Contrasts

 

Today had many new perspectives for us. We started the day with a long ride to Grace Village, and on the way we stopped at the mass burial grave for the 300,000 Haitians that died in the earthquake. The thought of 300,000 bodies being buried under the ground I was walking on is unbelievable to think about, I can still barely get my head around it. The mass grave was dug in a quarry by the base of some small mountains. You couldn’t even tell that anything was under that area because of how normal it looked. If that many people died in America, there would be a huge billion dollar monument that would go in, but the grave only had a rock there with the words “We will never forget.”

After visiting the grave, we headed to Grace Village. Compared to the orphanage that we saw the previous day, Grace Village was heaven on earth. Everything about it was better than what we had previously seen by 1000%. There were nice paths leading everywhere, the houses were nicely built and could hold the right amount of kids, they had aquatic farming systems that were extremely impressive, and of course, the largest playground in Haiti! The first thing we did there was get a tour of what they are working on and what they have made already. After that, Josh and Ryan got the guitars and we had worship in their cafeteria/church.  After the kids got to enjoy music and a nice acted out story, we split up.  The kids could either make crafts or go outside and play games. Again the parachute was a big hit for the kids; the kids also loved it when we brought out some kites we had with us.

 

After Grace Village we had the chance to go around and serve to some elders at their houses, we would pray with them and sing to them; they enjoyed the singing a lot.  The best part of those visits was to be able to go into their small houses, whereas at home that would be my room, with only a few belongings and a bed and a seat that’s all they had.  To see them live in that way amazed me how some could even be 104 and able to move like a 80 year old. I wish we could have spent full days being able to hear their stories and everything about their life, how they only sit in their rooms or how they love to do certain things.  The way they do everything is different from the US, with the money they have and the help from Healing Haiti, they love God and praise him.   

Christian and Ryan A