A Trip To La Baie

Well the team has had a busy couple of days.  Yesterday we left for La Baie.  It was a two hour trip that we took by bus.  La Baie is a lot poorer than Saint Louis.  It is where grass huts become a reality.  All of Haiti is poor, but La Baie takes it to a different extreme.  At the Baie campus, we have an orphanage with around forty boys.  When we got there, we spent time loving on the boys.  Then we did “hut to huts” where we walked up the mountain visiting different houses.   We were able to talk with the families, pray over them, and give some of them peanut butter.  We then were able to do a VBS with the kids from the community.  We had 151 kids at our VBS! After this, we spent some more time loving on the boys.  Today we started the day doing VBS with the boys.  Then we were able to take some of them to the beach, so they could go swimming.  We came back to campus and spent the rest of the time with the boys.  Then we headed back to Saint Louis.  We had a few problems (flat tire, bus breaking down), so we had to switch to tap taps.  It was a new adventure for most of the group.  The afternoon in Saint Louis was spent in various ways.  Mainly we all spent time with the orphans kids.  We’ve hit the homestretch and are looking forward to our last remaining days!

Mark: Monday- One of the younger bracelet bandits held my hand to Tortuga. When we got back he gave me two bracelets. One had his name, Frankis, and the other had my name spelled “Mack”. It was too cute. Torguta was absolutely stunning in beauty. The kids were great and very attentive.  They are so much fun but also fun to play with in the water. It was also fun playing basketball with Kendy after months of trash talking—that’s what brothers are for I guess.

Tuesday- two things spoke to my heart. the two groups are people I’m most uncomfortable with is the special needs and the elderly. Three of the special need kids took me down to the elderly. It was cool seeing them interact with each other. It got me to cross that barrier and I feel more comfortable with them now. The house of hope was touching. The kid’s joy that they have in so much tribulation in their lifes is so cool to see. We all hooked on to one of the kids, I hooked onto Nellitou. He had bright yellow corduroy pants and they match his personality. He always smiled and it was definitely contagious. The kids at the house of hope were easily the most awesome kids we have played with so far.

Wednesday/Thursday- the change of scenery on the ride from St. Louis de Nurd to Le Baie was incredible. You go from beaches and palm trees to desert and cacti in a few seconds. Two little brothers latched on to me. I played with them, Jossee and Shinada, for the rest of the day. If I looked out at the window, they would be looking at me. As soon as they saw me they would run up and hold my hand. They were 151 kids at VBS. It was so cool to see so many kids at VBS and thirty kids standing outside. Hut to hut was amazing and God led us to the right people to pray for. It is crazy how you develop relationships so fast with kids that don’t speak any English. I really feel now that Jossee and Shinada are my brothers. I just want to bring them home with me. It was so sad but also let me with a peace knowing they will be fine and I will see them soon.

Sidenote: the stars here are indescribable, it just makes you realize how big and how awesome our God really is.

Danielle: Yesterday we went to La Baie and it was only boys at the orphanage. Even though I hang out with a lot of the girls at the compound, I loved hanging out with the little guys. One of my favorite parts of going there is that we got the chance to do hut to huts. It was just really neat to pray over the people in their homes and give some of them peanut butter. I was also so blessed to have so many kids at VBS, which other people have already mentioned. Today we went to the beach with some of the kids at the orphanage. It was amazing to see them just having a good time on the beach. When you are playing with a kid and they laugh and smile constantly, it is so touching and such a good feeling. A lot of events happen that really show me why I am here in Haiti.

Mary Kate: yesterday and today was spent at La Baie. We were able to go “hut to hut”, praying over people and talking. It was a very humbling and amazing experience as well as heart breaking. The orphanage at La Baie housed only boys who were very rambunctious and chaotic but all so incredibly sweet. The thing I remember most of the boys was holding then in my arms, or in my lap. When talking to them they would always be very attentive and with it being so windy a few pieces of hair would always be in your mouth or across your face. With their dusty, little, slobbery hands they would gently take the pieces of hair away from your hair a softly tuck it behind your ear. It had to be one of the most precious things ever. Even though it was such a little gesture, it meant so much to me.

Shannon- Wednesday and Thursday we went to La Baie.  When we first got there it was really different. In St. Louis it is very tropical, and its very poor,  but La Baie is completely different. La Baie is very deserty and even more poor there than St. Louis. At the compound in La Baie there is an orphanage of forty boys. We took them to the playground, beach, and did a vbs with them. Another thing we got to do was go to the huts. Hut to huts is a thing we do when we go into the mountains where the huts are to meet the family that lives there, pray over them, and give them food. We told each family with children that we were having a vbs at the local church. On the way to the church we had to go through the town first so we just started yelling vbs to the children and they followed. We didn’t think many children would come. We thought like sixty would come, but we ended up having one hundred and fifty-one children, and we had to turn down twenty to thirty children because we didn’t have enough for them. Thanks again to the people that supported me, I have gotten the letters that you have sent me.

Les – La Baie is the poorest area we will encounter on this trip.  It is truly what you see when you see commercials about 3^rd world countries.  Even in this environment, you meet special people.  Even though the majority of the time we spent with the orphanage boys, I ended up spending most of my time with a boy from the town.  His name was Franswathe (I am sure I butchered that) and he was about 15.  His family went to the mission church.  What made him so special was his thirst to learn the English language.  Every time I saw him he was carrying a notebook with him and he would ask you to teach him various English words that he would right in his notebook.  It was almost full of English words.  The first time I saw it he was flipping pages and I spotted all of John 3:16 written in it.  We spent some time going over all the words of the verse and what they meant.  What an experience being able to share the word with him.  Thank you God for providing me the opportunity to spend time with him.

Cameron Lile – Ahhhhh! Okay, so I have super great/God inspired news to share….But I am going to wait until I get home (this way you can see my face and get excited with me). Just know that everything is going fantastic and I can’t wait to share and see what God is going to do with this plan. Love you all!
p.s. I am not planning on moving to Haiti so don’t stress! It really is great news.

Side note from Tore: Cam doesn’t plan on moving to Haiti *right now ;]

Tore Karenbauer – I was not quite sure what I wanted to blog about today until worship tonight.  We started singing one of my favorite songs, and one of the lines is “I called; you answered and you came to my rescue.. and I want to be where you are”  I have always loved this song because of the rescuing part, but today another part stuck out to me.  I started thinking about the “I want to be where you are.”  If Jesus was with us right now, where would he be?  He would be rubbing lotion on the feet of the gran moun, or playing with the special needs kids, or loving on the orphans.  He would be loving the unlovable.  That being said, I am so incredibly proud of this team.  Every one of them has been stretched out of their comfort zone, but they have done amazing.  They have been cheerful and have not complained.  They truly have lived out our team verse by serving as if they were serving the Lord (Ephesians 6:7).