Zanmi! (Friend)

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I hitched a ride with the MH youth group, riding with them to Cayes on top of the cage on their pickup. Jumped off at the Carrefour Simone and walked over to Shane’s. 

Things didn’t go well again, trying to get a car to test drive, but I found a great grocery store that my wife and kids are going to love.  I even saw Hershey bars there!  It will be the extra special days that we’ll bring the kids there.

Once I got back to Shane’s we began the work of moving his kitchen and laundry appliances upstairs.  

I thought it would be easier than it was, but adding in the humidity and the film of sweat that covers your body, I had no grip.  

I put some scratches on his brand new washer, of which I’ll never forgive myself.  I know he’s already forgiven me, but the one thing he said just before I lost my grip on washer will stick with me for quite some time.....”I would absolutely hate to get it all these thousands of miles without a scratch, and then damage it in the last 20 feet....”

His friend Dell came to help us with the refrigerator, and Shane wound up counting out the frame of his door so we could get it to fit.  

Soon after Maxon arrived with the Sidekick that had broken down a few days before.  He’d repaired the alternator, and it looked like he’d cleaned it back up and maybe even put more gas in it for me. 

He handed me the keys and said, “Ok.  It’s yours for 2 days.  Drive it.  See what you think.  If you don’t want it I’ll put it up for sale in Cayes.”

I was invited to come to another missionary’s home for supper, and it would have been great fellowship I’m sure, but for some reason I just felt like I needed to get back to Ti Rivier.

I made the drive home, opened up the back gate, took clothes off the line, and then like clockwork, there was Madame Tililene with supper.  She’d been waiting for me.

I was thanking her for the keeping the food warm, and then I turned around to walk her out the back gate.  

There was a figure in the doorway, silhouetted against the blinding daylight.  On one hand, my mind was telling me, “You know this person!”   But the rational side was arguing,

“It couldn’t be.  You must be dehydrated or delusional!”

But after a few second, she said, “Hello!”

and I realized this was reality!

There standing in my door, in the middle of Haiti, was my sister in Christ, from South Dakota, USA, Heather Babb.

I couldn’t believe it.  What a blessing! What a surprise!  

She’d come to Port-au-Prince to check on the jewelry work she’s been put in charge of for Haiti, and finally decided at the last second that she was going to come home with her workers from Ti Rivier and surprise me.  

We talked most of the night, talking about everything under the sun.  Her family was in Haiti for all of the summer, and she was only home for a day or so before I left for Haiti, so we never really had the chance to catch up.

I really haven’t found words to describe how much joy it brought me to see her, in the last place I would ever imagine, on my back porch in Haiti.