.......continued from previous post....

so getting to our beach property camp site which was our home for two weeks took roughly around two-ish hours. We were all sweating like crazy on the bus because there was little ventilation through the tiny windows......it got crazy dark shortly after we started driving so we didn't get to see much of Port au Prince. After the initial chattyness of the excitement after everyone got on the bus, it was pretty quiet. We were all just really tired and all probably had a million thoughts racing through our minds.

Once we got to our camp, Mary Yve, the lady that cooked all of our meals while we were there, had made us a lovely meal. Shortly after, members from another team that were staying at the camp (from World Race/ Adventures in Missions) had just returned from church that evening. We had a short little meet and greet, and most of us just went to bed.

I remember laying in the tent that night... I shared a North face tent with my friends, Lauren and Steph....but anyway, I remember being so ridiculously hot that I was like what the heck was I thinking?? Needless to say, I didn't sleep much that night, nor the first couple of nights because of the heat.


Monday, June 7,


Kim woke us up around 5:15am.......and the sun had already risen!! I was really tired because I hadnt slept at all the night before, and I'm not much of a morning person anyway. We had our first meal in the daylight, so we could actually see what we were eating, lol. Rice pudding and bread. Mmmm so good!! And I'm not being sarcastic either......the food there is actually really really good!! I held an open mind the entire time i was there.....I never ate anything I didn't like! After breakfast, we all piled onto the bus that had brought us to the camp the night before, except this time there were 26 of us (our team plus the World Race team plus two other girls from Germany). I was already sweating like crazy, there was no escaping the heat. It was only like 6:30 am and already it was scorchingly hot!!! I remember TJ from the World Race team had come up with a good motto for the week......"Choose it". Meaning, you may find yourself it a crappy situation, but ultimately you can choose how to react to it. Are you going to be testy about it, or are you just going to let it slide off your back and be ok with it. That phrase stuck with me the whole week.....actually kept my spirits up!! I told myself, I'm not going to let petty things like being so hot and sweaty and gross or being dirty bother me. This is all part of the experience, so I'm just going to embrace the heat, and be thankful for the cold showers :)

So we got to the orphanage around 7am and Renee, one of the missionaries at Mission of Hope (her and her husband, Lex who was also the pastor of the church WERE Mission of hope basically), started telling us what we would be doing each day, building houses in the village across the highway from the orphanage. A few of us chose to stay at the orphanage with the kids in the morning. There were three of us from our team, one from the World Race team, and Kristina, one of the girls from Germany who stayed at the orphanage. It was pretty low key, which was good for me for the first day. We just kinda hung out with the kids, played hand games (which they love) and got to know each other, as well as a couple of the older women who could speak some english who were there taking care of the babies.

Mid morning, the kids had to go to school so there wasn't really much for us to do at the orphanage. So we crossed the highway and headed into the jungle to the village where houses were being built. I was surprised at how hard the other teams were working! I almost felt bad for having to be able to take it easy in the morning.....don't get me wrong, hanging with the kids was still pretty exhausting! Since mostly everybody who was working on the houses already had jobs, we didn't really have anything to do except observe really, or play with some of the kids that were hanging around the houses in the village.

We ended the day at about 4pm, everyone was so tired!! We went back to camp and had to organize all of our stuff we brought down (including supplies, donated clothes and shoes, gifts for the kids, food,, etc. into piles. So that took probably about a half hour, and then we all could do whatever until dinner. I chose to take advantage of the shower.....I have never appreciated a cold shower so much in my life. The whole time I was in the shower i was thanking God that He provided us with such amazing accomodations at the camp. We had two toilets and two showers for each gender. And we could even flush our toilet paper!!! (lol we weren't allowed to flush our toilet paper in Honduras, so I was expecting it to be the same in Haiti).

So cold showers and regular toilets were a saving grace for sure.

That night we had chicken pot pie, and by dinnertime everybody was so hungry!!! It was probably the best meal I have had in a long time, no joke. Food tastes so much better after you've had a hard day's work! After dinner we all sat around and talked about things we've learned and reactions to the day and such, and then Caleb, one of the guys from our team played his guitar as we sang worship songs. It was really cool, singing always brings a group together :) After that it was about 9:00....and we were all ready for bed. But again, i did not sleep well. I'm a picky sleeper I guess, my body just can't sleep if its not at a certain comfort level. It must have taken me like 4 hours to fall asleep......and even then, once someone started snoring, or a rooster crowed, or a donkey squeeled I would wake up. lol and trust me, that happened a lot. Haha I look back on it now and laugh.....

....well thats all for now.....Tuesday June 8 will come next!!!


Sarah C.