Today was the first full day in the Bohoc community.  And before I go further let me say thank you for your prayers.  They are felt and working.  No one has been sick and everything has gone very smoothly.

We started the day attending one of the local churches.  One little girl (probably 4 or 5) made us feel especially welcome afterwards as she walked around and kissed each of us on the cheek.

After church we toured one of the places where we will be helping out during the next few days.  Mangoes, tamarinds, avocados, and hibiscus were among some of the plant life growing there.  It was fascinating to see.

The highlight of everyone’s day though was the visit to the Matthew 28 Orphanage.  There were about 100 faces of ages 3 - 18+ greeting us.  We have some wonderful teachers on the team who had a game plan for this trip.  Emily Downey led us in singing the Alphabet song, the Hokey Pokey, and a few others.  Everyone seemed to have enjoy those.  After that we split into groups to play various games - frisbees, whiffle ball, jump rope, bubbles, nail painting, sidewalk chalk, etc.  That was our plan anyway.  The children didn’t necessarily have interest in some of those.  Jonathan ended up carrying two boys most of the time.  Several children chased Kilby around non stop (he finally recovered).  Jennifer S. threw a frisbee with a few children.  Emily D. was a magnet for many as she taught them numbers and the alphabet under a tree.  Drew and Jamey played basketball with some of the older boys.  Jennifer A. spent time with some of the older girls.  Zach showed off some serious acrobatic jump roping skills.  Sue took pictures of a lot of this (unfortunately, I don’t have those as I type this up, but maybe later we’ll be able to post a few).  I know I didn’t mention everyone, but each person was playing with the children.  Fun was the name of the day.

This group of people I’m serving with most of whom I barely knew a month ago are a blast to be around.  There is a lot of laughing, encouraging and good natured ribbing every day.  And everyone serves the group in some way whether it’s helping to clean up the tables after dinner, making sure something wasn’t forgotten before departing or sharing some bug spray.  It’s really an amazing group of individuals melded together to serve here in Haiti.  Whoever it is who brings you to read this post, you should be proud of him or her.

Jeff