Mission Trip: Day 8

Saturday

We originally thought we would get to stay through lunch at least on Saturday, but Hands and Feet had another group coming in at noon, so we needed to leave earlier. We cleaned up our rooms and made up the beds for the next group. We had eggs for breakfast as a group then had a little time to visit and play. We said our goodbyes and got lots of hugs before we piled into the van. A Haitian mad drove us to the airport and he drove like a true Haitian! We did get to see some interesting things on the way there, like markets in different towns, but we also saw some sad sights.

 There were tarp villages and piles of trash all around in some areas.

 Once we got to the airport our van was surrounded by people trying to sell things. Several of us bought beautiful paintings from one man there. Once we got checked in and through security (which just consisted of scanning our bags and using the wands on us)it was around 1:00. Our flight didn’t leave until 5:45, so we ate airport food (hot dogs, sandwiches, coke, coffee, cookies) and read our books and chatted.

 Our flight to Miami was really turbulent because of storms and the pilot told us that we may have to land elsewhere. We circled Miami for 30 minutes and we were finally allowed to land. We hurried to get through immigration and customs and we thankfully got through with no problems. We got to our gate in time to grab some food, which we thought we would have to eat on the plane, and then our flight started getting delayed. We sat in the floor of the airport and ate our dinner and talked to family on the phone.

 

We were all exhausted and everything became funny. We got worried that we would have to sleep in the airport, but they finally let us board!  Most of us slept the entire flight. We flew through some lightening which cool to see, but also scary! We landed and got our baggage and arrived at the hotel with no problems. We were so thankful for warm showers and air conditioning! We slept hard and got up early Sunday to leave. We had a quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast Sunday morning and got back to Natchitoches right before church got out. The trip was amazing and I can’t wait to travel for other mission trips in the future!