for Cameron and I, we had chosen to sit up front and were nice and dry while the rest of the team looked like they had gone to a water park. (Sorry guys love you).

After we had dried off, we had Haitian food for dinner and then grouped up with the other team to have one large super-group meeting where we got to sing worship songs and our nightly devotional. You will be pleased to hear that “Servant Leader” made another appearance at tonight’s meeting. Tomorrow, half of our group will be heading out on a second water truck day and the other half will be visiting the Haitian History museum and a orphanage called LaPharre. Thank you all once again for keeping up to date on the blogs and we will catch ya on the flipside tomorrow.

They always say yee-haw, but never haw-yee. – Nelson Linscott


Max Nelson