Feast Day Report:

A Team of 8 went to La Gonave for our Annual Feast Day Celebration departing June 23. The trip started off with our 6:00am flight to Miami being postponed until 8:30am causing us to miss our connection over to Port Au Prince. We were booked for a later flight with an arrival time of 1:45pm causing us to miss the charter boat to La Gonave. We managed to find rooms at Wahoo Bay for the night which spoiled our 4 first time team members by starting our trip off with nice swim/good evening meal/ a Prestige or two/ air conditioned nights sleep and full breakfast. The charter boat showed up at 9:00am and we had a  smooth crossing. Once settled in we went for visit to Wesleyan Hospital to show the team their campus and had a guided tour of the hospital with the staff.

Arthur took us for an afternoon swim at Prestige beach. After a good evening meal and we piled in for a nights rest. Saturday we made  a journey to Gros Mangles (tossing tennis balls along the trail to children) to show Deacon Judy her sister church and greet the community. Pere Soner indicated that this was the sight of the cholera outbreak on La Gonave. We had some good Frisbee time with the children and discussions with lay reader. On our long trip back the sky showed some promise of rain clouds which brought  rain after our evening meal knocking back the dust from our travel. We delivered a new guitar to Oreel and other musical instruments to the music program at St. Francis.  Flute, Clarinet, Harmonicas, shakers, guitar, etc. Flamingos were on location wadding in the oasis of coconut palms making for good photo opportunities. Another good evening meal and rest in preparation for journey up the mountain passing out more tennis balls along the trail to Plane Mappoo for our Feast Day Celebration. Warm (no pun intended) welcome from parishioners with lots of singing, preaching, greetings, and presentation of a guitar to there music program. We took along a generator, therefore had electric guitars/ drums/ keyboards/ for accompanist. Deacon Judy participated in the  Eucharist. After a two and three quarter hour service we joined the people for a feast day meal on campus in one of the school classrooms. After lunch  we had inter church soccer match between Anse-a-Galets (St.Francis d Assisi) and St.Jean Baptist’ with our team member Don Wilbur officiating and Frasier (team member) playing for St. Francis. Don, as usual, brought full uniforms for both teams and some how managed to end the game all tied up. Hmmmmm!  We then headed back down the mountain stopping by the Bill Rice Clinic for orientation with new team members and arrived back at St. Fransis around 6:30pm after a full day.

After a good nights rest we got an early start to catch the ferry back to the mainland and begin our journey home.

The Lord Blessed us with a good trip with an emphasis on a mission of presence. Old friendships were renewed and new ones made. Tennis balls are a big hit which we make a habit of bringing every year. Thank you for your prayers as we witnessed the joy of the Lord all around.

Gerry McCord

Haitian Island Ministries

http://www.haitian-island-ministries.org/

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.

Menu