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.
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