DAY 4

Today was the first Christmas party.  This is what all of the packing and work earlier in the week leads up to and when the trip really becomes real for most of us.

The party was scheduled to begin at 9:00, so we all rose early and had breakfast to prepare to leave by 7:30.  However, time is handled a little differently in Haiti, so leaving by 7:30 turned into leaving for the party at 8:45.  When we arrived about 9:20, the children were just filing in.

While the kids assembled, the team began to interact with them one on one.  This is a great opportunity to get to meet and love on these children who are so excited to see us, get their pictures taken, and to reach out and touch us as we are walking by.

"The desire these children have for attention really stands out to me as they reach out to touch my skirt as I walk by.  This really touches my heart." ~ Erin 

As a group, the team sang interactive songs with the children such as "Father Abraham" or "Papa Abraham" as they sing it and "If You're Happy and You Know It" to help get the wiggles out while more children continued to file in.  One of the other songs that they sing is "Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelu, Hallelujah, Praising the Lord" which is a fun song to do in splitting up the room with half the children singing the Hallelujah part and the other singing the Praising the Lord part and each side standing up when it's their turn to sing.  The children love it, and it's amazing to hear thousands of children singing praises to the Lord at the top of their lungs. 

"No matter how many times I come to Haiti, I always enjoy seeing the generation of worship that is being raised up and how an attitude of praise is instilled at such a young age." ~ Chris








It really is incredible to hear thousands of children worshiping God and saying, "Thank you, Jesus!  We love you, Jesus!" altogether in unison.

After singing with the children, next came the puppet show which the children always enjoy.  The puppet team does an incredible job bringing the Nativity story to life for these children in their own language as they sit enraptured by the different characters and voices while learning about Jesus' birth and the reason we celebrate Christmas.

"When comparing these children to American children, I see a huge difference in behavior between the two.  We had just under 1800 children at the party today packed into pews and aisles like sardines.  Yet they sat there quietly for hours not complaining about the heat or the length of the program.  I don't believe this would be the case in America." ~ Sue







After the puppet show, Pastor Eric, a pastor from Michigan who our team has worked with in past years in these Christmas parties and VBS trips in the summer, delivered a great message and clearly presented the gospel to the children.  We then began the process of passing out food to all the children and their leaders.  The church was packed full with children making our task a bit of a challenge with room barely to walk.

In preparing for the party, we had carefully counted out how many gifts we needed for the amount of people we expected.  Each person that comes through the doors must have a name tag (like a ticket) in order to receive their food.  It is not uncommon to see many children walking around holding onto their tags hoping not to lose them.  Today's party was presented in a very impoverished area where we have never done it before.  There were many people showing up for the party hoping to "sneak" in.  It hurt our hearts to see security go through very carefully checking for name tags and dismissing those without one.  As much as we wished there was more, we only prepared enough food for those we knew were coming.  As we passed out the food, the entire building was surrounded by people trying to reach in and get some food.  One lady in particular was begging for her daughter because she hadn't eaten in a few days.  It was heartbreaking to say the least.  It was a blessing to be able to feed so many, but having to turn so many away really tugged at our hearts.

Courtney, one of the missionary assistants who has been working here for the past 5 months, told us an amazing story after dinner.  After we left the party and everyone had been fed and received a toy and the crowd dismissed, they took notice of how much food was left over. They invited all of those people who had been waiting outside for hours to come in and eat. There was plenty of food to feed them and enough toys to give each of their children as well!
So even when we didn't think we had enough, God showed us He is enough and with Him all things are possible.  Our God truly is amazing and is still in the miracle-working business!

THE HAITI TEAM