Wednesday, April 29 2015

Will (with a little help from his friends)

Today started with something we hadn'’t experienced yet in Haiti— - 25 degree weather!  For most on the compound, it might as well been winter but to a hearty few it was the best morning ever, …even if Karen burnt the baked oatmeal!

After breakfast, we headed over to staff devotions and in the words of Will, “this is awesome and it is great how the people here can make a great beat with their hands.  And they sing better than us too!”

Once they were done it was off to work and it was great to be working in such cool weather …for about an hour till the heat caught up with the day.  The team tackled the front of the church and we are happy to report that the front is DONE!! 

The church front is complete

We were lucky enough to take our break at the same time the kids at the school had recess (you would think we planned it that way) and it was so neat to see these kids be happy with so little.  A game of soccer broke out using nothing but an empty pop bottle!  It really makes us realize what happiness really is.

Recess crowd

Of course when you put a bunch of “blancs” in a group of touchy-feely kids, you get touched.  It was nothing to see each of the team having their hands held and being led around the school yard.  It is also amazing to see these well-dressed kids running (and I mean running) around in the heat and not even break a sweat!  I even got welcomed into a group of kids playing and everything was going great until I got knocked over.  But all was good because they were super quick to get me back on my feet.

After a well deserved break at lunch, we all decided to have a rest and it wasn'’t long before it was really quiet.

Nap time or lunch time?

Joan and Karen had a wonderful to-do list to get ready for the party on Thursday and it just so happened that we had a group of willing people here to get things done.

Cleaning the bathroom

Back to basics

Scrubbing away on the school walls

Washing coolers in the heater

I got to help the kids here wash down the folding chairs.  Sorry there were no pictures because we couldn'’t trust having cameras around a bunch of kids with a hose in the Haitian heat.  There was too high of a chance of a second round of the water fight from last night.

Always time for the kids

As we write this, the team is practicing their singing and Jason is getting a message ready for our appearance on the radio at Luckner'’s tonight.  We have a good mix of new songs and a couple of hymns.  It should be a blast.

Prepping our singing voices for our radio premier

As I have been here, I have really realized how fortunate we Canadians are and how we take simple things for granted.  We complain about things that really aren'’t that important and I know that when I get back, I won’t be taking anything for granted.  We are all one people and we can'’t judge anyone no matter what.

-Will