I hope you are well! I’m sorry, again, for not posting a blog sooner than 2 weeks! Where does the time go??!!!
Anyway, I am reaching the point where since we have gotten into a groove of living here, I'm forgetting to blog and to keep track of my days, so I'm doing my best to change that! :) I want to keep better track of my days and list what I am doing, but I just seem to keep running out of time in the day to do everything. Continued prayer on that would be very welcomed, and much appreciated :)
So these are some of the questions I've been getting from some of you, so I will do my best answer them. Thank you to everyone who sent me questions!!! Please keep them coming and keep me on track of what you would like to know! :)
Q: What's your daily schedule like? When do you get up, eat lunch, teach, etc.?
A: During the week, we all are up between 5:00am and 5:30am to spend time in the Word, workout, and/or journal, then breakfast is at 6:30. Since the kids from the mission started school last week, we are all out the door around 7:00-7:15... Kelsea, Liz, and/or Shala walk with the little mission kids to school down the street with Baz or Wesner, while the teachers (Joy, Elise, Amber, Simeon, Lindsey, Elisa, and I) are on our bus to school in St. Marc. We usually get there around 7:45, so we have until 8:15 to set up our classrooms, greet the kids, and get ready for the day. At 8:15 we do prayer and pledge with the whole school, then at 8:30 classes start. The rest of my class schedule is posted in a previous blog, but I teach in the mornings everyday up until lunch at 11:30. We have a 30 minute lunch break, then I teach again for the next hour. My day is usually over at 1pm for teaching, so the last 2 hours of everyday are for me to lesson plan and take a break. The school is out at 3pm Mondays-Thursdays, and then 1/2 day for electives on Fridays. We wait for all the kids to be picked up at 3:00, so we usually leave around 3:30 to head back to Montrouis :) Dinner is at 6pm every night, so we have a couple hours of free time before dinner, so that's when we either read, workout, or go for walks to Wesner's house that's being build behind the mission up the hill.
Q: What is the food like there?
A: Haitians mainly eat rice, beans, and fish, plus some eat something called bread fruit… We mainly eat at the mission for breakfast and dinner though, and the mission kids and the team members who aren’t at the school have that every day for lunch. The teachers have a ‘lunch lady’ who makes us sandwiches every day, and are completely blown away on the quality and how much food she brings and what she makes. She is so cute!! There was more written about her in my previous blogs, so please feel free to check that out… We are so blessed by Kerry & Joy to have Madam Raymond as the mission's chef though. She's so amazing!! Give her anything, and she can make it taste like that’s her specialty item. We are so spoiled here. We don't really make any of our own food, we don't have to clean, and we are able to focus almost all of our energy on serving at the school, and loving on the kids. It's such a blessing here. It's so amazing how much Kerry & Joy have taken care of us here... We have weekly food nights, so here is basically what we eat each day:
Monday nights we have Italian night, Tuesdays we have Haitian soup night, Wednesdays are American night (southern chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and creamed corn), Thursdays are sandwich nights, Fridays are Family Dinner Night (each room of girls, Kerry/Joy, and Stephen/Autumn rotate on cooking something special each week), then Saturday and Sunday nights we are on our own to make sandwiches or get take out with Baz, Wesner, or Stephen & Autumn. I tried conch though. It's so good, but I can't get past the texture! I've had it 2 different ways so far just sharing with Paul (one of our interpreters, who is AWESOME!), but both times I could only have a few bites before I couldn't take it anymore. Most Haitians just eat rice and beans though, so it's not much of a stretch food wise to eat any of it. The fish is soooo good here too!!! I love it!! Madam Raymond makes it amazing!!! <3 It's a fish that most Haitians won't buy though since it's hard to cook and have it taste good, but I love it and Madam Raymond can make anything :)
Is it like Florida there? Hot and humid?
yes, yes, and yes, but we all acclimated really quickly, and by the grace of God it's actually been cooling off. :) One of the short term teams a few weeks ago were saying that it was so cold during one of the rain storms at night, but all of us thought it was the best weather ever :) God is so good, and supplied a wonderful fresh breeze right when we didn't even realize we needed it :)
Q: What do you teach?
A: I teach Middle School and High School English, History, and Geography, plus 3rd-12th grade American Sign Language on Fridays. :) Please see my previous blogs regard the school, my classes, and the students I have :)
Q: What do you feel the major need is there in Haiti?
