Day 5 – Sponsor Party

February 26^th 2011 – Day 5—Sponsor Party!

9:30am Meeting with the Mothers Club

10:30am Visit a Goat Project

1:00pm Sponsor Party

What an awesome day! As I sit here hauling pictures and video off of my camera, I can’t wrap my brain around the transformation I feel in myself after such a short period here in Häiti. Ah but I’d love for a piece of chocolate….anyway…

The morning began bright and early but a little cloudier than most. Of course my alarm went off and as I was lazing in bed for a minute pondering if I really had to get up just yet or not, the power went out everywhere. Luckily the water still ran as I grabbed my shower. Power goes out regularly in Häiti, for hours, randomly. During supper, our first night, in Port au Prince, we had just checked in to this beautiful hotel and gone down to the restaurant for supper on a beautiful terrace when all of a sudden there was a bang and the lights all went out. That was a moment! My first thought as my heart jumps in my chest is-earthquake! Luckily we were just out of power and ate the rest of the meal in the dark. So we began our morning without power a breakfast of boiled eggs and bread and MANGO—yummy on the Mango! (personally, if I ever eat another egg after this trip I will be surprised! Eggs every morning…)

We hauled 5 bags of luggage down to the trucks, and off we went for the day. I found myself thinking, “this road isn’t all that bad” lol. How quickly a persons reality changes!

First we visited a Women’s Club. This was an awesome experience. They were so thrilled to have us there and the energy in the room was high. I immediately felt a connection to them, we were sisters with the same cause and hope and desire, the best for our children. The Women’s Club has done great things for them, 30-35 women meet for 2 hrs every Tuesday to learn about family planning, birthday control, environment and hygiene and nutrition, they learn how to care for their reproductive health and have orthopedic training for their children.

When we chatted with them we discovered that there are many orphaned children in the area. Many women have upwards of 5-10 children of their own, and then have taken on the care and responsibility of 3 or 4 orphaned children in their area. Our hearts are knit together as they express their love, hopes and dreams for their children along with the difficulties they have because of their economic condition. They are hopeful, and thankful and I feel immensely blessed to have sat and shared life with them for awhile. These are courageous women uniting to join forces in creating a better tomorrow for their children. Moreouse ends the meeting well by quoting and Africain proverb: “When you educated a boy, you educate and individual. When you educate a girl, you educate a community.”

From there we went to visit a Goat Project. This a brilliant project increasing the health and wellbeing of one family at a time. WV brings in a different breed of goat, healthy and high producing in milk, unlike the goats in the local community. The families in the community can then bring their goats to breed with the better goats and have healthy, strong, high milk producing goats of their own. WV also distributes goats to families in need. In this case, WV gives them a healthy goat, and when it produces it’s first offspring, the family gives it to WV in payment. A goat can produce a kid once every 6 months or so, so the family is then set up to have goats for milk and selling if need be. This was a very interesting visit, brilliant in processes, increasing the economics of the community as well as ensuring it’s continuation.

From here we are excited to go to the Sponsor party, the highlight of our trip! Today we would meet our sponsor children. When we first arrive we are overwhelmed with amount of children, youth, staff and parents on the grounds. Quickly they take us to a room in the headquarters where we can organize the gifts for the children. This takes us awhile as we have gifts for approximately 90 children together. I laugh with the team and say that it will all look so organized and happy in the pictures, thankfully noone will see all the chaos as we run around trying to organize ourselves before they arrive! Finally the children come. They are shy, and adorable. They don’t know quite what to think of us as we give them the envelope from their sponsor family but we pray that they will feel the love represented in each gift and that it continues to give them hope for tomorrow.

We have saved each of our sponsor children until the end of the presentations and I am anxious to see my sponsor child Micheala, and I hope that she is there. She is first to walk through the door and I see a spark in her eye, she is spirited and I know that she must be connected to the Billington girls-we’re all a spirited bunch! Immediately I go over to her and introduce myself. I can’t believe the connection I feel with her. I have prayed for her, hoped for her, talked about her, wrote to her over the past year and the connection is greater than I think. Having been so close to meeting her last year and then having to go home without, makes the connection seem stronger to me too.

She is shy with me, but I can see that she too has made the connection. She clutches her gift and I ask her if she wants to open it. I want to see her face as she opens her things, I want her to understand the love it represents. She peaks in her envelope and takes out the first miniature doll in the doll family. I can tell that she likes it and she reaches her hand into the envelope to feel the others. She doesn’t want to take her things out of the envelope because she wants to keep it safe. We look outside and see that most of the children have not opened their envelopes. Another difference in our culture, our own children would have ripped open the gift as soon as they were allowed to.

I also take time out with the KONNECT sponsor children. Laurie is a beautiful young woman, delightful and smiling. Mr. Walky Jewles is a tiny little guy full of character, his name says it all! And Bubnaud, I laugh because the kids at home can’t pronounce his names so we’ve been calling him Buba, he is such a little adorable Buba! I hope the little videos I took help convey a bit of who they are to the kids back at home.

The ADP has prepared a presentation for us so they usher us out to the front veranda. There is music and dancing and gifts for us. Youth girls come and present us with an envelope of our own and the MC tells us that they have nothing to give us but prayers and appreciation. How little the understand about the gift that they offer us. A gift of joy and hope and believing, a gift of relationship and brotherhood. We ask Segnol if it is alright to open them, and he looks shocked “no, no, you must wait!” We laugh, this is very hard to do.

As the day wraps up I am surprised at how in just a matter of days I can see so much changed in myself. I am surprised at how after you meet the people, spend time with them and get to know them, you don’t see the living conditions as much, but feel the unity in spirit.

~H