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