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!