Filling up my sack again

I have good news and bad news and good news:

The good news is that I came back to St. Louis on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, so I could blog and email on my internet day!

The bad news is that the reason we came back early is because I (and some other people on my team) got really sick.  Hence, still no blog.

The good news is that I’m feeling much better now and actually managed to keep my lunch down today.  J

Anyway, I’ll spare you all the gory details of that mess.  My first day in Beauchamp was great.  We walked down to the church in La Plain because my group is considering starting a Neighbors Project there. (Click the link to find out more about the Neighbors Project.  It is by far the greatest ministry we’ve got going here, and I think CUMC should get involved.  Seriously.  Start praying about it now, Community, because the second I get home it’s all I’m going to talk about.)

Anyway, the trip up was just fine.  I practiced more Creole with Ferdinand, one of our interpreters/security guards.  Every time he would talk to me in English, I would say “Pa pale angle!” or “Pa konprann angle!” (“I don’t speak English!  I don’t understand English!”)  He thought it was hilarious, and spoke to me in Creole instead.  He told me soon I’d be speaking Creole like the Haitians.  He’s wrong, of course, but it was nice anyway.

The trip back from La Plain was the tough part… We ended up getting POURED on.  If you have never tried to walk up and down muddy hills while rain is coming in on every side, you should put in on your Bucket List.  It’s quite the experience.  When we returned to the Beauchamp campus—wet, tired, cold, and muddy—one of our translators, Evanson, washed all our feet for us.  I don’t just mean hosed them off either.  He actually squatted down and rubbed mud even off our toenails.  If that’s not serving like Jesus, I honestly don’t know what is.

That night after devos (which consisted of a capella worship since no one brought a guitar—a totally beautiful blessing in disguise), we all got to share about how our trip was going.  I took the time to tell my group how much I had been bragging about them all week to the other interns.  So now I’m going to take a little bit of time to brag on them to you.  My group this week has absolutely gone above and beyond.  They go completely out of their way to make as many relationships as they can and to serve as many people as they can—both with Americans and Haitians.  Whether they are reaching out to kids left outside the church door, writing on a piece of paper back and forth to have a conversation with our deaf security guard or simply washing the dishes when they weren’t asked to, they continue to blow me away.  Evanson even said that washing our feet was the absolute least he could do for how they treated him.  If every group that came in were like CCV, I’m convinced Haiti would be changed forever.

It wasn’t until 4:30 Tuesday morning that I really got, but as I said, I’ll spare you the details.  Just know that I’m feeling much better now and have plenty of people taking care of me and forcing me not to be active.  (Although I’m still so exhausted they don’t have to work too hard to convince me… I just feel like such a bum.)

Anyway, today I have just been recouping.  I’ll blog again on Friday, but I don’t think I’ll have much to say… Love you guys!

Creole Lesson: “Sak vid pa kanp”

                        “An empty sack can’t stand.”

This is a Haitian proverb that I thought particularly applicable to all my friends at camp.  You can’t pour into campers if you have nothing left in you to pour.  An empty sack can’t stand… or as Heather would say, “Take your freakin’ Sabbath!”  I love you guys and miss you like crazy.  See you Week 8!

This Week's Highlights

Hey all!  I am very happy to tell you that God has been filling me up so much this week.  Thank you all for your prayers because I have definitely been feeling them.  So much cool stuff has happened, so I’m going to give you some highlights:

5) I went with my group down to the Miriam Center (children with special needs) and we sang with them for hours while the old blind Haitian man played guitar for them.

4) I had somewhat of a real conversation in Creole with a girl I met name Stephanie.

3) I went to Tortuga (yes again, I love it there…) and hung out with my buddy Wensha.

2) I took some of my group down to hand out with the moms at the Nutritional Program.  I was told that they’d probably already be gone; it was 3 and they usually leave by 1.  But for some reason, I wanted to check… maybe some of the older members of the program are still there.  They eat later.  A couple of us went with a translator, we met an old woman who was holding a little boy who was thin as a stick.  She told us that she was his grandmother and his mother left him.  The grandmother didn’t have enough money to provide food for him, and he was sick.  We told her that we were glad he was in the Nutritional Program then so he could become healthy again.  She said, “No… this just happened today.  He’s not in the program.”  So we brought her to speak to the woman who runs the baby orphanage to see if he could go there.  Now the grandmother is planning on taking him to the doctor on Monday, and once he is well again, he can enter the orphanage.  Somehow, I don’t think it was an accident that we went down there today…

1) Tonight for night devos, we sang “How He Loves Us.”  If you don’t know the song—first of all, look it up because it’s amazing—and second of all, there’s a part where you sing “He loves us!  Whoa, how He loves us!” over and over again in the middle of the song.  We sang it loud and a capella, which was powerful enough in itself.  But it gets better.  When the speaker started sharing what she was going to say for devos, all of a sudden we heard a voice from the first floor below us.  It was a child from the Miriam Center singing “He loves us!  Whoa, how He loves us!”  It was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard.

