Monday, May 25th

This morning we spent a lot of time waiting to do a food distribution for the parents of the school kids. They had a parent meeting that morning then we started passing out food and praying for their families. Next we started passing out shoes to the school children. Before we left for Haiti we spent over a month collecting over 300 pairs of new tennis shoes to give to the school kids (we also had many left over & got to hand out some to the community children too). This first day we made it through three classrooms of children. We washed their feet and put on new clean socks and probably for most of the children it was the first time they had new shoes on their feet. We also handed out a pack of crackers to each of the children as they waited for their new shoes. Thanks so much to all of you who are reading this who helped with the shoe and snack collection for this trip!



The one thing that sticks out in mind the most from this day is a little face that I can not get out of my head. Eddy asked me to take individual and group pictures of the oldest class of students that are "graduating" this year. As I took pictures in the back of the church there was a little boy that stared at me the entire time. They had the gate to the entrance of the church closed so no one besides the school kids could get in. So all day there were a group of children that do not attend school that stood and watched as we took care of the school children. It was so hard not to grab a pair of shoes for each of them but we knew our first priority on this trip was to make sure every one of the school children were taken care. There was just something about this little boy, he stood there most of the day in his Lion King shirt with his hood up. He had the saddest little eyes that were fixed on me every time I looked his way. I took a picture or two of him and went over and touched him and smiled but that was all I could do for him that day. His was the face I would see every time I closed my eyes that night to try to go to sleep.

We had really hard rain that afternoon. Every time it rains even a little at Coq Chante the rain blows in the windows and everything gets wet. This is the hardest rain I had seen there and was amazed how fast the rain came in and started standing in the rooms. Gladys ran and got Gina and showed her how wet everything in her room was and Gina helped her move the girls boxes and beds to get them out of the rain. All of the older girls were helping move not only their things but all of the supplies and shoes that we had brought to keep everything from getting soaked. It was so sad to see what they go through every time it rains. Madame Gaspard asked on a previous trip that we would pray for new windows that would keep the rain out so she would not have to keep waking the girls up to move their things each time each time it rains. That is one of those things that we take for granted. We would not be ok with our childrens beds and belongings getting wet every time that it rains. So I would love you all to join us in praying for the funds that it will take to put new louvered windows in that will keep the rain out of our girls rooms. If this is something you would like to help with financially you can email me to let me know.