http://www.youtube.com/v/KkZyVK36MMs

I had to post this video that Nathan took too. :)

-really Charlie

Greetings to all of you who are keeping up to date on all of our adventures.  This blog post is being written by Stacy, for those of you who asked...I was one of the "barfers" on the small plane from Port au Prince to Pignon. Poor Holly followed suit and was as thankful as I was when the plane landed.  I am sure the pilot was thankful that he informed us of the "air-sickness" bags, even though we were "confident" that we would not need to use them.

Each evening just before dinner we do a "prayer walk."  We walk the village area passing out food to the houses that we pass.  A typical "house" here consist of 4 walls made out of plywood, a dirt floor or concrete if you are truly blessed, and some curtains to divide the living areas up. I would estimate that the living space is no larger than my 700 sq.ft. condo, yet 12 people will reside in it.  As we walk, and talk with the people the joy and thankfulness that the people in Haiti show for a small bag of rice and a small bag of beans is at times more than I can comprehend.  All I keep saying to myself is that I am a spoiled "white-girl."  I have made a list of "I will think twice before..." and although is is somewhat comical to us team members, it is a reminder of how truly "blessed" each one of us is, yet we often fail to recognize it and give thanks each day for what we have.  In Isaiah 55:11-12, it says "My word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.  You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands." This verse is what we see here. God has revealed himself to these people in so may ways, and I have witnessed first hand the validity of this verse.  Where there seems to be no hope, there lays great joy among a people whom we would declare have nothing....but I must say that they have a richer joy with their "little" than I can say that I have had for my "everything."  

Joel's freakish bus driving.
Prayer walk.
Food Distribution Dance.
joyous haitians.
Kindergarten Promotion.

My camera is officially in a coma. So Heidy was kind enough to offer her photos from her really really nice camera. See her post above! Hooray for Heidy, she's one of my favorites. :)

We went to Kindergarden and 6th grade graduation at the church this morning. It was an entire service.
First of all, who knew other countries did Kindergarten graduation?
Second, I love that they made it into a whole motivational church service.

I'll be honest it was hot.
And it was long only because it was all in Creole and we only caught the words "Bon Jour" and "Jezu" from time to time. But it was great to see the church in action, after seeing it more or less empty all of yesterday. They bring everything in, the music equipment, the microphones, the choir (obviously) and any accessories.
Our team brought them festively wrapped graduation presents, everyone was proud of them-- and then we got out of that hot church!

After lunch we had another round of VBS at our second location, down the very bumpy road in the big yellow schoolbus. We will all need chiropractic care after braving "Hwy 3" everyday in the bus, ha. The location was not as predicted and we, as usual, switched alot of stuff around without the kids being any the wiser about our scramble.
But when they walked out, they had heard the Gospel, four had responded to an "altar call" and everyone had a piece of origami to play with or mangle, depending on the kid. :)

Then we got back to the "compound" and had enough time to load up with more beans and rice to hand out around the "neighborhood." It was good to visit the famous [to us and the locals] ex-witch doctor's house and meet his beautiful family. His kids even walked around with our group to deliver the rest. His son, Wilkinson held mine and Kevin's hand, and Edison held Kacie's hand.
Such good kids, and I loved knowing that their home is a safe place for them to live now, now that their father has turned his life around and become and new man, thanks to God. He came by late last night to speak to us and tell us the extended story of his transformation. Very powerful. Truly anything is possible.

The last house we handed food to, was a current witch doctor. If you want something to pray for (well there's plenty, but...) pray for him and his family because the future looks very bleak for them if he continues down the path he's on.

Today's post will be heavy on my side of things, since Trina and I spent the whole day at the local church painting murals on their walls. I really can't believe they let total strangers that don't even speak their language, just walk in with a bucket of paints and go-to-town on their church walls.


I kept looking over my shoulder waiting for someone to stop me. Especially since people that lived nearby would walk in with the "what is going on in here?!" face, and then look me over with a raised eyebrow.


Well either way, I finished mine by 5pm but Trina's got more to go later this week. I kinda cheated because I made my painting kinda coloring book style, and all I needed was one kid that spoke english and 5 of his friends with paintbrushes to do the work for me!


It was like having an automatic mural machine.


I wish I could show you the final work, but my camera has been in critical condition lately, and it fritzed out. So when I'm not too lazy to track down Trina's camera, I'll post the results.

This is how we traveled to the church. Yes, my family, I shared an ATV with two other women (the driver is taking the photo here) . It was more crazy than riding a horse. It was like Mr. Toad's wild Haiti Ride. I held on with my death grip to the back luggage rack, while donkey and goat poop was flung up onto my skirt and shoes.

Hot.

We have arrived safe and sound in Haiti! Bags and bodies!
From SFO, to Miami International.
From Miami International, to Port Au Prince.
And finally from Port Au Prince to the Momprierre's place near Pignon.
The final planes were unnervingly small. I'm talkin' one propeller, 5 seat'ers. We had a few barfers, but luckily, not on my plane! We landed on a grass airstrip. I admit, I was gripping the fiberglass door upon landing.
The Momprierre's UCI "compound" is such a jewel-- beautiful buildings that are so well suited to their purpose of serving the community and making all of us visitors feel welcome. Tomorrow I will try to post photos, tonight it didn't work for me. As we were listening to our orientation this afternoon, a dramatic thunderstorm rolled over the mountains and poured down onto the tin roofs. And as Kris and Jean Jean were opening the packages we bought for them, some of us scampered outside to drench the afternoon heat. I wanted to see them open the tetherball sets, so I stayed inside.
Today's theme seemed to be "just when you think you can't go on on 2 hours of sleep (which is about the average amoutn of sleep that we got on the flight down), something amazing happens and you wake up." It happened over and over in the last 24 hours.
I have a feeling that this theme may continue throughout our stay here.