Haiti blog that I wrote a week or so ago…
I have been blessed, with so much more than I deserve.
That’s the thought that keeps coming into my head every single minuet of every single day I spend here in Haiti. I never knew how much I had back home until I got here. I used to think I was poor but now I know if I could go back home after this I would feel like Mr. Gates! Life is so much different down here and I love it. No cell phone, no real internet to worry about, we just have eachother…. CONSTANTLY. 24-7! We have no problem entertaining ourselves and I am super blessed to be in a group that is so bubbly and exciting! It’s like I’m married into my team. We complete eachother and I actually matter! It’s been a pretty cool experience to finely figure that out! I belong here! I have found the promised land that everyone told me I would when I was going thru harder times.
So much about this trip is just putting yourself in situations where you can fully rely on God. More than you ever have before. You have to rely on God for everything… Food, water, shelter, and just love and a good day experience. I think the reason my team has gotten so close is that our main focus is God and having the relationship with him brings us all together because we see Christ in eachother. I’m so blessed because God called me to this race and let me hear that whisper and rumor of something more and different. All glory to him for bringing me where I am today!
So as this month in Haiti comes to a close I would like to share some things that have happened to me and my team and share some stories of how God has not only provided but blessed us as well. We live on the beach and get to sleep under the stars and listen to the ocean every single night. On our off days we help out around here by cooking, cleaning the beach, and then taking a nap in a hammok. This place is BEAUTIFUL! When we work, we get to hold children that have been thru SOOO MUCH and we have gotten to not only hear the story of the kids (That has become a pretty well known story FYI)… But we have been blessed to become a part of their lives and know each one of them on a first name basis. I will soon post a video to share the story of the kids. I am not sure how I could type it and pastor lex (Our contact who rescued them does a much better job of telling the story anyway)…
I wrote before about falling and hurting my leg… Well at least I think I did… I know I did on facebook… Oh well… So one day hiking up the mountain, I fell down a little ways and skinned the side of my knee… No big deal right? I just kinda washed it off and went along and kept going day after day… But then it started to hurt… SUPER BAD. It got infected and pretty soon I had a staff infection with these huge sores around the cut with white pus in them. It was super gross and unhealthy looking. Even the hatians were freaked out about it. So anyway, another thing I should tell you is we haven’t been alone here at the beach house. At first we traveled with some WR alumni who stayed with us and Kyla (one of our squad leaders stayed with us for the first part)… Then we had another girl come in by herself “Kaitlyn” and she ended up meeting another american girl who was left by her team in the airport of Port Au Prince! She stayed with us for the night until we got her back to her people. That is a story in its own though. We just had another team come in 2 days ago to kind of finish what we started here with the houses, kids, and they will be working on the orphanage that they are building on the mountain. It’s going to beautiful and HUGE! Audio Adremline is partnering with pastor Lex after hearing the story of the kids and helping to build the new orphanage. We didn’t know about that fact until sometime yesterday. But… Back to my knee… Doctors showed up with the new team that came in a few days ago to do surgery on a leg down here in Haiti and I didn’t even have to ask them for help. One of the doctors who is just a year older then me helped me out by fixing my leg! It was painful but my team was there to hold my hand, giggle at me as I tried not to scream, and observe way to close for comfort as she was cutting the sores open. My leg feels and looks SO MUCH BETTER NOW! There is going to be a scar but that’s it praise God! I didn’t even have to look for doctors and they showed up at our house!
Now back to Audio Adremline, so Aubrey and I were swimming in the ocean last night and just having a fun time cooling off after a hot day and we see pastor Lex and his wife with another couple on the beach side. We didn’t recognize the other couple but it didn’t phase us much and we just kept swimming. When we got out we were standing around waiting on dinner outside and we figured out who the couple was. It was one of the band members from AA and his wife! We had a blast getting to know him and hearing their plans for the orphanage and for the kids (The ones that I’m personally in love with) hahaha… I’m so excited for the kids and I can’t wait to some day come back and see how much this place has changed! Last night was Jeremy’s birthday and even though we had celebrated all day we got our cook in on it to dance with him. It was so funny and deff one of my favorite memories here in Haiti… Once again, I’m blessed with amazing people on my team and around me!
This morning, I woke up to the ocean crashing 30 feet away from me and just smiled. I’m so happy to be here…. Seriously, it keeps getting better. God is even surprising us with the people we meet and get to talk to! We had a blast this morning talking to the AA guy laughing about weird things him and the guys had eaten around the world and what was going on in his life… Also got to show him the WR video and tell him about what we are doing! Not to mention we got to look at pics of his adorable kids! Hahah!
Closing out I just want to tell you guys about Jenison. Yesterday, I was standing around when I heard someone cry out “Shayla Shayla Shayla” and I looked outside of the gate and there he was. The past week I have had the feeling that something was a little off with his family and maybe his mother didn’t want him hanging around us while we were here. I haven’t really thought too much on it though because I didn’t want to bum myself out. Sunday I was feeling pretty depressed and just asking God to give me a sign that everything was going to be okay and then I looked down almost in tears and there he was… He snuck into worship just to see me! He hugged me for a few mins and then he was gone… So I have had the feeling that something was strange. Yesterday, as I was standing with him I saw the other kids telling me he was bad and to come back inside because he was a “Go kid” (a kid that doesn’t respect authority, isn’t sponsered, doesn’t go to school and just does what he wants) Apparently, he is well known for being the bad kid. I ended up talking to 2 of the guys who spoke some english and that I have gotten close to the past few weeks. They said he was a bad kid because he doesn’t go to school and his father isn’t around because he was murdered and his mother is a voodoo priest. Ha! REAL FUNNY GOD! So the past 24 hours I have tried to figure out what to do… I can’t sponser him because he isn’t on the list and his mother doesn’t want him to go to school. Basically, all I can do is pray for him and trust that God is going to work it out. Saying goodbye to him is going to be super hard so if you guys could pray for me that would be awesome… Also please keep Jenison in your prayers. One person’s prayers can shake things up but I think the more people that pray for him the better. So if you could do that for me that would be awesome! I better get going now though since Jeremy is sitting here making fun of how long this blog already is.
Love you all.
Britt
