Easter Is Coming Soon

 

 

Following the Leader

Josiah started crawling around pretending to be some kind of animal. Micah followed suit of course. Loves his brother.

 

Little Big Boy

Seeing him in Josiah's old clothes makes me realize how much he's grown. Too fast.

The hat. Seriously. So cute.
By the way the child is obsessed with fruit. I left him playing sandbox for a few minutes while I went to the front of the house. I checked on him, and he was gone, but the door to the house was wide open. I found him inside in the chair sneaking grapes I'd left on the table. He regularly gets bananas from the pantry, brings them to the table and somehow wrangles them open to eat. He keeps me on my toes.

Swing time

Last fall, Micah was not too fond of the swing. But this year he LOVES it. He pretty much dissolves into a million pieces if he doesn't get to swing. Speaking of which, this child can produce a high quality temper tantrum when he doesn't get his way. It's quite a sight.

My favorite.

 

Audrey serving her brother and friend by pushing both! 

 

 

Ladybug Hunting

 

 

 

Puzzles - Little Boy

 

Micah really impresses me with his puzzle skills. It comes really easily for him; I barely direct him. His motor skills are so different than Josiah's at this age! 

Puzzles - Big Boy

 Josiah has had this puzzle for a while, but he got frustrated with it. We recently got it out again, and I was so proud at how he stuck with it and kept trying! He did really well! I would help just a bit, but he got most of it on his own. Puzzles like these are best done while brother is taking a nap or it's a really frustrating experience.

Kid's Club

 On Saturday, we got to help with the Kid's Club they held for all the children in their school sponsorship program. They had different stations for the kids to visit. Jonathan manned the basketball station.

 Lisa and Abby ran the beauty salon. 

 Cole and Ed did the always popular parachute activity. 

 

Doug and I ran the coloring station. The kids loved to color, and many were really good at it. 

   

These are some of the kids I hung out with during the literacy program. They'd been at the club early that day. The girls laughed and chatted with me even though I only understand a handful of words they were saying. We played the hand slap game, took lots of pictures, and they sang me some Christian songs in Creole.

 

Feeding Program

On Wednesday, I got to visit the feeding program. New Vision initiated this ministry by buying boats for some men in a nearby fishing village. Their business has done really well and in turn benefited the community and allowing them to start a school. New Vision also found a group of single mothers who had resorted to prostitution in order to feed their families. So they began employing the women to cook the fish, buying it from the fishermen they bought the boats for, and giving the meals to elderly shut-ins. Win-win-win, right? They also do a Bible study and literacy program for those involved.



Necelia preparing fish. She was the sweetest lady who gave out big hugs to everyone. She was the only one who came to the literacy program the day we were there. I'd guess she's in her 60s learning how to read. Amazing.

Cutting onions. Do you see a cutting board? Me either.

Chemarc. So sweet. He cuddled up on my lap and took a nap. He stole my heart a little.

Finishing his breakfast

Merimot. Isn't she beautiful? They all wanted me to take their picture or take one of their kids.

Tchevide (not sure about the spelling or pronounciation). She liked to do my hair. She kept saying "la? le?" Which I later figured out was something like, "Like this? Like that?" asking me how I wanted my hair.

Dadette. She took us to the market, and later in the week, we got to see a plot of land where she was hoping to build a house.

The lady in yellow is Natalie, Clermarc's mom. Our construction team worked on building her house.

Creole sauce. Mmmm...

Kelsea, on the left, is one of the interns. This woman asked her to be her daughter's godmother, which in Haitian culture is a pretty big deal.

Again, kids like the same things, right? This was actually pretty risky of me considering this child had no pants on! Check out the kids striking a pose.

Stickers!

So before I left I grabbed a package of 380 stickers. My logic was that I would give a couple to each child I met and thus earn their undying affection. The first day I went to the orphanage I thought, "This my chance. They will love me!" Aren't I a selfless missionary? It's all about being liked, right? Well, my plan backfired as they ran through all 380 stickers in about 10 minutes. It was a lot of fun though.



It was a good reminder that kids are kids everywhere you go. They love stickers, bubbles, coloring, balls, balloons, affection, high fives, fist bumps, seeing their picture in a camera... It's nice that so many things cross language and cultural barriers.