They're home!

........and most are anxious to go back! Their trip was wonderful,emotional, fun, fulfilling, hard, tiring, unexpected in parts and overall and most important, God-honoring. The mission team blessed so many kids with their love, adults with their dedication and hard work and in the end, they were blessed themselves. And it was all done in the name of Jesus. Hopefully, it will have eternal rewards for many of those involved.
Eric is already planning the next trip back which will be November of this year, 2009. It will be during Thanksgiving, and what a better way to demonstrate our thankfulness for all we have then to serve those who don't have as much.

So,until then.............

Last Day

3-13-2009

Today was our last day at the orphanage. We spent all day finishing up tasks and playing with the kids. In the morning the guys put up a gate to keep all the little ones from escaping their play area..by the end of the day most of them figured out how to open it but it helps slow them down. We did another English class for the kids. We made crosses with English words on them and sang worship songs in English. It was amazing to hold, dance and sing with them. Singing Happy Day and Blessed Be Your Name was a favorite. All the nannies came to see what was going on, they joined in and sang with us. Even the babies got to be a part of our dance party. Then we brought all the kids outside and had cupcakes to celebrate March Birthdays. It was a great way to end our trip because it was a big party!

Today Mallory and I were hanging out with the school kids while they were on their break time. At first we played Simon says. The kids got tired of that so I tried to start a game of tag. It wasn’t really tag it was more like chase Shelby and when you reach her, form a big mob around her and tackle her to the ground. This happened about five or six times. The good thing was is that every time they tackled me to the ground they all helped me up and brushed me off and waited for me start running again.

The nannies braided all of the girls’ hair today. It was fun but for some of us it took forever because of the length or thickness of our hair. We all decided to keep it in until we get home tomorrow. IT was fun to sit there and talk and get to know the nannies. I think it made them feel special because a lot of people who come down mostly focus on the children, but the nannies is what makes the orphanage possible. Without them it would be chaotic.

Leaving the nannies and the children was very sad. We all bonded with certain kids and certain nannies and it is heart breaking to leave them. We all left telling ourselves we would be back because it was to painful to say goodbye. In the beginning of the trip we were unsure how we would help out. Today God showed us much we impacted the people at Three Angels. The staff thanked us, and told us we would be missed. We were all blessed by each other and it is so crazy how much love we could have for them when we don’t even speak the same language.

Our last happy time was about us expressing what we saw, experienced and how it changed us. We all are missing the kids, but ready to be with our families. We look very forward to the next trip to Haiti so we can see all our friends and be a apart of Haiti again.

See you all very soon. Please pray for our trip home.

The Pics are of Eric's sponsor boy Gaspard, Eric and Mike's sponser kids together looking cool, Shelby getting attacked, the guys and their new friends Reggie and Obinson, the Girls braided hair, and the nannies.

Day 5

Written by Katie

3-12-09

Today, we woke up at 6am and went to the orphanage at 7:30am. We finished painting, re-hanging razor wire and all the other tasks that needed to be done around the orphanage as well. We also hung out with the kids. Jolie and Paige got signed up to sponsor children. The most interesting event of the day was when Eric got mistaken for a doctor in the clinic. A Haitian woman came in and lifted her shirt to show him a scar on her chest to show him how well it was healing. He was unsure what to do so he just gave a thumbs up!

The van that drives us to and from the orphanage took us back to the guest house for lunch but couldn't get back in time to take us back to the orphanage afterwards so we ended up staying there. We just relaxed and played cards. After a dinner of red beans and rice, we had our devotional time, and then we played more cards and had a couple arm wrestling tournaments...Paige beat Justin (go girl power!) and Eric beat Bryce, but said it was close and almost a tie...

More people have been coming to stay at the guest house from all over the country. Today, people came from Texas and Virginia and more will come tomorrow. There will be a total of 48! 33 will stay in the main guest house with us and the rest in the house next door.

That's it for now. More tomorrow, on our last day.....it sure has gone by fast....

The Pics are us at devotional at the end of the day, Paige and her sponsered boy (Albert), and the rest of us with the Orphanage kids.

Day 4

I am still waiting for today's post. I spoke to Eric about 2 hours ago and he said that the Internet has been down so they are just waiting to send the update to me. It's already written, but I haven't gotten it yet.

So, check back later tonight and hopefully, it will be here, along with pictures.

I know that they went to Mother Theresa's Hospital today and also to a Haitian "resort" where they swam and had a nice time.

Everyone is doing well and they are all enjoying themselves and accomplishing what they set out to do.

More soon.............

