Tuesday
Apr272010
Haiti After Night 1
04.27.2010
Well here's the truth....
Cortni and I didn't sleep hardly at all last night. We had to share a tent in an outside courtyard which didn't seem too bad until we realized that the mattress on the floor only covered about half the floor... and that there was no breeze whatsoever in our 87 degree non-air conditioned tent. That meant that we were laying still but sweating like we were running a marathon... not cool man, not cool.
There are people sleeping on cots all over the compound and our little tent is actually quite nice compared to that I guess. Twelve foot fences with rolled barbed wire on every side of us reminded us that this isn't Kansas for sure... and when I was quite sure that I had slept the whole night through and gotten a great night’s rest... I looked at my watch to find that it was literally 12am... and we had another 6 hours to go... with a rooster crowing every 30 seconds on the other side of our fence. Shortly after that all the power for the facility failed and they had to turn on the generator... which of course was 30 feet away from us... but it drowned out the rooster for a bit even though it was like sleeping under an 18 wheeler. Waking up ever hour on the hour was actually quite disconcerting... thinking that it was morning and finding out that it actually midnight.
I proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour to check my watch and find us no closer to relief. Ben, our camera man, asked if we had ear plugs to sleep in and then laughed when we didn't... now I know why... that rooster was annoying and LOUD in the stillness of the night here in Haiti. My thought process is that if the rooster crows before the sunrise... kill it. So I'll spend today trying to figure out how I'm going to do that (lol!). If I achieve no great scheme I may try to sleep with my in-ear monitors in tonight, because that was brutal.
So now we begin the day with a Bible study at 8 and then we're headed up the mountain.... I'm gonna try to take lots of photos with my iPhone and upload them to my facebook tonight when we check back in.
In a final note... this is what I asked for... this is 100 times better than what these young children are sleeping in. At least I'm waking up with a toilet nearby, breakfast, and a shower.... the tent cities that we passed yesterday were miserable and the people have lived that way since January. These 3 days will be a good little reminder that these people need us to WAKE UP.
Pray for my wife Cortni... she gets migraines when she doesn't sleep and honestly I am worried about that... I can't function without food... her body shuts down without sleep and I know she only slept a couple of hours last night. Also on a separate note I came down here with an inflamed Achilles tendon in my left leg and last night it was pretty swollen... we've got lots of walking to do today and I'm hoping it will hold up.
Luxury in Haiti: running water, toilet, meals, and a tent.
We're waiting on the Lord to show up, because we won't be able to do this alone!!
Blessings,
Jason
Cortni and I didn't sleep hardly at all last night. We had to share a tent in an outside courtyard which didn't seem too bad until we realized that the mattress on the floor only covered about half the floor... and that there was no breeze whatsoever in our 87 degree non-air conditioned tent. That meant that we were laying still but sweating like we were running a marathon... not cool man, not cool.
There are people sleeping on cots all over the compound and our little tent is actually quite nice compared to that I guess. Twelve foot fences with rolled barbed wire on every side of us reminded us that this isn't Kansas for sure... and when I was quite sure that I had slept the whole night through and gotten a great night’s rest... I looked at my watch to find that it was literally 12am... and we had another 6 hours to go... with a rooster crowing every 30 seconds on the other side of our fence. Shortly after that all the power for the facility failed and they had to turn on the generator... which of course was 30 feet away from us... but it drowned out the rooster for a bit even though it was like sleeping under an 18 wheeler. Waking up ever hour on the hour was actually quite disconcerting... thinking that it was morning and finding out that it actually midnight.
I proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour to check my watch and find us no closer to relief. Ben, our camera man, asked if we had ear plugs to sleep in and then laughed when we didn't... now I know why... that rooster was annoying and LOUD in the stillness of the night here in Haiti. My thought process is that if the rooster crows before the sunrise... kill it. So I'll spend today trying to figure out how I'm going to do that (lol!). If I achieve no great scheme I may try to sleep with my in-ear monitors in tonight, because that was brutal.
