the best teachers are children

we have some americans here from millions OT program doing some awesome things with the girls. each day they divide the girls into two groups, big girls &little girls, and do a different activity. since they have something planned for each day of their stay we decided to do our friday night bible study today since they just play all day saturdays. 

the older girls were GREAT today. we divided them up for the first time so the older girls could actually learn without hearing us tell the little girls to sit down, stop talking, etc. etc. i had only planned one craft as usual but since they were going to be separate i decided (about 10 minutes before hand) to let the older girls do something more challenging. i think it would have gone better had i known what i was doing but it was even hard for me to figure out. the story was about Abraham and how God promised him his descendants would be more numerous than the stars. and every time the girls look up at the stars they can know that God created one for each of them. f

first we glued popsicle sticks into the shape of a star. each girl made one. then, we cut strips of paper and made tiny origami stars. sounds a whole lot easier than it actually is. i even struggled with it. but we figured it out &i think the girls enjoyed it. at one point i asked Guerda, our oldest, if she liked it. she smiled and said she did but i could tell she didn't. so i asked her again and she said, "its hard!" but when they were all finished with the paper stars, we took clear elastic stretch cord and taped each star to the popsicle stick star. when they finished that part, we COVERED the popsicle sticks on one side with glitter. all kinds of glitter. and confetti. its EVERYWHERE. but they SUPER loved it. they look so good it makes me want to cry. 

the littler girls were rotten and didn't really make their craft. i taught them how to draw stars, because apparently they dont know how to do that, on square pieces of colored foam (yellow, orange, red, and white). they were supposed to draw them as big as they could &cut them out but VERY few of them actually even drew anything at all. once they cut them out i had stickers, foam shapes, sequins and glitter glue that they were supposed to decorate them with. again, very few of them actually did this. what they DID do is make a HUGE mess with the glitter glue and sequins and they cut the foam into a million little pieces and somehow got into the glitter the big girls were using. i walked away for about 5 minutes because Paul, Kate, AND the other 4 Americans were with them and the still made a huge mess. and didn't even make our craft. highly irritating. 

but its kind of like what Guerda said. its hard. there is little to no discipline here for whatever reason. maybe its too hard to discipline 20 kids all the time? maybe its hard because of the circumstances they've been living in and around? i honestly dont know. but somedays, i could strangle some of the little girls. they are so spoiled and rotten. they mock me, hit each other, won't say they're sorry, stick their tongue out at me, blatantly not do what i ask them to do just to make me mad. its awful. but then you pick one of them up &carry them around for 5 minutes and they fall asleep holding your neck. how could you stay mad at that? i definitely have more respect for moms and nannies everywhere. its terrible and sweet at the same time. so its hard. but at the end of the day its so beyond worth it. 

i am definitely learning how to forgive &forget. if you have problems with that, you should spend some time with kids. Rosalinda was TERRIBLE to me two days in a row. and every time she would come over a little pit later &say "padon", which means forgiveness. then 10 minutes later she would do the same thing again. over and over and over. but to these girls, when you say "padon" your slate is wiped clean and youre no longer in trouble. its hard for adults to do that. we think people should know better than to do the same thing over and over &still ask for forgiveness each time. 

but thats exactly what we do with God. i do the same rotten things over and over again &every time i ask God to forgive me. and the awesome thing is He does. he doesn't make me sit in time out while everyone else is out playing. I ask and He gives. 

children are great teachers. they point out flaws in my character that i didn't even realize i had. i read somewhere once if you ever want to know who you are, ask a child. they know so much more than we give them credit for. I've known for a while God is trying to teach me to be patient. and I've definitely made a lot of improvement but I'm not quite there yet. however, i didn't realize until today how bad i am at offering forgiveness. ill be working on that now. 

long day. worn out and emotional. gonna wash off all this glitter and sleep good tonight! i have pictures but I'm feeling incredibly lazy so that'll just have to wait. Bon nwit! 

rainbows and pipe cleaners

friday we had our first group of americans come down for the weekend. its three middle aged men from mates church in st. louis. they came to move everything into the medical clinic so we can have our first medical team come down in a few weeks. its interesting to have other people here. for the most part they've been over on the other side of the compound so we haven't interacted much. but meal times are different. i dont have to cook dinner or wash dishes though so thats a perk. they tell a lot of stories and thats kind of cool. they mostly talk to each other &about people or things back home. 

