The following is an article that was in the Osakis Review written by Jenna Galstad on July 27. We have included it in it’s entirety because it is such a good article! May you be blessed:
Only being home for one month, Cassie Nash reflected on her time spent in Haiti and is looking forward to returning, saying she feels humbled and blessed to be serving God in this way. “I fell in love with missions and different cultures. I love to see how God is working in different countries. My faith has been growing for many years. I knew for a long time I wanted to go into ministry,” Nash told the Osakis Review.
Nash returned in June, having spent four months away from her hometown of Osakis. Her last four months were spent in Haiti, working in an area called Canaan Christian Community. The small community of Canaan, population about 100, is equipped with a church, clinic, school and an orphanage. Nash said she has countless memories from her time spent in Haiti, but her most memorable ones were meeting the people and building strong friendships and relationships. Nash said, “We only had electricity for four hours a day, so we got to spend a lot of time together.” Possibly her most memorable friendship is with a woman she met the first day she arrived – Sanite. Nash and Sanite met three times each week, teaching each other their native languages – Nash taught Sanite English 
and Sanite taught Nash Haitian Creole. Nash explained how helpful this was in learning Creole, and she looked forward to meeting with Sanite. Together they read scripture – Nash read in Creole while Sanite read in English. They would help each other with reading and pronunciation. Sanite told Nash she could see Jesus in her eyes; that confirmed the reason why Nash said she was serving in Haiti.
The biggest adventure Nash experienced in Haiti was when she took five different “taptaps” with some of her friends from Montrouis to the south part of Port au Prince. Nash explained, “A taptap can be a variety of things. It can be a pickup truck with benches built in and a top over the bed, a bus type thing, or a Mack truck with people standing or sitting in the back.” She even called one taptap the “always room for one more” because the driver kept picking people up, even when there wasn’t any room. The trip took about three hours, and she got to experience a variety of people from different walks of life.
When asked what the biggest shock was being in Haiti, Nash didn’t have a typical response like “the culture” or “the food.” Instead, she said, “How they live doesn’t shock me. I’ve been to so many different countries, how they live seems normal to me.” In fact, Nash said when she is back in Minnesota she misses the lack of electricity, movie theaters and coffee shops. “I miss spending time with the people. The relationships in Haiti are deeper than they are here.” Nash said, “The biggest shock was just thinking ‘I live in Haiti.’ I was used to going on short term mission trips for just a couple of weeks, so actually being able to be part of a community 
was the biggest shock to me.” As for the food, Nash said, “I love Haitian food! I want to learn how to cook it.” She said they usually ate spaghetti with hot sauce, peppers and onions for breakfast, along with a hard-boiled egg and a banana. Lunch in Haiti consisted of seasoned rice, beans and fried plantains. Supper was the meal Nash talked most fondly of. The main dish is labui, which Nash explained is like a hot cereal. She said it’s a soupy mixture of flour, potato, or plantain, with ginger or other spices mixed in. “It’s really sweet. I like it a lot. If I could, I always requested labui.”
While in Haiti, Nash said she discovered things she wasn’t expecting. “Expect the unexpected. I was able to sing in Haiti. When I was leaving, one of the little girls told me she was going to miss me when she sang.” She also discovered that she’s a morning person, and she enjoyed waking up early to blog, listen to music, and read scripture. “It’s when I found the most joy.” Nash lived with five other missionaries – none of which were part of her same organization. Nash said one of the missionaries she lived with worked in a malnutrition clinic, and she had the opportunity to go along and weigh, measure, and ask kids their age to see if they qualified for a program called Mamba. Nash explained that Mamba means “peanut butter,” which is what the 
program is all about. The peanut butter is energy dense and has specific proteins and nutrients that help malnourished children age 4 and younger gain needed weight and get on the right track to a healthy life.
A typical day in Haiti A normal day for Nash consisted of showing the kids love and helping them in school. She said it took the kids a while to warm up to her, because they would distance people until they realized they would be around. Nash was the “English” person and taught the kids how to write, read and speak English. Because it was an English school, the kids weren’t allowed to speak Creole in school – but that didn’t always stop them. They even gave Nash a new name, changing it from Cassie (which means sour in Creole) to Ca-dous (which means sweet). “I felt loved by the kids for giving me a new nickname. I’m glad they think of me as sweet.” While Nash was working in the school, an idea went around to take kids that needed more help into an extra classroom and let them work on their lessons in a way that worked for them. Each day Nash was able to take five kids into the extra classroom, where she saw them flourish. Nash told of an 8-year-old boy named Sanders who didn’t learn well in a normal classroom setting because he was so active. She was able to take him to the extra classroom and saw that, “He is a genius. He would dance and multi task and then he would get his work done.”
Nash’s future plans in Haiti Nash will be returning to Haiti in September for a new, year-long adventure. “It’s going to be an amazing, challenging time. Next year is about learning the ropes.” Originally, Nash wanted to open a transition home for kids who didn’t have anywhere to go after they left an orphanage, but now her plans have changed. Instead, she will be living in Petion-ville and working in Haiti Christian Orphanage. Petion-ville isn’t as developed as Canaan Christian Community – it has a church but no clinic or school. The orphanage Nash will be working in has all boys, ranging in age from 6 to early 20s. Nash said, “My heart is for helping older children transition into society seamlessly. I want to help train up leaders and get them grounded in their faith.” Nash explained that if you don’t have a family in Haiti, you don’t have much help. She wants to help children who don’t have a family still have a God-centered home and support system to fall back on. “It’s not an overnight fix. It’s going to take a long time.” Ideally, Nash said, she wants to have a trade school so the boys can learn needed skills that will help them make it on their own. Nash said she is excited to be going back to Haiti and face new challenges, but she knows there isn’t a challenge that is too big. “God is bigger than any problem I could ever encounter. I’m not afraid. My goal is to stay in one place and be a light.”
If you want to follow Cassie Nash on her journey, visit her blog, here.
