Too Close for Comfort

Don't let these smiling, happy faces fool you! While we were both smiling and happy, it was one of relief rather than excitement! We planned for Cholera. We planned for Malaria. We planned for Typhoid. We planned for Hepatitis A and B. We planned for stomach issues, what clothes to pack, making sure we had plenty of germX. But there are just some things you cannot plan for!

It just wouldn't be fitting to talk about Haiti and all the wonderful things we've witnessed without giving a shout out to our near death experience....or maybe I should say "surviving" our near death experience.We traveled by school bus everywhere.

On Sunday, we went up a very muddy, rocky road to get to the church on the mountain. I was actually taking a picture, blurry as it may be, of all of the trash that was just piled and piled over this cliff. I had no idea that within minutes it could have been the site our potential death! Ok, that may be a little exaggerated, but it was too close for comfort! As the bus went around this curve/cliff, it was not able to make it up the hill. We went up and down it a few times, before David yelled for us all to get to the back of the bus to give more traction to the back wheels. It wasn't long after that the bus driver yells for us to get to the left side of the bus. The tires were spinning and sinking in the mud, causing it to push the back end of the bus out towards the cliff. I wish I had taken a better picture later on just to show the straight down drop off. The entire time this was going on I kept thinking..."I'm going to just open the back door and jump off of this thing." So the joke has sort of become that Laura had this escape plan brewing the entire time, but failed to let anyone else in on it!

We did finally make it, thankfully, and had a wonderful church service. When we got to the top, however, and the bus driver himself told us that he had been scared too.....well, that was enough of a reason for me to simply walk back down the mountain! So we did!