I hope these stories give you an idea of what this place means to me and why I choose to spend my summer here.  I love you and miss you all so much.  On Tuesday I’ll be in Beauchamp, so I won’t be posting again until Wednesday.  Can’t wait to tell you about it!

Melissa

Creole Lesson:         “Si timoun yo ap domi nan lari, ki sa n’ap fe pou yo?”

                                “If children are sleeping in the streets, what are we doing for them?”

This quote is from “Selavi” by Youme, a picture book.  Highly recommended, Anita.  I know you like kid’s books like me.  :)

Blessed are those...

This weekend has been physically, emotionally, and spiritually draining, to say the least.

Honestly, I don't even know what to say.  I feel like not much has happened but at the same time, everything has happened.

Saturday: Walk to waterfall, swim, jump off rocks (land on rocks...ow), talk to/swim with Haitians, walk home.

Sunday: Go to church, hang out, go to Bible study

Monday: Go to Anse a Foleur, lead VBS, go to voodoo temple and monument, eat at restaurant, go home

Seemingly uneventful, right?  I guess because most of the drama of the weekend happened inside my own head.  I'll make today's entry short.  Just know that I miss all of you very much, and I have been stretched and challenged in many different ways recently.  Continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers!

A new group came in today!  Can't wait to tell you all about them on Friday.  I love you guys.

-Ti Blanc

PS God sent me a pair of knock-off Rainbows today.  My feet are offically clothed.  Hallelujah!

Creole lesson: "Pa gin anyin nan Mouin." Jan 14:30b

                      "(Satan) has no hold on me." John 14:30b

To the tune of “Tick Tock” by Ke$ha

Wake up in a sweat and I know I’m in Haiti.

Grab my water, I’m out the door,

We’re ‘bout to hit St. Louis.

Before I leave, grab sunscreen and pack my bag

‘Cause when I leave for the day not sure I’m comin’ back

I’m talking mud all over my toes toes,

Too hot for my clothes clothes,

Haitians blowing up their phones phones.

Tap taps and motos playin’ their CDs,

Interns get their AC,

Wishin’ I had some Pepsi…

Please stop.  It’s too hot!

Gonna serve ‘em til I drop.

At night, ‘squito bites

Til we see the sunlight.

Tick tock!  There’s no clock.

Will the devos ever stop?

No!

Oh oh oh oh!  Oh oh oh oh!

(I wish I could take credit for this, but a group of short-term travellers wrote it.  Enjoy!)

Beauchamp: The Beautiful Champions

Dear Blancs,

From this point on, whenever I say "football," I'm referring to soccer.

Love,
Ti Blanc

So I have spent the last couple of days with my group in Beauchamp--a skip and a jump and a 2 1/2 hour TapTap ride away from St. Louis.  When we got there, most people were pooped and needed a rest, but a couple of them were up for some fun.

Just in case you don't know what I mean by "fun," here's some Haitian math for you:

football + Haitian boys + muddy field = fun

So the four blancs and a bunch of Haitian boys played football for awhile.  I have some pretty intense bruises and cuts and scrapes as souvenirs... one of the buttons on my anklet even broke.  I do have to say, we played pretty well for blancs.  I mean, Haitians come out of the womb playing football.  I even earned myself a sweet-awesome nickname: Ti Blanc (Little White).

I did have a rather new experience that first night in Beauchamp.  They were waiting for more water to come in, so all we had was Gatoraid to drink.  After a couple of hours of playing football in the sun, I needed some water.  When in your life have you ever needed water and it wasn't at your fingertips?  All of you need to go thank your fancy refrigerator water system thingies right now.  Send it a thank you card or something.  If fact, you can magnet the card right up there next to the report cards and pictures.

Anyway, moving on.  The past couple of days have been basically a combination of Bible lessons (VBS) and football with the kids in Beauchamp.

Favorite VBS moment: My team did a "kiddie" version of the Everything skit.  (Look it up on YouTube.  I'd post a link, but the internet here is not YouTube-friendly right now...)  Instead of drinking and body image and suicide, they did cheating and stealing and bullying, etc.  It was really cute.  I would love to steal it for the kids at church back home or something.

Favorite Football moment: We all went down to the big football field while it was raining to play and a bunch of Haitians of all ages (around 7-25) came to play also.  We had a huge game going.  Half the field was mud, so people were slipping all over the place.  It was hilarious.  Eventually, the game digressed into a crazy mudball fight!  We may have not been able to understand each others' languages, but whenever someon slipped and fell into the mud or got a mudball to the face, we all laughed.

Creole lesson: Ri se yon bagay universel. = Laughter is universal.

