Children's Hope: October Mission Trip, Part 1

A 16 (including Charley Elgin and granddaughter, Jessica) member team left for Birmingham Wednesday night for a very short night stay in a hotel and then on to Miami and then Port au Prince on Thursday morning. They arrived in PAP expecting to take a nine seater plane, a five seater plane, and Charley and Jess were riding over the mountains in a truck. However, as with any mission trip, flexibility is a must since the nine seater plane wasn't available! They all made it fine though...just took a little longer. The team was carrying in 16 checked bags of supplies plus their own luggage. Ten of the bags were backpacks for the church schools. Friends in Georgia collected 400 backpacks for children in five church schools. We still have four duffle bags of backpacks to get down!

Let me back up a little. In addition to providing our 23 kids at Children's Hope with tuition, uniforms, books and school suppliest, we help support five schools that are held in churches of local Baptist churches in Jacmel. As you can see below, most of the kids do not have uniforms yet, books or supplies but they are still learning. The government will issue books soon for us to purchase, blackboards will be finished and so will uniforms. Despite this, the children are getting a wonderful gift of an education which so many children do not have. This is easy to see when you see all of the children on the streets when others are in school.

On Friday morning, the team went to two church schools: Pastor Davidson's and Pastor Paul's. They presented a Bible story and gave them coloring sheets and they shared a box of colored pencils. And I do mean shared! They each had one pencil and they all shared theirs so everyone could use different colors. This was not in a greedy and snatching way but very selflessly.

Friday afternoon was spent taking out 23 kids to the beach. This is always such a treat for them as it is with all children. I asked how Estherline (our newest and youngest) did and was told she couldn't stop smiling. She is the child who was beaten and then brought to CH last month. I am so thankful that this precious child has found a loving and safe home at CH.

I saved the best for last! Nicholas brought a young woman to meet Charley, because she was battling a "troubled spirit." Charley and Nicholas explained to her about Jesus and she prayed to receive Christ. So thankful that CH is not only taking care of the "least of these" but God is using CH to expand His Kingdom!!!

Enjoy the pics!