Soooo Haiti day 4. Thursday!
We woke up and had breakfast which was..... hot dogs and french fries! Hilarious!
Then we got ready and left for Orphanage #3 again.
As soon as we got there some of the little girls ran up and hugged me, shouting "Joana! Joana!" It was so sweet that they remembered my name.
(I've come to the conclusion that that is my foreign name. In Mexico, everyone calls me Yoana. In Haiti, everyone called me Joana. Both are pronounced jo-ah-nah. I love hearing little voices call me that.)
We continued our project of passing buckets of sand through the orphanage to the workers upstairs.
Here's something crazy.
Most of the day while we worked, the kids were in a room with some adults (their teachers I guess?). They were teaching the children to fast and pray. Most of them didn't eat at all that day.
And oh. my. goodness.
You should have heard those kids pray.
They were SHOUTING and singing and praising God and thanking him at the top of their lungs for hours.
It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen,
and the most humbling.
These kids barely even have clothes or beds or food,
and here they are thanking God and giving Him glory with more passion than I ever had in my whole life.
They kept yelling "MERCI JEZI!" Thank you Jesus.
And I don't know how to spell it, but something that sounded like "aleluya gwa!" Hallelujah glory.
And just... wow.
It really made me re-examine how I worship God. How people in America worship God. How people walk out of a 1 or 2 hour service and that's the end of it.
These kids are shouting, singing, dancing, praying, for hours. These children who have nothing are fasting and thanking Jesus for being their Savior. He's all they need.
I want to pray like those kids.
After we finished working and the kids came out, we got out some pipe cleaners and face paint and played for a while. It was so fun. The kids were so sweet. I was falling in love.
Kids worshiping. It was hard to get a good picture because they were moving so much and I didn't want to use my flash!
How beautiful is this.
Loving kids.
I love Haiti.
Face paint!
My heart is broken. Kids were always crying. You can't be the same person after you see an orphan's tears. You just can't.
My beautiful Rodria ♥
Pipe cleaners!
How sweet are they!?
After Orphanage #3, we went back to the guest house to change, and then we left for Orphanage #4.
Orphanage #4 was the HIV Orphanage. All the kids there were HIV positive. I think the youngest was 5 or 6, and the oldest was around our age.
This orphanage was run by ladies in America, so it was a lot nicer than the first 3. All the kids had clean summer clothes on, and they had beds to sleep in, food, medicine, and I think they even had air conditioning. Even though it was so much nicer than the ones we had been to in the days before, this orphanage broke my heart.
The thing about it that hit me so hard was that, as we were pulling up, Doug told us that we were the first team to ever go there.
No one had ever been there before.
HIV isn't contagious. (Well, it is, but not in any way that you could get it by loving and playing with kids.)
But for some reason, no team had ever gone there before.
When the tap tap pulled up, we all got out and walked in the gates.
Immediately children were shaking our hands and hugging us and saying hi and thanking us for coming.
Immediately children were shaking our hands and hugging us and saying hi and thanking us for coming.
It was the cutest thing.
We brought stickers, silly bands, tattoos, nail polish, a soccer ball, etc.
They loved it. They loved the attention and love, and they loved us right back.
They just had such an incredible, undeniable joy.
They were the sweetest kids I've ever met.
(and, if you know my previous San Luis stories, there was a little girl there named Ruth!! ♥)
We had the honor of holding those kids and praying over them, and praying with the orphanage staff as well.
It was an incredible time, and we were all in love.
After a while we left and went back to the guest house for the usual dinner/devotions/shower/etc. time.
Another beautiful day in beautiful Haiti.
I don't have pictures from the first time at Orphanage #4, but enjoy this cockroach Natalie and I found on the balcony of the guest house! Also, we saw huge rats, like the size of cats. And lizards. And bats. Scary.
