I’ve got my Christmas purchases packed, and I’m getting ready to go home on Saturday for two weeks of Minnesota adventures! I am excited to see family and friends, drink Starbucks, take hot showers, and drive my car.

This whole last week has already felt like Christmas! Last weekend, we got to play tourist and do some shopping in Port Au Prince, complete with a visit to a local vendors fair with iced coffee drinks and lemonade.

I’ve spent hours this week in the clinic waiting area with elders both from Titanyen and from Cite Soleil. One huge highlight for me was when our two lead eldercare workers (one from Cite Soleil and one from Titanyen) were able to meet each other. Their servant hearts are without limit!

I’ve already gotten so many Christmas gifts in the form of experiences and relationships! Work here is messy, but I’m constantly surprised and blessed by my friends and coworkers as they step up to help me.

I’ll be taking a blog break as I celebrate the holidays in Minnesota. I am both happy to be going and happy that I get to come back in January. Blessings to you and your families this Christmas!

The past few days have been absolutely packed! This past Saturday was our Elder Christmas Party, planned and hosted by Marni and her wonderful team. 30 of our 35 elders from Titanyen were in attendance, 1 was out of town, and 4 were bed-bound but were visited individually.

Thanks to generous donations, each elder was served a delicious hot meal, either chicken or goat, served by Fleri Resto. We had live music and a time of fellowship and of course Christmas presents! Some of the favorites were the tarps, sunglasses and monkey bread!

Sunday was church, a baking party hosted by the Bjorkland family, and an EKS meeting, where we celebrated a wedding coming up this week. Monday, I met the EKS group to do a service project of weeding and cleaning the yard around the church.

But, of all those wonderful things, today was my favorite. Today I got a glimpse into what will be Hope Clinic. Since Healing Haiti expanded their elder care program into Cite Soleil, we have focused on food distribution, but we have now officially expanded our sponsorships to include medical care.

The clinic in Cite Soleil isn’t ready yet, but a doctor has been hired and has been training in at our clinic here in Titanyen. Today I got to accompany Dr Longor to Hope Church in Cite Soleil, where he performed individual exams on 10 of our 12 Cite Soleil elders in the pastors’ office.

The excitement was palpable, and even the pastors and a couple of other staff had their blood pressure checked just because they could. There was something beautiful in witnessing the sweet elderly saints learning how to take deep breaths for the doctor. It may be the first time in years, if ever, that these individuals have received medical care. The doctor had to help a couple of the ladies by giving them a piece of paper to blow on. If they could move the paper with their breath, they were doing it right.

We discovered many things: cases of hypertension, infections that need treatment and cataracts. But, for the first time, we can move beyond identifying the problems and start treating our elders to improve their quality of life. Tomorrow, we will get some prescriptions filled!

One of my favorite things in the world is singing in worship with other believers. I have had a lot of opportunities to do this over the past several days. I usually sing in English, but I’m learning a few Creole songs as well. Yesterday, I sang “Reckless Love” in English, while one of my co-missionaries Alicia, sang it in French.

A couple days ago, a team and I were visiting one of our new elders and singing (in Creole) with her and her family and neighbors. As we were cleaning up from our visit and saying our goodbyes, I heard some tiny voices singing in the background. The worship song was continuing as neighbor girls sang out the lyrics we had been singing earlier. It was a beautiful thing to be a part of, seeing the impact that a few moments of worship had brought into that neighborhood.

I have been experiencing a lot of moments like that over the past few weeks, not things easily checked off a to-do list, but beautiful moments of uniting with my brothers and sisters in Christ. There are many things that divide us: language, culture, age, education, experiences and opportunities. But, as we worship together, we are exactly the same.