one of the guys has been to haiti quite a few times before i believe. he seems to know quite a bit about it anyway. he told me a story last night about being on a medical team right after the earthquake in 2010 and the following cholera epidemic. his team was traveling from one place to another in the country &were running late because some people had overslept. they were in the middle of no where with several duffle bags of IVs, a nurse or two, and an EMT. all the sudden there were about 30 people walking down the street carrying a man on a stretcher who had cholera. if they had left on time that man would have died. but they just happened to be in the right place at the right time &saved his life. all it takes to cure cholera is clean water. 10,000 people died when all they needed was clean water. he also told me how there were so many dead bodies that they had to dig trenches, place the bodies there, and burn them. one man was too large to fit in the trench so they had to break his legs to fit him in the ground. i could do a lot of things to help people. i could never burn another human beings body on the side of a road.

 it still amazes me that 45 minutes away in Miami, people are driving $100,000 cars and living in million dollar condos on the beach and 10,000 people died because they didn't have clean water. americans could really use a rude awakening in my opinion. i understand that "we work for what we have" and "we built ourselves from the ground up." but we hurt a lot of people in the process and we stopped caring about a lot of people we left behind. if stories like those don't break your heart, i pity the black heart you have. and if that offends you, tough. i won't apologize. God created us all equally and loves us all equally. every living human being DESERVES to have basic human needs. and if you know people are out there living without those things &you chose to do nothing about it, shame on you. 

our bible study friday night was AWESOME. paul taught the story of Noah, or Noyeh as they kept correcting him. they all know the stories of the bible really well. they have NO clue what the stories mean. so this bible study is geared at teaching the significance of the stories. this week we focused on God's promise. so for our craft we painted rainbows on paper plates and glues crepe paper streamers on the back. we hung them all up downstairs &the girls are SO proud of them. they look awesome. i really really love this. 

saturday morning Paul &Kate took the march &april birthday girls to the pool. they invited me to go but i figured the girls would like to have some time with just paul &kate. I stayed at the house and had craft time with the girls still here. we made jewelry out of pipe cleaners. it was a hit! they loved it! they're still wearing what they made yesterday. there were bracelets, rings, crowns, belts, earrings, glasses, headbands, everything. it was awesome. they even asked me this morning if we could get them back out &make some more. the girls were strangely good yesterday. it was amazing. no one really cried, there were no screaming fits, very little hitting or pouting. amazing. 

devotions last night were hilarious. Nelson, 3 years old and the only boy we have, didn't know the words to one of the songs so he was very loudly making up his own noises. the he crawled under the table &took his pants off &kept singing. we were trying so hard not to laugh because their devotions are supposed to be a serious thing but i laughed so hard i cried. they were all singing so loud. 

this morning we made a banner to hang up for a team thats coming to paint the house tomorrow. the girls drew flowers all over it &i cut out some letters that say "welcome to HOH." they lost interest pretty quickly but thats okay. sundays are kind of crazy because there are so many people here and we just play all day after church. 

not sure ill ever quite get used to drinking warm wine while sitting in the sun for communion. burns every time haha now I'm going to take a nap &play for the afternoon. its gonna be another busy week with plenty to do! 

May Day

The girls didn't have school on tuesday or wednesday for May Day, their labor day. they were great on tuesday. I was sick for most of the day so i stayed upstairs and slept on and off until about 3. then we watched a movie and played until dinner. but yesterday morning they were up and at it. by 8:30 they were running and screaming and crying. so i figured that would be a perfect time to give them some sort of activity.

I took a bunch of stencils downstairs to show them how to trace shapes, butterflies, all kinds of animals, Simba, stars, and a bunch of other things. as always it ended up being a bit chaotic. but at first there were just 4 or 5 of our little ones. Nephtalie and Schandline, who everyone calls Madame because she calls everyone Madame, didn't ever really understand. but the rest of the girls picked it up fairly quickly and seemed to have fun. when they finished tracing what they wanted in pencil i let them have crayons to color with. Im going to hang a few of them up downstairs today.

