Cite Soleil Water truck & Home for Sick and Dying Babies

After a delicious breakfast we loaded up on the tap-tap (Healing Haiti's taxi/truck) and headed out to the city well to collect water and then on to Cite Soleil to deliver water. Cite Soleil (Sun City) is home to an estimated 400,000 people in just 8 square miles - very densely populated! It is the poorest slum in the western hemisphere. As we entered the area we were met with shouts of "Hey you!" We were swarmed by kids from all directions wanting to be held and carried. They look at you with big sad eyes and say, "Pote'm" which means "pick me up."  The water truck driver honks the horn and people come from all directions with a stack of 5 gal buckets to fill. They sometimes request help to carry it back to their house and other times they just want you to help lift the bucket on top of their head. It is so amazing how they can balance and carry the heavy weight of the bucket on their head!

We then had a tour of Hope Church, school, Innovation lab, sewing pod, etc. What God is doing in Cite Soleil is mind-blowing! The most cutting edge technology available (donated free of charge to Healing Haiti) is being utilized in Hope's Innovation Lab. They expect that in 10-15 years the kids who have grown up in Cite Soleil and studied in Hope's Innovation Lab will be sought after for their technology expertise.  Alicia Rose, our LT missionary/assistant to the Clinic Manager, then explained to us about the work that is going on at the clinic. It just opened in Jan this year and has been such a blessing to the people of that community.   We then helped unload another water truck, held more kids and babies and generally got very dirty, wet, and worn out!

Our next adventure of the day consisted of going to an orphanage for sick and dying babies. That consisted of holding the babies and assisting in feeding them dinner. It was amazing to watch how much the babies soaked up all our love and enjoyed every moment of us holding, playing, or feeding them. Before going into this orphanage I thought that it may be chaotic and unsanitary because it is often very difficult to run these facilities, however, it was well put together and organized. There was a schedule for feeding times and the staff were very caring and we could tell they treasured these children and treated them as they would their own. So overall, this experience and the smile on the kid's faces will be ones we never forget. (: