Tuesday at Croix des Mission

We arrived at the worksite after an eye filling ride in the streets of Port au Prince.  After bread and peanut butter, 60 children gathered on the benches under our tarp.  Our team member, interpreter and friend from Boston, Michelle Pierre, was the teacher this morning.  Her job was to introduce Jesus (Jesi) to the children.  She did a lively job in Creole.  Another team member, Lissa Olbeiter, from Boston had created small books with the simple facts of Jesus' life.

After singing "Jesus Loves the Little Children of the World", the youngest colored their small books and the older ones drew Jesus or religious symbols on paper, cut them out, and pasted them on paper bags.  All children were engrossed in these simple crafts.  This time we wrote names on their work and collected the projects to return to them on Friday.  (This eliminates mountains of trash because the children lay the work down to play games and run about.)

Stevenson Theodore, our "music man" arrived at the right moment.  Now 75 children were present under the tarp ready to participate in his games and his music.  He is very charismatic and the children loved every moment with him.  By the end of the music lesson, there were 84 children under our tarp.

While our VBS was going on, the men on our team helped with the rebuilding of the security wall.  They hauled rocks and pails of cement.  Skilled Haitian workers continued their work on the roof over the office roooms in the church.

The morning went very quickly!  Now it was time for lunch which the church women had prepared over charcoal under the trees at the worksite.  We estimate that 140 people had a hot lunch.

After lunch we departed for Grace Children's Hospital to deliver the comfort dolls that ladies of our church and Eastman friends had knit.  The traffic was horrid and we arrived late but the nurses allowed us into a ward with babies.  Some had families visiting but visitation hours ended and we stayed to hold the little ones.  It was a heartwarming visit as the children responded to our touch and hugs and games of peekaboo.  Many clutched the dolls and studied their colorful outfits.

 Every doll was given away!

It was an excellent day!