When God Speaks: 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.