Michele

Here ya go!:

This was written by Katie Wiening and Shelby Cook:

3-11-09

Today we went to Mother Teresa’s Hospital and orphanage. It was a fast and crazy drive. There were a lot of potholes in the road and the driver drove really fast. The roads are narrow and people are always walking around on both sides of the street. The driving rules in Haiti are this: the biggest car gets to go first, honk for everything, don’t slow down for pedestrians, go 80mph when there is no traffic, pay no attention to traffic signals. On our way we came to a four way stop with only one stop sign, it didn’t work very well. The drive was good to show us more of Haiti. All over the city we saw people sitting outside their homes and stores selling anything they can find.

When we got to the hospital we were swarmed by children. It was interesting to see how happy these children were, even though they were very sick. They grabbed our hands and dragged us around and some wanted to be picked up. When we first got there the children’s parents were still there. We were sitting in this room with the older children and some of their parents and there was this little girl sitting with her mother. Just looking at this little girl you could tell she was suffering. The girl was shaking and crying and mumbling to her mother, you could just see how sick she was. Nothing her mother did helped her stop crying. At 10:00 the nurses rang a bell and that was to tell the parents that it was time to go. The little girl would not let go of her mother, it was heartbreaking to see the nurse pry her away from the mother. It was even more heartbreaking to see the look on the mothers face to watch the nurse take her daughter away. Her and many other children started to cry. The sad thing was that the kids didn’t want to sit with us ,they wanted their parents to come back and be with them.

After awhile they warmed up to us and began to sit with us and play. Many of them fell asleep in laps and arms. It was really cute to see. There was another little girl that really stuck out to me. She was 8 months old and when you picked her up she weighed as much or a little less than a new born. You could see her spine and her ribs. Her arms had scabs and dry skin all over; this little girl was smaller than the 5 month old baby that was there. The interesting thing was that this girl had a smile on her face and never once did I see a tear in her eye. I think the hardest part was to leave the kids, because as soon as we set them back in their cribs they started crying and screaming.

We left the hospital around noon, and drove up in the mountains to a resort. It was unbelievably beautiful. There was no one else there except the staff. We ordered lunch and sat by the pool. The water was clean and blue and the patio overlooked the entire countryside of Haiti. We could see everything from the mansions nearby to the slums by the bay. We also talked with our driver for a while, he told us about the rich and the poor people of Haiti. He explained that once people get into power they become corrupt because they care more about maintaining their wealth than the people. Everyone went swimming and lay by the pool. Some of us fell asleep, others just relaxed and talked.

Here are some pics of the team working hard!
The one wih the towel is Bryce.

Day 3

Shelby wrote this:
3/10/09

Today was a busy day. This morning we said goodbye to Noah and Michelle because Michelle was taking Noah home to the states. It was fun watching Noah say goodbye to all the nannies and watching him pose for all the pictures. After they left the day truly began. We watched the school children sing songs before they went into school. Alex had Eric come up in front of the kids and he thanked him for the painting of the school that they did last summer.

Jolie and Shelby finished all of the sponsorship stuff. They got all the pictures labeled and all the letters and drawings put in order. All they have to do now is mail them off. After all the sponsorship stuff a couple of us sat down and had about an hour long conversation with Alex about different stuff in Haiti. We learned a lot about politics. The most interesting thing to talk about was the schooling in Haiti compared to schooling in America.

Mike and Jolie had a dental class today and taught the kids how to brush their teeth. They gave them each their own toothbrush with their names on it. They each got a tube of toothpaste too. While they were teaching the class Justin and Bryce were working on painting the missions room. They got about half way done.

More tomorrow....

Day 2

This is from Lena Wright's blog (one of the people on the mission)

Parkway Christian Church-you people ROCK. I went from 1 and a half bags, to SIX full bags, even at the last minute!! I sent out an email with some last minute needs, and 24 hours later, I had oodles of supplies (food stuff mostly) to bring down. And it worked out perfectly-the team had EXACTLY our 2 bags per person. You have no idea how important this part of the mission is. There is no other way to get supplies here-so your willingness to help at the last moment really made a difference.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for stamina for the team. There's lots of work to do.

Pray that we all get good sleep and stay healthy.

Pray for a few people that are feeling anxious about a variety of things.

Pray for the people that we come in contact with-that they would see that we are different and that we could impact them and show them that EACH ONE MATTERS.
Please pray that we get a DHS appointment this week, that we are able to get to it and that it goes well/smoothly to get this adoption moving on the Haitian side of things.

(Lena and her husband, Bob are adopting 2 little boys from the orphanage they are at and this is an appointment they need to get the adoption going..)
This is written by Shelby Cook and Justin Baugus:

3-9-09

Today was our first full day at the orphanage. It was interesting to see how the daily routine goes at the orphanage. I t was interesting to walk in and see only toddlers there because all of the kids were at school. Even though there are two groups of kids that go to school (younger-morning, older-afternoon) all of the kids at the orphanage go in the morning.