So now we begin the day with a Bible study at 8 and then we're headed up the mountain.... I'm gonna try to take lots of photos with my iPhone and upload them to my facebook tonight when we check back in.
In a final note... this is what I asked for... this is 100 times better than what these young children are sleeping in. At least I'm waking up with a toilet nearby, breakfast, and a shower.... the tent cities that we passed yesterday were miserable and the people have lived that way since January. These 3 days will be a good little reminder that these people need us to WAKE UP.
Pray for my wife Cortni... she gets migraines when she doesn't sleep and honestly I am worried about that... I can't function without food... her body shuts down without sleep and I know she only slept a couple of hours last night. Also on a separate note I came down here with an inflamed Achilles tendon in my left leg and last night it was pretty swollen... we've got lots of walking to do today and I'm hoping it will hold up.
Luxury in Haiti: running water, toilet, meals, and a tent.
We're waiting on the Lord to show up, because we won't be able to do this alone!!
Blessings,
Jason
Reader Comments (6)
Hey Jason,
So cool you are down there. I was supposed to be there too right now but decided not to go. My wife and I had arrived there one hour before the quake and experienced it in a van on our way to our hotel which was demolished (Hotel Montana)Very scary. We were evacuated out on a C130 Hercules military plane about 40 hours later. It's terrible what the people have had to live with since the quake. I just didn't want to leave my kids so soon after surviving it but I hope to go down again before winter. You guys are coming to Lethbridge so we can talk about our experiences then. God bless you and keep you safe on your trip.
Ralph
Victory Church Lethbridge
He's already there Jason. What part of Haiti were/are you in? I leave for Haiti on the 8th for 7 days. It will be my 6th or 7th trip, lost count. I got to meet and talk to Cortni at your concert at Family Worship Center in Lansdale PA while working at the WV table. She is a fantastic woman. It sounds like you may be back in the US now since your post says 3 days. Hope you were blessed. Haiti always blesses me.... The most tenacious people I know....
God Bless you both,
Laura
PS yes the roosters are NUTS
Ralph,
The Hotel Montana was beautiful. We stayed there in August and Clark and Maria are wonderful people. Maria is an awesome cook as well. So sorry to see the damage they sustained. They put their life into that hotel so that they could host missionaries. Sorry to hear about your experiance.
Laura
Well, Laura we never made it near the hotel by chance we were held up at the airport because we had diplomatic immunity. Which meant we didn't have to go through customs and they processed all of our luggage for us and it took longer then expected. So we didn't make it to the hotel before the quake hit, other people on our flight had made it and didn't survive. One of those why us God moments. Our church has 7 other churches in our family down there so My senior pastor is there right now checking out the sites, 6 of them are destroyed. I just wasn't ready to go back yet. We had 3 boys back home when they heard of the quake on the news and couldn't reach us so it was a very traumatic time for our family, Church and community. We felt very loved when we came home. I wouldn't change a thing and we have been very blessed with a second chance is how I feel. When your kids, church, and community think they lost you and you get reunited is a feeling I can't even describe.
Brings me to tears every time we talk about it or look at pictures.
So Blessed by everything.
God bless
Roy & Cortni
Wow, can't believe you guys are there. I will be praying for you guys and hope that you both are able to get some better sleep without having to choke that rooster or accidentally unplug the generator, ha.
I know that you will have an amazing experience while you are there. Cassidy, my 8 year old just asked me the other day if I thought the people in Haiti were doing better now ! You will have to come back and let us all know.
Enjoy your time there & have a safe return home-
Sherri Cody
gcom church attender
Jason, I agree with you when you realize that there's too much people in worst conditions around the world, and we must wake up that our problems are notthing compared with all this suffering.
It's time to wake up for our compromise of sharing God's love with everyone.
It's time to let behind our confort and bee His hans and feet.
Blessings from Brazil, wish B429 came here soon!