Trip to Cap-Haïtien

This past week was full of adventure as I had the opportunity to travel to northern Haiti.  

On Tuesday morning, Kelsey and I were flown up to Cap-Haïtien.

The flight was great chance to see more of Haiti as we flew over the beautiful mountains!

Upon arrival in Cap-Haïtien, we met with Père Noe and visited his parish, Saint Esprit.  The parish has a school that serves close to eight hundred children in the community.

The purpose of our meeting was to help lay the groundwork for creating the satellite music schools in the area.  We had a great meeting in the sanctuary discussing curriculum ideas and brainstorming what resources we had at hand.

After a fruitful meeting, Père Noe gave us a quick driving tour around Cap-Haïtien.  The area is really beautiful with it’s French influence, green mountains, and blue ocean shores.

In the afternoon we were warmly welcomed to Bishop Ogé Beauvoir’s house for lunch.  He and his wife, Serette were extremely generous to open their home to us for our stay in Cap-Haïtien.  

After a nice little siesta (I’m not sure what the Creole word is for this...put that on the list of things to learn), we paid a visit to one of the hospitals to spend time with one of the patients.  It was a nice evening spending time with the Bishop as he tended to his duties and seeing more of Cap-Haïtien.

The next morning began with an early meeting with Bishop Ogé and a few of the priests from the region.  Again we discussed the logistics of starting the music programs in these Episcopal schools.  Then we left with Père Samuel to visit his parish, Saint Etienne in Limonade.  

One of the best parts of the visit was learning how excited and enthusiastic the students, parents, and congregations are to have a music program.  There was such an overwhelming desire to get the programs started, which is really encouraging as we work out the plans!

It was a wonderful visit and I look forward to our trip to Cange this week!  The rest of my week ended with my first pizza (Christ Church family you do not need to worry about sending me pizza!), rehearsals in Port-au-Prince, and another fantastic Sunday in church.  Thank you to this week’s sponsor, Sandy White.  Stay tuned as the Haitian adventures continue!