day 3 - wings of hope

we had a great trip to wings of hope - caught a ride with michael, who is the director of st. joseph home for boys in pettionville, wings of hope in fermathe, and trinity house in jacmel. what a beautiful ride up into the mountains where wings is located! the facility and surrounding landscape is also beautiful.


we had a quick tour and then got right into spending time with the children. it was overwhelming, in some ways, to be in a room with so many children with such high needs. there was no question about whether or not they enjoyed having us with them. we were allowed to take photos, so i have prepared a slide show of our day that you can find a link to at the end of this post.


before we left, we spoke with rene (the house manager) in order to discuss how we could help out in a meaningful way in the future. knowing that joyce and laura have experience working with children with special needs, gave rene an opportunity to talk about having each child properly assessed (which has never happened) and having skilled people come in to train the workers, etc. this is something that, God willing, they could actually do with a team of their own. i could hear the wheels turning in their heads ... and it was pretty exciting to have a sense of greater purpose in our visit. perhaps they could bring a team of people who could meet a really felt need and make significant and lasting difference. hummm.

we had lunch, bought a few things from some local vendors, took some photos of local school children and then made our way back to st. joseph's.

with regard to our mode of travel: michael, rene ... and our translator serge were all been pretty clear that we should go ahead and take public transportation. they felt that we came at a very safe time to do that ... and that, in fact, it was probably safer to travel by tap tap than by a hired van. this was pretty exciting for me, as i was really wanting to go by tap tap, but only if it was completely safe. having being convinced, we took one home later that day. I FINALLY really felt like i was in haiti!!!

we stopped at a grocery store to get a few supplies, met an officer stationed with the UN, who is from canada then went home to a nice dinner. emmanuel and a couple of his friends dropped by for a little visit, and then we had some down time.
during our debrief joyce shared 1 john 25:4: for thou hast been a strength to the poor and needy. we really saw that today ... through the story of wings of hope, in the eyes of the children, and in our opportunity to be Jesus to them today. it was a good day.

here's a slide show of our day