Bonjou tout moun!
(That's Good Morning everyone! in Haitian Creole...) I hope this post finds you all happy and healthy and enjoying life in the Lord! First of all I want to say that it was such a joy to help Cara organize and lead the first ever GCOM summer camp in Thomazeau. We had some trials and learned a lot, but in the midst of it all, God blessed each Haitian and
non-Haitian team member alike great joy to be a part of this project, and share Jesus' love with the 200 eager and bright eyed children! At the end of this post, I'll give a summary of activities I was a part of and how the summer camp evolved in just a few days, but I want to spend most of my time just thanking God for the amazing experience, and to all of you who were great vessels to make Cara's dream a reality!
Cara and I cannot thank each team member enough. To Lindsey, Pandora, Hailie, Paul, Shere, Rachel, Brad,
and Megan: you all pitched in wherever help was needed, whether it was giving a little extra money, serving the kids food, participating in certain activities, leading a devotion, posting on our blog, etc etc. Most of all, I want to thank
you all for your great patience! Because of your positive Jesus-like attitudes, Cara and I didn't feel so much need to stress the small stuff, like timeliness (especially when TIH, haha), exact activities for each day, or even until the end when the New York flight was missed. A HUGE thank you to you for being so understanding in all of it! Cara and I laugh now at the first day we came into our meeting "prepared" with each minute of the day planned and written
down on our professional clipboard, haha. Once we let go of our tight grip on the reigns a little bit, Cara and I sat back in awe to watch God work His glory in every little detail. Praise Him!
Cara and I also would love to extend a humungous MESI ANPIL to our Haitian staff: Jude, Carline, Linda, Jennyfer,
Watsuze, Jenna, the women of the house, Stephene, Steven, Steve (haha), Garry, Isaac, Pypo, Michael, Doudy, Jacob, and our drivers. To those living in the GCOM house: your hospitality cannot be measured, and thank you for always being eager to please each member of the team. To each and every translator: though Cara and I have a little Kreyol under our belts at this time, our vocabulary doesn't carry the authority that yours can, so thanks for being able to reign all the 200 kids in at the blink of an eye! Thank you for pairing up with the blancs to provide your services which I'm sure seems mundane at times, but you are always eager to help for the joy of the Lord and we thank you for that. Speaking of joy in the Lord, thank you too for your humor, music, and graciousness at each moment of the day. The achy, bumpy, long taptap rides were filled with such fun and joy because of your bright spirits, and I have some of my greatest memories from these!
Thank you to Garry Destin for trusting Cara and I and the rest of us so much to make Cara's dream a reality under GCOM. It especially I'm sure was difficult not to physically be present with us, so you will be blessed by the sacrifices you've made to make the 200 children of Thomazeau fill these days with joy! Thank you for providing us
contacts, getting the word out, and continuing to raise money after we had already started the camp. Thank you for all your check ups and encouraging each team member along the way, as this takes time and money especially to keep in
contact internationally!
Thank you to Christine Jean-Louis for your hospitality for those of us who departed from New York. Though there were 7 of us in a 1 bedroom apartment, you did not fail to be sure our stomachs were full and we had a comfortable place to sleep. AND thank you for taking our extra bags back from the airport and being in touch with Megan and all of us to continue to get this trip started! God bless you!
Thank you to the workers in Thomazeau, and all of you who've donated generously, and anyone else who I might
have forgotten. Without you all, this camp wouldn't have been possible!
So now that I've had a few days to digest the whole camp experience, I can just see God smiling at all the work that was done for His Glory. I'm chuckling at the few obstacles we had, because in the end, nothing can stop Him from doing His work! The challenges began before we even took off for Haiti: Megan lost her passport, and we were unable to take 2 of our bins with us with a bunch of soccer equipment and games for the kids because of airport regulations. It was a challenge to not point fingers at the government or Delta or any of the staff members, and was even more of a challenge to let go of the "stuff" and trust that the kids would be joyful for even one little toy we brought. But God got us through it and we had many prayer warriors with us along the way, so THANK YOU! Cara and I though were slightly stressed, immediately felt better after we took off for our home away from home. Though later we laughed at our plans, it did bring us some comfort to write out every detail that we thought for the camp on our handy dandy clip board.
The team gelled right away and we felt prepared to take on the 200 kids. But as you read from Day 1's post, not all went according to plan. Cara and I wanted there to be 1 hour rotations of 8 group/stations each, but the kids got restless, and Western time is definitely not the same as Haitian time. So Cara and I had to loosen reigns and let the Haitian translators take over. They got all the kids into a big circle to clap their hands and dance and sing, and it couldn't have been a better solution! Did Cara and I write that down? No. But that was God's plan and I smile that He was in control. The kids were so joyous to do just anything, so instead of controlling which group the kids went into, we let them choose where they wanted to be. Some children went with Lindsey to learn karate, some came with me to dance, some went to do arts and crafts, or races, or field games, etc. And some just wanted to be held!
So the rest of the days, our plans were much more loose. We prepared a number of activities each day, and talked about which team members would help with what, but we let God do the rest. Each day we arrived, we worshipped with the kids, fed them breakfast, then started our activities for the rest of the day. Activities ranged from dance, karate, photo taking, music, twister, arts/crafts, soccer, races, water balloon fights, various toy games, etc. At the end we fed them, and took off. The time spent each day in Thomazeau varied, but for the most part, we were there with non-stop energy for the kids about 6 hours a day.
So I don't have too much more to say, but want to thank you all for donating, supporting, and praying for us, for none of it was done in vain! I look forward to seeing how this camp develops in the future and to see God's work done more and more with GCOM! Please let me know if you have any questions, and may God bless you all!
Please click in this links to see all Rio's photo about the GCOM Summer Camp 2011 Thomazeau
Love, Rio
