Our 1st Teams Have Arrived!!

Our trip to the Mole went very smoothly. It looked like the sky was going to drench us with a downpour the entire time but God only allowed a few drops to escape. The first part of the trip wasn’t too rough, but the last hour was pretty rough on our bodies. I actually ended up with a knot on my rear…lol You know just the things you risk when you travel in Haiti. J When we got to the Mole, we spent the day unpacking our suitcases that we had been waiting to unpack for three days. We were definitely all ready to get settled in. We spent the rest of the day catching up with the Castillos and Miss Beth, as well as hanging out with our translators. Friday morning we went to the orphanage and enjoyed spending time with all of the kids. All of the kids have grown SO much in one year!!! It was SO great to see all of them again. I missed them a lot. At lunch, Jody went over our first two teams’ schedules with us and then we spent the rest of the afternoon working on leading worship songs for devotions. At suppertime on Friday, I started to feel super tired and sick to my stomach so I thought that if I just laid down for a while that I would be fine. I got to our room, and I became super dizzy and started sweating like crazy…so I tried to just sleep it off. I slept for like an hour and when I woke up, I still felt pretty awful…so I used Voxer to ask Jody if she thought that I needed medicine or an IV(Yes, I felt awful enough to ask if she needed to give me an IV J). We both decided that it was probably just a combination of being slightly dehydrated and exhausted. She had me take some ibuprofen and sent some cold water bags to me to help me cool off. I eventually fell asleep and woke up at 2am for a little bit and felt MUCH better. I was super glad because I really thought that I had contracted some terrible disease…lol. I was just being dramatic and allowing my imagination to take over. We spent Saturday getting ready for our first group by cleaning the rooms and straightening things up. We also enjoyed spending some of that time just hanging out. I have really enjoyed spending time and getting to know Emily and Haylee as well as our translator, who is also our roommate, Darlene. They are all such great girls and I am super excited about spending the rest of the summer with them. Our guy interpreters aren’t too bad either, but one of them has this thing for spaghetti. J hahaha. We enjoy teasing him about it.

            Our group arrived around 6pm and of course it had to be the day that the Mole decided to fix their water pipes…so we could only offer bucket baths…and apparently some of them have never taken one of those so we had to explain the process. J Today, us interns attempted to lead Children’s Church. It was going super well for the first hour—at least as well as can be expected with kids ranging in ages from 2-12. And then we kind of ran out of things to do and the kids totally lost focus. Haha. We are hoping to change things for next week so that it will hopefully go a little more smoothly. J Even though it was a little crazy, there were still many moments where we were able to love on the kids and share God’s love through our smiles and hugs. It is because of those moments that I count our time as a success and am thankful that God is able to work through the chaos and mess that we experience.

            The group spent the rest of their day relaxing at the beach, which was actually our first trip to the beach since we arrived in the Mole. I will hopefully be able to post a picture of the beach here soon, because it is GOREGOUS!!! After hanging out at the beach for a few hours, we headed back to the house to shower and get ready for Jody’s voodoo/abuse orientation and dinner. After supper, us interns led worship and Jody shared a great devotion on some passages in Kings. I felt like worship actually went pretty well, considering I haven’t really played guitar for an entire year… haha. I’m hoping that by the end of the summer I will practically be a pro…well at least improved. J

            Please be praying that God would keep Satan and his attacks on the teams at bay. Pray that even though some of the things may seem small, that God would use them to start HUGE things in the Mole and in Haiti. Please pray especially for the health of the teams. It has been REALLY hot these past few days and we need our teams to stay strong and healthy so that they are able to effectively interact and minister to the people of the Mole. Please let me know if there are prayer requests that you have.

            Can’t wait to see all that God will do through these teams!!!!