My first two days in a place that feels like home!

Today is my second full day in Haiti. I am having such an amazing time. It is extremely hot here, and that will wear any person out, so I start to lose energy around 1 or 2, but I’ve been doing just fine!

Yesterday was my 22 birthday. Yup, I’m totally old. Woke up this morning feeling my age haha! But yesterday was definitely filled with lots of fun adventures. We woke up around seven and got ready for the day. We then headed out to Children of Hope Orphanage and Hospice to play with the kids. I visited this orphanage back in October and fell in love with it then, and going back yesterday just reminded me of how much I do that those kids!

We played with the kids for a few hours. I fell in love with this boy named Israel. He is probably 6 or 7 and we played with a beach ball and volleyed it back and forth. I haven’t seen a child’s face light up that much in such a long time. It was so fun just to love him and hang out with him.

After a little while, we got in the car to go back to the house. It is definitely a bumpy ride, so we were all hanging on for deal life in the truck. We had stopped and all of the sudden someone RAMMED us! We had 4 people in the bed of the truck and they were definitely shaken up! Everyone was fine, but it took two hours to swap information and figure out what needed to be done. After that we were finally on our way back to the house.

But of course, we had to make another stop. We went to the market to get some snacks. Since it was my birthday, I decided it was ok to eat an entire Toblerone, and that is exactly what I did. It was absolutely delicious. Some girls we were with were on the hunt for Dr. Pepper. The first market didn’t have any, so we went to another market, which took about another hour. By the time we got home, it was time to eat dinner! Oh, and we did find Dr. Pepper, and they bought 15 of them!

We got home and we went down to eat dinner. We have spaghetti and meatballs and salad! It was so delicious! As I was about to start filling my plate, Greg turned around and showed me this BEAUTIFUL cake that he had bought for my birthday and everyone sang. I started to tear up, but held in back. It was so awesome for them to think of me. And this cake was amazing! It was from a French bakery in Petionville, which is about 20 minutes from our house. And it tasted delicious too!

As a matter of fact, I just ate another piece, and it is still delicious!

After dinner we came back up to the house and I skyped with my sister, then Adam West and John Mark, who sang me an AWESOME birthday song. It is so good to still be able to see familiar faces while I’m here.

Today was an excellent day as well. We had to wake up super early to head to the orphanage. Rozlynn was a young girl that had been at the orphanage for a really long time and she was more of a caretaker than an orphan. She died on Monday, and her funeral was today. We went there early this morning so that we could take care of the kids while all of the workers went to the funeral. As soon as we got there, we were swarmed by children. Automatically, Israel, the young boy that I played “beach volleyball” with wanted to play again, so we started playing.

A few minutes later, a boy named Lookins wanted to play basketball, so me, him, Rivaldo and Kinsley played 2 on 2. The basketball goal was a small tin round thing that is nothing like an American basketball goal. But, apparently, I’m not too shabby. Me and Rivaldo won the first game, and tied the second game. It was so fun, but definitely wore me out. Dashna is another young girl that I played with today. She hit her head on a bench and we bonded through that experience.

Now we are back home and all very exhausted. I just wanted to let you guys know what I was doing! It is raining right now, so the Internet went out, and I’m not sure when it will go back on, so this might be a little delayed because of the rain.

I appreciate all of your prayers, and know that they are what is getting me through the days. The work is hard, but totally worth every bit of effort put in. Just know that I am doing great, and the Lord is working in this place! I love each and every one of you!