During the the time we have spent in Haiti we have been building houses as our “main” ministry opportunity, but the main activity our contact wants us to do is play with the kids at his orphanage and around the villages we are building houses in. When we first started playing with the kids I did not know what kind of affect that it would have on me personally. The first couple of days I just randomly played with any of the kids that wanted to play with me, but at the end of the second day I made a miniature connection with one of the orphans. His name is Eginn (spelling may be wrong since I’ve only seen him spell his name out once), and the connection we made was through the head and shoulders song. I heard him sing it in Creole, and I tried to get him to sing it in English, but he was having a hard time getting it down in his own language. Through the process, we had a blast for about 30 minutes, and laughed the whole time.
After making this connection, I made it a point to seek him out the next day and we kept making a deeper connection every day. The last few days have been awesome with him. I have seen how freaking smart and dangerous he is. Whenever a situation arises to inflict harm on someone (we do that a lot as a team.. we may have some issues…haha), he is the first to find a way to help the orphans fend off the attacks of the white people. He is definitely a leader for the kids around the orphanage and I see a lot of potential for him in the future.
There is a very good and heartbreaking story as to how our contact came to get Eginn in his possession, but I will save that story for next month. I really want to post some pictures of him, but I can’t right now due to our internet situation, but when I tell the story of how our contact got Eginn I will post pictures of him. Plus, I will probably have at least one or two more blogs full of stories solely about him, so get ready.
Being able to spend time with these kids and our contact has shed a lot of light on how significant the “support-a-kid” programs are back in the States. Our contact was born into poverty in Haiti, but someone from Michigan supported him and he was able to go to school and get out of the desperate situation he was in. Now, due to his schooling, he is able to reach back and change the lives of hundreds of kids in the same exact way someone changed his. It really is a beautiful cycle, so if you are supporting a kid back home, I salute you, it is a beautiful thing you are doing.
