Finishing the Summer Day 3

Greetings from the Rossville group!

Today was our first Haitian church service. We walked 30 minutes to a small fishing village on the coast where Kevin preached about responding to Jesus.  The afternoon was mostly free time but we went into town to play games with the kids.  While we were there we met Semanis, a deaf Haitian teenager, who knew American Sign Language.  Jessica and Jasmine were able to talk to him because they already knew sign language and he taught them some new signs. Eric and Kyle played two-on-two basketball with some Haitian teenagers who were at the park.  Afterwards we went to the beach and swam.  Kyle found a lot of sand dollars and shared them with the other team members. Overall it was a very good day!  Please feel free to leave us comments. They are reading them to us during the evenings.
– Jessica & Jasmine

P.S. I think I lost 10 pounds in sweat today playing basketball all while about having a heat stroke! Haha, Kyle thought the Haitians had some skills.  The series is tied 1-1…until next time!  -Eric

Greetings from the Farrington group!  We went to the Haitian church this morning.  It was quite an experience.  The songs were much louder than in the U.S.  They let all the Americans come up and introduce themselves, and then they sang us a welcome song.  Megan, Shelby, Chris, Dawn, Alex, Tori, and Emilea all went to the children’s church and enjoyed spending time with the kids.  Emilea was holding one of the little girls from the orphanage and she just randomly looked up and called her mama and smiled the cutest little smile.  When we came back we were happy to find that the water that had stopped working early this morning was working just fine, and better yet it was cold.  It turned out that someone had turned it off.

After lunch we went into the town, holding fingernail polish, frisbees, and soccer ball. Tim, Kyle, and Emilea joined some of the kids and the translators for a game of Haitian soccer.  It was different to be playing without boundaries and with a goal about two feet tall and two feet wide.  It was also challenging for Emilea to be playing in a skirt.

Chris played basketball with other children while Megan, Alex, Dawn, Caitlyn, Colleen, Shelby, Tori, and Emilea all painted the girls’ fingernails.  The Haitian girls were nervous at first, but after one little girl named Shyla had hers done 4 times they were ready to join in.  After that we spent some time at the beach.  Megan, Tim, Shelby, Emilea, and Tori were looking for sand dollars under the water and uncovered quite a few.

Tori did not find any but she did find a starfish.  Thanks for Dawn for bringing the goggles. The Haitian kids on the beach enjoyed feeling the starfish.  Our intern was quite fascinated too and when she held it one of the starfish’s legs fell off in self-defense.  It was hilarious to see her reaction when it happened. Alex and Kyle searched the shore for shells.  We came back to the mission for supper and we ate some delicious spicy spaghetti with spam and hot dogs.  We are now getting ready for the revival, which starts tonight.  Over all it was a great day of worship and fun

-Emilea and Tori