I unpacked my suitcases! This is the first time in two months I’ve really had a home, and it is a beautiful one. I’m living now at Grace Village in Titanyen, Haiti, where I will be primarily living for the next year. I even got a Haitian sim card for my phone so I feel just a tiny bit less like a foreigner.

Yesterday was the real beginning of my immersion study in Haitian Creole and culture. I rode out on the Kubota with Vania and Jonas to visit elders. Being out in the community without any other Americans was an incredible experience, one that I will get to have many times throughout my time here. Vania is a patient Creole tutor and also excited to work on her English skills with me. She is also looking to pursue a career in nursing, and she is practicing by taking regular blood pressure checks on our elders in the eldercare program. I am focusing on memorizing names and faces, there are a lot of them! But the elders I can greet by name respond with huge smiles, hugs and kisses.

I am getting to know my fellow missionaries who also live here. Caleb, Mackenzie, Olivia and Ellorie (and their puppy Annie) are the wonderful family who live in the house next door. My roommate is Samantha, and we share an apartment with Jake, Kenny and Dustin. We are not cramped for space, though! We have a private bathroom, large bedroom, amazing common areas and a deck with a jaw-dropping view. It has been fun to get to know new friends and reconnect with those I’ve known a while.

For those who have asked or wondered, I did experience my first earthquake on Saturday. I was still in Port-Au-Prince at the time. We felt the floor shifting under us as we ate dinner and went outside as a precaution. Everyone and everything here is fine, though!

You can pray for those in northern Haiti who were more closely affected by the earthquake. Also, pray for peace for the Haitian people. Many spent Saturday night outside, afraid to go back in their homes. There is a lot of trauma here for those who lived through the earthquake in 2010.

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10