Day 4

Hi everyone this is Mairead, Nick, and Claire signing on after another full and fun day in Haiti!

            A few of us woke up this morning again to help the ladies make another amazing breakfast. As the days have gone by we have become increasingly comfortable and a lot more efficient in our work with these wonderful ladies. After breakfast we enjoyed some free time before loading into the tap-tap for the long drive to Titanyen. We got to drive out of the city and see the open country for the first time and saw the beautiful cliffs overlooking the ocean. Once in Titanyen we drove up the mountain to the construction site of the new memorial of the 2010 earthquake that rocked the country killing hundreds of thousands. While there we heard the first hand account of the earthquake from one of our drivers and his amazing story and insight to the earthquake and the days/chaos that followed.

            After departing from the memorial site we drove a little longer and then up the mountain to Grace Village where we received a tour of the amazing facility that includes and orphanage, school, and self-sustaining hydroponics system that provides the village with fresh fish and veggies. We then took the tap-tap down the mountain to bring lunch to the elderly of the community. 

            When we returned to Port-au-Prince, we had some free time before dinner, so we changed into our swimsuits and walked to the hotel just down the road.  It was a great time; we bought sodas from the bar and swam in the salt-water pool.  We also played sharks and minnows and other games.  It was sunny and beautiful out and we all had a lot of fun!

            When we arrived back at the guesthouse the ladies had a full traditional Haitian meal complete with chicken, Caribbean potato soup, rice, green beans, beets, cabbage, and fried plantains. Stomachs full, everyone went for some down time of journaling, card games, and soccer games with the neighborhood boys.

 Hi all it’s Claire here, just wanted to say a special hello to all my family and friends back home- love and miss you all! Today was such an amazing day and we had so many opportunities to serve the people of Haiti through small acts of great love. After playing with the orphans at Grace Village, which involved a ton of untangling kite string (like A LOT), we served five of the elders of the community. I got the opportunity to serve two elders, Felicia and Edmund, in a very special way that left me thinking a lot about my own life, situations that I go through, and how much they pale in comparison to the struggles they face and the faith that they have through all they experienced.  In addition to bringing the lunch we washed the feet and hands of each of the elders. Today we were living the mission that Christ set out for us to- on this Holy Thursday we got to wash the hands and feet of five individuals and be a servant to others. 

            Hey everybody it’s Nick.  First off, I just want to give a quick hello to my friends and family reading this.  Today was quite the experience for us.  We saw a little bit different side of Haiti than what we had experienced the last couple days.  We visited Grace Village today and saw what I believe is the future for mission work in Haiti.  Grace Village is such an innovative establishment for care for the people of Haiti. I think the greatest parts of Grace Village are the focus on education and family values for children and the focus on economic sustainability.  I really love how the children live in a family orientated home and have access to education and a meal for the day. The on site clinic in Grace Village for all the people of Titanyen is great way to give much needed medical care to those in need.  I just felt so happy to see the opportunities that Grace Village is providing for the people in need that they otherwise would not have access to and that they are providing long term fixes for issues in Haiti.  Today was such an inspiring experience and I really enjoyed every part of it.

            Hello, this is Mairead!  We saw and did a lot of different things today with a variety of people, and everything has been amazing.  One of the first things we did was see the earthquake memorial that is in the process of being built on the mass gravesite, where 300,000 bodies were piled and eventually buried, at Titanyen.  The people buried there came from different places; after the earthquake, there were so many people dead and the bodies began to smell, so the people had to wrap up their dead family members and all the corpses and put them on the side of the road so that dump trucks could take them away to the gravesite.  It’s unimaginable that we were standing over so many people, and that so many lives were changed and lost in such a short amount of time.  Hearing the personal story of someone that lived through the earthquake makes it seem so much more real, more than just some statistics and news stories; knowing someone and learning about their experience, what they survived through, and how people’s lives were changed was both heart wrenching and incredible.