DAY TRIP TO PORT

The imminent expiration of all four of our kids' passports in mid-April necessitated a trip to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Melissa and I debated three options to get the job done - bus, truck or plane. Although Port is only 85 miles from Cap Haitien as the crow flies, it is about 150 miles through mountainous terrain to drive it. Melissa nixed the bus idea early on - if you've ever seen how crazy the bus drivers are in Haiti, you'll understand why. To drive ourselves in a truck was going to involve a 6 to 8 hour (scary!) drive and call for a three to four day trip with extra expense for eating on the road and staying in Port for a couple of nights, not to mention mileage. In the end, we decided the whole family would be a lot happier if we spent a bit more and got the job done in a single day. 

Today was the chosen day since Melissa and I would only be missing a half day of school. Plus, we were stealing Mikenn from his duties with the 1st Grade to be our Port guide for the day. 

We rousted the kids out of bed at 4:45 a.m. to drive ourselves to the airport. We made it in plenty of time for our 6:50 flight - the airport wasn't even open when we arrived! 

This was Mikenn's first flight - and I think it left Ruysdael and Johnny a bit jealous!



Twenty-five minutes after boarding the plane, we were touching down in Port-au-Prince! Coach David's brother-in-law, Frednel, met us at the airport and gladly served as our driver for the day. What a blessing!

First stop was the U.S. Embassy, about 15 minutes from the airport where Melissa had pre-arranged a 9:00 appointment. The embassy is the big building behind Mikenn in this picture taken as Fredlen pulled the pickup in to park.



No pictures from this key part of the day - all cellphones and electronics had to be left outside with the security guard. Melissa had gathered the necessary passport photos and birth certificates and had worked a couple of hours making sure all the paperwork had been filled out properly ahead of time. (An embassy worker had given us the forms last fall during her visit to Cap Haitien.) Thus, Melissa was a bit perturbed when the lady at the window informed us that our forms were outdated - they were from 2010 and we needed the 2013 version. A minor hiccup, really, considering we were still able ultimately to walk out of the embassy in under two hours.

With our main business successfully completed and our return flight still five hours off, we asked Fredlen to take us to a grocery store. And did he ever deliver!



There's nothing even close to this in Cap. But our joy soon turned to frustration when we started calculating prices. Yikes! 

For instance, Sarah had her heart set on a quart container of strawberries. They looked good to Melissa and me, too, but not for $13!

We tracked little puddles of drool all through that store.

Melissa was happy to find some reasonably priced broccoli and sweet potatoes and some chips and a big bag of generic Captain Crunch cereal to bring home. But most of what we looked at went right back onto the shelf. 

Like this Blue Bunny ice cream ... about $11 for the quart size, $21 for the gallon! But I guess when you think about keeping something like that frozen all the way from Le Mars, Iowa, I can understand why the price goes up.

We did find some Blue Bunny ice cream sandwiches for under a fortune ...

So we all got to share in that PURE JOY under one of the trees in front of the store after we finished our (window) shopping. (Frednel is on the left.) 

As we had driven around looking for the grocery store, we had seen all kinds of various restaurants - including a place serving Chinese food - but when it came to deciding on lunch, the kids all wanted to track down the local ...

... Domino's Pizza. The price was pretty decent and the pepperoni was pretty good. (I was just happy that the McDonalds was too far away to justify a trip.)

With lunch finished, we didn't want to risk getting stuck in traffic and missing our flight. Plus, those of us in the bed of the pickup were getting a little weary of the sun, so we headed back to the airport after our lunch, even though it meant we'd be waiting almost two hours for our flight. It was kind of a shame, but the kids were obviously too tired to do any touristy things anyway. So we said goodbye to Frednel and took our seats.

Our flight was right on time.

It was sweet to walk straight out of the Cap Haitien airport without a scramble over luggage or a stop at customs. In fact, they were turning the lights out on us as we headed to our pickup. All told, we were pulling up in front of our house almost exactly 12 hours after we left it.

And that's how a chore I had been dreading since sometime last fall turned out to be actually quite enjoyable. 

(Wonder if the same will hold true when Melissa and I sit down to work on our taxes before next Friday's deadline?!)

We had asked many folks for prayer for the day because even simple tasks can get complicated here at times and each step of today's schedule held the possibility of failure and/or extra expense and/or bodily injury and, here we are at the end of the day, tired but thanking God for his protection, guidance and provision. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Now our kids will be allowed to return with us to Indiana in early June! ;-)