I Received a Phone Call ...

After coming back from my trip to Haiti, I knew that I wanted to do more.  With nursing school hopefully coming up this Fall, I knew that this summer would be my best opportunity to be able to stay in Haiti more long term.  So i went to the web.  I searched for organizations that do work in Haiti and didn't really find many that take longer than 1 week trips.

I have been following Shannon Kelley's Blog (a Knoxville photographer) that moved to Haiti at the beginning of January for a year commitment.  I decided to contact the organization what she is working with, World Wide Village.  On Christmas Eve I visited their website and sent them this email ...

Hello! My name is Samantha Gross. I am a 23 year old student studying nursing. I went on my first mission trip to Haiti in May 2010 and completely feel in love. I feel in love with a country. I feel in love with the people. With the culture. Just everything about it. 

I always knew that I wanted to help people, hence the reason I decided on nursing. And I knew I wanted to do mission work, but honestly never thought much about third world missions, nor did I ever think about it being my career. After coming back home May 2010 and reflecting on my trip to Haiti, I realized exactly that ... God was calling me to be a nurse, and do missions, all in Haiti. Wow! Talk about alot to take in and digest.
So, I accepted that calling, but knew it would be several years away since I wasn't even in nursing school yet. In the mean time, I got an opportunity to go to Haiti again. I was able to go December 9-13, 2011 and work in the same orphanage as I worked in before. Being able to see the same precious kids' faces again and to spend another week with them ... priceless! We took Christmas to 74 orphans who have never had a Christmas before. They had never seen Santa Claus. And they never had individual presents bought specifically for them, their age, and their interests. Such a humbling experience seeing a child's face light up over a pair of pants, or a shirt, or a McDonald's Happy Meal size My Little Pony. It made it alot harder coming home this time. I want to spend every day with these kids. I want to get mud all over my shorts from picking them up and their shoes being dirty. I want to see their sweet smiling faces every time I take a picture of them and they get to look at it. I want to sit on the ground and have 4 or 5 children climb all over me like I'm a jungle gym. I want to live in Haiti!
I have only had a short time to meditate and re-think about this past trip, but God made is even clearer that His calling on my life is to be a medical missionary in Haiti. I'm to the point where that isn't as intimidating anymore. It's exciting and a little nerve wrecking at the same time. I know that God is not calling me to live in Haiti permanently just yet (I still have a couple years of school), but I do know that I want to spend as much time there as I can until the day arrives that I can say that I no longer live in the United States of America and that I live in Haiti!!
So, I write to you to tell you a little bit about myself and my story to ask you to send me any information you can about maybe interning during the Summer 2012. Since I do have school during the main semesters of the year, the summer is my biggest opportunity to serve for longer than a week.
Thank you in advance for everything! And I look forward to hearing from you!

It took just a couple days, and the President of the company sent me an email in response.  We emailed back and forth a couple of times and then today I received a phone call.  The person in charge of all the internships with World Wide Village, Sara, called me and we had a phone interview.  She wanted to ask me some questions about me and about what I was interested in doing in Haiti.  She also told me about the projects that World Wide Village is involved with in Haiti.

I left the phone call very excited.  She's going to email me an application and we'll see what's to come ...

SMG

A Life Changing Trip

In May 2010 I got the opportunity to go on a trip to Haiti.  A place I knew nothing about.  A place I couldn't even find on a map at first.  A place that honestly I don't remember hearing about until January 2010 when a major earthquake struck Haiti destroying parts of this country.

So, I did the fundraising and I asked family and friends for financial support and after a while I finally raised all the money.  I got my passport.  I went and got several shots.  I packed (waay too much stuff might I add) my suitcase.  And headed for the airport around 5:00am on May 28, 2010.

After 2 flights and a short layover, we landed in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  The airport looked more like a warehouse.  It was very hot and crowded.  There were about 33 of us on my team.  We each had our checked bag, plus one full of supplies.  So that's 66 bags that we had to gather up.  You'd think the hard part would be over after finding all 66 bags, right?  Not quite!  Once we got the bags and headed towards our vans, there were dozens of Haitians waiting to take our bags, just trying to make a couple dollars.  We were told not to let go of our bags and just to keep walking.  We managed and finally made it to our vans.  We got all of our luggage loaded up in one van, and we all piled in another.  And we were off!

Our Luggage

To get to our hotel, it's about a 2 hour drive, depending on traffic.  Haiti traffic is nothing like I have ever experienced before.  There are no stop signs, no traffic lights, no speed limits, no right/wrong lanes, basically no rules.  They honk their horn to warn people that they are coming through.  So when you hear a horn, you either get out of the way, or get hit.  Very terrifying at first!  After a very long, bumpy, and loud drive, we pulled into an unknown place.  After the gates opened I saw 74 kids jumping up and down at our arrival.  We were at the orphanage!

Arriving at the Orphanage

On the very first night that we meet those 74 kids, I had two precious little girls come up to me, Berlanda and Alnase.  I didn't expect to get attached to those girls as much as I did.  I got to love on and spend time with and laugh with many kids that week, but Berlanda and Alnase will always hold a special place in my heart.

Alnase, Me, and Berlanda

I knew this trip to Haiti was going to be life-changing.  I knew I was going to experience feelings and see things that I never would in the States, but I didn't know how impacting this country and these kids were going to have on my life.  I feel in love with a country.  I feel in love with a culture.  I feel in love with the Haitians.  I knew after this trip that I wanted to spend more time in Haiti, but I didn't exactly know to what capacity.

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I just got back from my second trip to Haiti (December 2011).  We went back to the same orphanage and I was reunited with Alnase and Berlanda again.  I kept thinking, "what if they don't remember me?"  "What if they get attached to someone else?"  But when I got off the bus Alnase immediately recognized me, yelled out "Se-man-tha", and called Berlanda over to me.  And once again these two precious kids stayed by my side the whole week.

Our goal this trip was to of course spend time with the kids, but we brought Christmas to them as well.  Their first Christmas where they saw a Christmas tree, met Santa Claus, had a stocking with their name on it, and presents bought just for them!  

We brought a Christmas tree and made ornaments with the kids.

Each child was able to have his/her picture made with Santa Claus (some of course showed some fear of this crazy looking fella).

We passed out stockings for each child and when they opened them their faces lit up.  They got excited over a new pack of underwear.  They got excited over a brand new outfit.  They got excited over a McDonald's Happy Meal size My Little Pony.  They were just generally happy.

Leaving the kids was hard the first time that I went to Haiti, but this second time was worse.  I developed an even bigger connection to these kids and I just want to spend as much time with them as possible.

I knew after my first trip in May 2010 that I wanted to spend more time in Haiti, but didn't know what I wanted to do necessarily.  But after this trip in December 2011, I knew that I wanted to look into living in Haiti on a more permanent basis after I became a Registered Nurse.

Haiti has forever changed my life.  The people I've met and the things that I've seen has made such a huge impact and I can't wait to be able to give back to the Haitians even more.

Until Next Time ...

SMG