Happy New Year!

Bon Jour! Happy New Years from Haiti! We are currently sitting at a Haitian celebration waiting for live music and dancing. I do not think we will be able to sleep tonight! They have hauled in about 15 speakers to celebrate with as well as fireworks! Pray that we may get a little bit of sleep but what an opportunity we had tonight to share God with others at the hotel. We were asked to sing in front of the guests that were here. We practiced, we prayed and we gave it our best! We even about broke the stage with all our jumping! It was great to share Jesus with the guests here! :)

On to our day today. It was a day of celebration! We were able to give a party for the kids who have December birthdays. The kids disappeared for a little while after lunch to get ready for the celebration! They redid their hair and got their best clothes on. It was adorable and they were so proud! The kids did some special songs and shows for us and then sang Happy Birthday to the two children with birthdays. We then ate cake, which is a big treat for them, and had Tampico juice. The kids loved it and were very thankful and blessed to have this celebration for them. It was great to see the joy on the kids during the celebration, they just loved it!

The painting has really come along well! The older boys got to work side by side with our group the last couple days. You could see the pride in their faces as they helped. They were learning a new trait and could take pride in what they were helping with. They did so well and were so willing to work hard no matter what we asked them to do. It is just amazing how these kids love to help and learn without complaining or crying about anything. They are humble and we can learn a lot from them!

Our projects and painting are done for this trip. It is crazy how fast the time has gone here, even on Haitian time :) Tomorrow we get to have fun day with the kids starting with a church service at the orphanage. We hear it is quite something and we look forward to experiencing this with them. We already know they can worship and sing like nothing we've ever heard before! After that we plan to head to the ocean and have a fun time swimming and loving on the kids before we have to say our good-bye's or see you laters! This will be very hard for a lot of us and we ask for your prayers as there are a lot of emotions that are going to have to be worked through. Thank you for your prayers and support as we love on these kids and share God's love with the staff and One Vision in Haiti.

Orevwa (Good-bye)
Allison

Friday -- Bon Jour!

Bon Jour!  We heard this phrase hundreds of times today from the beautiful children at the orphanage. 

We began the day with Erin, Kristi, and Brooklyn acting a book out for the kids.  Then came the puppet shows—lots and lots of puppet shows.  We took turns, the kids all took turns (each one starting out their lines with ‘Bon Jour’), the staff took turns, even the translators and the security staff took turns.  So fun to see how that community comes together as a family to laugh and have fun!

The day continued on like previous days: more hard work was done painting the classroom building thanks to the dedicated work of our painting crew, and love and more love was given to all the kids.  From being a pillow for the tired ones, to answering to “Photo, photo” and sharing our phones with them, to teaching them Red Rover and Duck, Duck, Goose, it was such a joy to see how much these kids enjoy just being with us, no matter what we are doing.

The highlight of the day was when Francisco, the director of the orphanage, invited local children to come into the orphanage to interact with us and our kids.  It was amazing to see how much of an impact the orphanage has on the community.  The community kids were so excited to come in that a huge line formed behind the gate.  Around 100 kids came in--more wanted to, but they weren’t able to have them all in.  When they got in, they were each given a small wooden car.  We ran out of cars before we ran out of kids, and some of the orphanage kids went running to their rooms to get theirs that they had received yesterday, and brought them out to share with the community kids.  What a giving spirit these kids have!  Some of the kids from the orphanage performed songs for them and then they all joined in together to sing “10,000 Reasons” in Creole.  There are no words to describe what it felt like listening to them.  Our God is awesome!

If you are looking for specific things to pray for in the next couple days, the separation that will take place is something we are all anxious about.  A lot of us have become really close to many of these kids, and leaving them “behind” is going to be really difficult.  Pray for the children, especially, as separation will be harder on them even more than it will be on us.  Pray that they feel loved by so many, even if it is from so far away.  Thanks so much for your continued prayers!

