A Day of Experiences

Well, it has been quite a day! After only about 4 hours of sleep, a combination of barking dogs and yelling children, we began our day with pancakes and syrup. It was a funny thing to watch because while it is an extremely common thing for us the kids had no idea how to eat them. Most of them were a little leary of the syrup and would often just make sandwich's out of the pancakes with jam.

After breakfast, before the hike we were to take, the kids and Christian and I (Danielle and Amanda opted out) watched some locals slaughter one of Allan's pigs for tonight's dinner. It was a sobering experience hearing the cries of the animal and watching it's blood flow out. Certainly not something I had seen before but it did two things for me. First, it gave me a deeper appreciation for the food that I eat everyday. The clinically wrapped meat in the hygienic markets came from an animal whose blood had to be spilled so I could eat. The other was a thought about how gruesome the sacrifices in the Old Testament must have been like and how thankful I am that Jesus Christ was sacrificed once for all!

After that we began our 'hike' up a mountain behind Allan and Pearl with all of the kids. Monti Cristi, the town where Allan and Pearl live is at around 2000ft and the hill we were climbing, at it's appex, is around 3000ft. 1000 vertical ft in a very short amount of time. It was certainly an experince because the hike was through jungle most of the way. Several spots on the path were no more than 2 or 3 ft high so you had to crawl through. Going up was tough but we were rewarded with an amazing view of Monti Cristi, Manta and the Ocean. It was going down, however, that presented the real challenege. It was EXTREMELY step with loose dirt and gravel and jungle on both sides. You spent most of the time sliding down on your backside or watching out for the smaller kids to make sure they didn't fall! Christian sped ahead with a group of 'extreme hill runners' and had, as he puts it, a pretty awesome wipeout (word on the street is he was sliding down and got both feet hooked on a root...this stopped the momentum of his lower half while his upper half kept going down the hill). I floated around the middle helping Luisito and Tuti, the youngest ones, get down the hill. There was one scarey moment where Tuti almost lost it, but she got control at the last minute and came out unscathed. Danielle and Amanda were both HUGE troopers and brough up the rear with several of the girls. Needless to say we were VERY tired by the end of the hike. My legs felt like jello. But these kids, the constant bundles of energy they are, kept running around like nothing had happened. We then walked through town for a bit until the vehicles came to get us.

We rounded the day out with an awesome time swimming at a local pool. It was a great time to toos the kids around, play water games and generally have a blast. I know most of you do not want to hear this but it has been STUPID hot around here lately with sunshine everyday. It think we all lost about 10 pounds of sweat through the whole process.

So now we are back here at Allan and Pearl's house getting ready to have dinner with the kids before heading back to La Cueve. It has been a great time for us to be with the kids and help them do something that they do not normally get to do!

Tomorrow morning we will head back to the orphanage for another 1/2 day completing various work projects and then in the afternoon we are going to do a few more things with the kids (guitar lessons, jump rope, crafts etc). We are all pretty tired and appreciate your prayers. It is tough sometimes when you do not have any time to yourself but we are taking each moment we get as an awesome opportunity to develop bonds with these amazing kids.

J (for the rest of the team)