a haitian thursday

Today was one of our favorite days. Two of our team members had birthdays! Elaine Conner and Dan Robinson, so we celebrated them all day. 
After a delicious breakfast, we taught ESL again to the teachers, where they each brought in word they wanted translated. The words they chose were creative: heaven, God, wisdom, conscience, eat and money etc. 
Then we headed to the farm to work. We took our toilet paper rolls filled with carrot seeds, along with a packed lunch, and a lot of water and bug spray. We worked for several hours preparing soil to plant watermelon, picking the ripe cantelope and watermelon which we enjoyed with dinner, planting carrot seeds, and preparing pomegranate saplings to be planted. We got our hands dirty and it was so fun. No one got any extreme sunburn, despite it hitting 107 degrees! Our dinner discussion was quieter than usual as we were somewhat comotose from a day of good, hard work, but after a great meal and chocolate birthday cake, we recharged and headed over to the school to clean the walls of the classrooms to prepare to paint as our next project. 
Many of the team really enjoys working. Although the Carribean mindset is often laid back, we have been excited to be productive and complete the list of projects we've been given and thankful for the opportunity to be here. 

 some trees started at the farm 

So far, our completed projects are:

• planting grass in the orphanage yard
• painting the orphanage fence and railings
• painting the orphanage upper staircase
• scraping and painting the orphanage ceiling
• treating the orphanage roof to prevent water leakage
• cleaning the solar panels 
• planting seeds (watermelon and carrots)
• painting the 12' x 8' white board in the family center
• cleaning the schoolroom walls 
• organizing and alphabatizing the 200+ medical files at the clinic

So far, we have seen God's handiwork and provision everywhere. Spending time with the people here on staff, seeing the little ones in the orphanage, and getting to know the Haitian culture has been a gift to our team. We are thankful for continued health and strength to allow us to work hard and serve in the ways God allows us. Thank you for continuing to pray! We need it!