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Church in Blanchard is definitely eye opening. We complain about having to be at church at 9am and even 10am.. the Haitians living in this area are excited to be here by 6:30am!!! that is crazy! We were awake around 5:30 due to other reasons (dogs, roosters, no fans during the night) but that doesnt matter. We made it to church and did not understand anything that was being said but REALLY enjoyed the music. We were able to pick out a few familiar songs. We were invited to come up to the front and say a few things. We told them thank you for being so kind and we are excited to be here, to get to know them and work with them. Pastor Luc led up to us talking by saying “It is EVERY haitians dream to go to the USA…. not many people want to move to Haiti to live. These two young men have moved here to live with us for a year.” Their response was awesome…. Crazy applause and shouts from the thousands in attendance. It made us feel very welcome and God’s presence was definitely there.
After church we were able to change clothes and get all the medical supplies loaded into the “tap tap” (the local mode of transportation. They received their name by what you do when you want out.. beat on the side “Tap Tap.” We took the medical team and their supplies over to Cite Soleil and got them set up. There are so many children running around the compound, which was weird because all of the school children were in the school building. These are all street kids who just come inside because all the walls fell down around the compound. We gave them a soccer ball to play with – which was like Christmas came early – there were so many kids out playing futbol with Nathan. It was fun to watch them play and get so excited.
A little more information about Cite Soleil as we learn. Cite Soleil is a trash dump. No lie… imagine building a city on a trash dump.. now stop imagining.. and that’s Cite Soleil. It is awful – and there are hundreds of thousands of people living there. My heart is already breaking for these people. I apologize for some of the pictures that we will be uploading but they still dont communicate how things really are down here.
After we returned from Cite Soleil Nathan and I tried to do some organizing and finally got the interent working in our room. WOOOHOOO.. thats how you are reading this! I am having to type them out in advance and then upload them. We were able to take a nice nap and then take care of some business around the compound. We are still working on the power situation. Tonight we thought we had it figured out, however, we learned that the Solar batteries were dead and we had enough fuel for the generators for 30 mins. This first team is suffering a little bit as we get used to the setup. Good News tho! our showers and bathroom areas are almost finished.. i think we will have them up and running by the end of the week!
Once again tonight – food was amazing. We have a rice and beans meal. Seemed like fried rice… with some goat meat, avacado, tomatoes, and fried potato crisps (kinda like french fries but like small little pieces)
It gets very dark here around 6:30pm so life starts to shut down early. I got in bed around 8pm and read some of Hebrews and typed this up so my idea of lights out at 10 works well
I want to share a very familiar verse with all of you,
Hebrews 4:12-13 “For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-egded sword. It penetrates to even dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitues of the heart. nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
From this I just felt the desire to strive to live a life that is constantly and willingly laid bare before our Amazing God, and not fight for any of it. To have less of me and more of Him.
Thank you for your prayers. Please continue to lift us up.
Shout out of the day: Brandie Lee – Thanks for the mosquito nets. They are a life saver… and much better than what the other teams have!

Always with Love,

Stephen