“Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Galatians 6:10

I wasn’t the only one on that bus that was looking for something. Each member made the choice to come on this trip for a reason that was personal to them. But besides writing our names down on a church clipboard and being willing to go what could this random group have in common and how were we going to survive the week? If group projects and team extracurriculars had taught me anything it was that teamwork wasn’t always pretty. Intentional kindness, compassion, and a little “extra grace” is required for any  team to be able to succeed; but factor in the stressors of a mission to a third world and this team was going to need a little more than typical “ice breakers.” Teams need trust and open communication but with a group of strangers we would need to find a way to develop it fast as we kicked off our week with a variety of people, personalities, and personal preferences. 

This diverse crew of ours would be facing the same mission field, similar challenges, and probably close to the same emotional upheaval that I would feel. Yet being kind, compassionate and gentle towards one another is not always the gut reaction when we are thrown in a pressure cooker of unfamiliar surroundings and a high stress environment. That might sound hypocritical as I’m talking about a group of people that are willing to sacrifice their time and their money to get on a plane to go and spread the good news and work hard in another country, but I think it’s because it’s so easy to become mission minded that I think it’s common to fall into a tunnel vision. When you believe that the mission was to go and serve Haitians. To go and spread love to the people of Haiti you miss the fine print of that calling- to go, to serve, and to love PEOPLE (not just Haitians), and people includes your teammates. 

While that’s easy to say, loving and serving people isn’t always easy to live. There would be times when I wanted to crawl in a corner and process everything by myself because I was emotionally exhausted. There would be other times when I sought out members of my team because I longed to hear about their day and get their view on what was going on. But there had to be a balance- to know that often when I wanted solitude wasn’t always when the rest of the team did, and when I wanted comradery might not always be when my team did. It would be a delicate balancing act.  At times fifteen people rubbed raw with emotions didn’t tend to be the best of companions. It’s difficult when you’re much more comfortable in the background or by yourself to be thrown into a situation where there is no background, there is no individual, there is only one team, one mission, and one week.

That feeling of expectation and excitement when we boarded the ugly blue church bus for the airport continued despite a few wrong turns and more than a few backseat drivers. Hopefully there would be more cooperation and cohesion when we got to where we were going but it was unlikely. When we finally arrived at the airport the chaos continued as bags were lugged off the bus and distributed- two bags per person- to be checked in. As I handed out boarding passes and bags I failed to notice the bags that would be designated as “mine.” Irony wasn’t lost on me as the bag of legos and the bag I longingly wanted to throw at Christian sat at my feet. 

Two attempts to “gracefully” hoist these bags as well as my carry-on and backpack were comical at least I know someone thought so. Hearing laughter I turned and saw Christian laughing- not with me, at me. Luckily for him this Pastor of Outreach was out of reach of anything that I could throw at him. Amused, he told me to leave them and head inside with everyone else. That was fine by me. I don’t care who you are, no one was lugging their own stuff plus the now FOUR bags of donation supplies he was stuck with. 

 As I walked up to our team that had made their way into the line at the JetBlue ticket counter. As we shuffled our way through the line, we waited as group after group was checked into their various flights. But, the closer we got the more we all realized that Christian had yet to catch up with us.  I didn’t really want to think about what we were supposed to do if we lost the Pastor who was leading the trip before we even left the country. We thought about sending Brent to go look for him but before we could we heard someone laughing from the back of the group and turned in unison to find what was so funny. The ostentatious cowboy hat gliding around the corner as Christian with his backpack and guitar talked and walked along an airline worker who was wheeling a carefully stacked cart carrying all those bags. 

With a few weary glances I watched as the TSA agent called us forward and got us all checked in and our luggage handed off where it would be meeting us in Port au Prince.  I can only imagine what TSA thought when they scanned and probably searched our bags that would be filled with dozens of jars of peanut butter and jelly and hundreds of children’s superhero capes. They probably had seen worse…but it was still must have seemed like a strange assortment of luggage. An eerie calm settled over the group once we got through security and  as we found chairs to wait out the time until we could board our first flight to Ft. Lauderdale. 

While this might have brought peace over the rest of our team the hair on the back of my neck stood up and tension started building. Things were going well-too well- and none of the forty-three possible terrible scenarios that I had imagined were coming up. Which in my mind meant something worse was coming. The team, they were all laughing and going to look for snacks and coffee obviously unaware of the impending cloud of doom I was expecting to drop at any moment. 

No doom arrived at Reagan International and soon we were all settled into our securely fastened seats with our bags stored safely in the compartments above us. The flight was mercifully short for the poor souls that were seated around us. By this time our group was completely jazzed and as such we might have been a little louder and more excited than we needed to be on the flight. Once we landed at a whopping 10:30 PM at night we would be waiting out our time until our 6:45 AM flight the next day. What we didn’t expect though was that Ft. Lauderdale was not going to let us sleep in the airport terminal but would rather ask us to leave and come back through security the next morning at 4 in the morning. 

We gathered our gear and exited the terminal and found nothing out in the lobby of Terminal Three that would remotely look like it could be comfortable to “sleep” on for 5-6 hours. The cold tile floor seemed less and less inviting as we made our way over to a wall that at least had plugs so we could charge our phones. About fifteen minutes later Erin’s phone rang as Sandee and her husband Mark found another Terminal Lobby a few doors down that at least had carpet and a few couches. This would be our homebase until we needed to get up to make it for our flight. I curled up in a corner expecting a long and uneventful night as I pulled out the book I had brought with me. 

