Today was a long day, but it went by super fast.
After breakfast, I bought some things at the 3 Cords shop, then walked down to the bottom of the hill to the little market that Mission of Hope had. A family makes jewelry, paintings, and other souvenirs, and sells them. The only thing was that I had to barter to buy the items I wanted. It was tough because I had no problem paying the original price that they gave me for the item, but it is part of Haitian culture to barter down. It was hard because these people didn't have much to live off of, and I felt bad talking the price down.
After that, I hung out with some of the Hope House boys, who are the older kids at Mission of Hope. One of them had a guitar and played different songs, from Chris Tomlin to Justin Bieber. The song "Give Us Clean Hands" had been stuck in my head all week long, which was really weird because I had only heard the song once before at youth group when I was in middle school. For some reason, I could not get it out of my mind. Well, the first song that Jean-Marc played on his guitar was "Give Us Clean Hands". That gave me chills! The chorus goes: "Give us clean hands, Give us pure hearts, Let us not lift our souls to another". I feel like the Lord has been teaching me in the past month or so that I am no better than anyone else. I make mistakes just like everyone else, and I am not really spreading His message the way I should be. I should use my mistakes and lessons learned to bring people to Him, not away from Him or stay "neutral" to Him. And by this time, it was only 8:30 in the morning!
We went to Leveque for the day to paint houses! The houses were concrete and unfinished, so there was no roof on them yet. We broke up into three different groups and painted the inside of three houses. There was much sweat, dirty clothes, aching hands, and sunburn, but it was so much fun! Some of the kids who lived there helped us paint, and a girl in our group taught a twenty year old Haitian how to paint!
After awhile, me and Journey stopped painting and played with the kids. They loved getting their pictures taken and being held. I held a baby for the longest time, and I put her on the ground when we had to leave. She started screaming and chasing after us, so now the joke is that I make babies cry. Which, rest assured to those I babysit for, was NOT intentional :)
When we got back to Titanyen, I walked around Mission of Hope and hung out with some of the kids. I held a little baby boy, who came to MOH the week before and had a twin brother. He was the cutest thing ever. I held him, and he eventually fell asleep.
We had Haitian food for dinner, then walked down to the church for their Tuesday night worship service. Although it was all in Creole, it was beautiful watching people worship Jesus. I also received the bracelets that the boys made me. They were so excited, as was I.
At our nightly meeting, we planned our skit for the Nativity Story. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll save the details for the next post!
I was starting to get homesick again at this point, but I couldn't believe how fast the week was flying by!
Psalm 24: 5-6 (The Message)
God is at their side; with God's help they make it. This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.
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