Our final adventure

Thursday morning was pretty bittersweet for many of us. We were really excited for another day of VBS (even though it was our last) and all of the fun activities that we had planned, but many of us had mixed feelings about going home. We were going to miss all of the friends we had made and the children we quickly grew to love, but some of us were also looking forward to seeing our own friends and family again.
Our story on Thursday was the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. Because it was our last day, we wanted to make it more of a celebration. We started by singing a few songs, and then Linda led the story time, sharing this miracle in a skit form. We always love to hear all of the kids recite their Bible memory verse from the previous day for a piece of candy. Their eagerness and joy is contagious! For snacks, the kids received a cupcake to decorate with vanilla frosting and fish shaped sprinkles. It was a hit, and they looked fantastic! For the craft, the kids drew baskets on pieces of white paper, and filled them with their favorite foods with stickers, markers, and rubber ink stamps, to help them remember that Jesus takes care of them and loves them very, very much! The kids also had fun playing with mini marshmallows in the yard. They tried to play a game by catching them in their mouth when someone else threw them, but not everyone got the idea. They also tried to play chubby bunny, and that had much better results :)
Once these activities were done, we got set up to break pinatas! I felt like a rockstar when I walked across the yard holding one because everyone started cheering and shouting :) The kids have so much fun breaking them, and most of them got a chance to try to hit at it. The joy was so obvious to see on their faces! After everyone got their stash of candy set, the kids gathered again to sing to us. There is a song that they sing to many people who leave, singing in kreyol "Good bye, visitors, we pray to God for you." There were not many dry eyes left on the team after this! We lined up, and gave goodbye hugs to all of the kids, which was really quite sad, and then we headed down to the main house.
We had a few more minutes to spend in the nurseries, saying goodbye to the babies who stole our hearts and the fabulous ladies who take such great care of them. After one more final lunch so expertly prepared by the kitchen staff at GLA, we got into the trucks to head to the airport. We had to stop at the guesthouse to pick up all of our luggage, and then we were on our way.
The flight we were on was supposed to leave at 4:15. We got to the airport around 2:15, which gave us plenty of time to check in and get to the right spot. Once we got far enough into the airport, we were able to see a screen that said that our flight was now leaving at 5:50. Once we got up to the check-in counter, we saw that it was now 6:15. Miami had been have quite a few thunderstorms, and the planes were having a hard time getting out to come to Haiti, in order to leave again. Given the challenges that we faced on our way down, this did not make us very excited. We kept on going through our immigration lines and the second set of scanners and metal detectors and then headed upstairs, to have our bags go through another set of scanners (the Port-au-Prince airport makes me laugh sometimes). We found a nice spot of the floor, and went to buy a few drinks and sandwiches. While we were waiting, we heard some announcements for another flight for Miami that was actually cancelled for the day because the plane couldn't get here. That made us really nervous that they would cancel our flight as well, which would have been a huge pain. To everyone who was praying for our travels home- thank you so much! We were thankful that we were wheels off the ground by 7:15, only three hours late, but it meant we didn't need to try to find a way to get from the PAP airport to somewhere to stay overnight.
We landed in Miami around 10:00 pm, and went through immigrations and customs without a breeze. Linda met her husband there and left, and the rest of us went to find our hotel rooms. Thankfully we had reserved them in advance, because with all of the cancellations at Miami, they had no empty rooms that night.
The next morning we were ready to go at 7:15! We checked our bags in and made it through security with almost an hour to sit at our gate and wait to board our plane. This plane was only a half of an hour late leaving, because it had to wait for some people who were running from another connection. Given our traveling difficulties, I'm glad we were able to wait for them so they weren't stuck too!
Once we landed in Chicago, we found our bags, got our vehicles, and were soon on the road. We encounter some rain and thunder storms, and then we hit the traffic. and then more traffic. and then more traffic! It was nuts, and not too enjoyable, but we did make it home. A drive that should have taken around 3.5 hours was closer to 5, but we made it safe and sound with all of our luggage.
Thank you to all of you who have been following along with our adventure for your thoughts, prayers and concerns. We could see God working in many ways throughout our traveling time and time in Haiti, and we were honored to be a part of it- I hope you were too! Please continue to pray for the team as they are back home. Pray for their adjustment back to the American lifestyle- it can be really hard. Pray that God will continue to be glorified as we share our stories and pictures of all we experienced, and that God would direct our words and actions. And please, don't stop praying for the children and the staff at GLA.
Kristin on behalf of all of the team