Haiti Day 4 and Day 5

7/5/13-7/6/13
On the 5th we went to the church and orphanage. It was probably the most organized days we had.

 I don't know if the videos will actually work, but this is Jesus loves me in Creole. 

And this is one of their songs they were teaching us. 

After our last time at the church and orphanage, we went to the markets to get souvenirs. I loved the bargaining. Too much fun!

On the 6th we left early in the morning to head to the airport and what do you know, spirit was delayed getting to Haiti. We finally made it to Florida after being delayed an hour and a half in Haiti. We look at the screen in Florida and our flight was already to be delayed 2 and a half hours. We weren't surprised at all so we took refuge in the airport and ended up spending 12 hours in the airport and arriving to LA at 4 in the morning. Needless to say we were ready for some sleep.

Haiti Day 4

7/4/13

            The picture below is Peter.

We went to the church in the morning like the day before, expecting to see sweet Angelo and love on him, but never seeing him again. We started the day and as I was passing out crayons for the craft I had a few of the children start asking me something in Creole. I called over one of the interpreters to ask for him to translate what they were asking. They said it to him and he laughed and looked at me and said, they want to know if your hair is real. I laughed, and said yes, and the translator looked at me and said they probably asked because they have never seen someone with blonde hair until you. I worked with the little kids more on this day, but besides that it was a pretty normal day. We left for lunch and then to head to the orphanage. When we got there for some reason Peter (a I believe 8 year old with downs syndrome) was clinging to me. He sat in my lap and we blew bubbles for probably an hour straight. When he finally decided to get up I felt something wet and looked at him and he had peed on my lap. It took all I had in me to not vomit right there. There wasn't much I could do so I just tried to not think about it and prayed for patience. haha Then, one of our little guys named Steve, who has a cognitive disability, grabbed the empty sprite bottles that we were using as bowling pins, ran over to a bucket filled with water, and began dunking it. Well, I knew they weren't suppose to play with that water so I ran over to grab the bottle (water flying all over me, both arms elbow deep) and got the bottle. From the smell I knew that whatever was in that water was probably better off I just didn't know about it, but of course I had to ask questions and come to find out, it's the bucket they use to wash all the clothes in which means there is pee, feces, slobber, and who knows what else in there. This day was clearly just not my day. I had to sit back and think to myself that I was only going to be there doing this for a week, but the children that live there and the ladies who work there are in it for the long haul. They don't know any better than to wash clothes in water that already has all of this stuff in it, and the children are wearing these clothes that have been washed in it. I really began to realize how fortunate I am to have the things that we don't even think twice about like a washing machine, and running water to wash my hands in. I would say that this day was definitely the most mentally and physically draining day of the week for me, but again I only had this day once and these children have them everyday.

We left the orphanage and Greg wanted to take us to a tent city that they had built two churches in. The name of it was Delmas 75 and it housed 20,000 people on about an acre of land. This place was like the images you see on TV. I had never experienced anything like it. We pulled into the "city" in our van and the children chased us down the street just to see where we were going and what we were doing. Although we could not speak to them, as soon as we got off the van they were hugging onto our legs and touching our arms and faces. It was very overwhelming as I thought about at home, if a van of Haitians drove through my neighborhood, I probably wouldn't even notice it much less chase after it knowing I wouldn't be able to communicate with them. We walked into the first church that was just amazing. As we were leaving I noticed two doors at the back of the church. I asked Greg about them and he said that it is where the pastor lives along with his wive and 8 children. The bedroom was smaller than our laundry room with one twin size mattress in it and the other room was maybe the size of our laundry room with a table and a few shelves. This really put in perspective the difference in the ways we live. We then walked to the other church and by the time we got there our group of children had doubled.

The first church we went to in the tent city. 

The bedroom in the first church. 

 The other room in the first church. 

 These two little girls lived in the first church. 

This family lived in this tent. 

This is the second church Greg helped build. 

