Day 1: We arrived in Haiti Sunday afternoon. Our whole group felt blessed to be here and that we were all here together for a greater purpose. As night fell, we drove through Port-au-Prince, where poverty filled the streets. We stopped to pray on the edge of Port-au-Prince to ask for blessings on this journey. As we drove to Jacmel, we must admit the curvy road gave us all some nausea and nervous moments. But then we saw the beautiful lights of Jacmel in the distance and grew excited to arrive in Jacmel. But it was a long journey! Our group had the benefit of coming during Carnival, which we learned is a pre-Mardi Gras type party. As we drove into the town square in Jacmel huge crowds of people dancing and running through the streets stopped our van. It was quite a sight to see and we wish we had pictures to share, but we were so fascinated by the crowds running and dancing through the streets, no one thought to grab a camera. Our guides Franz & Bobby were also amazed, and just in case, locked the van doors as our van was in the middle of a crowd. Our first day at La Concorde was a wonderful and fulfilling experience for all of us. As we pulled into the orphanage and saw the kids, tears filled our eyes. We loved meeting all of the children, who were so welcoming and glad to see us. Jamie was able to meet with Franz and mama and the local builder to come to a consensus on future building plans.

Tammy, Jessica, Casey & Peggy got a tour and got to meet quite few children along the way, who were only too happy to have Jessica & Casey carry them from building to building. The girls and boys dorms were so colorful and inviting. Tammy, Jessica and the girls spent time making bracelets while Jamie & Peggy went to the local hospital to meet with the OR charge nurse and discuss plans to meet the nursing students and present on their topics of choice. Miss LaHat was gracious and invited Jamie & Peggy to speak for 4 hours on Wednesday on heart attack, heart emergencies, and CPR.

The other big thing that happened was we treated all the children and adults for a very itchy skin condition—scabies. It was a lot of work to get all the children lined up, weigh each one, figured what they need and given them a spoon full of applesauce. Some kids needed the pill crushed, and others did not. But they were all very polite and cooperative to get the treatment.

Day 2 the journey continued.

This was a very big day for our group. We needed ALL the sheets washed and ALL the clothes washed in boiling water. There were women there that did all the wash. Our group gathered all the sheets and clothing and put them in bags for the washers. Then we put vinyl mattress covers on all the beds.

By this time…the kids were done with school. We colored pictures for their sponsors back home and took lots of pictures. We also started treating for ringworm, this took some organization as we again needed to figure out dosing for each child and then the children will need to continue on medication for the next two to three weeks.  They were so happy to again get their spoon full of applesauce!

Next was a shower for each of the kids and each received their brand new red t-shirts that say, “ Jezi Renmen Nou”…which means Jesus Loves Us! The girls also got new pillow case dresses from St. John’s Lutheran Church in May City, Iowa…BIG HIT!! Lastly we played games, the children sang BEAUTIFUL songs about Jesus…again a few tears came back.

We discovered one little girl with a very bad infection in her hand. As the children were singing, I spotted her crying and holding her hand. We started a course of antibiotics after seeing the very bad infection, put on antibiotic ointment and a gauze bandage and gave her a dose of ibuprofen. A hug and a kiss after that seemed to make things a lot better!

We are now back at our hotel and ready to eat supper.

Tomorrow will bring another busy day, Jamie and Peggy doing nursing lectures at the school of nursing and Tammy, Jessica and Casey will be doing VBS crafts and playing games. We are loving the children, Bastian family and the beautiful view of the ocean.