"This was the most incredible way to celebrate Easter! I will never forget this!" That was Julie's comment during the evening team meeting through tears of heart felt emotions.
The morning began with the team joining the orphans, the earthquake refugees and the hospital patients for their outdoor church service - Haitian style. Bonnie, one of our team members who grew up in Haiti as a missionary kid, translated the message for us. Many were impacted by the Word. After the service some of the team went to visit a few patients and pray over them. Needless to say this was another opportunity for God to work in and through our volunteers.
After lunch part of our team went out to the playground site to continue working. They were joined by some of the local Haitian refugees and patient's families to accomplish quite a bit of work in a short time. Most of the remainder of the team had the chance to tour the orphanage and play with the kids. Several of the ladies put candy into Easter eggs and hid them for an Easter egg hunt. To say it was fun to watch the children run to find the eggs would be an understatement! The excitement and the anticipation of finding the eggs became contagious. Many of the team members were running and laughing with the kids.
When we left the orphanage some of the team members went into the refugee camps to spend time with the children there. A few members were given the chance to speak with some of the earthquake survivors. One man shared that he was at work when the earthquake hit and raced home as quickly as he could. When he finally got home his house was completely leveled and he could not find anyone, not his wife, or his 5 kids. After searching frantically one of his son's came around the corner and the dad asked him where everyone else was. "They are gone!" he cried. Eventually they found one daughter who survived in the rubble of the collapsed home. Her mother had sheltered her in her arms and covered her to protect her from the collapsing building. She had given her life to save her little girl. Through the pain of such great loss this man shared through tears how much he thanked God for giving him 2 of his children back. This is reality in Haiti today.
Just before dinner, Love A Child handed out some of the new soccer uniforms and equipment to the LAC soccer team and they played a game against another group of soccer players. The excitement and cheers of the crowd when the team came running out in their new, bright uniforms reminded me of similar experiences in the States at school athletic events. And when the LAC team won 1-0...well, let's just say I think people from miles around heard the celebration!
On Tuesday we hope to finish most of the playground components and mix concrete so we can do the surfacing on Wednesday afternoon just in time for Thursday's big celebration! Thank you all for your prayers and support.
On behalf of the team in Haiti...
Mike Young
Kids Around The World
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment