Amy's Insight

Ok well there is lots to tell and lots of space so here it goes. By the way it is Amy speaking. Sunday everything went fine with the exception of our connecting flight from JFK to Santiago was like two hours late. We got through customs fine, and got into our hotel rooms around 4am. Got up a little late (planned) Monday morning, had some breakfast and headed to the Webbs’ church; planned what we were going to do in Haiti and talked about VBS. We meet the teens that we were going to work with for VBS. I am co captain of Agripo Amarillo (team yellow; girls ages 7-9) with a girl named Catherine who speaks English (a major relief for me, as I know like um…… NONE). So for the rest of the day we just prepared for VBS, and in the evening we went to the Webbs house for spaghetti and salad (oh yeah and donuts for dessert). Earlier in the morning we had wrapped our presents for the Webbs, so we had Christmas in July (which was awesome to watch Christian and Camille’s faces’ as they opened their gifts).

Tuesday we left the hotel around 7 am and loaded the van and the SUV for the 3 hour trip to Haiti (another side note: our van driver (Renee…a guy) is amazing; we LOVE him to death). It was a little crunched in the back (speaking from experience) but it was amazing to see many different aspects of the Dominican. We met Brittany and Teryn (two workers from Hope for Haiti; the orphanage) right before the border and we successfully made it across without any problems. The rest of the day is incredibly hard to describe, but I will try my best. As soon as we walked across the border, the difference between Haiti and the Dominican Republic was immediately known. The Dominican the roads are paved for the most part, houses are made with bricks and fences and look secure, and on average is a generally clean place; Haiti on the other hand is the exact opposite with an extra large dirt path with garbage everywhere, the houses looking more like sheds with people living with animals. We walked through the village and met some of the kids that go to the school (500 kids altogether go to the school sponsored by the orphanage). We then immediately went to the orphanage and met the children. They have around 90 kids with about 50 of them speaking no English because they recently arrived from Port au Prince. I can’t really explain what it was like other than life changing. We think those kids have nothing, but they think they have so much. The lady that runs the orphanage does not encourage adoption because she considers the children her own. The older kids are learning French, Creole, English, and Spanish, and lots and lots about God (and all the other subjects we all hated in school). We had lunch, and then moved on to have more fun with the kids. We painted faces which morphed into them painting on paper and us laughing. The boys and the kids played soccer. The rest of the day was just spent enjoying the kids and them blessing us greatly. We all have so many stories to tell, but so hard to put into words, so ya’ll will just have to ask and listen because we can go on for hours. Sadly we left the kids around 3 their time, and again made it back across the border safely. We loaded back up and headed back to Santiago. We got to have dinner which consisted of empanadas (kind of like Hot Pockets but different and much tastier).

Today we got up and had breakfast at the café attached to the hotel (a good way to experience some Dominican food). We were at the church by 8am and got last minute preparations underway for VBS. The kids quickly started coming in and we soon started with our opening program. Of course I didn’t understand anything that was going on so I can’t tell you much about it, but I do know that they think it is funny when I have to yell excitedly by myself (another short story). Agripo Amarillo had 11 girls, and the VBS had 41 kids altogether (as of this morning we only had 25 signed up, so that was a real praise). Overall, I had a hard time communicating with my girls because only two of them spoke English, but by the end of the day they were finally warming up to me, so hopefully tomorrow we can start where we ended. For lunch we had rice, chicken, beans, and veggies, and then cleaned up and got ready for tomorrows VBS. Afterwards we headed to their version of Walmart (but so much better in Christin’s and mine opinion). Then we headed back to the hotel for some showers to get cleaned up for church. I had my first hot shower since Saturday as for some reason we’ve only had lukewarm showers since we’ve been down here (but none of us minded because it felt good after being hot and sweaty all day). So overall, I have no complaints on this end other than I would love to stay in Haiti for awhile please and thanks.

Love you all

~Amy