A: Jesus... This question has so many different aspects to it- mentally, spiritually, and physically- that I almost feel it would be arrogant of me to try to answer any other way... Haiti is such a broken, corrupt, and impoverished country, that it will take decades before any kind of major changes will happen. I think the hardest thing for me to wrap my brain around is that it’s a whole COUNTRY that is below the poverty line- not just sections of it. It's not just a part of Haiti that's poor, and you can just escape from the poverty by going to a nicer area, cause there aren’t any… None… You have to SEARCH for a home with running water and electricity here. Good luck finding electricity at all in most of the country actually, and every then, only a handful of cities have any kind of city power systems running 24/7... Honestly, Haiti just needs Jesus...
Pastor Judah Trabulsi and his wife prayed over me before I left the U.S. at the youth summer camp, and his word given to me was 'Able.' He just kept saying God wanted to show us ,"I AM able," and I am really starting to see how true this statement is, and how able God is... The spirits here are heavy, and sneaky here, in a way that I have never encountered in the United States. Everyone lies here, and no one thinks it's wrong. It's just a way of life here. Our interpreters (Baz, Wesner, Paul, Simeon, and Louis) get death threats more than I think we know, simply because they have 'blan friends' (white friends), who they are helping to teach Creole to. It's a very deceitful culture, all based on taking, rather than giving, so by teaching any white person Creole, you’re messing up their system of ripping off the white people for more money. If you can't lie to them, then you can't get more money from them, so most don't want you to learn Creole.
Also, there is no concept here that just if you work hard, you will get ahead, so their workloads are always hard, depressing, and has very little payoff in it. "The American Dream" just doesn't exist here- and that’s hard to wrap our brains around. I have to admit, I selfishly and ignorantly fell into that category of people who think that poverty is a choice, or a result of just being lazy and not working hard enough to make ends meat… I am sorry to admit that, but Praise the LORD I see now that I was dead wrong. Poverty isn’t measured at all by how hard someone works, or about choices that they make. It’s the hand they are dealt, and in countries like this, there is no way out. At least, not without Christ. So to answer the question, my answer would be prayer and Jesus.
Is there still a lot of voodoo stuff going on?
Yes- there is a phrase about Haiti that goes like this: "Haitians are 80% Catholic, 20% Protestant, and 100% Voodoo." It's almost impossible to find a Christian here who isn't also mixed with voodoo and superstition. We can see the homes and temples of the witch doctors around the different towns- they have red and blue flags that they hang on the doors so you can tell, and especially in Pierre Payen, which is only about a 5 minute drive from the Mission... about 3 or 4 years ago the city had some sort of uproar, and litterally burned witch doctors alive in the streets of Pierre Payen. One of the people who was there when it happened was Jean Patrick- a 7 year old boy who's father was heavy into voodoo- was forced to stand there and watch as his dad was burned alive. J.P. is now 10 years old and being adopted by the Reeves' family, but it's crazy to hear how each child's life was/is so twisted up in some sort of horror, and now being rescued from that life by the grace of God, and the prayers and protection of this ministry.
I hope I was able to communicate my answers clearly! I miss you all, and I’m so glad that everyone has been so supportive and taking an interest in hearing what’s going on out here. It’s been incredible, and I want to continue just to grow and love Him and the Haitians more…. Please be praying for our team, but especially in prayer for our interpreters/security guards listed below... The men need extreme spiritual protection, and encouragement to stay strong in the LORD. I can't describe to you how much the LORD is working in all our lives, but how much they really need their strength from the LORD. <3
Teammates names: Amber, Elise, Kelsea, Lindsey, Shala, Elisa, Liz, Stephen & Autumn Byxbe, and Kerry & Joy Reeves.
Interpreters, Security Guards, and Beloved helpers to New Vision: Wesner, Baz, Paul, Simeon, Louis, and Mistro.
Mwen renmen ou!
Mesi,
Nikki Garcia
---------------------------------------------------------------
Random thoughts:
Songs that have been stuck in my head the past few days: Empty Me and Who Am I? by Casting Crowns
Things I'm going to miss in Haiti while on the one month break while in the U.S.: Not having to close the bathroom door, not having my awesome room mates in the room :( and worship with Wesner, Baz, Simeon, and the guys while attempting to sing in Creole to the same One and Only Lord over all creation. Yup, these things are already making me sad <3