Today Katie started the English stations for the kids. There was a singing station, game station, and station where the kids had to make what the leader told them to make but they used play-doh to make the word. The stations were chaotic at first but it got easier as time went by. Even though it was chaotic the children and the leaders were having fun.

Jolie and Shelby stated to take the pictures of the sponsored children. They finished taking all the pictures. It was fun but a little frustrating when we worked with the school principle, Alex, to get the pictures labeled. He had a strong Haitian accent and it was hard to understand what letters he was trying to pronounce. Towards the end it turned in to fun, we were laughing and talking about each kids personality it was really fun.

The men were fixing some stuff around the house (drain pipes, barbed wire, etc.) and needed to go to a hardware store. Eric, Casey, Justin and Reggie from the orphanage, went to the hardware store. It wasn’t until they walked out that they realized that Reggie planned on walking. As soon as they got to the corner where the side street meets the main street, they witnessed a car accident. A government vehicle pulled out in front of a motorcyclist and completely cut him off. The motorcyclist, with passenger, went slamming into the side of the car at around 30 mph. The driver, not wearing a helmet, was literally a foot away from smashing his face against the car but he was able to move his head just in time to save his life. The passenger was thrown from the motorcycle and broke his arm. The driver broke both his legs, and an arm, and had to be dragged out of the middle of the road by other witnesses. Reggie explained that a “tap-tap”, which is a sort of makeshift taxi cab, would have to take the men to the UN hospital because that would be the only place for him to get care. So we (this is Justin writing this portion by the way and I’m getting tired of writing in the third person) continued walking with Reggie to the hardware store. When we got there, all it was, was a little room with a bunch of supplies drilled into a wall with price tags… no merchandise was actually out; they go into the back to get whatever you buy. I guess it’s a theft deterrent… but we ordered our stuff and all of a sudden we hear music out in the streets. I mean it was really nice sounding music so Casey starts to walk outside thinking it was a sort of parade. At that point Reggie grabbed him by the shirt and threw him back inside and he turned to us and told us to get back. So we had to hide in the back of the store. Reggie explained that it was a political protest to bring back their old president and it was better if we just stayed as far out of harm’s way as possible. It is very likely that if they saw us, they wouldn’t have done anything, but you never can be too sure and Reggie wasn’t taking any chances. On the way back, they had cleaned the guy out of the street (sounds sad but its true) and we saw his bike on the side walk, abandoned. That’s when Reggie really hit it home for me. He started saying how messed up Haiti was and how much good we were doing by being there. He said that without God working through people here, it’s hopeless. He was saying that his people say that when you come to Haiti, you leave your country and enter Hell! That’s how these people describe their own country! Just utterly hopeless without the outside help of people. The government doesn’t even help its own people. Remember the government car that cut off the motorcycle? Well, because of the state of the country and the corruption in the government, the government car didn’t even stop. It just kept going. This is why we are here. We are here to help these people any way that we can. They need it and we just hope that god can use us in a way to better their lives for at least this short time that we are here.

Here are some pics of the team in the nursery and one of the sponsership pictures:

Day 1

Yay! We’re in Haiti. We were all anxious to go see the kids at the orphanage after lunch. Watching Lena and Bob reunite with their two kids(that they are adopting from Three Angels Orphanage), was an amazing experience. It’s amazing  to see how much God has worked through these kids and with the nannies and how much has been provided for the kids. Spending time and loving on the kids is an unforgettable experience.

The men worked on cars and generators,while the women filled in for the nannies for awhile. Keep us in your prayers.

Thank You,

Haiti Missionaries 

(written by Shelby Cook)

We're Off!

This was posted on Lena Wright's blog this morning as they were waiting to board:

So far so good!

We are at the airport gate, waiting to board the plane. Getting 15 people, 30 bags checked, and all carry on bags thru security BEFORE 7 AM is challenging but with God all things are possible.

Everyone seems in good spirits and some are enjoying an airport breakfast.

Thanks for your prayers.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

2 days til takeoff!

15 people leave this Saturday, March 7 to go back to Port Au Prince,Haiti and help serve the kids and people of Three Angels Orphanage.

I know that they are very excited(and some nervous...) to go and I, personally, can't wait to hear about their trip.

I will try and update this blog every night after I hear about what they did that day so that you can stay informed and also pray specifically.

So, for now, pray that they all get off safely and have a smooth trip there. Also, that everyone stays healthy and that God would be with the group as they do His work in another country.

It's just the beginning of fulfilling Parkway's vision:

"We as Parkway love people so much that we are serving anyone within our line of sight that is hungry, poor and lonely or has a shattered life and sending 50% of our population to all 7 continents to do the same."

Haiti, here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!