*Disclaimer:  Beauchamp doesn't actually mean Beautiful Champions.  I was trying to be witty.

Love you guys!
Ti Blanc

Job 32: 6-10

So since I last posted, the group of people here as DOUBLED in size.  A group of around 70 high schoolers and college students came in from all over the US for what they're calling the "Restore Retreat."  It's pretty exciting because they're the first group to be using our brand new chapel built on the roof.

I have been assigned to one of the many groups at the retreat called TCTC (Tennessee Christian Something Convention...?) and they've been great.  Yesterday, walked around St. Louis a little bit doing hut-to-huts, which is basically going from house to house getting to know the families and sharing our faith and hearing about their own lives.  It can be pretty interesting.

We split into three groups, one with each interpreter (one memeber of my team's group is actually fluent in Creole, so we used her as an interpreter).  My little group actually ended up finding a small Haitian-run mission.  It was an orphanage where they also give Bible lessons and Americans sponsor the kids to go to school.  I was so interested that I asked if we could have a look around, so the owner, a sweet Haitian woman, took us around and gave us a quick tour.

Two things I've learned so far:
1) I know way more French than I thought I did.  This week, I had two decently long conversations with two different Haitian men in French, and a little English if I got stuck.  It was awesome!  I wish I could practice more in Creole, though...

2) I would love to teach English classes as a profession.  Whenever I can, I go to help with the English classes they have here, and I love it.  That would be a fun job.

Today, I went off to Tortuga again!  Favorite place we go by far.  I have a little friend there named Wensha that I actually met last year, so it was nice to hang out with her again.  I played Jacks with her with little pebbles, and it made me miss my mommy.  I told her "Mwen joue Jacks avek mama mwen."  "I play Jacks with my mom."  Really, I played Jacks with Mommy once or twice, but my Creole is kind of limited... Anyway, since her mom was there also playing with us, Wensha thought that was cool.

Back at the mission, a bunch of us went down to the Gran Moun to wash their feet and paint their toenails, which they absolutely love.  They are so adorable.  When I was washing the feet of one old man, who was blind, he couldn't stop laughing.  He was ticklish!  It was hilarious.  Then a little boy, 8-years-old, came down and joined us.  We started calling him "Ti Pastor" or "Little Pastor" because he basically led us in a full service down there with the Gran Moun.  It was awesome.  He led worship songs and had them singing and dancing. He led the prayers.  He even led Call and Response.  So cute.

Well, I guess that's all until Friday.  I've been able to sleep under the stars lately because it finally stopped raining all the time.  Of course, now it's about 156 degrees outside and 100% humidity.  It's like swimming in a hot tub all day.  You win some, you lose some.

Creole Lesson: "Mesi, Senor, pou tout bagay!"  "Thank you, Lord, for everything!"

Don't take for grantedd what you have there in the States, guys.  Miss you all like crazy!

PS At first, I was upset that the only person who cares enough about me to comment on my blog is my Papa, but then I realized that no one else could because of my comment settings.  I have now changed those settings so that anyone can comment.  AKA No excuses, people.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours...

So I guess I have a lot to catch you guys up on!  I'm sorry I couldn't post yesterday... the internet was being, well, the internet.  Anyway, I guess I will take you through the highlights of the week.

Wednesday: My group stayed in St. Louis all day.  In the morning we did Grocery Ministries, which is where we buy groceries from the market and give them away at random houses.  It was really fun.  In the afternoon, we partied with the Gran Moun a lot.  Bubbles, singing, dancing, silly masks, coloring... the works.  I even had a dance with a charming old man named Dwivay Blan... we're buds now.

After that we had a shaving cream party with the special needs kids.  Best. Party. Ever.  Seriously.

Thursday: Today we went to Ansefoleur--where the Voodoo temple and monument are.  That trip always makes for some pretty interesting discussion... I really want to finish Tell My Horse when I go home now.  I should have brought it.  :P

Friday: We got to go to Tortuga!  Probably my favorite trip out of all of them.  I love it.  Some people have to take enough Dramamine to knock someone out just to avoid tossing their lunch overboard, but I love the boatride.  One of my favorite little girls is there from last year and she actually remembered me!

This trip was hard, though... My group had planned a Bible lesson for 150 of the schoolkids there, but there were other kids there, too, that we weren't expecting.  Kids that couldn't afford school.  Kids that were obviously malnurished.  Kids that we didn't bring enough peanut butter sandwiches for.  You will never understand how it feels to deny a hungry child food until you're put in the situation.  It was terrible.  But we couldn't do anything about.  Not then, anyway.  Someday.

Saturday: Today we went out to the orphanage... three hours there, three hours back.  We did the Bible lesson with them also and they made little tambourines.  It was cute.  One little 6-year-old boy had a hernia, so we actually got to take him back to the mission.  We're hoping that the doctors here can fix him up so he can go back with the next group that drives out to the orphanage.  Can't we go anywhere without seeing hungry or sick kids?

