Michelle's Blog

This morning we loaded the trucks with boxes of kitchen items, pillow case dresses, and 2 suitcases full of treat bags to distribute at one of the tent cities. As we were pulling into tent city, the people were having their market. They needed to move their merchandise in order for us to pull in. Once we were driving up the dirt road, people started coming out of their tents, especially the children. There was a sense of excitement in their faces. Donald organized with the leader of the “city” to figure out the best way to distribute the boxes. We each took a box and followed the leader to different tents and dropped off our boxes. The tents were made of tarps and sticks. It was VERY warm inside of them. There was one bed with a blanket on it. It had a chair in the corner next to the bed. In the front right corner there was a “kitchen.” The kitchen consisted of a foot by foot area where they can put their pots and pans on a very small table. It would not be what we consider as a house.

After passing out the boxes, we moved all of the children into the tent church. Here we passed out pillow case dresses, treat bags, and t-shirts. I walked up to this little boy, about 2 years old that had no clothes on, which was eating some crackers from his treat bag. He ate these crackers so fast that by the time I had gotten to him the crackers were gone. An older girl, Sonya, proceeded to open up his other bag of crackers. She took 2 of them and gave him the rest. I felt sorry for him. He was just standing there. No parents, no siblings, nobody specifically looking after him. He had nothing but the crackers. This may have been the only thing that he has eaten in a while. As we were getting ready to leave the leader of this “city” gathered all of the people he could around our truck. Our time here ended with Todd bringing the gospel to the people and saying a prayer while Robenson, our Haitian friend interpreted.

From here we went off to one of the poorest orphanages. We walked in and all of the children were sitting on these wooden benches. They started to sing a song about how they were so glad that we were there. We handed each of them silly bands, treat bags, and pillow case dresses.
All of the children joined us in a version of Father Abraham. They sang in Creole while we sang in English. After pictures of the beautiful girls, we were taken on a tour of this orphanage. There are about 20 children who live here. It is put together with some concrete block walls and tarps. There were 3 beds. We were told that most of the kids sleep on the ground on tarps. My heart was broken for them. As we were listening to the conversations between the woman and man who work here, I began to cry. The thought that keeps running through my mind is that we have a choice to make. Are we going to sit back, live our lives, and do nothing, OR are we going to stand up for justice and do something to help others?