– by Duane Yoder,  June 15-22, 2011

We left Reagan Airport in Washington, DC at 6:00 am on Wednesday, June 15^th and made our connection in Miami, landing in Port-au-Prince at 12:15.  We cleared immigration, got our luggage and cleared customs and were picked up by Oxy and ready to go.  This trip included 6 persons.  John Kennell, Duane Yoder, Galen Lehman, John Schaeffer and a father and son team, Linwood and Drew Vrolijk.  Drew is a rising senior at Eastern Mennonite High School in Harrisonburg.  John Schaeffer is the chair of our mission commission at Lindale.  Galen Lehman is the Caribbean director for Virginia Mennonite Missions.  John Kennell and Duane Yoder are CFM board members.

We had taken 43 persons from Lindale for a trip 3 years ago and we were hoping to have a larger group again but because of MCUSA in Pittsburgh, only 6 of us were interested and able to go on this trip.  Our goal was to lay block on the church expansion at the PSO property and to connect with an ongoing relationship with Pastor Enoch and his church out in the country near Leogone.

As we were boarding in DC, Linwood realized that there were a couple of things in their carry on luggage that would not make it through security and so he went back and checked a couple of bags.  Unfortunately, the person working the counter put the wrong tags on them and they went to Port-au-Plata, DR rather than to Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  They were reunited with their bags the day before we came home.  That was the only thing we could say that didn’t go perfectly.

We were able to lay six courses of block all the way around at the church expansion and to pour the bound beam on about half the perimeter.  One of the highlights was working with the four Haitian workers that worked with us every day and learning to know them a little bit.  We also moved the stairs to the library/office so that it came up perpendicular to the office.  Linwood and Drew enjoyed playing some basketball with the boys at the orphanage and putting a new net on the rim.  We also left two new basketballs and a couple of soccer balls with the boys.

Over the weekend, we went out in the country near Leogone.  We were able to meet with the four pastors from Pastor Enoch’s church and talk about their vision for the future.  Their church building was damaged from the earthquake.  The back wall fell and two roof trusses were broken.  The problem is the church does not own the land on which the church is sitting.  We are trying to help in deciding what to do for their future.  We came back and worked two more days, including repairing the broken septic system at the mission house.  The green truck worked well for us.  It was another highly successful trip for me to Haiti on several levels.  Thank you, CFM.

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