Meeting the Haitian Children

*This post was written on Sunday and due to lack of internet could not be posted until today

So today was our first full day in Haiti!!! So because it was our first day, we were given a tour of Missions of Hope with our interns.  We visited the warehouse, orphanage, school, and the clinic/hospital.  Of course it is a Sunday, so everything was closed but it was nice to see everything while there was no one there, and see where everything was.  Tomorrow will be the day where it gets busy!!! We then visited the Church of Hope for a church service.  It was definitely interesting to see the way the Haitian people worship.  They all get so excited about worshipping God, and it was very inspiring.  They sang many songs, most of them in Creole, so it was a little difficult to sing along, but watching the Haitians sing for me, still made it special.  The sermon was also in Creole (with a few English and French words/sentences), but we all knew pretty much when to say Amen, or get excited and clap.  Overall, it was a good experience seeing how excited and empowered these people are, when they pretty much have nothing.  After church, we went on tour to the other campuses of Mission of Hope (which we did not know about).  The first village was Bercy, where they had another school, as well as some guest housing.  The second was Leveque, where there is the 500 homes village.  We then visited with some of the children who were playing in on the playground there.  Its amazing how welcoming and attached these kids get.  I had one girl immediately come up to me when we were off the bus and lifted her arms up, signaling she wanted to be lifted.  I lifted her up and she snuggled in to me and almost fell asleep.  It was pretty adorable.  They all understand some English, at least “photo”, which is a huge thing.  They love cameras and taking pictures and seeing themselves on a screen.  It was pretty sad though, to see these kids.  Most of them were running around without shoes, and they were lucky if they had pants or a skirt on.  Its pretty eye opening when these kids have next to nothing, yet they all have smiles on their faces.  All together, it was a pretty eventful day!!!         

Shae-Lynn