December 26-29 Tent City.

Poorest Slum in the Western Hemisphere. Port au Prince Haiti.
Came in from a 2 hour long truck ride, under us is the side of a cut up semi truck placed over the top of another truck, along with a drum set and other items. Tired and sunburnt we unload our things and walk to an old Unicef tent thats been converted to a church. Intense would be an understatement. Surrounded by children, clothed or otherwise, begging to have our attention we try to sit and have a conversation. Still sick from the previous weeks, and completely culture shocked, it was a surprise to find out where we were sleeping; 13 people in an 8-10 man tent. On top of the lack of personal space and boundaries, the children kept fighting and terrorizing each other, never taking there eyes off us. On the last day, we picked up garbage or in other words, kept kids from fighting over garbage bags and gloves. All of these things, I had to admit were too much for me. The next morning we were scheduled to leave at 2:00pm, Haitian time that means.. give or take a day. Early in the afternoon, our Pastors wife started to have some labour pains, so we decided to have her walk around, and take her to the hospital a bit later, making the extra night in the city a blessing. 5 or 6 rolls around and we start to make some sleeping arrangements, one of the married couples decided to make a bed outside the tent, and set up a board and mosquito net. All of this underneath another Unicef tent by our tent. Gradually we set up more lights and tarps. Not even five minutes later Pastors wife is wobbling over with girls holding her up, towards the tent. Basically she was in labour and needed a place to lie down before it was time to go to the hospital. Now it was 7, and in haiti you make appointments to have a baby, and her appointment was at 9, so we had some time to kill. We propped her up with sleeping bags and backpacks, as her contractions got closer and closer. After about 30 minutes most of the girls were inside the make-shift maternity ward, sanitizing and finding cloth and sheets. We thought, its better to be safe then sorry, and although it wasn't ideal, we got prepared. When her contractions became 30 seconds long, and a minute apart we decided to get a second opinion. Collectively we had roughly an hour of first aid knowledge, plus two haitian ladies who don't understand english. We called anyone we would think of who might know if we are birthing a baby, or going to the hospital, but we just figured we would wait it out. It was around 7:55 and God had some unexpected plans. As the guys sat in the tent beside, drinking coffee and laughing that we were overreacting... we realized that the baby was crowning! Without much time to consider our next move we called the Pastor, and with a whole lot of silent prayers one of our girls delivered a beautiful little baby at 8:05. We thank God everything went smoothly as we gathered around. We tied the umbilical cord with dental floss and cut it will craft scissors. Things I never thought I would see, happened right in front of my eyes, inches away from me. I can definitely say that it truly is the miracle of birth.

We were all in shock that night as we cleaned up the new mom and baby girl, Sherlyssa. Three of us being 18 never imagined seeing such things so up close and personal. Needless to say, God had every detail planned out before hand. From staying another night, to fixing a bed outside and setting up lights. It was a divine intervention.

Week two in Haiti was an insane adventure, and we are only getting started.