Day 5

Hey from Haiti!
Praise God!..today was such a fun and encouraging day! It rained again today. I am loving the correlation between prayer and the rain..thank you prayer team! The kids did not have school today so we had a full day to play with them!! The team got kids in the library to play today and they had a blast! The kids loved all of the toys and reading the books. I was really surprised at how well clean-up went (definitely better than the average American play room). We are hoping that the library will get used more often. The kids are very well behaved. We also played games and sang songs in the school room like down by the banks, the hokey pokey, and Father Abraham (which the kids thought was hilarious). The rain stopped and we had more time with the kids outside. The men worked in the rain and finished the roof today! They had quite an audience of kids watching. Scott hit his finger with a hammer (its pretty blueish/blackish). The men worked very hard and got very sweaty so they are getting the first showers tonight. The men also put a cross, which they made, on the front of the church. Not long after they were asked to take it down because it is mainly a Catholic symbol here and the pastor's wife did not want it there. We got a picture outside the church with the cross on it before it was taken down. We also had a couple pretty sweet dance parties outside today..even the mommas were getting into it. We are all very encouraged at the way the mommas have been involved in the activities and are much much more receptive to us. Several women have gotten hugs or at least a bunch of smiles and waves from them! We discovered outfits for the mommas in one of the bags tonight and are majorly pumped to give them to them! Please continue to pray for the mommas and our bond with them. I volunteered to do laundry this week and they are lovin’ it. The mommas work very hard with the resources they have. The VBS today was about the resurrection. The kids had another coloring sheet, which they always love. They also got egg shakers and toilet paper tubes to color, shower with stickers, and yell threw (of course the stickers also ended up on their faces and clothes). The kids had a blast singing and using their instruments. We went out to dinner at a restaurant in downtown Les Cayes with Samuel and Sarah tonight which was fun and delicious. We discovered that Nelson, our driver, speaks Spanish so he and I talked as the team fed me questions to ask him. He was very grateful to be able to converse with us and I’m sure he was very entertained as we were all cracking up. Sara and helpers completed the assessments of the younger girls today. We haven’t had our nightly meeting, worship, and prayer yet but we had great fellowship again today. I have been very blessed by the other team members this week. It’s crazy to think that today is Friday..that means one more full day with the kiddos. It definitely gets harder and harder to say goodbye and the end of each day. My little buddy Mardoche, who is very shy and quiet and rarely talks, laughs, or smiles has been opening up to me more and more each day. I put him down today to say bye to the other kiddos and he immediately jumped right back up into my arms. Hanging with these kids and this team has definitely given me a very cool picture of God’s love and challenging me to go all out to share it. We all continue to be blessed with the service at the Pastor Louis’ house. Please pray for them as well. The plan is to take the kiddos and perhaps the mommas to the beach for a few hours tomorrow. They have been looking forward to the beach all week. Please pray for sweet time there. We also plan to show the Jesus film tomorrow and have tracts to pass out to the people that come. Please pray that the Lord would work through the movie and that time and bring lots of people. Well thanks again for all of the prayers!

With love and blessings,

Kelsey (with some input from Greg)