We arrived in Haiti and were able to jump right into ministry at Life is Hope Orphanage where we got to reconnect with Pastor Jean. We visited there in 2010 so we were happy to go back! The kids were so much fun to play with, blow bubbles with, show thumb tricks to (Jim convinced the kids that he could take his thumb off), and love on. Our time there went by quickly and soon it was time to go.

After leaving the orphanage, we relaxed a little while more Pelicans were arriving from Iowa. When they arrived, we headed to Cote Plage for a quick dinner, meeting, and a time to rest. Church was a 6 this morning, so it was a short night, but we were blessed to be able to worship with our Haitian brothers and sisters in Christ.

We began our day by worshiping with our host church at 6 a.m. There were over 3,000 believers singing and praising the Lord. One of our team members was able to share a testimony. It was an incredible experience.

After a delicious lunch we went to Good Shepherd Orphanage and played with the kids there for the afternoon. It began to rain, but that didn't dampen our fun. It continued to rain into the evening cooling things down for a good night's sleep before we begin our first day at our work project tomorrow morning.

Today was an awesome day as we began our work at the house site. We spent the day passing 824 buckets of sand from the top of a hill to the project. We are partnered with another church group form Iowa and together we formed a brigade to pass the full buckets down the hill and the empty back up again. It is grueling and tiring work, but it needed to be done. Through the day we enjoyed each others fellowship and made many new friends. It was an overcast day which was a blessing to keep the temperatures down and we enjoyed lunch on the top of a hill with a 360 degree view, including the ocean!

We are off to bed to rest up for another glorious day tomorrow!

We slept under a gray sky last night and woke up under a clear blue sky this morning. As a matter of fact, we knew that today was gonna be different. We got to our work site and found that the load that we dislocated had been replaced by another bigger one. Excitingly, we formed a line and started our fun bucket brigade. We barely had some breeze and shade but that would not hinder us to pass 700+ buckets of sand and 78+ cinder blocks.

This afternoon, after work, we visited Deacon Pierre, a good friend of ours whom Salem funded a house for. We were so happy to see the progress that had been done in a little over a year. We enjoyed seeing him and his children.

Today was our last day of ministry at a work site. It was bitter sweet to leave today. We know we will miss these people a lot and we know that our project isn't done and there is more work to do, but we have joy in knowing that what God had in store for Sister Mario is completed. We ended our day back to Good Shepherd Orphanage, a place that we love. We had some very good moments playing with the kids. Now, we are looking forward to a new thing tomorrow--a chance to see a little more of Haiti and a little bit of fun!

Our last full day in Haiti was spent climbing up out of the steamy city crossing the mountains to the south coast for a day at the beach and souvenir shopping. We experienced another side of the country and enjoyed the beauty of this tropical island. We returned to our last delicious dinner and then it was time for our closing meeting and then packing and getting ready for the airport the next morning. The end of a full week of work and wonderful fellowship.