Skip to main content

Day 3-5 Casale Haiti with eMi

The last two days have been mostly about benchmarking, meeting, and designing. After a three-hour kick-off meeting on Monday, we had another one last night, and just finished another one this afternoon. We are receiving a lot of feedback on our design from the ministry, which is encouraging. Back to the drawing board tomorrow!

Bob, our trip leader, told stories and did tricks at kids’ Bible school yesterday afternoon. At the end, we each had the chance to pray for one of the kids there. It was special for me, and the smile on this little boy’s face told me it was also special for him. Each time when we walked by the rescue centre, kids would line up at doorway for a little attention, a high five, or a hug. Most of these kids either have parents who couldn’t afford to raise them, or are “disposed” by their parents. A staff was holding a 5-year old who was still wearing 12 months clothes. The resuce centre take care of them, provide for them, and are doing all they can for these kids. Still, there are other needs beyond physical needs which the staff cannot provide. They need someone to hold them, to love them, and to tell them how special they are.

Every Tues, Wed, and Thurs are clinic days. They serve 350-400 each day. About 15 people, mostly women with their kids, came and lined up at the gate on Monday night to ensure a spot. While the clinic opens at 6:30am, a staff would go out and hand out numbers too all the people in line at 6:15. We heard that some would sell their tickets as a source of income. “These people did not choose to be born here,” Zach, the ministry director told us to keep that in mind on the day we arrived. That keeps my attitude in check in the past couple of days. That could have been me, instead of them. I can’t tell you how much I miss not being sticky from sweat, staying away from being wet and muddy, and get back to civilization. I am so thankful that I have a choice, but these people don’t. I have all the reasons in the world to be responsible for helping them to better their lives.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WV Trilogy - Part 2

(If you haven't read Part 1, it's here .) (Sat) Oct 13 -  Sunrise at Spruce Knob 6 a.m. start in the dark. My legs surprised me by being happier than yesterday. My heart is in better place as well. The first 6.7 mile goes up to Spruce Knob, the highest point in West Virginia. Part of this section was on fire road and I welcomed the faster miles. Steady progress was made in the first 20 miles or so until the long, long descent into Aid Station 3. As I have decided yesterday, I'd start the race, go from aid station to aid station, and re-evaluate my condition at each. I left Aid station 2 feeling good but then the long descent once again put doubts in my mind. Running reduced to little steps on jello-legs. Compression socks helped to contain the injury and pain, but the strength to support the pounding was still lacking. Soon, my knees started to hurt as well. At aid station 3, they told me I had 2:45 to make it to the next aid station before the cut-off. At the pace I...

Blue Ridge Marathon

Bill Rodgers After reading so many people's blog on their experience of America's toughest road marathon, the Blue Ridge Marathon, I'm starting to lose my own chain of thought/memory. Bottom line is I had a lot of fun and surprised myself with a sub-4 finish. My estimate was around five hours, or maybe even 5:30 if condition was tough like last year's monsoon. Here's my account of it: Three and a half hour drive from Charlotte straight to packet pickup at Roanoke's Taubman Museum of Art, a modern and iconic building in contrast with the rest of the historical railroad downtown. It was Friday evening and the streets were lively. People were on the patio and on the street with live music playing. I strolled around a little but not too much since I wanted to save my legs. My hotel was only about a mile away. I contemplated on just walking there from the hotel, but ended up driving half a mile or so to park at the Civic Center. Half a mile could be a haul af...

Leatherwood 50k

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2-4 ESV). Leatherwood HQ (Photo credit: Stephanie Moore) I’ve always known that running requires not only physical fitness, but also mental power. What I did not realize till this weekend was mental power did not just mean “toughing it out” or “sucking it up” during the race, but it also meant changing our attitude before and during a difficult race. Last year while running the Leatherwood 10-miler, I was very glad that I wasn’t running the 50k/mile; but this year, I was going to be that person running the 50k. The weather forecast leading up to the race didn’t look good and it had gotten progressively worse. Knowing the slightest rain would turn the horse trails into mud pits, I was not looking forward to it. Just a...