The Rev. Lee Warren, the Virginia Director of Stop Hunger Now, and I have been in Port-au-Prince, Haiti for less than 24 hours, and yet we have already seen the grace of God at work. We left Raleigh on a 0630 flight to Miami. Our connecting flight from Miami to Port-au-Price was delayed for two and a half hours, and didn’t board until 1240.

We arrived in Haiti a little after 1500 and were met at the airport by Virginia Bell, a Volunteer in Mission worker at the Methodist Guest House here in Port-au-Prince. She and her driver brought us to the Hotel Montana where we arrived about 1630.

An hour later, at 1730 we had our first meeeting, a dinner with the assistant to the Bishop of the Episcopal Church of Haiti, the Rev. Kesner Ajax. He is also responsible for Episcopal Partnership Projects. We had a great meeting and made significant progress toward the possiblity of partnering with the Episcopal Church in Haiti with their school feeding programs.

I got back to my room around 2030 or so and was asleep before 2200. Getting up at 0330 in the morning makes for a long day.

This morning I was up at responding to emails and writing by 0600. At 1000 we had our second meeting of the trip. This is where the grace of God was so apparent to us.

Lee is actually leading this trip and if I didn’t know better, I would say she is trying to impress me. She (literally, I think) bumped into a couple New York businessmen in the hall yesterday on the way to her room.

Lee, being Lee, automatically started talking about the work of Stop Hunger Now and the reason we were here in Haiti. The businessmen, native Haitians here on business, were astonished.

They had just come from visiting some schools and had been discussing the poverty and lack of food. They had been talking about wanting to help feed the school kids here when along comes Lee.

This morning we met with the New York businessmen, a couple of Haitian businessmen and an attorney from Port-au-Prince, the Director of the Life for Haiti Foundation and a couple of pastors. We discussed the need of the school children and a possible partnership with Stop Hunger Now.

Before we were through with the meeting the New York businessmen pledged to pay the cost of transportation of any meals Stop Hunger Now could provide. Lee and I were both made to promise we would preach at local Haitian churches on our next trip. And all of us agreed that the Lord still leads us if we are open.

All in all it’s been a good start to the trip. More to come later.