How we got to Haiti the long way around

“Where are you from?  Where did you use to live?  What drew you to Haiti?” are frequent questions we get, but we lack simple ‘conversation-friendly’ answers because we are a cross-cultural couple and lived out of suitcases for more than a year.  It seems the answers are getting more and more interesting the longer we are together.

Where are you from?

Nate: “Well, I am originally from Massachusetts”
Cecilia: “And I am from Ecuador, but we used to live in Ithaca, NY until about a year ago”
Nate: “Then we travelled to many places for a full year”
Cecilia: “We did not intend that, it just happened that way”

On a mountain with Port Au Prince in the background

Interesting… So how did you end up in Haiti?



It’s hard to point out a specific instance that drew us to Haiti.  Was it when we read Taking the High Places, a book about the amazing story of a missionary to Saint Marc?  Was it when we applied for a job to work as a couple in Haiti?  Was it the desire to come and help after the devastation of the earthquake?  Was it our visit to Haiti last October?  It was not one, but all of these that drew us to Haiti...  And we took the long way around.

We thought we’d be in Sierra Leone for all of 2011.  We had signed up to work in West Africa for two years with another organization, but throughout our first months with them, strange things happened that made us both, the organization and us, come to realize we were not a good fit for each other.  Then all of a sudden we found ourselves with no house, no car, no job, and no plans.  We had quit our jobs and raised funds to do volunteer work for at least a year and now we had to start from zero after an almost two-year process of praying and seeking a place to serve overseas.  Fortunately, we have loving families and friends, who encouraged us not to give up, took us into their homes and gave us time to figure out where to go from there.

We put ourselves ‘out of commission’ for a couple of months in Ecuador and escaped the harsh winter of the Northeast of the United States.  We were able to pray and think clearly about our calling and purpose, skills and desires.  Slowly but surely we were able to discern our next step and signed up to volunteer with World Relief Haiti. 

So here we are.  We are happy to be here and happy to meet new friends.  We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our first weeks in Haiti.  Time seems to go fast as things get done really slowly, though our language learning has been amazingly quick.  We love getting big smiles from people when they see us trying to communicate in Creole.  We’d love to share with you what we see and experience here daily.
What do our eyes see in Haiti?  It’s not easy to put into words.  But, si Bondye vle (God willing), we’d get to share the answer with you soon.

“Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.”  - Proverbs 19:21