Haiti Day 3

7/3/13

Squeezing our usual 6 on the back seat of a three row van so that we can all fit to go to the church. We were truly getting the Haitian experience. 

After talking the night before we realized that there was no way our team of 5 and 2 translators could handle the amount of children again especially if it was going to grow like we anticipated, so we went as an entire team to the church in the morning and orphanage in the afternoon. This was one of the best decisions we made on the entire trip. The morning ran so smoothly with the extra translators. You know, vbs is already very chaotic but when you are trying to direct children that can't understand a word you are saying it is near impossible. The language barrier seems like a huge problem, but honestly these children communicate so much with their actions and expressions that it's like you are having a conversation. This goes especially for my little friend Angelo. He was back again on Wednesday and of course I held him the whole time. He never said a word to me the entire two days, but the look in his eyes and expression on his face was enough for me to know exactly what he was thinking. This two days of holding this 14 pound five year old (I can't say it enough, because I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around it) was life changing to me. I went from thinking I knew what poverty was with feeding the homeless in Jackson, to knowing what actually poverty is and learning from a 5 year old. He never spoke a word to me but he taught me more in those two days than I have learned in a long time. Like not taking for granted all that I have and being appreciative of it, and much more. We are so blessed to be where we are and it took holding this precious child that is literally grasping onto his life each day for me to ACTUALLY realize it. I mean I have always know this, but there is a difference knowing and actually knowing. Anyways, when lunch time rolled around they served rice and beans. I asked Angelo's teacher if it would be okay if I fed him. She said yes and showed me how to do it. I began feeding him and every bite he swallowed without chewing and before I could get the next bite to his mouth began crying, begging for more. This was almost unbearable to me. That he was so scared I was going to take the food away he rushed each bite down to beg for the next. The cry was so desperate for that next bite. Tears just streamed down my face as I thought about how his mom has to listen to this everyday knowing that there is nothing she can do and it's only a matter of time until he is no longer with them. I thought about handing the bowl over to his teacher to get as far away from his desperate plead for food because each one broke my heart more, but I realized that at that moment I was who he was depending on to give him that little bit to last him another day or maybe even week. I could go on and on about how I just couldn't imagine the feeling of not know the next time I will eat or even worse not being able to feed my child, but hopefully by now you get the point. That little boy will forever be in my heart and the memory of my life changing. After I got up from feeding him I looked around and realized that not everyone had food, I asked one of the other girls on the team if there was more coming out and they said no. We had to watch these little children that didn't get food watch the others eat. Again tears came streaming down. That could have been their only opportunity of the day to eat and we couldn't supply it. It was silent in the room as we left to head to the compound and they finished eating or watching. We headed to the orphanage and hung out with all of our sweet friends there. It was great!

 Feeding my sweet boy, Angelo. 

 Our class with disabilities that attended our program at the church, along with their amazing teacher. 

Our sweet friends at the orphanage, top is Leon and the bottom is Peter. 

Haiti Day 2 (Heart Break)

7/2/13
On Tuesday we split our team into two groups, one group would go to the church and put on a vbs type day for children with disabilities and their siblings, and the other group would go to the orphanage. I was on the team to go to the church first. As an American vbs is a pretty structured day with activities and fun, but that's not exactly what happened for us. We (our team being 5 of us with 2 translators) were expecting around 50 children thinking maybe another 10 or less would have disabilities, but by the end of the day we had about 125. Once word spread in the tent city that we were there kids were pouring in. I went to sit down by some children and a 2 year old was a person down from me. I looked at him and waved and he just started crying. I felt so bad so I reached out to hold him and he began screaming and crying and kicking. I could not understand why he was so unhappy but all his friends were having a great time. Kathleen saw that I was struggling getting him to sit down so she came over to help and as soon as he saw her he began screaming even louder. I realized that once we started backing away the crying slowly stopped, he was scared of us. He had never seen white people before and was truly scared of us. I was in awe. I couldn't believe that this sweet child had never seen a white person before, by the end of the week he realized we weren't going to hurt him and eventually let me hold him.

