Saturday, June 10, 2017

We started off the day heading towards the top of the mountain, which was very relaxing and fun to spend time with the team on the tap-tap. Once we reached the top we stopped at the overlook, what beautiful view. After we gazed in amazement of this beautiful country and took pictures; we began shopping. The persistency of the shop vendors made it incredibly difficult to say no, some of us were great at bargaining while others were not. Scott was an amazing bargainer considering he got 8 items for 12 dollars at the top of the mountain. After we were at the mountain we went to the grocery store which was a very fun experience for a lot of the people on our team. While we were there, a lot of our team was surprised for the fact that it was so different from the rest of Haiti. It looked like a store from the US. There was even some General Mills items in the store which was a very fun thing to see just for the fact that most of us were from Minnesota. The next and final stop was the orphanage Lalau, while it was very chaotic it's always great to connect with the kids. Sometimes it is hard to connect with the older kids but a few of our team members shared that an older girl was content with doing her homework on a Saturday. Overall it was cool to see the other parts of Haiti and as always it was wonderful to be with the kids. Time after time there are tons of lessons that we learn from Haiti specifically the kids. They continually show love, care, and joy in the way that they live and play despite their unfair circumstances. Thank you for all your continual blessings and prayers along this journey, we are excited for a final bonding day with our team.
-Avery Whitbeck and Caden Boike

A powerful day....

We woke up early to go to tent church, not technically a tent, more like an airplane hangar!  The music was very loud, the speakers blasting the amazing worship music.  We could literally feel the beat!  This service was not a typical church service we were used to back home.  The people were walking around praising God  throughout the entire service.  We could feel the Holy Spirit's presence all around us.  A very powerful service....

After the service we walked back to the guest house and got ready to drive up to Titanyen, the home of Grace Village.  We drove in the more comfortable tap-tap (with seats!).  When we arrived at Grace Village, we took a tour of the grounds.  My highlight was getting to see the school classrooms and practicing math with one of the kids on the chalkboard (which is way different than what we have in my classroom back home!).  After the tour, we went down to Fleri Restaurant and Bakery to get a tour of the new job creation initiative.  We then traveled into town to visit the elders, which was another very powerful experience.  We got down on our knees and washed feet, painted toes and nails, gave a massage, and sang worship music to these special people.  We also delivered a hot meal to them.  It was very powerful and felt like we were truly God's servants.
-Noah