I've noticed that if they mess up on something, they say its ugly &immediately want a new piece of paper to start over. while its great that they want to try again, i can't give a girl a new piece of paper just because they have one stray mark. i showed them that you can erase things you don't like or turn your paper over on the back. if you're ever feeling sorry for the girls at House of Hope, don't feel too bad. they are so spoiled! haha its hard to explain things to them because i don't know enough kreyol. but thats also great motivation for me to learn more.

i also tried to help a few of the middle girls learn how to put together a puzzle. Kate had gotten a few out for the older girls and must've left one downstairs. it was a picture of Joseph as a boy with his coat of many colors. it was 25 pieces that were pretty large. the girls I was working with were between 7 and 9 and they had no idea what they were doing. i tried to explain the concept of edge pieces and corners but they didn't understand. then i tried to explain how you look for similar colors or patterns and that really didn't help. but eventually, with a lot of help, they all put it together at least once. were definitely going to work on that again.

Im feeling so much better. I have a terrible headache but my cold is gone! now for some breakfast and reading. maybe even a little more cleaning today. orevwa!

first bible study, playing in the water

i forgot how easy it is to get sick when you're around a group of kids all the time. i have a serious sinus infection. picked it up from our littlest one. she seems to always have a cold of some sort. i was fairly miserable all day yesterday and it took me a while to fall asleep last night. but I'm taking what cold medicines i have &im hoping it doesn't stick around for weeks. my head is killing me &my nose is so stopped up. maybe the heat will just dry it all up.

friday night Paul and Kate started a 52 week long Bible study with the girls. it starts with the creation story and goes all the way through the Bible. Paul does a story (in kreyol which is pretty impressive) and asks questions at the end so girls can interact. Kate came up with a memory verse that they have to recite next friday and they get a sticker on our chart and a piece of candy. they have been saying it over and over since friday. I did a craft that went along with story time. this week I cut outa circle for each of them and divided it into 8 pieces. on the first section we wrote "creation story" or something along those lines &we colored the other 7 to look like each of the days of creation. they seemed to like that a lot. then we started a prayer wall where the girls could write prayer requests and hang them up so we can pray for them &they can pray for each other. there are 18 notes on it which means only about 3 or 4 didn't write one. next is the story of Noah. pretty excited! 

saturday was a long day. the girls just play all day and for some reason they didn't nap from 12 to 3 like they normally do. everyone was cranky and tired but we had a pretty good time. they get their hair done saturday mornings so we played in the veranda until lunch. after lunch kate and paul started a jenga tournament. the winner got a piece of candy and was allowed to pick the movie for weekly video night. Herlande won and she picked Sleeping Beauty. Saturdays are also my favorite meal days. we have some sort of stew for lunch which means no rice! and saturday nights the girls have popcorn for dinner and they always make a bowl for the Americans to share. 

sunday was awesome. church got out super early (like 9:30). i got to FaceTime with my family for a while until lunch. lunch was delicious as always! we had french fries and i was so craving american food. after nap time I played cards with Madame Jenny, the nanny who watches the girls in the afternoon, and a few of the girls. Jenny speaks about as much english as i do kreyol so it was kind of funny. i had NO idea how to play the game they were playing and she kept telling me the rules in kreyol. oh well it was still fun! then Paul &Kate put the girls in their swimsuits &let them play in the water. this consisted of Paul on the roof pouring cups of water on them in the courtyard. they LOVED it. they were laughing and screaming. it was great. then we just played outside until dinner.

Paul and Kate get monday mornings off so we decided to go the the pool down the street until about 3. its $5 to swim which is a pretty good deal i think for hot days like yesterday. they ordered food there because they didn't want breakfast spaghetti (spaghetti noodles with barely any sauce, which isn't traditional spaghetti sauce, and cut up hot dogs). they got picklese and plantains which i was jealous of but ill take anything over rice these days just to mix things up a bit. i tried really hard to play with the girls last night but i just felt so terrible. they kept laughing at me &telling me i had stuff on my nose because its red from blowing it so often. they think they are so funny! but they kind of are so thats okay. 

thinking i might try to get the little ones to learn how to use stencils today. we'll see how that goes. Madame Jenny is a great help. i like her a lot and I'm looking forward to getting to know her. she's been teaching me a few kreyol words &asks me what they are in english. she's awesome. the girls like her a lot too i think which is even more important. 

going to read, clean my bathroom/bedroom, do my nails, eat lunch, nap, and play all night. heres hoping i feel better at some point today! orevwa! 

p.s. i have pictures but it takes a TON of internet to download them so it might just have to wait. 

rainy days

nothing vey exciting to post about. its been rainy for four days now. its awesome because its not hot (its 73 and I'm cold) or humid. its also very breezy which is a nice change. when it rains here the pot holes in the roads become these huge puddles that people have to zig zag across the road to get around. yesterday the kids didn't have school because the roads are so flooded. the girls are getting ready for school and i can see one of the teachers but the roads are still flooded so they might not have school again today.

