Days 7 & 8

We are finally back at the mission. We left yesterday morning for a 3 hour ride out to the Far West. This area is about 13 miles from the mission. We took three pickup trucks with 30 mattresses tied to the tops! It was quite the site. Pictures will have to come later. They take too much time to load here. We drove out to a missionaries’ house and then on to the new orphanage. We spend an hour or so out there with the kids and then drove another hour to La Baie which is another mission campus. We stayed the night there and then took some walks this morning. We walked up a hill to the new land where the missionaries are building their new house (out of the flood plain they are in now!) Then from there we walked down to the beach and waded in the water for a while. It felt so good to just stand in the ocean. We walked up to this one area which was completely leveled by the hurricanes last year and any houses that we still standing, the community leveled so no one would live there anymore. Needless to say, there were some great palm trees that provided a wonderful resting place where we sat and talked for a while. We drove back to the mission this afternoon and played with the kids some more. Tomorrow we are throwing a birthday party for Steven (the boy I sponsor in the Miriam Center). It is the last day here. Pray for everyone as they get ready to travel back to the states on Friday. I will probably not be able to update that the group got back because I will be traveling to an area with no internet. If I get a chance I will send something out, but don’t expect anything after tomorrow until I get back to the states on July 6.