Wilson 11/25/13

     Monday was the first day we were in the village. Our group was assigned to Titanyen which is where the mission is located so we only had a five minute bus ride every day. We left campus every morning at eight. We had two translators (Elphete, who's name we mispronounced all week, and Williamson) and a village champion which was like an ambassador who lead us through the village to meet people.
      The group we were with were Haitian American (and 2 white American) college students. All the Haitian American students spoke Creole so they were able to communicate with all the villagers which was frustrating at times. The first twenty minutes in the village we met one family and very little was said in English, it was very confusing and I thought it would be a long week if we didn't get to talk to anyone but in hindsight I think they just didn't want to talk to us.
      We walked, and by walked I mean hiked, through some interesting terrain in Titanyen. Within the first half hour we were walking very carefully down a narrow trail lined with cacti which ended in a steep rocky slope. It was so crazy it was comical. And that was only the beginning, if any of the Haitians saw us struggling on these paths they probably had a good laugh.
      The first villager we really got to talk to was a seventeen year old boy named Wilson who did not attend school because his parents had died. He lived with his younger sister who was sick. He didn't want us to pray with him but I didn't feel too discouraged because at the time I felt strongly that that was not the end of his story. I planned to pray for him and didn't think much more of it at the time but I have thought of him every day since then. While we were talking to Wilson our translators were still a little shy but one of the students, named Marie, started translating for us and we were extremely relieved and thankful.
     We walked up a huge hill and met a young lady who seemed more comfortable with us. After we talked to her for a couple minutes she asked us to pray that she stay in Jesus. The view from that road was astonishing where the mountains and the ocean came together. Before going back down to the main area of the village we visited a small school in a tent. This was the first school I saw outside MOH so I was afraid that's what all the schools were like (I was happy to see within the next few days that it was not). The children at the school seemed to be ages 3-12 and when someone asked them if they knew Jesus loved them they all smiled and said yes. They sang for us for probably fifteen minutes and Marie told us the first song they were singing was about Jesus. It was so inspiring to see such strong faith at such a young age in such poverty.
     We went back to MOH campus every day for lunch. I was so exhausted that I didn't even want to leave for the afternoon but I didn't go to Haiti to sit at a table so we went back to the village to play soccer with the kids. Except, the heat was outrageous so I sat in the shade the whole time. I wasn't even upset to be back to campus so early because I was so tired and so happy to take a shower, even cold.

The first hill we climbed-There are a lot of random farm animals roaming around, especially goats

Cactus lined slope! Is this happening?!