Rain, Rain Go Away (Wednesday)

Wake up 6:30 - Jamaican coffee! Depart for Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a special place for many of our group members because it is the home of many sponsor children and Dare to Care, the community where children living with HIV/AIDS reside. Jerusalem includes about 200 children and caregivers on a campus like facility, with housing, schools, a chapel and even a health clinic. Oh and also real actual free range livestock including sheep and goats.

A morning at Jerusalem always begins with a tour, morning prayer and many songs. We sang one our favorite songs "Tings Already Betta" in hopes to stop the rain. However, the Mustard Seed Leaders are never impressed with our singing and neither were the heavens since it rained and rained all morning long. Due to the rain, we found ourselves inside of the multi-purpose building (think small warehouse) full of miscellaneous items just waiting to be organized. We created TEAMS to better tackle the many obstacles: candle team, tile team, diaper team & the box stacking team. We managed to create some type of order before we got into the rough heavy lifting and moving of items after lunch. A few of us stayed at Dare to Care (Julie #2, Christina, Bridget & Kevin) to visit with our sponsor children and help with other things there.

We missed Father Benny at our afternoon prayer service, but we managed on our own (and "Father Michael") with lots of songs, readings and reflections. In hopes that the rain would stop (which it didn't) we had lunch and then continued our work in the warehouse.

After our hard work it was off to PARTY! (Of course at this point the rain stopped.) KFC, Cake and Ice Cream for Boom-Boom's Birthday (Bridget & Kevin's sponsor child). Looking around the room every single child was perfectly behaved while either gobbling up their food or singing a hit single from back home (renditions of Sean Kingston's "Beautiful Girls" and Jennifer Hudson's "Spotlight" were among them). Bridget and Kevin sat as the proud parents in the front of the room, while all of us held onto a child, the youngest one, Leo, fast asleep in Smidgen (Jordan's) arms.

Sad farewells and lots of hugs with the children followed before Auntie Clovel revealed the results of our previous year's project- rebuilding and renovating "Martha's House", a home which will house over 30 children. It was clear that our long back-wrenching days of tearing up cement, grading the land, tiling and painting had created a beautiful grassy yard for the children to play in and a cozy home for them to live.

We thought one good thing would come of the rain - SHOWERS - but alas we have no water at Sophie's Place again. Baby wipes it is...

~ Julie & Gretchen (2nd years)