The Adventures of Milo and Otis

This is my post from yesterday, June 12th, but our internet was shady last night. Don't worry though: the wait is over!

I actually woke up on time this morning. We stayed inside last night because it began to rain as we were getting ready for bed. Even though it stopped soon after, the ground outside was still wet. This morning we had oatmeal for breakfast. Haitian oatmeal is my least favorite food thus far. It is much like American oatmeal except Haitian oatmeal is considerably more salty and just gross. So I ate as much of it as I could and then went back to our room for a cliff bar.

After breakfast I went down the fed the M.C. kids. Today’s meal was spaghetti. That’s right, spaghetti for breakfast. Nutritious I know. We are working on increasing the funding for food for the kids. More on that later in this blog.

Feeding this morning was good. I fed a boy named Job who has CP. It took us a while but we got it down. I am getting better at feeding but I am still a little messy.

Once breakfast was over I took many of the kids into the classroom of the M.C. to watch a movie. What was suppose to be one movie turned into one and a half. At first, we watched Cars 2. Good thing I have never seen the first movie. But I definitely never expected to watch Cars 2 in Haiti, that’s for sure. The kids really enjoyed the movie and it was a good time for all of us to relax. During this time, Autumn and Stephanie were able to work on getting some stuff together for the afternoon and prepare more of the summer activities instead of having to worry about the kids.

When we were finished watching Cars, we still had quite a bit of time until the kids needed to eat lunch, so we watched the Adventures of Milo and Otis. I completely forgot about this movie! And have decided that it had to be one of the cheapest movies to ever film. All they needed was some animals and a guy to do the voice overs. The movie over all is pretty comical to watch as an adult, so I would highly recommend watching it again if you haven’t seen it in a couple of years or a decade or two.

About halfway through The Adventures of Milo and Otis, it was time to get lunch prepared. Lunch consisted of black beans and rice for the kids. After helping to get all the meals together, I went up to have my own lunch where I indulged and bought a Coke from the canteen. I went up early for lunch because Autumn and Stephanie had informed me that I would be in charge of a group that was coming in to help out in the Miriam Center that afternoon because they were leaving for a lunch meeting, so I needed to be ready and done with lunch when they were.

The tasks that I had Morgan and Sinclair’s group do this afternoon was a BUNCH of cleaning. We took out all the form mats in the classroom, bathroom and hallway to scrub with bleach. They also swept and mopped all the floors and cleaned the toys that were outside in the courtyard. Overall their group did a great job, and even with a bit of rain, the mats were able to dry nicely and the classroom looks great! Not to mention the whole center is so much cleaner that in was before. I also felt really great knowing that Autumn and Stephanie trusted me enough, even though I have been here less than a week to lead a group down there.

I took Gilbert upstairs to color some. We had a lot of fun, but he was surprisingly quiet from his normal self. I also hung out with Den-Den downstairs and sat by him as he ate his Mango. I love lazy times like this when I can just hang out with the kids with no real task needing to get accomplished. It was rather nice!

After this I sat outside in the courtyard area downstairs in the M.C. at a picnic table with Kelsey. She is another intern and we are getting along quite well. We had a great conversation about time in Haiti, what we were going to get when we landed back in Miami in weeks (we both agreed upon iced coffee at Starbucks) and what we had been through in the last few months. The conversation could be summed up with Kelsey’s words of “We are going to be good friends. I can tell.” To which I replied, “I believe we already are.” Kelsey then said, “This is true.” It was a great was to spend a good while unwinding from the earlier cleaning.

While we were finishing up our conversation, Kelsey asked me if I wanted to attend Creole lessons at the church across the street at five. Autumn and Stephanie still weren’t back yet, so no one would be ready to eat for quite awhile. So, I said yes and I am glad I did. I feel like I really learned a lot in our 30-45 minute lesson. A sat in the back of the classroom next to a guy named Alince. He thought it was cool that our names sounded similar. He is Haitian and knows English very well too! So he helped me out a lot, got me paper to write words and phrases down and even made sure I was pronouncing everything correctly! I hope that I can make it back again!

Due to today’s lessons I now know how to count, say the Creole alphabet and several common phrases.

1: en

2: de

3: twa

4: kat

5: senk

6: sis

7: set

8: ywit

9: nef

10: dis

After lessons I went back to the Miriam Center in time to help feed the kids dinner. Tonight: Spaghetti AGAIN. Yes, that’s twice in one day. Tonight I fed Jessica. She has CP as well but was a really easy feed. I would definitely volunteer to feed her again. It was during this time that I met Heather, the other co-director of the Miriam Center with Stephanie. She made it back from the Dominican where she was due to medical issues. So I am glad she was back and that I get to work with her as well. During dinner I also learned just where Autumn and Stephanie went this afternoon when Autumn told me all about it. Turns out they went to go have lunch with Kim’s House which is another organization here in Haiti. They are some of the Miriam Center’s biggest supporters and were meeting with the two of them to discuss moving the Miriam Center to a different campus due to the amount of kids we currently have. We have 46 kids and have outgrown downstairs about twenty kids ago. So I am differently very glad about the day’s events and look forward to seeing where the Lord takes the Miriam Center next.

Please pray for guidance for all involved with this decision. That it would be clear where the center needs to be, weather its here at this campus with major renovations or somewhere else. I know that the Lord has something special in store.

This evening has also been very relaxing and I was able to get a bag of M.M.’s from the canteen to enjoy while typing this blog. Chocolate was so nice to have and quite a treat!

He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection.

Psalm 91:4