Sports Camp: Day 1 & 2

We are failing miserably as bloggers - that's your opinion as well, I suspect!.  Everyone on the team was originally intending to tell parts of their days Tuesday, but folks got to tired all to my surprise come this morning.  Therefore, you were all left with no word for the day.  As a result,today's message will be filled the teams contributions you have our word.
I will start with the children from Gertrude Orphanage.  Tuesday morning we (Jackson, Trey, Anders, Ryan, Ben, Gary, and I) met 7 children that were transported from the truck they came into to a pool to do physical therapy in a pool. The young lady I was assigned to was named Willyssia. She drooled on me in the mouth right from the start and her breath nearly knocked me off my feet. I asked God for tolerance for the breath and to help me love her beyond that barrier and he quickly enabled me to become blind and without scent. I moved right along to finding the ability to help her exercise her muscles by working on standing erect, and walking in the water.  This carried on for over an hour and a half and before you knew it we had become close friends and included some new found games in the water that enabled all of our exercise to disguise itself in jumping off ledges, making motor, sounds and finding ways to make her squeal in joy. Thanks God for your ideas and power in the water.

by Trent
   
    Later that day, we made our way over to Grace Village Orphanage. Upon arrival we were swarmed with kids, greeting and grabbing our hands looking for a new friend to interact with. After a short time with the kids our team was ushered into one of the classrooms, where we had a meet and greet with the teachers from Grace Village. These teachers will be assisting us, as we begin the sports camp session of the trip. The teachers were amazing and their passion for sports and Christ was obvious! We really have ASSEMBLED (word of the day) a great group of loving and passionate Christ followers as our camp staff. However we were still unsure as to how well the first day of sports camp would go over on
Wednesday.

by Trey

Wednesday: Day 1 of Camp

    As we arrived at Grace Village for our first day of sports camp, the kids were overflowing with excitement and energy.  We started off by gathering as a large group and worshipping God.  Skits were also performed by our team to help share the gospel in a fun way!  Pastor Wesley was a very exuberant singer and the songs we sang with him gave me the chills.  Just worshipping with all those kids, a lot of whom were making an effort to sing in English, in a place like Haiti as one team for Christ was just amazing.  We all were worshipping the same God and had the same love for Him.  After large group, we attempted to split the kids up by age so we could begin the activities we had planned.  I say "attempted" because, well, it was pretty chaotic at first!!  Eventually we got things figured out and the kids were skateboarding, learning and playing baseball, doing arts and crafts, and dancing (the Macarena).  After all the activities and sports were done, our team got ready to leave in the top-top, only to find out it had a flat tire!  This only gave us more time to hang out with the kids.  I enjoyed playing soccer, basketball, football, and just talking with and holding all the kids.  Also, there was lots of laughing.  Every time I was with a kid who laughed or smiled, I couldn't help but smile and laugh with them because of there overflowing joy.  A great day in all.

By: Jackson