Jacmel Trip!

Last Friday was Haitian Flag Day.  In other words, a vacation weekend for most people here in Haiti.  My friends invited me along with them to Jacmel for the weekend.  Jacmel is know as a "tourist" city and its located on the southwestern part of the island.  It was my first time there and it was great!  Since we are all "vehicle-less" we took three tap-taps to get to the "bus station".  From there, we paid to ride in a 15 passenger van with 20 adults crammed in as tightly as you can possibly imagine.  After living in Haiti for almost 2 years, "Comfort zone" and "personal space" are no longer phrases in my vocabulary.

 

 While in Jacmel, we were hosted by doctors from Slovania.  We slept in part of their medical clinic on hospital beds.

  The best part was that they drove us to and from the beaches all weekend in a......drum roll.......AMBULANCE! 

Several of us rented surf boards for a day, and I tried my hand at surfing.  It was TONS of fun, but I definitely need more practice. 

Walking around Jacmel was lots of fun.  It is much more beautiful than the "concrete jungle" of Port-au-Prince.  However, it was sad to see such beautiful buildings slowly falling apart from lack of upkeep.  I can only imagine how beautiful Jacmel looked 20 or 30 years ago.  

The beaches were beautiful, the food was delicious, and the company was great!

Last week of school

This week is the last week of school for our students at TLC Barefoot School.  I have been using this time to have fun with my students and enjoy my last little bit of time with my kindergarteners. 

We have done paper mache, painting, coloring, and lots of other crafts...

We made flags to celebrate flag day...

We have been playing at the playground...
 

We've been reading lots of stories...

And most of all, we've been having lots of fun!

Climbing Mountains

Our youth group has been "climbing mountains" lately.  There have been some very difficult changes and issues going on this year.  A large part of our Zanglais retreat was focused on processing all of these things together.

On the retreat, we decided to climb a mountain.

Halfway up the mountain, we stopped and sat down to listen to Dan and Kathleen speak.  They spoke about running the race to the finish, pushing through when things are hard, and enduring.

After their talk, we gave the youth the option of hiking the rest of the way up the mountain or going back down to the beach.  Surprisingly, out of 40 youth, only eight went down to the beach while the rest hiked to the top.

It was both difficult and beautiful to hike up the natural path created by rainwater.  The view at the top was probably one of the most spectacular that I've seen.

I could see in the kids faces that physically conquering the mountain gave them hope for the future of our youth group.

Zanglais Youth Group Retreat

All year, I have been helping as a leader in the youth group at Quisqueya Chapel.  On a typical Saturday afternoon, we have around 60 youth show up.  Each spring the older youth group members have the opportunity to go on a retreat to a beach house retreat center in Zanglais.

After riding on a school bus for several hours...

We arrived to the breathtaking scenery of Zanglais.

Spending 4 days together is a really fast way of bonding everyone and deepening relationships.

We worshipped....

We played games...

We swam...

We spent quite time with God...

We studied God's word together...

We praised God...

We took crazy pictures on the beach at night...

We said goodbye to the seniors...

We worshipped around the campfire....

and we grew even closer as a "family".

I can't thank God enough for the privilege of having these youth be a part of my life.