Hello from Haiti

For those that don't know, I am in Haiti for a few days with Daniel Conner, one of the pastors at Palm Valley Church. We are visiting Value Baptist Church in Value, Haiti where Palm Valley Church has helped them to build their church building, to visit and encourage them and to see what is happening in the community and surrounding areas. Yesterday we visited the Christian Ministries Center in Port Au Prince after arriving and got to meet some of the theological students and pastors/leaders, as well as tour the facility to learn about the other vocational training classes they have there.

Today we spent the day in downtown Port Au Prince and the surrounding communities. I was reminded time and again of the many things that we take for granted living in America, from our freedom and security, to basic sanitation, electricity (which went out several times in the 1 hour visit to the ministry center as well as last night at our hotel), to the convenience of clean & running water that we don't have to go and purchase and carry uphill several miles on foot to our home, to paved roads, not to mention luxuries like"High-speed" internet, cell phones that work (Verizon could make a great commercial over here - Can you hear me NOW?)etc. Daniel thinks the worst thing is that ESPN over here covers only Cricket, Rugby and soccer - they had a 20 second byte on 1 NBA game and it was a hoot listening to French & British broadcasters trying to report on it - That was Jolly-good 'ol chap.

Well, too much to share in a short time - we are so blessed with all that we have.
Here's a couple pics - hopefully they will load before the power goes out... 5 minutes and counting, don't hold your breath. Seems Haiti is a little cleaner and safer than even 6-9 months ago - not many U.N. left around, but we did see a few - including an armored vehicle full of soldiers driving by the Haiti Palace (where the President it) taking pictures.

Love you all at home - you all need to get skype as any other type of communication just isn't feasible and/or cost effective. Daniel got a prepaid cell phone when we arrived at the airport - we (he) had to ask the waitress to interpret the instructions (French) for us this morning at breakfast and she explained that the reason our call wasn't going through is that we had about 2 gouldes of talk time left (1 dollar = 36 gouldes... you do the math) (not sure where all our minutes went, obviously lost in translation but I'm sure the salesperson had a good laugh at us tourists)??