Day 3 - God Loves the Little Children and so do We!

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Today we visited two orphanages just outside Port au Prince (Pap).  The first, called Grace Village, is a beautiful, newly built facility by Healing Haiti.  It sits atop a mountain that overlooks the sea and the cool breeze blowing in was amazing.

Here, under a concrete shelter, we played with the children for a couple of hours.  We told a story about how Jesus loves everyone no matter how old you are, your size or shape, hair or skin color – everyone.  Sue brought all of the crafts and stories to tell the kids and did a terrific job.  She had purple hair and a face mask that we had kids wear to demonstrate this.  We did a craft with them, played games such as jump rope, football (soccer) and drew and drew and drew with chalk while others just sat and held some children.  The time flew by and we were exhausted.

But, after grabbing a quick lunch of snacks and peanut butter sandwiches we had brought with us we were off on a bumpy ride to an orphanage for deaf children.

Here Mike sat with several kids and communicated through writing with a pad and pen.  The rest of us did several crafts with the kids.  It was difficult here.  These children haven’t had much of anything in their lives.  From food and clothing to material things, many have had to fight for their needs and wants and even though now they are clothed, fed and have what they need those instincts are not gone.  It was almost a mob scene with so many children wanting the same thing at the same time.  Many of them would hide the first thing you gave them in order to get two.  The communication barrier, a mix of language and lack of sign language knowledge, made it especially difficult to calm them or even tell them no.  A simple shaking of the head didn’t work in most cases. 

The Director, a gentleman from the States, came and gave us a tour of the facility.  He was so very excited to see us, jubilant to share with us and always wanting pictures so that he could remember the day.  The Orphanage is close to being self-sufficient in terms of food.  It is a working farm with crops and animals to help feed the children and staff.  The school buildings and dorms are in beautiful shape. 

We stopped at a grocery store on the way home and Mike and Jeff K bought us sodas.  We arrived back just in time for dinner.  It was spaghetti night.   After clean-up we had devotions and Rick led us in a great discussion about joy and surprise.  Two things we have had much of so far.

At 7:30 we loaded up the Tap Tap and headed out for some Haitian ice cream.   We vied for the showers and all hit the sack exhausted.

Bon Nuit!