I trust all of you have read Honey's post, "Honey Bee Flies to Haiti: Part 1." Here is part 2. Again Queen Bee is taking the day off . Let's see what Honey has to say...
Why go to Haiti? Everything you hear in the news about Haiti is negative, so why take the risk of going there? The answer to that is actually pretty simple: the kids. The mission we went to is called Children's Lifeline International and they are focused specifically on the children. God's word makes it clear how important children are to Him and the mission does a good job of focusing on the health and education of children both physically and spiritually.
On Monday we went to a village near Saintard. We had not planned a project to work on when we arrived in Haiti so we ended up going to an orphanage each day to hold a VBS for the orphanage and any village kids that wanted to attend. The visits to the orphanages were far more rewarding spiritually than any project we could have worked on. The Haitian children were so excited to see us.
This little girl, along with some others, was not feeling well. She was so sweet though. Despite not feeling well, she was very happy and pleasant.
One of the things we noticed very quickly is that the majority of kids wore second hand clothes that were sent to Haiti from other countries. The kids did not really distinguish between pajamas and everyday clothes. They wear whatever they have.
On Tuesday we went to Barbancourt which was about a 30 minute walk from our compound. This is one kid that I met there. His name is Wilkinson. After our VBS, we went outside to play with the kids doing such things as kicking a soccer ball, jumping rope, playing tag, etc. Wilkinson wanted nothing to do with these games. He just wanted to hold my hand, and if I let go he would look up at me like "what did I do wrong?" After about 20 minutes of holding my hand and following me around, he said something to me in Creole. That was unusual because so many of the kids could at least communicate basic information such as names. Of course I don't speak Creole so I had to get our interpreter to tell me what Wilkinson was saying. John Philip, our interpreter said, "he wants to take you as his father." It was also at this point that I found out that his name was Wilkinson. When I found out what Wilkinson had been trying to tell me, it just broke my heart. The majority of the kids at this orphanage were outgoing and generally pleasant. Wilkinson looked sad and you can see that on his face in this picture:
On Wednesday we went to an orphanage in Titanyen. They were renovating the "dorms" that the kids lived in so some of the men helped with that while most of the women went inside to hold the VBS.
This orphanage was in the middle of a town so unfortunately we could not really play with these kids. Space was extremely limited. We were able to color and draw with the kids and they seemed to enjoy that. This girl was telling a couple people in our group that it was her goal to be a teacher.
On Thursday, we went back to Titanyen to a different orphanage. The day we were at this one, the director of the sponsorship program was updating information for the kids in the sponsorship program.That included taking pictures and getting the height and weight of the kids. I teach in a public school so I know a little something about organized chaos. This took organized chaos to a whole new level though. This is one of the stations the kids had to go through in order to update their sponsors. I was surprised at the number of little girls that came through that were wearing what appeared to be Disney princess dresses.
After we finished updating all the information, we then held a VBS for the actual orphans and their were only about 10 of them. Again, there was not a whole lot of room to play so we mainly drew and colored with them. The kids really enjoyed that because they do not have supplies to play with on a regular basis.
Again and again I was impressed with how much the kids valued their education. They were very kind hearted kids and I couldn't help but think to myself, "if only their circumstances were different." This last picture is of a classroom at the Lifeline compound where we stayed. As you can tell on the ceiling in the upper right hand corner of the picture, the facilities were not perfect but it is obviously better than nothing. They do like to create art on the walls of the classrooms though and that is pretty neat. It is comforting to know that even though Haiti is deprived of luxury, the kids are still being reached out to and instructed in the ways of Jesus Christ.
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