Day 5

Hello from the Dominican Republic/Haiti!!! First of all I just wanted to say thank you on behalf of myself and our team for your generous support, prayer and encouragement being faithful followers of our blog and ministry. God’s transforming hearts, lives are being forever changed and God’s kingdom is advancing by the outpouring of Christ’s love through my fellow teammates/friends. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts Crossroads for making this trip happen and for the generous donations and faithful prayer warriors consistently lifting our team up in prayer.

Each member on our team has their own personalexperience/feelings/attitudes/insight about a specific moment or memory that tugged on their heart strings. Today’s blog will be in 3^rd person capturing a variety of the teams personal testimony about a cherished moment in the day. So here we go folks!!! Happy reading and enjoy the pictures!!

Patty- Kevin & Shannon are missionaries who joined Crossroads during our trip to Haiti. The church they represented is called “The One Church” in Spokane, WA. They brought 200bs of medical supplies which Patty and Sandy were in charge of sorting through.

Anonymous- The experience of the team and seeing the stark reality of the difference between Danita’s and the village.

Kristen- man handling the chickens before we blessed a Haitian family with rice, beans and oil enough to feed a family of 4 for a week.

Rich-Helping Sean supervise 12 kids putting together rice and beans for the chicken runs. It was mass confusion but fun interacting with the boys who we’ve been so eager to help.

Kevin-Today we celebrated one of the girls 15^th birthday. Her name is Jeanette and she wants to become a doctor someday. We sang happy birthday to her and gave her presents. She told me later how blessed and thankful she was for the gifts. She got chocolate, nail polish, and lip gloss. She asked how long we were staying and if I was coming back. I was speechless. I need to remember these children hold onto promises and we need to be careful not to give these children any false promises. It is a lesson I hope to never forget. I would love to build the kind of relationships with these children where they know it’s not a one time deal, but that we are truly commited to them.

Pat- I was in the kitchen this morning with Murard and my little helper Samson. Just another amazing day at Danita’s lying on the floor trying to repair one of the two sinks that have both been leaking. It’s just a humbling experience daily especially in the kitchen which is very warm and constantly busy, but in all the chaos the Haitian women are smiling and cooking through it all. Another big eye opener was the “REALITY” check realizing that things don’t always go as planned and everything down here is a lot harder to come by, and I do mean everything from food, to clothing, and daily necessities we constantly take for granted in the US.

Erin Gonzalez- When we dropped off the chicken, rice, beans, and oil to the local village family today, the family daughter greeted us with her brother. He pointed to the chicken and asked her by motioning with his hands if she was the one that was going to ring the chickens neck, pluck it and cut it for her family. She nodded “YES”. She couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15 years old. I know most 14 & 15 year old girls in the US will not be doing this tonight. To God be all the glory.

Tess-Today being my first official day in Haiti, I was still overwhelmed and nervous. Seeing the joyous kids at the orphanage completely made me forget about about my own issues. True love they have for life and each other will forever stay with me.

It’s neat to see the unification of our team coming together to serve at Danita’s orphanage. God is so good. Our team truly has a great sense of humor and not a day goes by without giggles and endless laughter. Our key word this week is to be “FLEXIBLE” which every team member is putting forth with great efforts.

Kristen Overstreet