safe & sound

hey everyone!

i made it safe and sound to the little village of torbeck on the south coast of haiti. i want to reiterate how thankful i am for the love and support you've all given me leading up to this trip. it was literally palpable today.

margaret anne graciously woke up at 4:45am this morning to drive me to dulles where i waited in a really long line to check my bags and get settled, making me just on time for my 7:45am flight!

as most of you know, my main concern was getting through customs with a cartel of children's medicine and enough medical equipment to start a small hospital. so, i prayed a short - but deep - prayer as i calmly claimed "no pharmaceuticals" on my immigration form as instructed by the orphanage and walked through the gate.

i wasn't so much as questioned and proceeded to find the driver sent by the orphanage outside the airport. where i come from, we call that God's grace.

he drove me to the second airport where my last flight was delayed. finally at 5pm haitian time, i got on the smallest plane i'd ever seen and buzzed over mountains of haitian landscape with 9 other passengers to les cayes where molly - the current medical volunteer - met me.

we had supper waiting for us here at the orphanage and the accomodations are incredibly generous. the cold shower felt wonderful and now i'm hanging out in the little volunteer compound called, 'the quad.'

also, there are 2 boys here for an eagle scout project and they are from stephen's city - a small town near front royal where i grew up. another man is here who lives and runs his non-profit "REACH" out of winchester, virginia. funny how small our world is.

tomorrow, molly is going to show me around the orphanage which is apparently over 100 acres of land, schools, housing, crops, etc. we'll be working in the clinic most days  but will probably explore the nearby village and beach some this weekend. i'm so grateful for her 'orientation' this next week!

i'll write more when i can and i hope everyone is well!

love,
jenny

ps - i got to hold a kitten that fit into the palm of my hand tonight. apparently, there is a cat who keeps having kittens in the quad :-)

This is the view of the clinic from the Guest House roof

home

after 18 hours of travel, inclusive of motorcycle, bus, taxi, and airplane i arrived safe and sound into dc late last night. my two triple girls, alison and mags met me with a wendy's chicken sandwich at 12am at reagan. both of them had to work eeeearly the next day. if that's not love, i don't know what is.

i really want to thank everyone for the love and prayers. i felt it in haiti and i'm fully convinced that it was your love and prayers that kept me safe and strong even now as i write this post from virginia.

i feel so blessed to have been able to bring that same love and prayer to haiti. to the little tifi with recently painted pink fingernails. it was awesome to be a conduit of something so powerful.

i hope you've enjoyed reading as much as i've enjoyed writing :-) i'll leave with my favorite prayer. it's something i spent a lot of time thinking about in haiti and i think it's incredibly relevant to the work i did and the work that still needs to be done there.

the serenity prayer:

God,

please grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change,
the courage to change the things i can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.