Guest Blogger Kristin again

Sorry, I've been really swamped and haven't had time to put some of Kristin's updates on. So here they are.....

July 8

Hi everyone!
Here's an update an the past week! It's really starting to hit me this week how incredibly fast my time here is going!! It seems like I just got here, not that I've been in Haiti for almost 4 weeks already. Crazy. I wish that I could stay for a lot longer, but unfortunately, I'll just have to deal with it.
A few special things that we've done this week...On Thursday, we had a birthday party for all of the kids at GLA who have birthdays in June. Yes, we know it is now July, but we don't really care. (Actually, June was such a crazy month here that they forgot.) One of the volunteers made and frosted a cake, and we got some juice made and blew up some balloons. We took all of the kids that we needed from the nursery up to the balcony and got them cleaned up and in nice looking clothes. I think we ended up with 9 kids at the party. They got to play around for a little while, and then they ate. We also take a bunch of pictures to send to adoptive parents. Sometime next week, we are going to do the July birthday party too- actually in July though! Crazy idea!
Wednesday morning was kind of fun. We stayed back at the toddler house and cleaned out and cleaned in our bedrooms. A lot of the volunteers who come here leave stuff behind, because they have things that they don't really want to take home, or that they forget. I had an incredible stash of stuff in my room. We laid all of the unclaimed items out on a bed, and then we went "shopping". I picked up some mandarin oranges, hand sanitizer and bug spray. Molly kept all of the left over stuff incase other people come who didn't remember to bring any of those things. We also wiped down our dressers and stuff, cleaned the bathroom, and swept all of our floors. Things get really dusty here, so it definitely was needed.
For the fourth of July, the volunteers (because we were all Americans) made peanut butter cookies. I frosted them too, which was kind of fun. We also made little napkin rings out of construction paper that we decorated for the fourth of July, and we made little cards with bible verses on them about freedom. It was a fun night spent putting them all together, and then we enjoyed them at supper too. We had some amazing hamburgerrs for supper that night, which made it seem more like the Fourth of July too.

On Saturday, Britt from the Livesay family was going to come up here at around 10:00 for some help with her math homework. I've done the course she's doing right now , and she wasn't really getting it, and there isn't exactly an over-abundance of people in Haiti who understand college level algebra, so she wanted to come up here for some tutoring. They had a bit of trouble getting here, because their truck kept overheating, and an errand they were going to do before they came to GLA took way longer than they though. They ended up being a few hours late, but it was still great to have her come and to see part of the Livesay family again! We got a couple hours of math studying in, and then just hung around until Troy could come back and get Britt. I think they are going to try and come up here one more time before I leave for some more math help.
We got three more volunteers in the week, which has been fun. They are all from Alberta. I now have two more roomates, so I no longer have my own bedroom, which is good. It's a lot more fun this way. We (all of the volunteers) have a great time hanging out with each other. Saturday night we played a rousing round of Dutch Blitz. We play card games or watch movies or sit around and talk a lot at night. It's a fun time.
Sunday morning was another pretty lazy morning. I slept in, and then laid around in bed for a while too. I did my own devotions on the balcony again, instead of going to the Haitian church. We went down to the main house for lunch, and I don't plan on doing anything for the rest of the day. I've been really tired/lazy/lethargic this past week, so I'm going to use today to rest up a bit so I'll be ready for another week of serving God's children.
We have a lot more people coming in this week, which should be very fun. Right now there are only 10 people around the table at dinner, which is very unusual as anyone who has been here before can attest to. Tomorrow, there is a team of 4 people coming in from Edmonton, a adoptive family coming from the Netherlands, and Laurie Bickel comes back. The family from the Netherlands is adopting a 4 year old girl and 6 year boy (ages are my best guess). I'm very excited for them! There are a few more families that could possibly be coming down before I leave, which would be very exciting! We also had a single adoptive mom from France come down to pick up her son. I love being able to see the new families being formed! The lady from France was so precious yesterday when she was telling us how nice it is to be important to someone now. She speaks really good english, which makes it a lot easier to communicate with her.
Thank you to those who have been praying for the new children we recieved here in the past few weeks. They are all doing very well. The twins are eating and growing very good. The little girl with the skin problems is starting to look better, even to my untrained eye. We also haven't had anyone very sick for a while, which is a great thing!
I don't know if it's just because I'm pretty tired today, but I can't think of anything else exciting that has been going on here. I think it will just end up being a shorter update this week! Please continue to keep all of the work being done here, both by the staff and volunteers, in your prayers, and keep the children in your prayers! Thanks!
Love from Haiti,
Kristin