Friday, October 12, 2018

Teen Challenge/Papillon Russ/Wermager 10-12-2018

This morning we woke up much earlier than usual. Rudy the rooster was still asleep and it was still black outside when we left to go to Church on the Rock. To experience church in a Haitian community was so amazing. This community is so incredible that they put on a service that has English spoken at it during friday morning services. To watch the Haitians walk up and down the isles praising God was so inspiring. We got home in time for some of us to get in a quick nap before breakfast.
After our delicious breakfast we hit the road to Haiti Teen Challenge. What an experience to be able to hear the stories of these young women and then to be able to encourage them also. To be able to show them that addiction doesn't descriminate and it's not because of the color of our skin or becasue of the country we live in, but because the devil wants to kill and destroy. We felt united in such a way even though we don't even speak the same language.
From teen challenge we continued onto Papillon Enterprises. Papillon is a cafe/giftshop that was started by an american women who went down to Haiti to pick up a child she was supposed to adopt. When she got to Haiti she found out that the birth parents didn't want to give up their child, but they couldn't financially support that child. So instead of taking their baby, she decided to figure out a way that the family could make money to keep their baby. This is what started Papillon Enterprises. They are so resourcesful in everything that they make. All the pottery, jewlery, stuffed animals, metal art, and beads are all made there on site. Beads made of cereal boxes, bracelets made of recycled t-shirts, everything made by hand, but so beautiful. Over 200 Haitians are employed by this company keeping kids in their parents homes. The tour was so eye opening and made us want to spend even more money in their gift shop to promote this mission. While at Papillon there happened to be a Haitian woman who was pregnant with twins go into active labor across the street. This was her 3rd set of twins and her water had broke 2 days prior. 2 of our team members stepped in to make sure she was breathing through the contractions and that her blood pressure wasn't getting to high. They stayed with her the whole time until a car came to get her and bring her to the hospital. Their willingness to step in without a second thought to make sure that if this woman gave birth that it was still a good experience was heart warming.
From Papillon we went back to Fleri for some delicious pizza. We got to enjoy this dinner with our driver, translator and hospitality team. We had so many laughs, probably more than we should have due to lack of sleep, and we continued to create more memories together as a team. We got back to the guest house to have an amazing devotion together where one of our team members was lead to give their testimony for the first time.
This experience continues to grow deeper and deeper and we are sad that this is slowly coming to a close.