Saturday, June 15, 2013

We started off the day going to the mass graves site where a majority of the people killed by the earthquake on January 12, 2010 were buried.  A rock monument, consisting of the words “we will never forget them” and the date of the earthquake, and crosses were placed as memorials in honor of the victims of the horrible tragedy.  Some of the Haitian staff of Healing Haiti shared testimonies of where they were at that day, what they saw, what they did, and how they survived the earthquake.  We prayed as a group with some of the Haitian children for the people of Haiti who’ve lost loved ones and for healing for them from the tragedy.

We, then, went back to Grace Village to play with the children on their beautiful playground equipment and taught them a lesson about how God purifies/cleanses our hearts from our sins.  One of the team members taught the children a science experiment on how water gets cleansed as it passes through gravel and sand, as the rest of  the team members help the children physically do the experiments.  The science experiment was followed by splitting the children into two groups based on ages to do a Bible lesson from Exodus 15 (which was acted out) and share a testimony.  All of the children were gathered together again to work on memorizing 1 John 1:9, which was taped to water bottles filled with water that was given to each of the children.

Before heading back to our amazing guesthouse for the evening, we went to another orphanage to sing and play with the children there.  We went into an area where there were some old benches and school tables and sang some songs with the children.  Then, we played two structured games with them and played a little basketball as well.

Every night during our group debriefing time, we each talk about a word that came to our minds during the day and why we thought of the specific word.  The word I shared today was “enough.”  My explanation of the word “enough” is as follows:  Grace Village is a beautiful, well-run orphanage that takes excellent care of the children, and they get a great amount of food.  It is exactly how an orphanage should be run.  The other orphanage we went to was pretty run down with not a lot for the children to do.  It was dirty and the food was being prepared in an area that did not look like a kitchen.  I wanted to see the positive in the day about both orphanages.  I am grateful that both places have space for the children to play, be fed, learn, and sleep.  They may be very different from each other, but God is meeting their immediate needs.  Comparing both orphanages to some of the tents in tent city and some of the homes in the slums, I am grateful the children in every orphanage have what they have (even though it is not much according to our U.S. standards).  God is giving them “enough” to survive each day.

God is really breaking each of our hearts for what breaks His in Haiti, but He is showing us what He is doing to heal Haiti as well!  What a blessing it is to be here!

Erica Dirks