Our brave group (matching in our green) that took on the church. Minus Katie

 The church

 A group of our guys circled up playing a game. 

Some of those sweet faces.

Okay, I don't even know where to start with this one. On Monday, Greg (one of our host) began to tell us about the poverty there is in Haiti. He explained that many families can not afford to feed some of their kids. Well, I met one of these kids. A five year old named Angelo. He is one of five children and his mom can not afford to feed all five of them so she had to make a decision on which of the children she would starve to be able to provide for her other children. Angelo was the one she chose. As Angelo was brought in in his car seat on Tuesday morning I would have sworn he was a couple months old. He laid in his seat with his big brown eyes just staring up at me. I called a translator over to ask if it was okay to pick him up. His teacher told me it would be fine and helped me lift him out of his seat. He couldn't even hold his own head up. As I looked at him it was like he was staring right past my eyes and into my heart. I couldn't believe how light he was to hold. Angelo is five years old and ways 14 pounds, his legs were as big as my thumb. I was so overwhelmed with emotion. How could I live so close to here and not have helped until now? How could his mother make that decision? Thousands of questions and sadness rushed through me. Angelo was becoming my face for starvation. I spent the day with him in my arms, walking around singing, playing the games, and acting out the skits. It was amazing to look up from his precious face and see the other children staring because until then they had thought it was not right to hold and love on him. I finally put him back in his seat when we began to serve lunch to the children.

Meet Angelo

We were preparing to pass out lunch. They gave us a box of crackers to start with, once we gave every child a pack of crackers and glass of juice we (well I say we but at least I was) were waiting for the rest of the meal to give to the children. The next thing I know our host are bringing our lunch in and telling us to eat. I asked where the rest of the food for the children was and they said oh that's what they get today for lunch. I stood there with no reply, turned to our food, and saw that we had cheese burgers and fries. They wanted us to eat CHEESEBURGERS and FRIES in front of these children that just received crackers and juice for lunch?? Our team stood in silence. I think everyone was overwhelmed by the thought of doing that. We finally came to the conclusion that we would just eat when we got done at dinner time. Our host wasn't to accepting of that idea so he told us we could go eat on the van and could come back into the church when we got done. We got to the van and began eating. I looked around and tears were falling from almost everyone. There are no words to describe the way that felt. That we had all this food when 120 children sat less than 50 feet away from us with 3 crackers and a small cup of juice. This sat me down and turned me around a few times.

At the end of the day when we were getting ready to leave, I pulled a translator to the side and asked him to help me with getting to know these girls that had been hanging in the back of the room for the day but looked to be around my age. I approached them and we talked for a few minutes. Their names were Mary Danielle and Noma. They are best friends. Mary Danielle has 7 siblings. I asked her if her parents or any of her siblings had jobs and she said no. We kept talking and she explained that they pretty much ate everyday, that her mom or dad would find some way to get food for them. This again just blew my mind, that a family with 8 kids and no one has a job. It just really put in perspective what we think is a hard economy with finding jobs, but yet I have two parents with jobs, my sister has a job, and I have had jobs.

Me, Mary Danielle, Noma, and Kathleen

Haiti Day 1

7/1/13
Well, we finally made it to Haiti and let's just say when we got there we were welcomed with an overwhelming amount of help and greeters. Bags were being snatched out of my hands and words were being spoken that I couldn't understand, it took everything in me to keep one eye on my bag and make sure I was with the group throw the crowd to make it to our car. The chaos was one that I had never seen much less been in the middle of. We made it to the compound which is where we would be sleeping. It also houses a church and school, so there are many people in and out all the time.

 These were our precious Easter egg beds. 

 One of the classrooms in the compound.

 These are just from inside the compound. 

