Beautiful Day

What a beautiful day, waking up to the sound of a rooster crowing.  After a delicious Haitian breakfast complete with freshly squeezed Chedque, our group gathered on the veranda for morning devotions. Each day we share a word for the day that best represents how we felt about our experiences for the day: Torn, Unpredictable, Real, Fan Fan, Trust, Joy and Laughter.

We spent the first part of the day at an Orphanage for disabled and able bodied children. We gathered the children in a circle to sing worship songs together. They were screeching in delight and dancing to the best of their ability. The room was filled with sounds of pure Joy and smiles that would brighten anyone’s day almost instantly. FanFan began singing in Creole and the room erupted as even the nannies were rocking it out!  We found that as we are nearing the end of our week, music was a powerful way to bridge the gap while we loved on God’s people of all ages. The language barrier no longer existed as we worshiped our one true God.  We were privileged to be able to help feed the children using feed my starving children manna packs. How amazing to see the food we pack as a church family being used to nourish these children. What a blessing to see this come full circle.  

After a quick snack as a team, we stopped by the water filing station for a truck load of water. As a team we were extremely excited to provide another truck full of clean water for City Soleil. After our previous experience we were more confident in our expectations. As we pulled up to the stop we could see the desperation for water. It was pure and utter chaos. Children running by the tap tap shouting “Hey you, Blanc.” We stopped and got out of the tap tap as the people rushed with buckets to get the water. The children covered in black dirt, opened wounds, naked and begging for attention. At the previous stops I played with the children and helped carry water to their homes, so this stop I took a turn at the water hose. Our team quickly realized this stop was not what we had experienced on Tuesday. The people and children were pushing and shoving, shouting, pulling and yelling. The Healing Haiti staff worked hard to protect our team. We filled over a hundred buckets of clean water. Children were running in the water and bathing themselves. Some were drinking from their hands. It was an aggressive experience. It was incredibly overwhelming.  We had not experienced this much desperation earlier in the week. These people were fighting for the water to survive.  We quickly gathered in the tap tap as directed by the staff and couldn’t help but laugh at the experience. We were filthy dirty, soaking wet and physically and emotionally exhausted. We just looked at each other and burst into laughter. 

We are a group of 9 women. We have stepped out of our comfort zones and left our families for a week to serve in a way we have never served before. We have walked into rooms of sick and dying children, provided water in extreme poverty; we have been pooped on, puked on, peed on, and drooled on. We have been pinched, slapped, yelled at and loved on. We have rocked babies to sleep, fed children, provided food and comfort for the elderly, massaged tired feet, kissed many heads and worshiped with these beautiful people.  We have prayed together, shed many tears and been able to laugh about the fact that God uses our weaknesses to build others up. When I am weak, He is strong!

I will leave you with this passage of scripture we read this morning…

1 Corinthians 1-3

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of Angels, I would only be a nosey gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and if I understood all of Gods secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others I would be nothing. If I gave everything I had to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn’t love others I would have gained nothing.  13:13 Three things will last forever: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

Mindy and Ashley