Sometimes I feel so helpless.

Creole Lesson #3: Eske ou sonje mwen?  (Do you remember me?)

Haiti the Musical: Sneak Peek

So usually, I'm going to try to post every Tuesday and Friday... but I did promise you some egg fight clips.

This was my first time playing around with Windows Movie Maker, so sorry it's not professional.  I had fun with it.  It's also pretty short, but it's the before and after views of the fight.  (I didn't think it'd be wise to take my camera into the egg war zone...)

Enjoy!

"This is it!" -Michael Jackson

So... groups are in!  I am going to be working with a group that has never been here before, so that will be interesting.  I'm actually really excited about it.  It will be fun to be their first impression of such a great ministry.  The leader of the group I'm working with is very open to what we do here and is willing to try out just about everything.  In other words, Marion and I (he's the other intern I'll be with this week) are going to be Tap Tapped all over Haiti again.  Super fun.  : P

Just to update you on what I've been up to until groups arrived... On Sunday, we all went to church at the mission's chapel here on campus.  The service is about two and a half hours long and almost entirely in Creole, which is actually really cool.  Some of the songs they sang in English for us in really thick Creole accents.  It was awesome.  I will try and take some video of it next week if I can.  The man who preached, Ferdinand, also gave us the Bible verses and main points in English, which was very helpful.

I've actually gotten to talk to Ferdinand a lot lately.  He interprets for us a lot, so his English is actually very good.  Yesterday I was pretty sick (we call it the Haitian Sensation here... I'll let you use your imagination...), so I missed all of the training in the morning.  After sleepin for just about two and a half hours, I woke up and talked to him for quite awhile before lunch.  We talked about Haiti and the States and the pros and cons of each.  It was really cool to see a Haitians point of view.  When one of the other interns asked Magdala (the Haitian in charge of the programs at the mission) what she thought of America when she came here, she said, "You guys have too many machines!  You have machines for everything!"  Ferdinand, on the other hand, enjoys showers with hot water and washing machines.  To each Haitian, his or her own, I guess.  :)

I am definitely feeling much better today.  Groups got here and I jumped right in.  It's king of like the day campers come over at the ol' WWW Camp.  (Speaking of which, if any of you guys are keeping up with me, I miss you tremendously and I'm praying for you!)

I'm loving it here, and I can't wait to tell you all about the cool things I'll be doing with my group this week.  :)

Melissa

Creole lesson: This week's lesson will be a Creole proverb.
"Vwazinaj se fanmi."
"Neighbors are family."

I love you guys!

"There's an eggshell on your head, Melissa."

Bonjou!

I have been having a great time so far.  No groups are coming in until Monday, so we have just been doing some training and travelling all over Haiti.  So far we've gone to the waterfall, the orphanage at Salines Mayette, Tortuga, Port du Paix, and today we went to Ansefelour.  Ansefelour is where the voodoo temple and monument is.  We actually got to climb up the mountain and see the site where many voodoo rituals take place.  We also walked through the temple where they sell voodoo dolls and worship a doll they call “Ti Ann.”  Ann is the mother of Mary, Jesus’ grandmother, so I guess the doll represents her...  I don’t really know.  It was kind of creepy but very eye-opening.

After that we got to eat at a Haitian restaurant where they served us black beans and WHITE rice (with hot sauce?  Genius!) and SALTY plantanos.  Haitians know how to cook.  For realz.  Then we went to the beach—weirdest beach ever.  It was mostly only a couple of inches deep but had these random “pools” where it was deep.  We would be walking and then all of a sudden drop into the water… and then the Haitians would life at us.  Se la vi, I guess.

Tonight after devos we had an egg fight.  Yes.  You read that correctly.  And yes, it is just as sticky and gooey and slimey and awesome as it sounds.  Look forward to pictures.

Tomorrow we will head for La Baie—another beach day.  All the travelling is giving me "Tap Tap Butt."  Just imagine sitting on a wooden board while driving down the bumpiest roads you've ever seen... You get the picture.  

Things I love about Haiti:

• They put hot sauce on their spaghetti.
• They are resourceful: My sandal broke on the way back from the waterfall and the boy I was talking to used a stick to fix it.  (Yes, the strap of my Rainbows broke.  Whoa.  I didn't think it was possible.)
• They actually say "Bonjou!" when you pass them on the street.  Unlike cranky Americans who avoid eye contact.
• Their language is an easy version of French.  I WILL be fluent.  Seriously.

Things I less than love about Haiti:

•  Mosquitos
• Tap Tap butt

Anyway, things are amazing over here.  Don’t worry about me!  Tout bagay deja byen!

Melissa

Creole Lesson #1: Tout bagay deja byen: Everything is already okay.