Camp

sorry i just reolized that this never posted. I wrote it on the first

Last Monday we started the kids program for the two tent communities in the neighborhood behind our house.  It was much more exhausting than I thought it would be.  

The first day John, Nick, Bigeyes, and I went to go pick up the kids from the first community; it seems like months ago.  I have never worked with kids before and had no idea where to start.  When we walked into the first community Bigeyes when and said something in Creole to some people with a bunch of kids and looked at me.  It took less than two seconds for those kids to cover the twenty feet and tackle me.  I quite literally got dragged back to our house where I tried to untangle myself; occasionally I would be free of little hands but not often.  

We have two groups of kids we are reaching out to.  We started with thirty on Mondays and Wednesdays and another thirty on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  That number has grown to almost sixty each day.  Each day we start with singing and Bible stories.  We teach them songs like Father Abraham and My God Is So Big in English and Creole, and then we act out a Story from the Bible.  So far we have done the fiery Furnace, Daniel in the lion’s den (I was the lion), David and Goliath, and the last two days we taught on Jonah.  With Jonah we incorporated in the Resurrection of Christ because of Easter coming up.  I was a great way to incorporate the gospel.  After doing those two things we break them up into three age groups.  I have the middle age group from 5 or 6 to about 10 depending on maturity and if some of the kids really want to be with me.  I started out with a little less than 15 kids the first two days, yesterday and today though I had almost thirty.  I gave up trying to count exact numbers.  We have three stations we go to.  My first one is some sort of structured game (I started with duck duck goose and have done bubbles) the second station is some sort of art project and the third I let Agape (my translator) play soccer with my boys and I play jump rope or other games with my girls.  Then we give them lunch and pray over them and send them home with food that they can share with their families. 

The last week during my structured game part I have been teaching them parts of the body in English with head and shoulders knees and toes, and with Dani says.  My Mon, Wed group was a little slow on learning but my other group was much more engaged and soaked up everything I said.  Then the last two days we made pipe cleaner people and I used that to reinforce what I had been teaching them.  Even though I had almost twice the kids this week was so much smoother than last week and I think had a much greater impact on the kids. 

It is going to be very hard to leave some of them.  We take the kids from the hospital to the camp too.  One of their names is Rosemond.  His left leg is twisted crooked and he has skin grafts on his legs and some on his head.  His arm was crushed but the bones not broken so he has extensive nerve and muscle damage in his hand and for arm.  It is usually in a brace and we take it off occasionally for physical therapy.   All of this happened because he was trapped for three days under his house.  His mom and dad and all his siblings were not so lucky.  If I understand right, they were all killed under that house.   His grandma is all he has left.  Now all the people that he has been living with at the hospital are leaving; the nurses and the doctors that he has made relationships with and other patients.  

I was sleeping on the couch this morning and he woke me up so he could sit with me.  I rubbed his foot that was hurting him while he just stared off into nothing.  He is ten years old and he has lost everything, the weight of this didn’t hit me until today.  I’ve never seen him so depressed; he is always laughing and smiling, but wouldn’t anyone be depressed in that situation?  Honestly I don’t know how he is handling it so well.  I had a difficult time not crying while we were sitting there.  I have cried since then.  I don’t know how I’m going to leave him.  I’m so glad that God spared his grandma.

Some of these kids are dealing with PTSD.  I saw some of the results of it this week.  One of our guys was making tables and used a drill while I was teaching my kids how to put the pipe-cleaner people together.  Two of the girls freaked out and jumped up and were looking everywhere like they were about to explode. One girl figured out right away that the ground wasn’t shaking and was ok but the other one who is about six; I grabbed her hands trying to get her to look at me.  It took a bit but she finally did and I explained to her in Creole that the man was working and showed him to her.  She calmed down right away after that and went back to what she was doing, but I will never forget the look of sheer terror that was in her eyes when she looked at me.  

One of the girls I’m living with has the same problem. She was here when the earthquake happened and can’t sleep at night.  The other day some cans fell over and I thought she was going to have a heart attack or was having one.  I was ignorant at first and laughed cuz she jumped so high.  But then she wasn’t able to stop the pain in her chest for quite a while and I realized what had happened and felt horrible for laughing.

These last two weeks have been physically and emotionally exhausting and I’m spent.  I moved out to the balcony so its cooler and I can use my mosquito net (there was nothing to tie it to in my other room).  It rained hard last night.  I was too tired to move and I thought everyone else is sleeping in a puddle why can’t I?  So I didn’t move and slept with half of me soaked.  It was warm cuz its Haiti so it really wasn’t that bad, at least there wasn’t mud in my puddle.  

The last three nights though I have been waking up more exhausted than when I go to sleep.   I spent most of today sleeping hopping to catch up but so far it hasn’t worked.  I think I’m getting sick that’s probably why I’m so tired.  I feel a huge sense of accomplishment though, being able to work with these kids.  It gives them something to do and we can show them love that they might not get otherwise.  I was terrible at first with them cuz I’ve never Worked with kids before but I’ve gotten a lot better.  Next week we are not going to do camp because Nick and John are leaving to go work in a different part of Haiti. They will be back the next week and we will start again.