Haiti #4: Day 2-5

Go back a few post to read those first!

It was rather strange to wake up on a couch in another country. You wake up to different sounds, sites, and smells. Rather than seeing walls around you I open my eyes to look over the balcony and see rubble in Haiti. I hear Haitian voices up and going as well as the goats and chickens that talked all night. My first night I slept like a rock.

Each day we woke up around 6:30 and started getting ready for the day. With no distractions of phone, internet, television, or really anything else spending time in the Word seemed easier. Being in a place where I knew I needed the Lord to get me threw also proved another reason to be in His presence. It wasn't an option, but a necessity.

Breakfast consisted of whatever granola bars you brought to eat. Brushing your teeth was done by water you used from your water bottle. They brought us big bottles of water each day that we filled our water bottles up with. Then as a group we gathered to seek the Lord through His word. These were amazing times each morning as 18 people form 18 different backgrounds gathered for a common cause. To know the Lord more fully.

There were a few people on the team that came with a friend, but as a whole no one knew each other before the trip. The youngest was 18 and the oldest was 52. Most were around my age group and still single. It was encouraging to see that. Being stuck out in the hills of Tennessee I often feel like I must be the only person living a crazy life like I do. I am not is what I learned on this trip. There is a generation of people out there who's desire is to serve the Lord through their years of singleness, yet still have a true heart's desire for marriage one day.

After our time together we prepared for the VBS with a school down the street. There was probably around 100-200 or so children the throughout the week and it was INSANE! There school seemed to be about 12 ft x 12ft building. I'm sure it was bigger than that but it was not very big at all. Whew, it was a small space!! Different groups prepared different activities such as songs, crafts, bible study, games. I didn't feel a strong pull towards any of the groups so when we got there I just went out among the children.

I sat among the children just holding them, giving them high fives and trying to communicate as well as possible. Mostly they liked to feel the hair on my arms the first day. On day 2 a few of the girls must have spent an entire hour playing with my hair. It felt totally different from their hair.

After an exhausting VBS time we would head back to our house for lunch which was peanut butter sandwiches and chips each day.

Afternoon times consisted of different things. A couple of the days we broke up into smaller groups and went door to door with a translator speaking to people about the Lord. One afternoon we went to an orphanage at a pastor's house. He and his wife already had six children and had taken in twelve more children. Then one afternoon I went a couple of guys to another community to play soccer. That was an incredible afternoon. One afternoon I went with a group to help remove rubble from their church that had basically collapsed during the earthquake. Lots of different things were done during our afternoons.

Dinner was cooked by the people who's house we were staying in. It was amazing! Basically it was a meat, rice/beans, fried potatoes, fried plantains and something else I'm not sure what it was. Looked to be a salad of some sort... Resembled my grandmother's jello salad stuff. Yeah, I didn't try it. The rest of the food was AWESOME!! One night I heard someone talking about how this meat tasted different. Then someone else said it was beef. I then ask if anyone had seen any cows since we had been in Haiti? Negative. It was goat. And it was good!

In the evenings after dinner we would go back to the church where they were actually having revival. Then we'd come home and usually hang out on the roof top with everyone talking about the day.

After the first night, Val and I slept up on the roof under the stars. It was BEAUTIFUL!! Especially on nights when all the power was out because the stars were so bright. Everyone learned to keep flashlights readily available as the power outages were often and even comical.

I have no idea how to write in words about each day but that basically hits the highlights. I'm going to explain the rest of the highlights through a few more post.