Day 5 – Last Full Day for Team Texas

(Now Thursday evening. Extreme busyness and lack of internet since Tuesday morning has delayed the posting of this blog. Sorry folks.)

Day 5

It’s our last full day here. (We think – hope – Karen has remembered to book our transportation to the airport).

Brian started his day extra early this morning, up and rolling on the kitchen cabinets for Jocelyn’s place at 6:30am. Brian is a master craftsman, so he demanded 12 plus hours of work time to complete his project even with his injured big toe. He also was given a top notch assistant for the day – a former pilot for Air Canada named Keith. In fact, things got so desperate Brian even let David cut some wood. They all did good work. (More accurately, they’re doing good work. It’s 7:17 pm as I type this and they’re finishing up the installation right now).

The rest of us finished up painting the outside of Jocelyn’s house and devotional room. The girls also made a drive to another town to pick up some chicken. While Karen was gone, David and I decided to do something that she told us not to do. We felt that Jocelyn deserved to feel welcome here, so we painted a Nova Scotia flag over her doorway. For some reason, Karen didn’t like that idea when we presented to her. Must be a Newfoundland thing. Anyway, it’s my 8th year here so I figure that I’ve earned the chance to disobey her at least once. And David is a legend at HATS, so we took a chance. The flag looks great. Jocelyn was thrilled. Karen will get over it.

We continued our annual tradition of handing out shirts to all the kids. This year’s commemorate our annual Texas-Haiti Foutbol Match. After pictures, we were able to break up and spend some time praying for each other. It’s a bittersweet time every year, knowing we’ll have to say our goodbyes soon.

David and I also got to have some special godfather/godson time with Jonathan and Jofky. The rest of our time has been spent playing hockey, soccer, basketball, swinging, and above all, laughing and enjoying time with the incredible kids of HATS.

Because, as Karen says, ‘it’s all about the children.’ (But sometimes, it’s also about Nova Scotian flags).

~Brooks

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Editor Karen’s Note:

Our Texas team is one awesome group of people – a huge and important part of our HATS-Haiti family.

All who read their blogs, especially if the blog is written by the famous Brooks should, however, take what is said with a grain of salt. He does have a good sense of humour. (Karen is actually awaiting his return to paint a Newfoundland flag and a Haitian flag over the place where she and Luc live.) Somewhere on this compound there should also be painted a Texas flag and a Canada flag. Yeah!!!!

On a serious note all of us at HATS are really missing these fun loving wonderful people as they left us very early yesterday morning. This includes our comical Brooks. We understand from a note received today from their fearsome leader, David, they had some airline travel problems due to weather, on their return home. This meant they were on the go from approximately 3:00 am in Haiti Tuesday until 3:00 am today, Wednesday, when they finally arrived home. Work and school was on their agenda today after all that. Yikes.

Our hearts are filled with love and thankfulness to the group for all the hard work, play times, sharing, and prayer. Having family members return is always a delight no matter where one lives. Welcoming and getting to know new ones, watching them also become part of our family, makes our joy complete. We are already looking forward to their return visit next year.

Thank you so very much for EVERYTHING David and team. Thank you to all family members who lovingly loaned you all to us for this time. We love you all. God makes families and he sure knew what he was doing when he made the Texas group a part of the HATS-Haiti family.

Blessings everyone.

~Karen