There was access to the roof and when we went to the top we looked over one of the walls the enclosed the compound and this was on the other side. At first I was a little confused as to how all this trash had ended up in this little creek but then I realized that at the bottom of the wall was a small door and this is where the compound threw out all of their trash. As I looked at it the only words I could come up with it was a beautiful mess, and how its like everything in Haiti is a beautiful mess right now. Everything is strategically placed but just a little messy. Acts 17 says that everyone is placed in the world by God in their certain places to reach their full potential of praising and loving him. This really had me thinking about why I am where I am and why everyone in Haiti was placed their. 

After arriving in Haiti and settling in we walked to the orphanage for children with disabilities for the afternoon. This was very eye opening for me. I have been around children with disabilities for years now but have yet to be around those without the resources to take of themselves. We walked into the orphanage to see five kids sitting on the back porch on what looked to be like short high chairs. I realized that these chairs were actually home made toilets that the children sat on for half the afternoon because they do not have diapers for these children. The ones that were not sitting on these toilets were running around with wet pants. This was so hard to watch because I knew that if these children were in the US they would have the resources to potty train them and if that was not possible at least have a diaper. It was hard because we knew there was nothing we could do to change this that all we could do was love on them for the week. So this was the beginning of a week for my first time to be peed on, but to be happy it was happening because I was able to spend time with these sweet babies. Once we left the orphanage we stopped at a Haitian grocery store. It surprised me at how much it was like a very small version of Walmart. This grocery store was about 5 blocks from the orphanage and maybe 2 blocks from a tent city. I also had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that there was this prospering group that is able to shop at the grocery store in the midst of the poverty stricken town and they are doing nothing about it. Needless to say Monday was filled with a lot of taking in my surroundings and learning about the culture. 

A Little Delay

 6/30/13
Well.. Our flight leaving from LA was scheduled for 10:30 PM. We were delayed 45 minutes. Our connecting flight in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl was scheduled for 45 minutes after we landed, so you can guess what that means. We missed our connecting flight to Haiti, by 20 minutes. So we tried to figure out where to go from there. Let me side note and say that we were flying Spirit and they are terrible, terrible customer service, terrible organization. I will never fly them again and would advise anyone I know to not fly them. They told us since the delay in LA was due to them they would hold the flight in FL for us since we were such a big group but clearly they didn't. Sorry I had to let that out, but through this I have definitely gained patience and flexibility. We tried everything we could with Spirit to find another flight or connect somewhere else but they would not accomidate us. So after spending 7 hours in the airport trying to get everything figured out we found seats on the American Airline, but that flight did not leave until Monday morning, so where would we stay for two nights? Thankfully we had a girl on the team whose mom's college roommate lived in the area. This was such a God sent thing. They opened our entire group of 10 people into their home and have been just amazing. They took us to see the Everglades today and they were just gorgeous. So we head out in the morning and everyone is more than excited! Thank you again for all the prayers!

 When we were still happy thinking that we were headed straight for Haiti.

 The beautiful Everglades.

We had to take a cool team picture with our amazing host family in the Everglades.

Pre-Haiti

6/27/13
We head out for Haiti tomorrow the 28th and will be there until July the 6th. So yes, I will need yall to celebrate that United States for me with all the red white and blue. As we are finally so close to this trip I have been waiting for for the past 3 years I am filled with all kinds of emotions. Excitement of course, but also nervousness for the unknown. We have an awesome team that will be going that I know God hand picked for this specific mission. There are 9 of us one leader and a few translators. We will be alternating between a couple churches and a special needs orphanage. We could definitely use prayers specifically for flexibility, because in American culture we are set on schedules and times, but the Haitian culture is not like that at all and we need to be very mindful of that. Also, safety. Safety on the flights, in Haiti, and with the food we eat. I could go on for days about different things we need prayer for. I am so excited and thankful for this amazing opportunity I have been given and can't wait to come back with all the stories and life changing experiences. I guess this means after this post there wont be another one for a little over a week. Thank yall for all the support!!