Day 5 - The Beauty of Haiti

Wow, what a treat to be on the beaches in Haiti! It's an overwhelming beauty that I've truly come to appreciate the second time being here. We went a whole 24+ hours without any electricity, so today was a rough, sweaty morning. We ate a breakfast consisting of cereal, and did our morning devotional. This morning we discussed the full beauty of Haiti, and how it's important to not just limit ourselves to just the poverty here in Port Au Prince. Haiti has so much to offer, and I think we constantly forget that. We drove a whopping 3 1/2 hours to the beach, even though it was only supposed to take 2...(we may have forgotten our translators by accident). Well, not knowing that the usual resort we go to would be closed due to renovations, we had to improvise and go to a different resort. Little did we know that this one would be bombarded with American missionaries serving in Haiti. We were fortunate to have a huge trampoline jumpy blow-up thingie tin the ocean that was included with the resort, so we kicked off the not as cool missionaries from the other churches and proceeded to play on them. Kalyn and I, (the former professional tumblers) did flips off the bouncing thing and taught all the girls how to do back flips off of it. Yes, Mrs. Amie, Lindsay did one too so you should be proud ;) 

Walking back to the tap-taps, we encountered many Haitian vendors. They were extremely proud and excited to share with us the beautiful, unique gifts and souvenirs that were handmade by them. Although they can be persistent, it's humbling to know how proud they are of their possessions because it's a big part of what they have left. After we finished looking and purchasing those items, we gathered in our tap-taps and headed back home. On the way back, we stopped by the memorial for the earthquake victims who had lost their lives. Over 200,000 bodies were buried in loving memory of the tragic event on January 12, 2010. It was such a convicting time because it really opened my eyes of what this beautiful country really went through, yet they still have so much love and hope for Haiti.

We eventually got back to the guest house and ate sandwiches and chips for dinner, and ice cream for dessert. After that, we did our night-time devotional. We shared our favorite memories and where we saw God today. We then were encouraged to talk about how God can work through our struggles that we vulnerably talked about on the second night. It was really sweet to see how God can make such love and beauty out of hard times. He always has a special plan, and I'm really staring to see that. If you couldn't already tell, we had such a blessed day spent on the beach and at the memorial, and I wouldn't trade the memories for anything.

I love you mom and dad! miss y'all a lot. -Abby