January 2010 trip in planning stages..

We are in the active planning and “hassle-dealing” with section of the January Trip.  Our dates are more or less set.  We are leaving the weekend of Jan 17 and coming back the following weekend. We may leave on Saturday and come back the following Saturday, or do a Sunday-to-Sunday trip.  It all depends on how many doctors are on the Florida to Haiti flight.

I anticipate a really good trip. We have three churches and a good mix of first-timers and veterans.  The goal of the trip is to continue to fix-up the orphanage as well as help out in the community surrounding the orphanage.  We recognize that our little orphanage is just part of a large community of people who all need help.  Haiti can be so difficult because there is so much need and limited resources, but it can be so rewarding because no matter where you look, there is an opportunity to help.  Even when one feels like they wasted money on some project that didn’t work, or had some tools stolen or misplaced, one can find comfort in know that where ever the money or tool went, the person who took it needed it more than we did.  When we try new projects that don’t work out, we can be consoled that we at least showed people that we loved them and that we learned some new lesson.

This perspective of “no matter what happens, it is something good,” is not a perspective that I had when I first started going to Haiti.  I’m not exactly a Type A person who has to have everything go according to plan, but I do hate wasting effort.  I also hate messing up and wasting other people’s time or money.  I always feel that when we go to Haiti, we are the stewards of someone else’s stuff.  Most of the time we get donations to pay for our projects. When those projects don’t go well, one could argue we wasted their money.  When I go and leave my family at home, I’m spending vacation time that I won’t get back.  If the trip doesn’t go according to plan, one could say I wasted my limited vacation time.

Over time, the experiences in Haiti can wear you down because everything seems so hard and it seems impossible to make progress and then when something bad happens, one can become pessimistic.  The change for me happened when I started taking the long view of things.  Any given trip might have only minimal benefit, but taken in sum, all the little steps start adding up.  The change in the orphanage in Grison Guarde is huge.  The change for the kids at our orphanage is even greater.  We could have given up at any step along the way, because heaven knows, there was lots of frustrations, and plans not being met.  However, by taking the long view, I can see that we have made a real difference in lives of our Haitian “Brothers and Sisters.”

I’m proud of the work that we have been able to accomplish and I sincerely hope that if you are reading this blog, that you would considered coming back, or going for the first time.  You shouldn’t expect miracles, but don’t be surprised when little by little miracles develop unnoticed or unplanned around you. Haiti is a special place that is full of need, but that is just another way to say that it is a special place full of opportunities for you to live a life less ordinary.

-Mike Hertz