Haiti... meet Shalando and Mawoule

While I do not think I can ever truly put into words how much this trip to Haiti has meant to me, I am so thankful that I have pictures to remember moments throughout the trip.

Meet Shalando. I remember seeing him standing next to the fooseball table by himself. So, I asked him to play. Eventually, we sought each other out so that we could battle over fooseball. It was so awesome because during our first game (which turned into the best out of 5 games), he started singing Jesus Loves Me. So we sang worship songs while playing fooseball. He is 10 years old and simply awesome!

Meet Mawoule. She is simply precious. She is 12-years-old (have you noticed that even in Haiti I'm drawn to those who are in the middle school age group?!). The day before this picture was taken, our entire team went on a hike down to a waterfall. I am not much of a hiker and my asthma was acting up during that hike, so on Tuesday when they wanted to go to another waterfall, I chose to stay at the house. I wanted to read but ended up searching out water to take a shower. Mawoule saw that I wanted to wash my hair, filled a bucket with water, and proceeded to help me wash my hair. She was the perfect example of a servant, reminding me of John 13 when Jesus washed the disciples' feet. I am just sad that the next day I had to say goodbye. What a sweet heart she is.

 

While at House of Blessings Orphanage, we did work on the school. Sam (pictured with me below) was a great teammate. We learned rather quickly that we did well working together and basically did these two bathrooms while the rest of the team worked together on the other rooms. Our combination of perfectionism usually meant we wanted to measure the sheetrock right on the first try. I am glad I got to know him better.

I have more pictures and stories to share, but here are some reminders that I brought home with me.

The first is a bottle to add to my collection.

The bottle I kept was a fruit champagne bottle on the far right. Fruit Champagne is the Haitian cola. It's basically all sugar and I only drank half a bottle the entire time I was there. It was so super sweet! I also have two rocks from the orphanage.

It is so fitting that I found this banana bark artwork at the Baptist Mission the day our group went out to shop/barter with people. I shared several times with my team about my attitude with investing where I am at RIGHT NOW. Matthew 25 and the Parable of the Talents continues to convict me. This is the perfect piece of art for me.