by Nan Jungst and Joyce Wray, trip participants with MH4H 

We had another great day in Haiti. The day started early as usual. Jody, David, and Carl headed off to help the Haitians pour a cement floor in one of the homes of a Thrive for 5 child’s family. At another home, they worked on putting up walls of the house, so they will be able to work on the floor later. Tomorrow, we will work on another home.

Joyce, Denise, Mary, and Nan stayed to help at the Thrive for 5 program. There were about 100 children and mothers there today. Most of the families walk to the program each morning, some walk as far as 1 ½ hours each way. Several come on the backs of donkeys. We first sang songs and prayed, and then we did another play. We brought several of the older children up front with us to help. We acted out the story of Noah’s ask and had the children make animal sounds. After the story, we taught everyone the Hokey Pokey. We ended up doing it three times, the last time several mothers joined us; I’m sure they think these “blancs” are weird. When the fun was over, we helped hand out food to each of the children. Several of us sponsor a child who is part of the program. It is so much fun to be able to hold and play with our sponsored child and get to know them. We will not get to see them again before we leave, so it was hard to say goodbye to them.

After lunch, we all climbed into one of the trucks and headed into Pignon. There were 11 of us in the back of the pickup and five inside the cab. Our first stop was the Many Hands for Haiti Sewing Hope center. The last group has graduated, and the next class will not start until January, but we were able to see where classes are held and some of the beautiful work they do.  Our next stop was the farm where food is stored. This is food that was packaged in Nevada, Iowa in April and September. We all piled into the truck again, along with 16 boxes of the packaged food and headed for the deaf school and orphanage. There were 19 children of school age. We took a lot of pictures, so they were able to see themselves, and we gave lots of hugs. They were so proud to be able to sign a song for us. We left the boxes of food and clothes.  (The clothes were from Harmony Closet in Nevada.)

We are now getting ready for another great supper. We will have devotions, discuss the day, take showers, and go to bed. The generator goes off at 10:00. We have our devotions on the front porch each night; the stars are bright, and the breeze is nice and cool. It’s a wonderful way to end the day.

Click here to read about the team’s experience meeting Denilson, an eight year old recovering from burns from a fire, or here to read about their first two days in Haiti.