Sunday, February 15th

After a long travel day and a late night, this morning came really early. But opening my eyes and having my daughter next to me made it completely worth it. We all got ready and headed to Coq Chante for church. Church was much more crowded than it was when I was there in May. I think word got out that the "blancs" were there which means lunch after church. For many this will be the only meal that they will have that day, and in many cases for a couple of days. Despite the uncomfortable benches in the church I love the experience of church in Haiti. I love the geunine worship that happens there on Sunday morning & we always get the treat of hearing the girls sing in church & then at the end we get the priviledge to pray over the people in the church. There are many Sundays that I sit in the gym at Brickey and long to be back at Coq Chante.

We spent Sunday afternoon playing with the girls and then took a ride to Belloc, a nearby village to pick up Wousamy who is being adopted by another family in our church. I have missed him and couldn't wait to see him again. We also took water buckets to several houses in the Belloc community while we were there. Now many families there along with families in Coq Chante will have clean drinking water for the first times in their lives. It is amazing the difference we have seen in the girls and some families in the Coq Chante community after only a few months of clean water. The girls are so much healthier and are now "worm free" after drinking clean water since September.


One thing I noticed today and for the next few days is Odette's fear of being left. She did fine walking into Belloc but when we went inside the church there many people followed us in where we gave out candy to the kids and more water buckets to the families, anyway she seemed really uneasy there & stayed right by my side. When we started to leave (it was dark at this point), she quickly grabbed my hand & headed out. She walked holding my hand the entire way out & would have gone faster up the big hill to the bus if I would have walked faster. The first few mornings as soon as she heard the bus start up she would try to quickly get me to grab our stuff and hurry to the bus. I would tell her it was ok and I would take my time getting there. As the week went on she seemed much more comfortable with waiting when she realized that we were not going to be left behind.