Humbled.

Images from the day...

Beautiful and sweet children at a water stop in Cite Soleil.  

They were so refreshed to have water. Priceless!!  

He LOVED the water. One of my favorite things to do was to bathe them. This water was their hope, their life!! 

This is LOVE.

Playing games at the water stop in Cite Soleil! Children came from everywhere! 

Filling buckets!!

Medical Clinic on our tap-tap. We set up a little first aid clinic in the middle of a tent city. We bandage wounds and handed out OTC meds. So humbling and beautiful in every way. 

This little had a gash on his forehead. Nathan and I cleaned and bandaged it.  As we were cleaning it this little boy cried so hard. Broke my heart in every way, but then we wiped every tear and gave him a piece of candy. His face lit up with joy!! :)

This little baby's mom was so concerned that something was wrong with her baby. Nathan and I assessed him and he seemed ok. We assured her, prayed over him, and left the rest to Jesus :)

Talking through our assessment.

Jesus is so good and so faithful. The joy of these sweet babies touched my heart. 

Jane and I with our sweet babies!!

Anthony playing with the kids at Cite Soleil. They tackled him!! So cool watching him warm up to these kids and then giving tons of LOVE!! 

Dancing!

Nathan and his sweet boys!

To God be the Glory!!

And this is LOVE...

I was so humbled and amazed that almost every water truck stop the children there would get down on their knees and wash my feet. They didn't want me to be dirty. This humbles my heart; with their small bucket of water, they were willing to wash my feet knowing the handful of water is a sacrifice for them.

The children would pull my hair out of my face; they didn't want me to feel dirty or "unclean." I was there to serve but they wanted to serve me.

Spending the afternoon sitting on the back of a tap tap talking with a sweet teenage mother and holding her sick infant. She looked at me and kept saying "Bel! Bel!" which means beautiful. I looked right back at her and told her the same thing, and her face was filled with unexplainable joy; she has probably never been told this before.

A sweet little boy coming and wrapping his entire body around my leg; every step I took he held on tighter. This may be the only love he receives.

When the sights were overwhelming, the children wiped the tears from my eyes. It reminded me that God sees every tear and hears every prayer, even in the midst of situations where we think He is silent.

At one of the water truck stops, a little boy caught my eye. He was wearing a plastic bag as a shirt. We take for granted the fact that we have a t-shirt to wear or shoes to put on our feet. We are so incredibly blessed.


My first experience in the tent Cities...Chaos!

My partners before we entered the tent cites! Junior was such
a great fearless leader! 

Today we went to visit one of the local tent cities down the street from where we are staying. Tent cities came about after the earthquake to provide "temporary" shelters of tarp and wood for people displaced by the earthquakes. It is now two years later and they still remain. The tent cities are absolute poverty and I have never experienced anything like it before. Not only does the poverty make the tent cities an awful place to live but after dark, fear settles in around the people who live there. Robbers and rapists roam about seeking out people who are easy targets in the darkness. A lot of these victims are young girls who then end up pregnant and with child. The tent cities become a very dangerous place. A lot of the children are slave children as well (this is so hard to process).  Before we left for the tent cities, we prepared just a small bag of donation supplies for the people there.  As I stepped off of the tap-tap I was not prepared for what I was about to experience...chaos, absolutely chaos! These people went crazy for one small bag of donation supplies that contained such things as a razor, toothbrush, and a pair of shoes or underwear or some piece of clothing. We would not give the people a bag unless they were in their tent. As I walked through, people were surrounding me and grabbing me from every which way trying to get me to visit their house. They were desperate for anything at all. Whatever I had, they were pleading for. I was trying to focus my mind as I was experiencing absolute poverty: dirt floors, mosquito infested tents. no toilet, children sleeping on the ground. My mind was going, people were pulling at me, and I was hit with the reality back home. The word "abundance" came to mind and as I thought about my "stuff" in the US, I was sick. These people are so desperate for a pair of underwear and fights would break out over such things as a toothbrush. We live in absolute abundance back home, we have SO much and here I am walking through a tent city where their is no electricity and the majority of the kids don't even have clothes on. These people are lucky to eat everyday where when I finish lunch I am already planning dinner. Being in the comfort of the US, we are isolated from the way 2/3 of the world lives. This bothers me so much. And I will work to do something about it.

One thing I LOVE about being down here in Haiti is that all my worries are gone. I'm not on a timetable, I don't have to "please" anyone, I don't worry about how I look or the lack of make-up on my face. I am "Me." I am who God created me to be. When I am here, I LOVE on my Jesus like never before. Its not about me, but ALL about Him! In every situation He receives all glory and honor. This morning I had the opportunity to attend a worship service at 6am in a huge open tent in Port Au Prince, right down the street where we are living. You walk into this tent and the presence of the Lord is so strong and powerful. These people worship their Jesus with complete ABANDON. They are unashamed! They fall on their faces in prayer and raise their hands as high as they can get them. You can see the passion in their face for their Jesus. They yearn for Him. They forget about their circumstances and surrender all!! They may be lacking "physical" things such as food, water, a shelter, clothes, shoes, but they are so "spiritually" rich. They may not have shoes on their feet or food in their belly but to them, God is so faithful! They don't worry because they know without a doubt that God WILL provide for them and their family! It is beautiful. What if we yearned for our Jesus this way?? What if we fell on our face before him and pursued Him above everything that we are facing in our lives? Physical things will not make us happy. Living in the abundance and excess of America,  we still have extremely high rate of depression and suicide and anxiety issues. "More" does not equal happiness; being comfortable is not what it is about. As I prayed over these people and looked them in the eyes, they weren't lacking at all! They don't worry because they know who is ultimately in control of their life :) I closed my eyes and Jesus was so close, I could feel His presence all around me. I didn't want to leave the moment. Jesus is SO good and we can't comprehend His AMAZING love.  He chose you! He chose me! He gave His very life for you and me! The least we can do is surrender our life back to Him and to walk in His footsteps. Jesus was about people. He served and let His life be about others instead of himself. I know that in my life, regardless of my feelings or what I am going through, I KNOW God is faithful and He is worthy! His plan is so much better than my own and I want to commit my life completely to serving Him. I will live if full surrender and I want to live so others can see the Jesus in me. Every life matters. Every orphan matters.