Today the missionary elves wrapped up many projects! The morning started off with a big bowl of oatmeal for each missionary, simple but delicious food for hungry and busy missionaries.
Afterwards we piled all the suitcases full of supplies, 20 in all, into our trusty pickup truck nicknamed “the Frog”. After we piled it almost to the top we then jumped in ourselves on top of everything for a rocky, bumpy ride to the Missionaries of Charity.
We began our work with the sisters with the holy sacrifice of the mass followed by a prayer meditation led by a consecrated woman. Afterwards we divided the elves up into groups for the projects. The first group took over the tables, three in all. The tables will be used in the new kitchen that feeds the orphan children. They were finished and varnished in record time!
Another group became the “handymen” for the Missionaries. Everything from fixing door hinges to drilling holes for plumbing, making a stable for the nativity scene to moving heavy objects from one place to the next. These “handymen elves” were the busiest of all.
Another group of elves took to finishing the varnish on the eight school desk benches that will be used in the St Joseph school down the road from the orphanage.
Another group unpacked 6 suitcases full of clothes and toys and packed them into 300 Christmas bags. Each bag was decorated with Christmas decorations and “Merry Christmas Jesus loves you” was written in Haitian on each bag. Tomorrow we will pass these Christmas bags out in the tents city near the guest house. That will be 300 happy youngsters who will receive a little bit of Christmas.
Meanwhile, as we were doing all these projects we were feeding and cleaning and playing with the 100 children in the orphanage — not a small task.
It was a complete and beautiful day! Doing the Lord’s work makes one certainly tired but never happier!
At the end of the day, the happy but tired missionary elves were lining up to leave the compound and head back to the guest house when yet another task popped up: The mother superior, sister Achaia came by and said to us in her broken English: “you tired? …. Got job….” She opened up a shipping container the size of a truck and said: “move boxes to cars.” …. The missionaries, always ready to help, did the job quickly with smiles on their faces.
Today Adel, the baby that was baptized yesterday, went to the Father’s home. Please pray for his family.
Count on our prayers; please keep us in yours.
