Dear Everybody:

Quite a lot has changed since my last letter. First off, I am no longer in Haiti I'm back in Jamaica for a while. I realized that I was not doing the work which I believed to be valuable. After finding out that I could not teach in the school, I thought about my other ministry options and I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to be involved in within the context of YWAM Haiti. 

Having made my decision, I made new plans. I flew to Jamaica on Tuesday. While I'm here, I'm going to pray and think about what I will do next and also patch up some roofs (read further below). Ill be here until the 3rd of October when I (tentatively) fly to Cuba for 3 weeks to work, visit and possibly smoke a few cigars with Pastor Daniel Perez. I went there with my DTS (Discipleship Training School) outreach group in January and the experience was truly excellent. At that time, Pastor Perez asked me when I was coming back and I said sometime. I am glad that sometime is coming up soon. After returning to Jamaica, I will spend a little more time here before flying back to Washington November 14 (tentatively). 

I am specifically praying about whether to go back to Haiti and if so, where specifically to do what work. It seems a shame to have learned so much Creole and learned so much about Haiti to be leaving permanently. Besides that, there are many things I like about Haiti. There is real need there too. And my motorcycle is still there.

Last weekend I took a trip on my motorcycle with my friend Pierre up to Cap Haitien to visit his family and see the citadelle. The morning we left I discovered both tires were flat. The front only had a slow leak so I filled it with air and then rode to the place on the side of the road where they fix flats. While the front wheel was off, they were kind enough to hammer on my front rim to try to straighten out the two places I have bent it. To get to Cap Haitien one must go through Gonaives and the road is horrendous. Fortunately, my bike is excellent and it eats up rocks, bumps and holes pretty well. My butt is still sore from the experience though. From Gonaives, the road goes over the northern mountain range before descending into Cap Haitien. This road is still full of holes, but it is very beautiful in the Haitian mountains and the heat is less intense.

Our first stop was the citadelle. When Haiti first gained freedom from its white slave masters, a ruler came along named Henri Christophe who instituted forced labor to build fortresses all over Haiti. The largest and most spectacular is the citadelle, which remains Haiti's most amazing monument. It is way up in the mountains, and it is HUGE. There are hundreds of cannons still there. It was Saturday midday, and we were the only ones to come that day to see the citadelle. Haiti doesn't have many (any) tourists. There were, however, at least a half a dozen wannabee tour guides, some with horses at the ready. 

There were some men behind a counter who told us the price to see the citadelle was $100 Haitian. That's complete nonsense: the price is $5 Haitian (about $1 U.S.) and we said so. The response was that it was $5 U.S.. Thats nonsense too, but Pierre was talking very fast in Creole and I didn't know what was going on. Apparently he paid $5 Haitien for himself and $5 U.S. for me. I left the counter pretty angry. Well, we took the motorcycle most of the way up the mountain before having to walk. At that point, there were a bunch of guides standing around and some with horses. After a bunch of loud discussion in Creole we started up the mountain. Two people on foot and two guys on horses were following us. I explained several times in Creole that I didn't want them following us before Pierre explained that one of them had the key to the Citadelle. I then asked the guy with the key to ask everyone else to leave, and that worked. Of course, later on the guy with the key asked for money and then complained that I gave him far too little which was also nonsense. That is why Haiti doesn't have many tourists. 

On the way down the mountain from the Citadelle the rear brake on my motorcycle overheated and went out so I had to go very slow and use the front brake only. We spent the night at Pierres Grandads house. The house has no road, just a path that I followed on the motorcycle. There's no electricity either, and like most of Haiti, no plumbing. They were very nice people and insisted that I sleep on a bed inside. In the morning we drank coffee that they had picked outside and dried and roasted at the house. I bathed in the stream, and it was really very beautiful and peaceful. 

I took Pierre's two twenty-something aunts to church on the back of my motorcycle. In church the pastor told a story about Gods faithfulness. He told about a girl who refused to marry a particular man because he wasn't a Christian. Despairing of ever finding a husband, one day a missionary came visiting and fell in love with her and married her and took her back to America. I don't like that story very much. It made me feel self-conscious. 

On the way back to Saint Marc, the rear brake went out on my motorcycle again as I descended the mountain into Gonaives at a pace that was a little too fast. After leaving Gonaives and starting the unpaved, rocky portion, my front tire blew out. It was very scary and it is by the grace of God that I kept the bike up. That part of the Artibonite valley is essentially desert. However, there was a family there in a mud hut and I have no idea how they fed themselves. Somehow they helped us to find a guy to come fix the tire on a Sunday in the middle of nowhere. Rocks had made several gashes in the tube, and each one had to be sewn up before it could be patched. As usual, a group of people gathered to watch the white guy having his tire fixed. I paid the guy pretty reasonably considering all the work he put into fixing the tube. Of course, he said that it wasn't at all enough money and was very upset and talked rapidly in Creole but the crowd that gathered around said he should take the money because it was plenty. In Haiti the crowd decides a lot of things that way. We finally made it back after dark with very sore butts. 

On Tuesday I flew out, and I didn't have the $30 U.S. necessary to pay the airport tax. They don't take a credit card at the airport, just like in the rest of Haiti, and the airline wouldn't help me. I eventually begged from a couple New Zealanders and promised to send the money in the mail. I paid the tax and went to leave. The Haitians at the tax desk said I needed to give them $2 Haitian more (about 40 cents). I just scowled at them and went through the checkpoint to the gate. I found out later that it was actually a legitimate charge, but I didn't feel very bad about skipping it. 

Upon arrival in Jamaica I stayed the night in Montego Bay before catching a minibus into Mandeville the next day. It turns out that a tropical storm came upon Jamaica the same time I did, and I soon realized that half of Jamaica was under water. There were dozens of trees on the road, and water was running in rivers. At one point, there was a huge tree that blocked the entire road and I didn't know what we would do. Before I even thought about it though, a tractor had pushed the tree off the road! We continued on our way. Finally, we came to some water that our driver didn't want to cross. I needed to get to Savanna del Mar in order to get on a bus for Mandeville, and it wasn't going to happen. Well, the one bus that was brave enough to come through the water from the other side was coming from Savanna Del Mar on its way to Mandeville! Our driver called to it and I moved my stuff over. Everybody had great fun in the storm. Jamaicans were smiling, picking the fruit off the fallen trees and generally having a good time. Even those with houses under water didn't seem too upset. 

Here at the Mandeville YWAM base, all the buildings have bad roofs. Its up in the mountains, and its extremely humid to begin with but now all the buildings have puddles inside too. That's why Ill be doing some roof patching soon. This year has been a record year for rain in Jamaica. 

You can still pray for me, even though I'm not in Haiti any more. Please pray that God would direct my path, whether it be somewhere in Haiti, or wherever. Also pray that I don't relapse into Malaria ever again, because it really stinks. Also pray that I am able to help out folks here in Jamaica while I am here and also in Cuba. Pastor Perez told me to come and preach. Its something I would like to do, but I don't think I can without some help from above. 

Write and say hi. I have a 56k connection here so you can even send pictures!

God bless all you good people. 

-Chris