A Day at Grace Village
It’s 8:16 PM in Haiti and I’m currently surrounded by my 17
team members in the living room as I write this post (hoping I can compete with
Abbie and Anna’s blogging skills). We are finishing up day 4 of an incredible
trip, and although this may sound somewhat cliché, I feel like these people are
starting to feel like my family. Each night we gather around and tell our
stories from the day – there are sad stories, happy stories, and A LOT of
laughter. Mostly about how Wayne wears socks with his sandals (its 90 degrees
here).
Today was spent touring Grace Village and visiting the
elderly in Titanyen, a town next to the beautiful Caribbean Sea. You really can’t
describe how extraordinary Grace Village is, but I’ll give it the good ole
college try. In eight short years Healing Haiti has created a community including
a school with around 350 students, family-style homes with a mom and father
figure for the children, a clinic with three physicians and one dentist, a
church for the Titanyen community, and a bakery/restaurant to create jobs and
grow the service industry in Haiti. They are providing modern learning
techniques and technology to prepare the students to go to college and to get
jobs of their own someday. The abundance of blessings this place provides on a
daily basis is overwhelming.
After Grace Village we headed to serve the elderly in
Titanyen. The Healing Haiti elder program sponsors and serves up to 40 older
adults ranging in age and health status. Because of Haiti’s poor economy, many
older adults go without basic care and affection. The program provides them
with food, medical care, and weekly visits from teams such as ours to wash
their feet and give them lots of love. Today we visited a man who was over 90 years
old. He is blind and could barely hear what our translator was saying, but even
with the communication barrier, he was glowing with joy simply from our
presence in his home. They all did. Something as basic as holding a hand or
massaging feet seemed to change their spirit. We ended each visit praying for
them out loud as a team.
It’s hard to explain what the Lord is doing to our souls
in moments like that, but it feels like a million emotions all packed into one.
You really start to realize that even with our different experiences,
background, and economic status, we are all God’s children in the end.
Ellie