I've started working on one of the storage rooms that needs to be organized. Becky and I had this room completely perfect when she left in January. not sure how it got to be such a disaster again but as long as Im here it will be kept in order.

paul &kate are starting a bible study with the girls tomorrow. it has a craft that goes with each lesson &they asked me if i wanted to do that part. it starts with the creation story &paul mentioned something about a timeline that also will have their birthdays on it. I'm excited to start doing crafty things.

I'm trying to learn at least a few new creole words a day, sometimes a phrase or question. usually the girls will say something over &over to me or each other and ill look it up or watch them to see if i can figure it out. the other day when Carole and Barb were leaving Nepthalie kept asking "ou pati?" which i learned means "are you leaving?" when she asked paul &kate and they said no. they also make cute hand gestures that i don't understand. but I'm trying. i feel so rude because i can't really talk to the house staff. Madame Michelle cleans the upstairs part of the house where the Americans stay every morning and all i can say is "good morning" and "how are you?" she speaks a tiny bit of english but not enough to converse with me. theres a new nanny that watches the girls in the afternoons and helps them finish their homework that speaks no english at all. but she either has or is working on some sort of education in art therapy. that is SO exciting to me. i wish we could talk about it. i would ask her all sorts of questions. instead she just stares at me and i smile and hope that she doesn't think I'm rude because i can't talk to her. my goal for the summer is to get to know the staff. the kids are easy cause they love everyone and just rattle on in creole like i have a clue what they're saying. but the staff are important too and i want to know them as well.

apart from putting my clothes away, i am officially unpacked &have organized my room (which also doubles as my art supply storage space). yes!

it rained again this afternoon. its "cold" now &im about to put pants and a sweater on. but thats fine with me as long as the humidity stays away!

i have at least 21 mosquito bites. I'm hoping ill build an immunity to them? not very likely but wouldn't that be nice? i am getting used to the itchy feeling though.

i pulled out some bubbles tonight for the girls to play with. the little ones can't blow bubbles to save their lives but its fun to watch them laugh. they aren't very good at sharing though. i tried really hard to get them to take turns. for the most part it was okay. only a few tears from the little ones. they'll figure it out someday.

i started what will hopefully be a routine "Bible study" this morning. before i left i got a Poverty and Justice Bible. it addresses 47 poverty/justice related issues so Im going to study about 2 a week, sometimes 3. the one i read today was about treating all people equally because we were all created in God's image. its fairly easy to forget such a simple fact. but its so important. this has always been something i keep in mind, especially when it comes to humanitarian issues. if God created us all equally, there shouldn't be such an imbalance between the "haves" and "have nots." but it shouldn't stop there. i catch myself thinking negative things about people i don't particularly care for all the time. what gives me the right to do that? its not easy to love people but i should. unconditionally. it'll be easier to work on this fault of mine when there are more Americans here (I've never met a Haitian i didn't like). but i will definitely be changing this about myself.

the other book I started this morning is a book i was supposed to read for a missions class i took at Milligan. I read most of it but as a freshman it was WAY over my head. now its sort of interesting. its a collection of biographies of missionaries all over the world that illustrates the history of missions. today i read about Paul. some people think all missionaries everywhere should follow Paul's method exactly. but some people don't. obviously Paul was an extraordinary man, no one could argue that. he planted churches and grew them so quickly its amazing. things like that don't happen anymore. church planting and evangelism take time. I'm hoping this book will explain the disconnect.

oh, i have a few pictures:

the girls made me a few welcome signs

and colored me some pictures

and gave me some jump ropes? haha

8 month old i wrote about in my last post

mob of city soleil boys waiting for us to get out of the van