An out-of-ordinary Beach Day

It will probably sound funny when I say that we only had 10 people along on our beach trip yesterday ... but in comparison to two weeks ago, when we took 21 ... it was a breeze! We took the older boys on the outting yesterday, along with a girlfriend for Lexi. Who would have thought that in taking boys 12 and older that we would have the privaledge of hearing awesome praise and worship music on our way? No, not the radio ... not a cd, but the boys sang their hearts out the whole way to the beach. It blessed me like crazy. And once we were there, they all had a great time.

After a while, several of the boys joined another group there in playing soccer, so Lexi, Mirloudes and I went for a nice long walk. It wasn't too hot (only about 95) and there was a nice breeze and we had a great time exploring. We found some really great treasures, too!

About 1/2 hour before our "normal" leaving time, it began to POUR down rain, without any notice. We grabbed all our belongings as quickly as possible and headed for shelter. There we stood, eating our PB sandwiches and watching the rain, when one of the boys asked if they could go out into the downpour. There was no thunder, no lightening ... so I smiled and said "Okay." The word was barely out of my mouth and all of the children went running into the rain ... what a riot!! Until it began to lightening ... then we packed our wet selves into the van.

But the van would not start. And it would not start. And it would not start. We joked about sleeping in the van, sleeping on the beach, and the van would not start. Nick finally pointed out that we were really low on gas and perhaps we were out. He took a container and got a ride to the gas station, while we walked back out onto the beach, as it had stopped raining. There was a guy out there smoking ... and one of the boys told him, "The Bible says that you should not do this" and did the smoking motion with his hand. It was quite funny. The guy had no idea what to say, and just sort of shrugged and laughed. Nick finally returned over 40 minutes later with gas. We piled back into the van as it began to rain again, and the van would not start. And the van would not start. And the van would not start.

After almost an hour, we finally get a man who knows a man who knows a man who can come pick us up and give us a ride back to the orphanage. He lives about 20 minutes out ... as he pulled up next to our van, Nick tried it once more and it STARTED with no problem. Hmmmm ... I had to pay the man $50 Haitian (about $6 US) for wasting his trip, but that was better than the $150 I was going to pay him for taking us home.

After all was said and done, our beach day ended very late and we came home with a bunch of tired kids ... we didn't eat supper until 9pm and I think we were all asleep before 10.

The fun never ends around this place, I tell ya!! It is certainly one adventure after another!