Gehenna To Oasis In 48 Hours

Oasis: Each day, at pit time, where we process the day's events and impacts, we pick one word for the day. My first-runner-up for word of the day on Tuesday was Gehenna. Gehenna, aka the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem which purportedly was a burning rubbish heap (less Biblical evidence) and where kids were sacrificed to Molech (Biblical evidence in Jeremiah 7). Kids are certainly as good as sacrificed in City Soleil and it is a rubbish heap (but without fire). Today my word is oasis. It was the first thing that popped into my head when we drove through the gates of Grace Village. It is the most beautiful thing shy of God's creation around me, since I got here. It is quite an extraordinary thing to go from Gehenna to oasis in 48 hours!!! Call it a study in contrasts :) I supposed this study in contrasts IN Haiti, is just the beginning. The study of contrasts once I'm stateside BETWEEN home and Haiti will be another. But I'm getting ahead of myself. That'll have to be another blog entry next week. One other thing: much of the design and all of the colors, etc., were designed by Jeff's wife Alyn (deceased). Alyn's sister Mikel is part of our group and this is her first trip. Mikell said she could see Alyn's flourishes from the first sight of the gate--it reminded Mikell of something in Alyn's home. At present I can't think of any oasis I've created that will outlive me. I know, I know, this brings up that gnawing subject of meaning-of-life and purpose-for-living type stuff that everyone is so good at not discussing. Just thought I'd mention it while I was in the vicinity. I know I'll be wrestling with that one big time shortly. Like at my first meeting Tuesday back at the office! What follows is largely a stream of consciousness recount of the day. Apologies in advance for no linguistic flourishes or defined conclusion ... Today we were privileged to be at Grace Village when Team Tilapia (Jeff--The Overseer, Ken--The Chemist, Jason--The Craftsman, Kathy--The Gardener, Thomas--The Electrician, and Josh--The Biologist, Unnamed--The Faithful Supporters that heard the call to support this with their time talent and treasure, and God Almighty--The Alpha and Omega) put 600 tilapia fish into two of the four tanks they will use as a fish farm, field fertilizer, and aquaponic garden. After praying over the newly activated system, the first batches of fish were set afloat in two tanks for an hour or so, to allow for gradual temperature change, and then they were unbagged and let loose. Last count I heard was 5-6 out of the 600 were floaters at day's end. After that, we went out and visited a small number of the elderly in and around Titanyen (the town in which Grace Village is situated). In many ways they were better off that I expected. Those that have been before commented on how much better several of them looked than last year. Grace Village provides meals to a number of them on a regular basis now and it shows. Grace Village isn't done growing. A clinic, church, and elder village are all in the works. And to think Grace Village wasn't even open when my wife visited last year this time! Then we visited a mass grave where many of the estimated 300,000 that died in the earthquake are buried. That's about 4x the US losses in Vietnam, but in a single day. Think about that for a minute or two. It was a very simple marker--you could drive by the place without knowing this hill was different from any other. Most of the rubble is gone, as best I can tell. Certainly Haiti today looks nothing like the pictures I'd seen in the year following the quake. Far more buildings in the process of going up than down. I've left out how our day began: in worship at a Haitian church near by. It was a very early start to the day (4:45 CDT) today. Church isn't a one-day-a-week operation here, to put it mildly. I was able to sing along (in English) to "Ancient Words" and "How Great Is Our God." Some backchannel on some Team Tilapia names above: I talked to Kathy earlier in the week and discovered she'd had a scaled down replica in her garage in MN, tilapia, aquaponics, fish waste vortex and all, where they could prototype their chemistry and biology. I bumped into Josh while walking through MIA before my flight left--turns out his employer was sponsoring his trip this time (his second). In addition, Jason and Erica are in the process of adopting a child who's mom died in childbirth--they know the family from a trade school they're supporting. It is the family's ninth child, and the father asked them to take the baby. I also met a woman who came for a week and decided to stay for a year. It is an intersting mix of God's long term leading (tilapia and aquaponics, years of donations) and very short term leading (adoption and 1 week trip becomes 52). Posted by Martin on behalf of Michael Coyle