Haiti

Wow. Part of me just feels like letting the pictures tell the stories.
I will never forget Haiti. In fact, Brent and I are already planning on returning as often as we can. We've even talked about possibly moving there for a few months after college. Who knows? Big things ahead.
After a night in Santiago, Dominican Republic we were driven 3 hours to the border town and dropped off on the dominican side. (It's very expensive to take a car across the border) We were met by Brittany from the orphanage and some boys that she had brought for help. They loaded up our luggage on a wooden cart and took care of that from there. The rest of us just focused on following close behind and protecting our pockets. It was a Monday, market day, so it was incredibly crowded. I mean thousands of people rushing across the border in both directions. We had to walk about a mile to get across and this is what we saw:


There was a few moments where we should have feared for our lives. I'm talking hundreds of pounds of cart and rice rushing towards you down hill! Once we were all together at our truck we went on to drop our luggage off and head to the orphanage, a very quick drive. I'll be honest. When I first stepped into the church to see some of the kids from Port-au-Prince I lost it for about 20 seconds and I think it was because of Denise:

She has hydroencephalitis, or water on the brain, causing her head to swell to 26 inches. I had never seen anything like this before in my life.
Basically our job was to bless the staff as much as we could and this meant playing with kids all day. It was so much fun to be with such joyful children regardless of any kind of language barrier. Here are some pictures of the kids:







We all slept with the Port-au-Prince kids in the church building. Us girls volunteered to listen for a few of the kids who have trouble sleeping at night for various reasons. Some have nightmares, others have separation anxiety, and Denise has every reason to cry all night like she did. The little boy posing with the ball under his arm is Djery, my cuddler one of the nights when he woke up crying.
All these kids wanted from us was someone to hold and carry them. For Casey this meant two at a time

Many of the kids were especially drawn to the boys on our trip. There is only one male missionary there, so there isn't much of a father figure for several of the orphans. Many of the Port-au-Prince children just lost their fathers that were our age. Lanique is one of those kids and he also lost his arm. Brent got very attached to him and has prayed for him everyday since.



I don't know if it was the kids or if it was just Haiti, but this trip was the most powerful trip I've ever been on. I'm serious when I say we're going back as soon as we can and for as long as we can. God really tugged on both of us every day that we were there. I would go back in a heartbeat.



-sarahfina. I miss her.


(click on the blog title to visit the orphanage's website)




p.s.
-Thankyou to all of you who supported us through prayer and donation!
-This saturday we hope to resume documentary night!! All are welcome!

700 Orphans

Tomorrow morning, it's go time. We're flying out of Dallas at 2:15 and headed for miami for a lay-over and then on to the Dominican. The Dominican-Haitian border has business hours...so we'll be spending sunday night in the Dominican then driving to Danita's Children Orphanage (click on the blog title!) 2 hours through the border into Haiti. Yes...700 orphans. We just found that out from our friend Daniella yesterday. I don't think I have ever seen that many kids in one place (save public school). Daniella's dad just got back a few days ago and is going again with us tomorrow. He told us a bit about how they were able to air-vac some amputee orphans out for treatment. I can't believe the trip is already here! I just wanted to update you really quick before we leave. I wont even be taking my laptop with me to haiti but after I get back I'll do a long post with some pictures. There's some other things about my philosophy classes I wanted to blog about too, so be prepared for some updates!

Pray for us!
Actually here's some things you can specifically pray about:
-Safe travels
-Flexibility, in case things don't go as planned
-Strong spirits and courage. The Voodoo is everywhere and there could be a lot of spiritual warfare
-That God would break our hearts for the children in this orphanage
-Lice! We will be sleeping with the kids for two nights and though it wouldn't be the end of the world, it would still be a nuisance
-The power of the gospel to be shown through us

Can't wait to tell you how it goes!

Waking up America!

Brent and I decided to start a dinner/documentary/discussion night about every other saturday night. Our first get together was this past saturday and turned out to be a very small one. (Thanks Taylor and Jake for coming!) It was really fun, though. After our delicious chicken tacos (yum!) we sat down to watch I.O.U.S.A.(click the title of this blog to see the movie's page) You can probably guess from the title of the documentary that its about money, and specifically about our Nation's Debt, both currently and historically. Wow, what an eye opening movie. Frightening even. I'm politically minded, so I knew the trouble that we were in, but I didn't know the specifics or even the exact degree of financial despair. Anyways, I think that this is a movie that everyone MUST see. It is a non-partisan film, so no certain party propaganda, just straight, frightening facts.
I wanted to blog about that night because the movie and our discussion proposed an excellent question: What will it take to wake up America?

For this financial issue, obviously watching the movie, showing it to as many people as possible, would be step one. But I wanted to go further

There are a lot of things that Americans need to wake up to. There are a lot of things that my friends and I need to wake up to.
In reality, this world, this country, is totally different than what we really expect. There are so many secrets, mysteries, and conspiracies out there. There are even things about our world that are not at all hidden, but rather ignored like modern slavery today. Did you know that there are more slaves this very day than there have ever been in the history of mankind. According to Anti-Slavery International and other slavery studies, about 27 Million people are in bondage today. Yet many of us are under the impression that we have conquered this issue, or we just ignore it.
This is just one example out of many. So how can I do something to wake up America, or just wake up Texas State? This bi-weekly documentary night is step one. Dinner might get people there, but the film and the following discussion will definitely keep them coming. Step two is starting an organization. I'm really hoping that I can complete the process to get a documentary club started at Texas State so that I can help make more people aware of the various issues hidden from our everyday lives.
So if you are interested in joining us saturday nights, or becoming a part of the documentary club (I will need signatures to prove that people are interested) let me know. Even if you just want to discuss the topic of our nations financial despair, or want to suggest another topic to view in film, leave a comment! (I love getting your comments!)


=)

don't forget to click on the blog title to view a 30 minute summary clip of I.O.U.S.A.