Hiking Haiti

hike: an extended long walk for training, pleasure or exercise across rural country or wilderness; to rise upward and out of place; to increase.

I know most everyone knows what "hike" means. But I found myself pondering this word and thinking about how much its definition explains our experience in and with Haiti. 

We still have a long way to travel on our extended long walk. We sometimes feel out of place. But I think we will always feel out of place until we are in our true home country...Heaven. Our prayer is that whether in training, pleasure, or exercise across this land and in this life that our thoughts will rise upward, that we may decrease so that the One who created us for this hike will increase.

 One of Eric's favorite quotes is "The most important thoughts you will ever think are your thoughts on God because they will determine everything else you will ever do."

We pray our children will learn this earlier than we did. 

Sunday we took at hike in the hills behind our house to get some exercise, breathe the fresh air, be together, think thoughts on God, refresh our perspective, pray and listen. 

It was a good hike.

We started walking down our street rounded the corner a few houses up and began our hike.

Heading up

We made a few new friends along the way.

Smiling, laughing, joyful Haitian children

never cease to amaze me. 

This little family lives in the last house towards the top.

We may not have much on the outside...

but we've got a lot of stuff on the inside!

Our neighbors that live on the right.

Girls returning from their church located somewhere in these hills. I asked them if I could take their picture because they look so pretty.

Sometimes people tell us they think it is amazing that we live here.
We think the Haitian people are pretty amazing!
And our God Who created this beautiful land is the most amazing of all...even though we have all messed it up so bad.
Our daughter had just voiced her thoughts on how hard it would be to walk in heels on these hills just before we came upon this little girl wearing heels while carying a toddler on her shoulders!
Perspective.

Rising upward we looked down upon the houses we had just passed.
Standing here feeling the cool sea breeze, we understand why they live al the way up here
(though we cannot imagine this climb while toting heavy water buckets on our heads each day).

We could see our house, our school and our hopeful future house down below!

Our mission field in St. Marc

"As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
On those who fear Him...

And His righteousness to children's children"
Psalm 103:15-17