The Sunnybrook team has already experienced a plethora of emotions, excitement, and laughter in the short time they have been in Haiti. From buying food in the local market to playing with kids, this group is enjoying their time together. Keep reading as they share of the blessing that the Haitian people have been to their hearts. 

 

Arrived in Haiti about 11:00 am Thursday and so much already. So much emotion, love, laughter, tears, giving, receiving, blessings, and new friendships already!

After getting settled in the Many Hands for Haiti campus and being served our lunch for the day we headed to the market. That was an experience! Supplies were bought for what we would need to package the beans, rice, spaghetti noodles, bullion cubes, and oil that we would be putting together to deliver to families tomorrow. Ellen bought shoes for older women and children that they met in the market without and small candies were given to very smiley children happy to have the sweets. All the supplies that were loaded back up into the Toyota pickup (I can’t even believe that I haven’t mentioned the truck yet). Yes, all 11 or 12 of us plus a complete truck load of supplies loaded up into the truck and headed back to campus down the bouncy rutted roads! We unloaded the supplies and had a wonderful dinner prepared for us by the cooks that included chicken legs, plantains, and salads. Conversations, prayer and talking until bedtime. What a first day!

The next day we set out after breakfast to help put in a cement floor for a family that had been living with their children in their home for two years on dirt floors. The greeted us with hugs, smiles, and we began with prayer. Mixing the cement was something to see! The men from the community that are employed to assist with laying cement, mix it all with shovels right on the ground in front of the home. A bucket brigade!! Quickly, I (Laura) realized that I could be better used playing frisbee and blowing bubbles in the back of the house with the kids – we brought those with us and they loved it. After the floor was finished we headed back to load out the bags and rice that we planned to deliver that afternoon.

The homes we went to had families ranging from a single older man living alone who had lost his wife and had no children left at home to families that had multiple generations living under the same thatch or tin roof home that might be one to three rooms total. We prayed over and with each family and the children followed us from home to home holding our hands in our circle of prayer. Even the people like the older women who had difficulty standing did her best to come to greet us and make us feel welcome until we made it clear that she should sit and we would come to her to pray and hold her hands. This experience was so much more than words can ever express. It is not just one home or one family living this way. It is every home and every family. The men, women and children in these communities choose every day to get up and live, hope, and love because Jesus Saves.

Today we visited two different communities and put on Vacation Bible School. We sang songs in Creole “Praise Ye the Lord Alleluia!” Maybe you know that one. Starla read the books David and Goliath and Little Lost Lamb while Craig held the book and our young men that help us with so much daily, interpreted for us. Then it was time to play with the parachute, soccer, rice sack races, and jump rope. It was a BLAST! The first VBS we think we had about 290 kids the second around 70. We served a small cup of juice and a peanut butter sandwich at the first and juice and cookies at the second. Terry single-handedly passed out 290 suckers at the first VBS. We were not sure we were going to ever see him again. Brad entertained with his hair and brain teaser puzzle.

Again, there are not enough words for what is happening here. I’m not talking just about those of us here going into the community. It is so much more than that! The blessings that the people in the communities have given me already are much greater than anything I could ever “Do” here. It is definitely not about what we are “doing” it is about being who God put me on this Earth to be.

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