Andrea

Thursday Dec. 29

Today was an eye-opening day. We delivered backpacks to the kids full of small items like coloring books, wash-clothes, small bags of candy, soaps, toothbrushes and toothpaste, and other things. To us, these items seem small and unimportant, everyday items that we have an arms reach away from us at all times, but to these kids it meant the world. To see their eyes light up with pure joy as they opened their bags and dug through them to see what treasures were there was truly a delight. Though they only receive candy and other items one or two times a year, they were still eager to share their joy with us. Wanting us to share in their joy, sharing what little candy they had with us, as well as building their puzzles together and using the other gifts in their bags. Their humble and giving hearts continue to open our eyes to the overabundance of blessings we have in our own lives and how much we take for granted.

We then continued to paint the school building, having not quite as much help as the day before allowed for us to be extra productive and we were able to get an increased amount of work done. Today was definitely a success with connecting and providing for the kids while also getting our physical labor tasks closer to completion as well. Thanks again for all your thoughts and prayers, they are definitely needed. There continues to be a huge need for supplies, labor, work, and love for these kids and the orphanage as a whole. They should have put in the brochure a small blurp that when you came you would almost definitely be drawn to come back. These kids have some sort of magnetic pull that draws you to them and makes you want to shower them with love, hugs, and affection. God Bless.

Andrew

First Day at the Orphanage

We started the morning with devotions on the beach. As we listened to the waves crashing in, we read from Isaiah 43. Isaiah 43:7 says, "Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made." We talked about how we are all children of God and how important that is for us to remember. God called this group to Haiti to be with these kids for that very reason. We want them to know that they are special and not only loved by us, but by our great God. This was a great way to start our first morning here in Haiti. 

Once we arrived at the orphanage, we were showered with love from 63 of the most precious kids. We were struck by the pure and real joy that each and every one of those kids radiates. Even with unfamiliar faces, they didn't hesitate to give us all hugs.
We spent our morning teaching the kids how to play new games that we brought with us. The kids love to learn and loved playing games like "Trouble". Later on in the day, we started to tackle our project for the week which is painting their school. The kids were all eager and willing to help! They took great pride in their work and made sure every square inch was covered perfectly. Although it seemed as though there was more paint on the children than the walls, it was a blast to share that experience with them. While some were painting we also had people who helped the ViBella ladies, sorted shoes and clothes, or played with the kids.

In our last devotion time of the day we were able to reflect on how we had seen God moving throughout the day. The main theme of the conversation was the joy of the kids and staff. The staff loves those kids and the kids care for each other so well.
We can't wait to see what God has in store for us in the coming week.We pray the our relationships with the family at One Vision Orphanage may continue to grow. Thanks for your prayers and support!

Claire and Ashley

Safe and sound

We arrived safe and sound after a long and tiring travel day.  We know that God was in control today as we made our way through delayed flights, planes being held for us, running through the airports, all of our bags showing up and a safe (although bumpy and meandering) bus ride to the hotel.

Tomorrow we are planning on getting to the orphanage as we got in too late tonight to stop.

After getting in a meal and checking into our rooms, the crew is ready to crash.

We hope to share more tomorrow after our time at the orphanage.

God is in control

After some delays with flights and some uncertainty, we are on our last flight from Atlanta to Haiti.  We should be leaving soon.
Praise the Lord for coming through and holding our flight in Atlanta til we arrived.
Please continue to pray for safe travel on our last leg.

Getting Ready

A group from Faith CRC and Kaitlyn's Fund will be traveling to the One Vision Haiti Orphanage between Christmas and New Year's.

During this time, we will be working with the children at the orphanage and doing some projects around the orphanage.

We covet your prayers during this time and that we can be the Hands and Feet of Christ.

The members of the team are:

Renae Calkhoven

Sheila & Keaton De Jong

Jon & Teresa Dekkers

Brianna Driesen

Tessa Howerzyl

Murray & Fonda Hulstein

Karl, Shirley, Andrew & Nicole Kaemingk

Brent & Brenda Kooiman

Claire Kredit

Alison Obbink 

Chad & Riley Van Ginkel

Kristi & Brooklyn Vander Veen

Andrea & Jocelyn Westerbeek

Erin Wieringa

Ashley Zwart