The other night while watching a movie with David and Odessa we got a big suprise. All of a sudden all the light bulbs in the house and a strand of Christmas lights got super bright and then blew out. It was kinda like a fireworks show inside! Immediately we smelled smoke and I was convinced the Christmas tree was on fire. David jumped up and shut off the breaker for electricity coming into the house.

He knew what happened right away. I guess growing up around electricity mishaps taught him some things I missed growing up with stable electricity all the time. Two lines outside on the street got crossed and instead of sending in the normail 110 volts of electricity, it sent in 220!

Among the victims was the router to my wireless interest, a fan and every lightbulb except 2 in the house. Now the inverter/battery system is not charging in the house so I am hoping that didn't get zapped too. We had less causulties here than my next door neighbors. They lost TV, fridge, cell phones that were plugged in charging, fans, lights.

Electricity is one of those things I battle here in Haiti a lot. Especially in Port au Prince. But I have learned a lot about it also. The government has control of the electricity and turns it on and off when they want. They fixed the lines on our street last night and we have had electricity ever since. That is rare! Normally they turn electricity off around 3-4am and back on in the afternoon.

One example of this that I love is this past spring when the new president was being sworn in. I was here in Port au Prince at David's house and they have a TV. There were about 10 people who came over to watch the swearing in on Television. I had never seen this in Haiti before so I was excited to get to see it too. The atmosphere was great that day as most Haitians were excited at the change this president was to bring to their country.


As soon as the president stood up to be sworn in, they turned the electricity off. We couldn't help but wonder is this was intentional as the old president wanted the opponent (his son-in-law!) to be the next president. A few weeks into the new presidency, the people responsible for electricity were brought into court before a judge and questioned about the incident.

***Please be in prayer that the inverter/battery system is not damaged and can be up and running soon.