Bon Berger (Good Shepherd) Sunday

musical, satisfying, good exercise, emotional, experiential, artistic, awe-inspiring, stimulating, resonant... These are the words our group is using to describe our amazing day in Haiti.

Our day started with the preparation for the church service's children's message. Today is Good Shepherd Sunday and Pastor Campbell had a brilliant idea that not only taught the story to the children, but made use of the abundance of NBA-sized socks that were donated to the Village of Hope. Using the ancient art of fabric origami, we produced near-authentic replicas of sheep ears. See pictures...

Our first jaunt out to Village of Hope and the countryside, was humid. We saw a number of cattle and goats, and fortunately for the purpose of our illustration at the children's message - sheep. Because it had rained the night before, Pastor Bollinger, despite his valiant efforts and driving skills was unable to overcome the hairpin turn and incline up to the water pump house overlooking the Village of Hope. We made the rest of the trip on foot, including a trip up a metal ladder to the edge of the water pump house. The view was majestic as we overlooked the Village of Hope. We were also able to see the Dominican Republic from our vantage point. See picture...

After our climb back down the hillside, we attended church with about 45 of the Village of Hope students. We presented the students with the butterflies made by the Sunday School students of St. John's. Then it was time for the children's message... Lead by the "Good Shepherd - Greer Putnam," the rest of us acted as the sheep with our sock ears and followed him around the chapel - except for Heidi, the lost sheep. We then gave each child their own set of sheep ears. We were all touched by the gusto at which the children sang the hymns in French and Creole. See pictures...

Then we saw a naked witch doctor.

We had lunch out today at the Visa Lodge - a resort hotel. The food was fabulous! We had salads, lasagna, pizza, ham, rice, lentils, green beans, and more! The desserts were interesting. When Yvette was told that the dessert tart might be a "date tart" she said, "that's not cool."

We were joined at lunch by Jarel (pronounced just like Superman's father), the church service planner and accordian player. He patiently answered many of our questions and provided new insight into life in Haiti. Jarel also joined us for our second trip to the Little Children of Jesus house. The children were ecstatic to have him there and listen to his music. They played musical chairs and danced around. Michelle is a vicious musical chairs player and Greer runs a mean conga line at Jim's direction. See pictures...

After a quick break back at Hope House, we walked to the Grace Mission Orphanage. We enjoyed the chance to walk through the neighborhood and see the people. At the orphanage, we painted sun catchers with the girls. They seemed to really enjoy the activity and painting on their hands! We enjoyed seeing the girls and the work Marie Major is doing. One little girl asked Yvette if she knew Jackie Chan! In the chapel, some other children were practicing for a wedding on Saturday. We were able to watch them practice dancing which was very neat. The afternoon, especially, was very emotional for some of us. One little girl at the orphanage was just dropped off today and several others had only been there a few days. See pictures...

Continue to pray for the Lazarus Project including the Village of Hope, Little Children of Jesus house, and the Grace Mission Orphanage and for our group. And tomorrow...shoes!

(See video highlights of the children at Village of Hope school and the dancing at the Little Children of Jesus house)

Written by Sarah, Christine, Yvette, Michelle, Jim, and Pastor Campbell