We had a team travel to Haiti July 23-29, 2010 and various team members wrote journal entries during the trip. In case you missed it, click here for the 1st entry. Here is the 2nd entry…
DAY 2- Saturday
The team washed down pancakes, peanut butter, and bananas with hot Haitian coffee before we piled into the van and headed down the mountain from Petionville to Port-au-Prince. Elizabeth, Sally, and Amanda wore their camera batteries down in the first 45 minutes snapping shots of the sidewalk markets lining the streets for miles on end. Women selling chickens, men maneuvering through the throngs with classrooms full of chairs on their heads, and others carrying pharmacies in the ice-cream-cone-shaped dispensaries joined hundreds of other vendors.
After almost two hours we pulled up to our vacation Bible school site. Before we knew it, fifty children were sitting hip to hip on wooden benches enthralled by Melanie’s story of the lost sheep. Within an hour the number had doubled. We made cotton ball sheep, painted fingernails, played soccer, chased each other around in a rousing “Duck, Duck, Goose” game, and drove away, dirty, exhausted, and extremely happy.
The slow moving trek back up the mountain climaxed with a stunning view of the city at “the Overlook.” We rumbled down into the Guest House driveway with enough time to play with the babies in the orphanage connected to our lodging. Damp diapers, sweet smiles, and outstretched arms melted our hearts. We bounced them, swung them, and tickled them until we had to tear ourselves away in time to freshen up for supper. Potatoes, rice, beef, and green beans justified the tall Cokes that several of us splurged on after a long and wonderful day.
Jude and Zach shared their stories during our debriefing meeting, which were devotionals in themselves. Diana played one of her husband’s songs with Margaret’s IPOD speakers to illustrate the idea of obedience. We ended the night playing games and painting fingernails with the teens from another nearby orphanage whom we’ll see again tomorrow. It was a great day.
Submitted by Diana Parks
