Haiti's Hope visits

I love giving people gifts more than receiving them (most of the time). I also love showing people things they have never seen before and watching the looks on their face change from wonder to amazement to shock to happiness. I recently had the opportunity to show 16 college kids a country they had never been to. We knew this group for Haiti’s Hope had been coming since the end of April and we didn’t have a big enough vehicle for all of them so we made other arrangements before they came down. Being Haiti, of course, those plans for another vehicle fell through the morning we went to the airport to pick them all up. Not really knowing what was going to happen next, I get told that we are leaving right away so I hop in the car and off we go looking for a bus on the streets of Port Au Prince. We see one turn a corner so we follow it but unfortunately, like always there is some traffic so Greg jumps out of the car and runs up ahead to jump on the bus to proposition the driver to let us use the bus for 4 days. He agrees and off we go to the airport with time to spare. That’s how a lot of things seem to work out in Haiti.

After everyone is back safely at the house and we have eaten, we head over to the orphanage to show the college group where they will be working the next few days and to hang out with the kids once they get out of school. At first, like always, the kids were all a bit shy but after a while they warmed up and started playing with everyone. It is amazing to see everyone having such a great time and communicating even though the college group and the kids at the orphanage don’t speak the same language.

Friday morning we all got up early (mostly because of the chickens downstairs but also to start the day early) to hike up the mountain to see Pou Soley Leve’s school up there. That morning it was extremely hot, probably the hottest time I have ever hiked up the mountain. Eventually everyone made it up and the kids sang and danced for everyone. The group brought some school supplies and candy for all the children and everyone was having a great time seeing something they had never seen before and taking everything in. After everyone was back at the house and changed out of their sweaty clothes the group headed back to the orphanage for the rest of the day while a few of us went to the hardware store to pick out paint for the orphanage to be repainted. We picked out some good colors and then the guy working there told us they didn’t have those colors so we picked out some more but they didn’t have those either so he finally just told us which ones they had which happened to be the same colors of the orphanage already but we had no choice but to take them. After buying paint and brushes, we left the store satisfied we would not have to buy anything else the next day.

Everyone was up early again the next morning to get some painting done. We were there around 8:30 to get to work. We had all the kids help clear out the rooms and clean them so they could be painted and scrubbed clean. Since we didn’t have that many brushes and rollers we had a few people in each room painting. The kids wanted to help so before anyone knew it most of the rollers were one color so we had to send someone out to get more rollers. By 1, most of the rooms had at least one coat, if not two and the outside was getting a second coat.  We forgot about one of the rooms so we had to wait until all the other rooms were finished to see if there was enough paint for the room. There was not enough of one color to finish the room so each wall is a different color but it still looks better than they did before. Some of the kids decided to help paint the back but eventually ended up with more paint on themselves than the walls. By 4, everyone was exhausted and tired so we headed out. Sunday was going to be a busy, long, fun day.

Sunday morning we sent the bus over to the orphanage to pick up the kids and bring them back to the house before we all set off for the ocean. The drive is about 2 hours away and we had to take the suburban and the bus in order for everyone to fit. Most of the kids had no problem being in the water but a few of them wouldn’t go in past their knees. After playing in the water for a while Jay baptized some of the kids. Everyone ate and there was a guy selling coconuts and he was lucky enough to stumble upon our group and sold most of them to us. By this time, everyone was tired and it was starting to get late so we headed back to the city. Almost everyone fell asleep on each other on the ride home. We had to go to the orphanage to drop the kids off and when we got back on the bus, it was eerie how quite it was. Most of the group was either looking out the window or had tears in their eyes. Some people may think that you can’t fall in love in four days, but I have seen it first hand.

The flight back for the group was 9am so we had to be at the airport by 7am. We dropped them off and said our good-byes and within a few minutes they were all gone through the doors of the airport. By 7:45 I was back in bed trying to be caught up on my sleep. From the looks on all their faces, I can tell that they are all going to be back sooner rather than later.