Sunday, December 28, 2014

Bon Fet Pou Gabe

We headed out on another Haiti adventure yesterday.  Gabe requested long ago that for his 12th birthday he wanted to take several of his friends to the beach.  For some reason or another, this trip kept getting postponed, and was finally rescheduled for yesterday.  

Out of all of our children, Gabe has the most friends in the village.  He loves to play soccer with some of the younger guys, he works with several of the older guys on campus when he has a chance, and he just loves being out and chatting with people.  Seeing our children develop relationships with people of different ages and different cultures has been a blessing.  Many of our Haitian friends claim that Gabe is part Haitian.  We made a list of who he wanted to invite and including our family, the list held 20 people.  As we drove off to the beach yesterday, there were 39 people in the truck….and we had told some people that we couldn't take them.    

As we assessed how many people we had and that the beach we were headed to was quite far, we decided to make a different plan.  Two friends suggested a beach that was closer so we headed there instead.  We stopped for rice and beans for everyone at a little stand on the side of the road.  I am guessing the vendor  was surprised at how much business she would do by 10:30 am!  One more stop for water and we were headed to the beach.  

When we arrived we were a little taken aback by all of the garbage on the beach.  We had seen this before, but it was quite a bit worse than any place we had gone to swim.   This particular beach also has black sand, so it looks a lot like dirt  and not very clean.  We checked out the water, though, and it was quite clean so we decided to make the best of it.  



  These three beauties played together all day and had a great time.








 What??  A cow doesn't just walk through while you are tanning at the beach?





 Trying to catch a few crabs.



 Getting loaded up after a fun filled day.

"
"Papito, get in the truck!  We are waiting for you!"

People swam, played soccer and other games, sat around and talked, ate some more, fished for crabs, and swam again.  It was a fun day and so fun to see Gabe have a great time with his friends.  I wouldn't say the day was a relaxing day away, but worth it for the smile on our son's face.


Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Saturday Mornings

On Saturday mornings I take all of our Haitian children, Zion Hope, and sometimes a few more of our children or another staff member on a walk.  I have to have at least one extra stroller pusher, so I need the help and the company is nice.  It has become a tradition for us.  No school and no church means we go on a walk and then play for a while either on the swings or on the playground.  The children love this tradition and ask when we are leaving for our walk as soon as we get up in the morning.  Getting them all dressed and in shoes takes a while.  We still don't have a great system set up for shoes, so someone's shoe is always missing so we need to search for it.  Then someone ends up with a dirty diaper so I need to change it.  A child might get a time out in the excitement to leave.  Finally, we are headed out the door!  I thought you might enjoy a few pictures from one of our recent walks.  They love to explore, call out to our friends along the way, check out the goats and cows, and step aside for the motos and trucks that come along.  
















Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.