A few hours later I noticed a woman I didn’t know sitting with my teammates that were still awake. I didn’t catch her name but Jan and Sandee had met her in the bathroom and brought her back to where we were. She had been stranded after her flight got cancelled and the airline said that the next flight for where she was going wouldn’t be until Tuesday afternoon- while it was currently Saturday night. She was in tears as she explained she had no idea what she was going to do. She didn’t have money to spend on a hotel for those interim days. She didn’t have the money to even handle the few extra days stranded. 

There are a few moments when you can genuinely see someone’s true nature and I think how you treat someone knowing that you will get nothing in return is one of those moments. While my teammates sat with her and just let her talk, Gammy went and got her something to eat while Sandee and Jan found a bus that left the next morning that would take this woman home and bought the ticket without a second thought or without being asked. This was pure unadulterated grace, freely given without hesitation. It would be the first but certainly not the last time this week that my teammates would preach a sermon through the ways that they loved those around them. I hadn’t thought that the mission started but for these women they realized that service didn’t need to start when we hit foreign soil.

Stupid early the next morning we grabbed our stuff and found our way back to the gate. Rubbing sleep out of my eyes I went to find a bathroom to get changed into my church clothes for our first Haitian Sunday service. Looking in the mirror I tried to tame the perpetual bedhead that I had from sleeping on stained old carpet by pulling it back in a messy bun and thinking that this was as good as it was going to get went to go and find coffee as a low throbbing started creeping up in between my eyes from the lack of sleep. We all must have been feeling the lack of sleep because we more much more subdued as we all boarded the plane and sat for the short little flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Port au Prince. 

As we landed on the tarmac and filled off the plane and made our way over to customs I realized I had never been in an airport like this one before. It was hot and crowded and there were people yelling in other languages that I had no hope of understanding. We were herded into a line of other non Haitians to fill out paperwork and pay our $10 entry fee before we could get our passports stamped and be allowed into the country. Past customs was a small escalator that was out of order that would take us down to the baggage claim area. While I’ve traveled my fair share of places this airport made me nervous with all the yelling and crowds reaching out and grabbing whoever they could while pleading with them in a language they knew that we didn’t understand. 

Everywhere you turned someone wanted to hand you something or take something from you. The surrounding noise felt like it was pressing in on me from every side. I felt like my personal space and comfort level was quickly shrinking with every passing breath. As the team stepped up to the moving baggage carousel we dragged off the bags that we had deposited in the Reagan airport the night before. One by one the bags were dragged off and brought over to where the rest of our group congregated.

With the baggage carousel almost empty we went to count the bags. Twenty-six bags had been given to JetBlue when we left D.C. so it didn’t make any sense that after counting and recounting we would have twenty-seven bags loaded onto our luggage carts. After five minutes of Caillie figured out which of the bags was not actually ours but a very similar bag. Discreetly Brian placed the bag back on the belt hoping that it’s owner wasn’t already accosting a customs agent about their lost luggage.

If my anxiety was high at baggage claim then that was a walk in the part compared to what was waiting for us when we exited the airport. Pastor Daniel and Gil Bailey (our Schools for Haiti contacts) helped us navigate our way through the hoards of people that lined the guardrail outside the doors yelling. I kept my head down and tried not to make eye contact with the men and women leaning over the guardrail either yelling that they would give us a ride or because they were selling some version of souvenirs. One of the men grabbed my arm trying to shove bracelets in my hands saying that he’d sell them to me cheap. As I got separated from my team I looked up and saw that this man looked so sincere and so desperate and I wished I knew what I could do to help him. 

Before I could try to wrap my mind around it Brent came up behind me telling him thank you but no and guided me back to the group. Looking back I saw that there was no look of surprise on his face- as if he was often met with rejection and disappointment. As the next group of travelers exited the airport he turned and with the rest of the crowd faced the next group of potential assistance. 

I felt like I was experiencing an out of body experience that first walk through the streets of Haiti. The smell of the city air reeked of exhaust mixed with sweat. We were sent to come and help these people and I couldn’t even look them in the eye when we were leaving the airport. I knew things were bleak but with this level of desperation how could we even stem the flow of need? I felt like someone should have just turned me right around and sent me on the next plane home. 

As we got to the rusty white bus that would be our mode of transportation for the week I noticed a group of Haitian men standing on top of the bus waiting for the luggage to be tossed up to them for them to secure to the roof. Dago, the owner of the bus and a few other vehicles, was a very wealthy man as he had multiple vehicles to transport mission teams throughout their stays. He watched as those working for him secured each back with bungee cords. While this was going on some of the team started spraying themselves down with sunscreen as some of our more fair skinned teammates already started pinking up. 

I didn’t know what direction to look first- back at the mass crowd gathered around the exit of the airport, the police that roamed the streets with automatic rifles, or the people walking hand and hand through the streets. Some of them seemed to be dressed in their Sunday best either coming from or going to a service. Eventually we were herded into the bus so we could start our hour and a half journey to the village of Montrouis where we were going to be staying and working that week. The bus when we climbed in we realized it wasn’t our typical American style school bus, it had three normal rows on either side with an aisle in the middle. After those rows, the seats had been taken out and re-installed to line the sides of the bus so that you were facing the middle of the bus which gave us the necessary space for our carry-on luggage as well as for two large coolers that were filled with ice and bottles of water.

Once we were settled into our seats the bus was cramped as we stuffed bodies, and bags into this shrinking space. Sweat was already starting to pour down our faces as we put the windows down to coax in a breeze to find some relief from the 100+ degree weather. Dago pulled us out of the airport parking lot and I tried to get as comfortable as I could be as we were all squished together in our Sunday best. With one last glance out the back window of the bus at the massive hoard of people that wrapped around the airport vying for travelers to let them help I settled back in my seat and stared out in wonder at a world so much different from my own. It was here in this place that I would start the journey of learning both how to give grace to those around me but also how to accept grace in return. We were finally here.