Thanks to January 12th, when the country of Haiti is mentioned your first thought is automatically earthquake. So naturally when people heard that we were going to Haiti, they assumed that this natural disaster is the reason for our travel. But as you all know, that is not the case. Though almost everyone here has been affected by it in someway, being at Canaan has really separated us from the realities of it. To be honest , I have had to remind myself over and over what this country went through almost 6 months ago. Sunday we went into Port au Prince for the first time and I no longer had to remind myself, it was all around us. I came to Haiti in march and got to see port for a day and it was unbelievably devastating. I think the difference in what I felt sunday and what I felt in march was the discouragement that not much has changed since then. Tent cities are still everywhere, the rubble is still piled high, the capital is still a flattened mess, people are still out of work...I don't know how long it will take or if or how they will ever loose the mark of the earthquake. Not that I expected it to magically disappear, but it is very overwhelming to see. What is even more overwhelming is the thought of hurricane season hitting. A group that is here at Canaan building desks for schools just returned from Leoganne and they witnessed a huge storm wipe out an entire tent city, trees and all. Gosh if only this country could just press pause for like 30 years and take a breath! Morgan and I Iaid in bed and tried to talk about what we saw that night and all we could muster up was a giant question mark in our heads and a heaviness in our hearts. How can one even begin to process something like this, much less try and imagine what life would be like in their shoes, waking up reminded everyday of the horrendous tragedy they experienced.

On a lighter note, last week we hosted a seminar for all the nurses in the clinic. Morgan and I woke up and headed straight to the kitchen to make cookies to bring. We soon found out that any sort of baking in Haiti requires much creativity and accomodation. With the oven baking about 100 degrees higher than you set it as and ingredients being somewhat on the slim side, recipes are more of a suggestion than a strict guideline. Needless to say, the cookies were delicious and the best bite of sugar that we have tasted in a while! The seminar itself didn't quite go as we expected but we had so much fun doing it. We didn't really take into account how difficult it is to communicate through translators, therefore 2 truths and a lie in creole was kind of a bust. Our next attempt to get across to them was with skits. Me and Morgan acted out a couple different clinical scenarios, one of them including morgan falling over dead....watch out academy awards we are coming for you! Chelsea wrapped it all up by saying a few kind words about their purpose and how amazing it is that they are able to work for the God of the universe, shining the light of the kingdom in the Canaan clinic day after day. If anything, they got a good laugh at us making a fool of ourselves, got some yummy cookies and hopefully walked away a little encouraged.

We have thoroughly enjoyed the bible studies that we have been doing with the kids. We meet with them every morning and last week we each told our groups that if they memorized a verse, we could go on a hike up to Capiat (the mountain spring about 2 hours away). I was shocked at how fast a group of girls could memorize a verse when a little reward is involved. It felt like every hour one of them was coming up to me with a big grin ready to recite Ephesians 5:8-10. Come 5:00 saturday morning they had all said it to me and we were on our way up the mountain, pop tarts and all. I think I enjoyed watching them laugh and be kids more than anything. I did have one close call when I got knocked off the trail by a donkey. Thankfully I caught myself on a tree branch and was pulled up by some nice little Haitian woman who was headed down the mountain to sell her plantains. Dumb donkeys.

Tomorrow is mamba day! Pray that all the kids would show up tomorrow having gained weight and with mothers who are eager to restore their child's health. Mother's who are willing to put forth the effort and take ownership over this responsibility make all the difference. Every one of the kids that come are precious and we get so excited seeing the pounds add on! Tomorrow is also Morgs last day...don't really want to talk about it. I am so sad to see her go but gosh I am so thankful that we have had this past month with each other!

Generator is about to turn off! We send our love!

Jess