Journal Entry 7/28/2008

Big old eyes.......she was so cute. She was laughing so hard at the toy she had in her hand :)


Last night was the coolest night! I almost put a sheet over me!! It was crazy! We went to a school this morning to sing and play with the kids and give them food. It was a really small school just cement with benches. The distribution was a challenge because a crowd started gathering trying to get to the truck. We finished in just enough time; jumped in the bus and jetted out. We had PB and J for lunch and then some were chosen to go back to the Good Samaritan and some did the filtration stuff. I went to the Good Samaritan. I love that place. When I went this time we brought some lentals (some food for the kids). A man named Dustin came with us this time. He is a missionary that just started working with the mission of hope. We walked back to the kitchen area and asked if we could cook the lentals right then. The woman made up some excuses about not having oil, but I told her she didn't need oil to cook the lentals. I told her we would cook them, but she had some type of beans cooking in the pot and said she couldn't cook them yet. I asked her who the beans were for because there was obviously not enough for all the kids. She said "the weak ones"...I asked where the weak ones were and she said in the room. I walked in the room and there were kids laying on the cement floor and on the beds. Most of them were asleep, but one little boy was just crying on the bed. Some one had set him up there but he was so tired of crying he was falling asleep. Dustin and I went over to him. Dustin sat on the bed with him and rubbed his little tummy until he closed his eyes and stopped crying. He was so adorable...I just prayed as Dustin rubbed his stomach that whatever pain he was having would go away. Just to put him asleep. And.....he fell asleep as Dustin rubbed his stomach. I am going to put a picture of him at the end of this journal entry. His body was so cute, but so malnourished. The reason why we were so worried about the lentals being cooked was because we were told some of the food she has been given before has ended up in the market place instead of the kids stomachs. Anyone who can do that just has no conscience. How can you take food from a child's mouth when they are starving. I asked one of the translators to ask one of the kids if they had a meal at all that day and she said no they had not. No telling if they had a meal the day before that either. It just infuriated me. The kids we were playing with in the play area seemed okay though, they didn't seem to weak because they were running around so happy to see us. I was just happy to be there because they were so happy we were there. I really didn't want to leave when it was time to go because I wasn't sure if we were even going to get to come back. I wish I could just change one of those kids lives. I struggle so much with thinking about how many people I know in the U.S. and how there were about 29 kids at this orphanage....and how if just 29 people that I know adopted 1 of the kids, or just sent money for one of the kids, how much better their life would be. It seems so easy to think about, but I can't think about that because it makes me sad. I think the kids think their life is fine. They don't know any different so all they knew is that there were these really nice people that came to play with them...and came back a few times to play with them and hold them and love them. That was enough to make their day...and week. I would love to see them again after this Haiti trip. I hope this isn't the last time I will see them. When we got back to the mission we loaded 1,000 bags on the truck to go to the schools tomorrow. We had fish tonight for dinner and the head was still on it...but it was SOOOOO good! :) The first picture is one of the boy that was sitting on the bed. The picture is from the first time we came. The pictures underneath the first one are pictures of the kitchen area at the orphanage and the bathrooms (or holes in the ground) and the kids beds. The kids bed area looks really good in this picture, but there were flies all around and most of their sheets were soiled. The lady in the picture of the kitchen is they lady who is head of the orphanage.


This little girl was sooo proud of her red dress. She would just smile everytime I told her how beautiful she looked in it :)


This little girl loved the bubbles I had...she kept blowing them and did a really good job at it too!


This was the kitchen area.


This is Dustin...he is the one that asked about the food with me and rubbed the little boys belly until he fell asleep.


Where the kids slept.


These were the bathrooms...if you walked by them you would see they were really just holes in the ground.