Acronyms Gallore: MUPANAH, HDC, FREM, OK!

As usual with each group, we headed to the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien first thing Monday morning, followed by the monument square across the street. On our way out of downtown, we went past the Notre Dame Cathedral Ruins...some of my students should remember this from a book we read during our weather unit when we did our storm/natural disaster projects! The tents in front are still used as homes for many people/families. They've built a new cathedral in the same area, but it's not nearly as magnificent as the original. From what we understand, this cathedral will remain in ruins as a monument.

We went to Haiti Design Co-op for lunch and a tour and proceeded on to FREM Orphanage. The kids there are doing SO MUCH BETTER! [Praise the Lord!!] They were full of so much energy when we got there, greeting us at the gate, screaming with so much excitement! We took in some rubber bracelets, coloring supplies, and little crafts. They loved it. My favorite thing is to hug, hold, love on, and TICKLE...their smiles and giggles are priceless and will be forever etched into my memory. One of the women in this week's group (Mo) captured the sweetest candid snapshot of me with Lovinsky...wifi has been weak lately, so her email won't go through, but she said she will resend it once they land in Miami on Friday...and I will definitely post it once I receive it! In the mean time, here are some gems I captured!

Tuesday we started our morning with a devotion from John. The topic was "decisions". He talked about how we have many important decisions to make each day...seven imparticular, the most important being: Whom will I serve? [Joshua 24:21-24] The other six include the decision to:
1. Rejoice & be glad. [Psalm 118:24]
2. Draw close to God. [James 4:8]
3. Use our mouths/words to please God. [Psalm 19:14]
4. Shake off the things that hinder and ensnare me. [Hebrews 12:1]
5. Be joyful and thankful. [1 Thessalonians 5:16-18]
6. Present our lives as a holy & living sacrifice. [Romans 12:1]

After devotion we packed up the canter and headed to the OK. After a tour and worshipping with the Men's Discipleship Program, we split up into teams. One team varnished the ceiling that another group installed a couple of weeks ago (inside the Women's Education Center), another team loaded up the canter full of scrap metal and took it to the scrapyard/recycling center, and the third group organized donations and supplies...LOTS of them! We went through suitcase, after suitcase, after suitcase...dufflebag, after dufflebag, after dufflebag. We were able to pack some "goody bags" for the women at the prison (including toiletries, bibles, candy, etc.) and put together 125 book bags full of school supplies for Vacation Bible School out in Corail next week!


Today (Wednesday) we had another morning devotion with John. Beth was supposed to come but they had a hospital transport in the middle of the night and she didn't get home until around 7AM. The topic today was: Your position determines your condition.
Some tidbits that stood out to me include:
"God is constantly on the move. I cannot stay where I am and follow God at the same time; responding requires movement." ~Margaret Feinberg
"We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, but frankly we won't if we're too afraid to try." ~Beth Moore

After devotion we headed to the OK. I stayed back at the OK with the men while the ladies headed to the women's prison. The men were working on various projects while I continued to organize school supplies and donations. It felt good to finally finish! Apparently the ladies had quite the experience/adventure...Frank said it took them almost 3 hours to get to the prison and once they got there they weren't able to get in because of some surprise inspection that was going on. Traffic was so jammed up because the President was in Petionville and there was a large parade/celebration going on! They had to kill some time (about an hour) until they could get into the prison, so they got out of the canter and got to observe/partipate in the event, about 20 yards from the President! By the time the ladies got back to the OK it was past 3PM (and they hadn't eaten lunch yet!).

We packed up and headed to the public park. We spent some time there passing out pates and bags of water. Some of the team played basketball against some local Haitians. Others of us who are...ahem...not so talented in the "hoops" department...hung out in the bleachers, watching them play and spending time with the community! It was such a neat experience! I met a deaf Haitian man named Jean and we were able to have quite a long conversation. He was VERY patient with my basic ASL skills and was so thrilled that I was able to communicate with him!

After the park we headed to Pizza Amour for dinner and came back to the Guest House. I showered and am currently sitting on the upstairs porch typing away. I'm exhausted and ready for a good night's rest!