Lauren and Lance woke up the earliest to help our Haitian hostesses make an awesome breakfast of scrambled eggs, oatmeal, pancakes, fresh mangoes, pineapple, bananas, and avocado. They also have fresh juice every morning from the tree in the yard and it is amazing.
After eating we prepared for our day. Our first stop was Gertrude's orphanage. Gertrude has about 30-40 kids some are disabled and some are able bodied children of all ages. Entering her compound brings such joy as the children showed such excitement for our presence. We felt blessed to be in their presence as well. Nora planned an awesome dreamcatcher craft activity that all the kids (and adults) really enjoyed. Some of the kids used the materials to make cute dreamcatchers and others just used the materials to make necklaces and bracelets. They really loved the beads. It was so much fun watching the group play with kids in wheelchairs, swinging in the swings, and just holding the babies. It was quite the experience.
We left Gertrude's and came back to the guest house for the afternoon. A bunch of us went over to Elite Hotel to cool off and have some french fries.
The afternoon's activity split the group where the Schmidt family, Livvy, Marcos, Lauren, John and Ella went to the home for Sick and Dying Babies. That group split in half and went to the room with the infants and the other half went to the room with toddlers to help feed. When we entered the place was pretty quiet, but that would all change. After the feedings we began to hold the kids. The moment that you went to put one down they would begin to cry. Luckily after feeding there were two other groups that joined us to love up on some kids. Each person in the group held one or two babies at a time. It was difficult, beautiful, fulfilling, and heartbreaking all at the same time. The work that the sisters of charity are doing is amazing as they take babies who are malnourished and bring them back to health.
Nancy, Lance, Hannah, Nora, Joanna, Rocky, and Bailey went to For Your Glory orphanage.
There were 55 kids and 2 dogs there today. All of the kids were excited to see us visitors pull up as they were all sticking their heads out of the windows. When they were let out of their rooms, they were everywhere. A lot of us sat at the arts and crafts table to make necklaces and color pictures. Some kids even drew portraits of every individual visitor. Others were kicking balls around and playing with marbles. Rocky was in the back playing guitar while kids sang along helped him strum with sticks and other make-shift guitar picks. The kids knew a lot of contemporary Christian songs and Rocky and the kids worked together to play them.
We got back around 5pm to an awesome dinner of rice and ramen, which seems like a weird pairing but is actually pretty amazing. We definitely have not gone hungry! We ended the night with reflection time. Ella shared her families experience with trying to adopt which put the whole day into perspective.
We had a great day filled with so many blessings!
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