On the way home from my holiday, I met a group of men in bright yellow shirts at the Miami airport. They’d been in Haiti, building shelters. We chatted about their work, and I asked one of them if he had a background in construction.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “We’re just a bunch of knuckleheads from Missouri who love the Lord.”

I liked the way he said that.

My travels had also brought me to Haiti–but for vacation, not for charity work. I’d been at a private resort, surrounded by pristine beaches, graceful palm trees, sandy paths that were raked by hand. Definitely not the same experience as building shelters near Port-au-Prince.

But we stood and talked, and I thought about the turquoise water, the mountains.

Then we said goodbye, each remembering a different country.