Cite Soleil.

Friends, family, supporters, & our prayer teams back home in the US-

Leann here tonight, thanks for following our trip through what is sure to be an incredible week down here in Haiti.

Today we went ahead and jumped right off into the deep end and headed out to Cite Soleil. If you’re unfamiliar, Cite Soleil is an extremely impoverished and densely populated area in Port au Prince, estimated potentially greater than 400,000 people.   The area is generally regarded as the poorest and most dangerous slum in the Western Hemisphere. The area virtually has no sewer system, leaving those who live here no access to clean or safe drinking water. Its difficult to take in the surroundings of such a devastating place, witnessing the way thousands live, including so many children, orphans and restavec (slave) children.

The desperation for clean water in Cite Soleil is one of the most apparent things stepping out of the tap-tap on water truck day. Something so many of us don’t even think about on a daily basis. Over 800 million people in the world currently lack access to clean and safe water and an estimated 3.5 million people die each year due to water related disease. Almost 2 in 3 people who need safe drinking water survive on less than $2 each day. In Cite Soleil, girls and women will line the street with hundreds of five gallon buckets for us to fill and (impressively) carry them on their heads for blocks. In developing countries, it is estimated women and girls walk an average of 3.5 miles each day to fetch water and spend more than 20 hours per week walking to get water.  Seeing these little kids dump a small bucket of water over their head, most using as a way to bathe, makes me wish I could take every bucket of water from the ice bucket challenge and bring it to these sweet kids (as a side note- the ALS ice bucket challenge was amazing and raised so much money for a great organization, but after seeing something like Cite Soleil its just hard to get the images out of your head)

We were able to take out 3 trucks of water to 4 water stops in Cite Soleil, get thousands of gallons of clean water to the people who live there, and love on a whole lot of kids. Before leaving, we were able to stop by Haitian Initiative. HI is an amazing organization, that helps send kids to school through sponsorship, allows them to come to the field and play soccer between one and four, and then serves them a hot meal (Feed My Starving Children manna packs) every day mon-sat. The goal of HI is to help keep kids in school, focus on their education, stay out of violence in Cite Soleil, and develop their skills on the soccer field as well. We met some incredible staff at HI, who are doing amazing things for the kids of Cite Soleil. It was inspiring to see such a positive light in a place that feels so broken. It is truly the presence of God at work in Cite Soleil. We were also able to see the site for the church and school being built in CS by Healing Haiti. Ground breaks next week, lift this place up in prayer in the coming months.

Thankful for this day and to God for lifting up this team in strength and hope.

Glory to God.

Glwa pou Bondye.