Rice Feeding

Today was the day we did the rice feeding. It started out with us finding out the rice was delivered about 90 minutes early. So just as we were trying to grab some lunch we had to jump in the Tap Tap. We got there and unloaded the rice into one of the classroms at the school. After it was loaded we had about 2 hours before the people would arrive for the rice. A huge downpour of rain started and lasted about 20 minutes. After that it slowed down to a light mist that was so refreshing. Several of our groups went outside and started playing Ninja. Soon that got a few kids playing and before we knew it, all the kids came out of the classroms and we had about 60 kids playing Ninja. After that, we sang Jesus Loves You in Haitian. It was an awesome experience seeing probably 100 kids in a circle singing. We sang a couple more songs and then did some movement games of Chicken Dance, the Macarena, head-shoulders-knees, and thumbs out. It was a great experience to see the kids having such a good time.

After we got through playing with the kids we went into the church and all the people were there waiting for the rice. The pastor talked a little bit and then prayed over them. We went to the classroom where the rice was to start being handing out. The pastor was giving out tickets that let them get a 55 pound bag of rice. That should be enough rice to feed a family of 6 for 6-8 weeks. As they came up to get their rice someone would pray over them and offer prayers for their family. It was so exciting to see a big bag of rice on the ladies heads and, as they turned around, seeing the smile on their face as they had this rice in their possession.

While it was exciting to see the kids and giving away the rice it was also very sad to know we did not gave enough rice to give to every family. Each of 10 different churches could give tickets to 10 people for a total of 100 bags. So we had peope outside the gate that were going to get in and get some food. There were also extra people in the church that did not get a ticket. I believe these were members of the church who were begging the pastor for rice. They were able to get to where we had the rice and we had to turn them away. We did have some extra bags of rice but we would probably have had a riot if we tried to give those away to a big crowd and not be able to have enough for everyone. So it was just sad to not be able to give everyone some rice. So it was quite the roller coaster of emotion

-Doug