Haiti Update

Day 1 - Saturday
we arrived today after a long red-eye flight. 95 degrees and 14 of us crammed like sardines into a van for a 3 hour drive to the town of Hinche (where the orphanage is located). Driving through Port-au-Prince was immediate culture shock.  Seeing the poverty and earthquake destruction was so much more intense than seeing it on TV...it left us speechless.  The city is very dirty and very chaotic - everything from the infrastructure, to the the driving, to the streets, to the shack homes.  In fact everything here seems/feels chaotic; I can't imagine my entire world/life being so dirty, out of order, and noisy. 
But once we hit the countryside, it was beautiful and peaceful.  We noticed the majority of the locals would just be sitting around in groups or sitting outside their homes & didn't seem to be doing much & we commented "I wonder what they do all day?". And then it hit us, their day is spent just trying to exist, to find food or water etc.
There are about 250 kids at the orphanage and a bunch of them came running out to greet us as we arrived.  We got settled and a little orientation with some of the staff, had dinner, and then went to bed shortly after because we were so exhausted.

Day 2 - Sunday
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Woke up early for breakfast (oatmeal) and coffee under the mango tree.  Then one of the older boys from the orphanage took us to visit his church in town. Walking the 15 min walk through town gave a real up close personal experience with how the locals live in Hinche.  Town was quiet because most everyone is at church.  We went to a Baptist service and there was about 200 people there and of course everyone was staring at us white people - it was funny.  Service lasted 3 hrs 20 min (spoken in french creole), and I'm pretty sure the prayer alone lasted as long as an entire ECC service :-). It was the most amazing, once in a lifetime experience!  
Came back and had lunch under the mango tree (thank God for the mango tree because it's the shade that gives us relief from the hot 95 degree sun)!  Then we went over to the girls side of the orphanage and painted their nails and blew bubbles with them...holy cow, we were an instant hit with the nail polish!  It was so fun to make them feel so beautiful.  And they all LOVE to have their pictures taken...they constantly poke at you & pull on you and say "photo, photo?" It's so cute!  They just want you to play with them and show them love & affection.
The boys side of the orphanage is fun too - the boys like to play soccer and basketball a lot.  A lot of them are in school (they attend school at the orphanage) and they love to talk about what they are studying and learning.

Thank you all for your prayers - the team is well & doing great!