Today some members of the D.R. team were blessed with the opportunity to travel to some of the Makarios students’ homes in Chichiga, a Haitian batay outside of Montellano. As the group headed away from the Makarios school, the ocean breeze swirled through the van in the afternoon heat.
After passing rows and rows of sugar cane, the “gua gua” turned down a dusty dirt road. The first image in sight upon arriving in Chichiga was the shining faces of the excited children ready to head off to preschool. When the van came to a stop, the group stepped out to tour the batay with Robin, a teacher at the Makarios school. As the group walked around the village, numerous smiling faces greeted Robin and welcomed the group with a friendly “hola.” The short tour around Chichiga ended within ten minutes and upon returning to the van we found it full of preschoolers ecstatic to journey to school.
The “gua gua” once again headed off down the road filled with bumps and turns. The tightly squeezed van ride did not end the preschoolers excitement for school, the entire “gua gua” ride the children sang to one another a song in Creole, the Haitian native language. Intially, I believed, because even Robin could not understand the Creole the children used as a first language, the linguistic differences would provide a division between Haitians and Dominicans at the Makarios school similar to that division present in the modern day Dominican Republic.
This division in the D.R. is [KEEP READING]
On the rec team, we get a class everyday and divide them via wristbands into the red and blue teams. Once we divide, after the kids eat their snack, we all make the short walk from the school to the Play, which is what they call the baseball field in the center of the village. Usually the kids hold our hands and we walk and talk a little (generally they talk and we listen and don’t understand a word of what they say). Today we were making the walk, and my team (the red team) started gathering together and walking as a team with no encouragement from us. They started saying “Rojo va a ganar!” (red is going to win!) and they even did that football chant thing where they all put their hands in the middle and yelled “uno, dos, tres, ROJO!!!” then shot their hands straight into the air like they had exploded.
They were so excited to go out into the hot sun and play kickball. Their eyes gleamed and they smiled a lot. It was amazing to me. They joined together as a team and just wanted to play. I was so encouraged by their joy. We were walking on the street over a pretty gross sewer ditch, past shacks with 5 kids sitting out front and more inside who lived there, with some adults yelling angrily at the kids from their doorsteps, and here these kids were, just being kids. Even though I know they’re the same as kids in the US, it seems so often that they have much more responsibility to look out for themselves and their families. But they just want to play.
God’s been [KEEP READING]
[From Jessie Solomon...]
Today was a lesson of humility and for sure an indelible memory of my trip to Sri Lanka. We visited a large hearing school outside Colombo with one class of, as they call it "differently abled" children, several of which were deaf/hard of hearing. We spent an hour or so reading to and loving on the children there that are so often the outcasts of not only the school but the whole community. It certainly made a statement to the teachers and students alike that the Americans came for the purpose of encouraging those in the margins of their society.
Before we left, we stood at the door of the classroom saying our goodbyes, when the teacher told them to show their gratitude for our visit. To my surprise one by one each child knelt on the ground at my feet some touching each of my dirty bare feet and others kissing each one. Tears began to run down my face as the last child, a deaf child with CP, struggled to bend his week legs to the ground and then to lift his heavy head up again as he mustered enough muscle control to crawl to each of our feet.
I felt so unworthy of such an act! A vivid picture ran through my head. A picture of me, a pauper, in all my imperfections, on my face before the merciful throne of Jesus in heaven. The only person that deserved such treatment is Christ Himself.
The missionary I was with reminded me that the only thing that makes us worthy of anything is Christ in each of us. He is also the reason that [KEEP READING]
I can’t tell if it’s hotter here or in Texas. They’re probably about the same, but in Texas, I experience the summer heat in brief intervals when I’m en route from one air conditioned building to another…in my air conditioned car. In light of that, the biggest thing God has shown me this week is His mighty strength through His unending love. The staff and interns at Makarios are absolutely amazing to watch. The kids here are the same as kids in America; they have a seemingly endless amount of energy and they need God’s love. The staff and interns give plenty of both to these kids on a daily basis even though the novelty of being a missionary in a foreign country has probably long since worn off. We serve an amazing God, who truly does equip His people to do good works.
As a side note, we also serve a brilliant God. There two kids pictured above (Jacob and Isaac) understand English, Spanish, Creole and American Sign Language…and they’re three years old!
(Riley Dallas)