Haiti

A couple of days ago I mentioned going to Haiti, and I promised to elaborate so I will, but the story goes back a few years, so bare with me. In January 2010 Danny and I were living just outside Washington D.C. when we heard an earthquake had struck in Haiti. USGS called it the largest earthquake since 1770. We immediately called our friends, Bryan and Lisa Bartow, who live in upstate New York, because for them it's a second home. Lisa is half Haitian, and still has family members who live there. In addition to visiting family in Haiti, the Bartows and extended family support nine churches in the country, and frequently take teams on short-term mission trips there.

The Bartow family in Haiti, two years before the
earthquake.

By the time we called, the Bartows had already taken action and had coordinated their own relief effort. In a matter of days, through friends and local donations, they had a small charter plane and a half ton of supplies. Their action gained so much attention that an article was written about them in their local newspaper (To read the article, click here).

Having grown up in Papua New Guinea, my heart was wrenched for the people in Haiti, and although I was unable to join the Bartows on their initial earthquake relief trip, it left in me a desire to be a part of their efforts their as soon as I could.

Fast forward four years, and the opportunity has finally come when I can help. In a few days a team, led by the Bartows, will be traveling to visit one of the nine churches they support, in a town called Doko. Due to the rigorous, 7-hour hike up a mountain, crossing a river 60 times, the church hasn't been visited by outsiders in over 50 years. Lisa explained to me the value of visiting people in the Haitian culture, and how by taking this journey just to see them will be an incredible encouragement to the church there.

I will be helping take video of our journey to Doko, which will be used in the production of a short film after returning to the U.S. The film will be used to not only document this historic visit to Doko, but will hopefully bring awareness to the needs of the Christian church in Haiti. I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity because for many years I've wanted to be able to use my passion for photography and videography to be used by God.

My friends and family have had a lot of questions for me about the trip, especially in regards to my 3-month-old daughter. I will be honest, I almost chickened out on going a few weeks ago. I was feeling a lot of apprehension about leaving her for almost two weeks, and how she'll think I don't care about her and feel neglected and how that will damage her psyche or give her some weird complex for the rest of her life. But after a lot of prayer and self-reflection, I realized I was making myself way more important than I am. My daughter knows I love her, and in the long run she will have no memory that I was even gone, but I will be able to tell her about this trip to Haiti and tell her about what God taught me while I was there. Maybe when she hears about this trip she will want to take adventures for God too. Ultimately I don't know what will happen, but that's where I am trusting the Lord to use this trip for His purpose.


So I spent most of yesterday packing for my trip. It's extremely important to pack light since we will be hiking many hours, but it's somewhat difficult to do with heavy camera equipment--my camera body alone, without a lens, is two pounds. However, I delight in the challenge of packing lightly, and got a bit giddy organizing everything to be as light and small as possible.

I managed to pack everything in the photo on the left, into the backpack in the photo on the right, with the exception of the clothes I will wear on the airplane. I weighed it and came out with 14.8 lbs. I won't lie, I'm pretty impressed with my packing skills.

I'm extremely excited for this trip; growing up as a missionary kid in Papua New Guinea, I never really feel "at home" the way I do when I'm overseas. I'm excited to meet the people in Haiti, and hopefully be a blessing to them in whatever way I can. And most importantly, I'm looking forward to what God will teach me through this experience.

Needless to say, not watching TV will not be a problem while I'm on this trip. However, I won't be updating the blog while I'm gone, for several reasons, but I will be doing my best to write in a journal about the trip and when I return, I will back-blog (Get it? like back log? I crack myself up).