Today we went back to Dorothy's and took most of the team. We girls loved on the children a whole lot today, and the guys did some minor maintenance items for Dorothy including hanging some pictures and organizing a bookshelf. I helped Dorothy sort through a box of items that had been donated; i.e crayons, pencils, etc. Then I began sorting through a box of clothing but did not have time to finish that for her, unfortunately. Leaving today was really hard for Allyson. Her last 2 trips to Haiti had been spent 24/7 with these kids, and although this was a great trip for her, she felt like she hadn't gotten her "fill" of them. Not to mention her strong call to be there full-time - there as in Haiti, not necessarily at Dorothy's.
There was another team coming in tonight that would be overlapping us. They were a construction group from an organization called "Faith in Action". Their week was going to be speny gutting and remodeling Jim and Debbie's kitchen! I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but Allyson has an Interior Design degree. She helped Debbie measure and sketch out Debbie's vision of the kitchen. She then put it into Sketch Up (sp?) and had a 3D rendering for the construction team when they arrived. I think this made things a lot easier for them! Debbie said she had no idea Allyson could do this and that only God could orchestrate her being there the week prior to the construction team arriving! Very cool! Because the construction was going to begin the next day, we had to move everything out of the kitchen. So our afternoon consisted of moving out everything, yet keeping it organized in some fashion as Debbie and Donna were going to need to get to everything while displaced. After that we helped Donna get dinner going, as she was feeding 30 people that night; our team, the new team, plus some missionaries traveling to Gonaives that needed a place to sleep that night! ALL without anything in the kitchen! Fun. It really was fun! I enjoyed doing that!! Here are pictures of the kitchen before (haven't seen the after yet):
Our "God Moments" time with our team tonight was a very special time as we all briefly shared what the week had meant to us. There were a lot of tears and love poured out on that balcony as we were all changed this week. I went to bed knowing we'd be heading back to the US the next day. It was hard to go to sleep as I was beginning to process all that I had experienced, and how I was going to put to use what I had learned. Going back through my journal so that I could write these posts has kept it all alive and front and center for me and has also allowed me to continue processing it all.
Look for one more day's post where I'll attempt to summarize it all in one place.
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