Hades...I mean Haiti...the heat messes with you... : Haiti - Day 5

So today was a good day but it started out quite strange. So to forewarn you I had a couple of nightmares in the morning that were fairly graphic. I will write out what I wrote in my journal as it was an occurrence in my day, but if you feel that it is content you would prefer to avoid than simply skip pass the red colored text. But I did forewarn you, I thought it was vivid and quite graphic to experience and if anyone feels they have the ability to interpret the dreams/nightmares by all means I would love to get an inkling as to what they mean.


Journal Entry : Day 5

This morning was strange to say the very least. I had a couple of nightmares and up until this point I can say I haven't had a nightmare in years. The first nightmare was at some type of retail store with an outdoor section that was like a full-fledged outdoor environment - like a forest or jungle. For whatever reason I helped design a pond or something and I walked along the side of this body of water. A female was there with me but I don't recall who it was specifically. All of sudden a pack of wolves began chasing us and trying to attack us. I scrambled up a tree and the wolf was right behind me. I stabbed it in the eye with a stick and it was completely unfazed. The following nightmare took place at my old house. I remember looking out the glass door at the front of the house in the living room. The sky was extremely dark and the weather looked troubling. The next thing I know I see a funnel pull down from the sky right in my front yard. I scurry to the hallway and noticed my sister and mom were there. Not a minute passed and it was gone and the sky was clear. Looking back out the door there was a big red truck and paramedics all around. One guy was being moved on a stretcher that was completely severed from the chest down but his eyes were opened and seemed to be conscious. Another guy was being dragged away was severed from the waist down. I awoke quite startled. 

It's hotter than Hades down here.

After that extreme awakening I got ready for breakfast. Breakfast was good although I thought chicken wings for breakfast a bit of an oddity. After the typical morning routine we were on our way to do another VBS. One thing I failed to just mention was that this morning Pastor Milot spoke about Jonah which was quite a funny coincidence since it was the story we were telling today. For setup this go round we did our regular song time as usual to open up the day and then we moved right into story time. So as I mentioned yesterday, I was doing an object lesson on Jonah. I feel like the kids were quite engaged by the story with the help of the balloon. It is hard to explain how it looks so I found a YouTube video of a guy that presents the same story I did using the balloon. I will say he is a better story teller than I no doubt - seriously watch it, it is a clever trick I do believe.

After the story we split them up again with an arts and crafts group along with snack, while the other half off to play some soccer. So to save the girls from the heat I jumped out there again to play along with the kids again. They really do get into that soccer sport. For those of you that know me you know how much I dislike the sport, but alas I did enjoy my time when playing with them. I even scored a goal every now and then. After recreation was coming to a close I was really feeling the brute force of the heat. I'm pretty certain I got a little too hot today, maybe a little dehydrated. So as we finished up there we headed towards the other church. On the "tap tap" I felt a headache coming on and figured it was a sure sign of early dehydration. Luckily I kept some Aleve with me so I took one of those before arriving at the church. You know it is a hot place when you sweat doing nothing but standing in the shade or sitting in the bed writing in a journal.

Don't leave home without it!

We arrived at the church and the other team had once again accomplished quite a bit that day. It appeared there was very little left to be done on benches, in fact they began building some brand new ones from all new material. Feeling the adverse effects from earlier I tried to help when I could and re-hydrate in between. Also for some reason today the fire ants were out in full force. Myself, Alison, and Monique got bit several times. It was unbelievable how fast those Haitian fire ants were. One of my hopes on this trip was to climb a fruit tree and pick some fruit, sadly I will say that this did not occur. However, there was a small lime tree close by and Ernie managed to knock off the lone lime that we saw hanging from it. I cut a sliver off the top of the skin and got to taste some fresh lime juice. I thought it was pretty cool. So anyway work was done for the day before we knew it we were back at the house.

Jason finally had time to take a break.

Dinner was good as usual and we ended up having a longer debrief time than usual. Most of the discussion that came about as to what the work agenda would be for the next two days. The construction team was running out of things to do so we offered up the idea about building some benches for the other church. This church had maybe seven benches that were hardly worth a thing. Only problem we ran into was that we spent all of our money on wood for the first church. The team thought the other church could really use those benches, so as a team everyone scraped together about $150. That blew me away to see how people chipped in for a good cause without hesitation. I was inspired once again by the sacrificial hearts on this team. So after everything was decided, both teams would be at Pastor Alexis' church working as one. I was glad because this church really had so little compared to Pastor Milot's.

The key chains in their final stage, we would make these tomorrow.

So we socialized for a little while afterwards then prepared for VBS. We compiled the crafts materials and set it all up and that took quite some time. We were going to be making key chains with the six different colored beads that represent salvation. We constructed about a hundred pieces of string cut and tied on the ring along with sorting the different colored beads for easy distribution. When all that was said and done it was time for a good night's rest. Hopefully no nightmare's this time around.