Last day at West Haven...

Mmmmm... Pancakes, bacon, fresh pineapple, mango, and papaya... not too bad of a breakfast to wake up to don't you think? Oh and did i mention what we saw when we looked out our window? (See glorious pictures to right) Sorry, I had rub in the fact that we are still in Jamaica in case you have forgotten... (This is Tyler by the way, but I'm some of you could already tell due to my over usage of ( )'s) :-)
But anyway, before said breakfast we had our team devotions led by Garrett, which was great of course due to his God-gifted speaking talent! And after the usual morning shenanigans we headed to our final day at West Haven disabled children's home. Our feelings were quite different on the drive today than yesterday, nervousness and uncertainty were replaced by excitement and liveliness. Grace and Sam even had a little dance session in our bus (preparation for later... you'll know what I'm talking about in a couple minutes) while the leaders and some of our team were in the grocery store this morning. Fun fact: I guess they can pick up US radio stations here, pretty crazy huh? Anyway it is way late (midnight) and I need to stop procrastinating and get back to the story of our day... So I'm going to try and describe our day with pictures, so I'll be referring to them on the right so be ready to play along! As we walked though the gate we were greeted by many kids, (Kevin and Jen on right above) but one that is always there is Michael. Now if you look to the right you can see him greeting Lindsey with one of the best hugs I'm sure most of us have ever had, it even comes with a little drool sometimes, but hey, who doesn't like drool? We delayed no time jumping in to play with the 80+ children today since we knew it was the last time we would get to see their smiling, laugh-contagious, young faces. The morning was beautiful and sunny (as you saw in the first picture) so everyone was playing outside. I played cricket and got the honor to pitch to a girl named Marleen (the twin of Marlon, the only non-mentally handicapped kid at West Haven) and let me tell you she had a heck of a swing! (her beautiful follow through to the right) On one of these glorious hits of hers (I'm laughing just writing about it) she really got a hold of it and pelted a line drive. The funny thing is that there was something at the receiving end of the hit. If you look to your right you can see Kristen holding one of the cute kids... doesn't Kristen look happy and pain-free? Well that is because she is. Then five minutes passed and she was crossing the field at the wrong time and got NAILED with a cricket ball right in the face! It was her left cheek to be exact. But don't worry Kip and fellow Kristen lovers, she is totally fine! She took it like a champ and just shook it off. It was probably the funniest thing I have seen all trip! And of course I gave Marleen a huge high five for great hit after making sure Kristen was ok... well I think it was in that order... ;-)
Anyway as the morning went on the clouds started rolling in like most days here in Jamaica, and what do you know, it started raining. Pretty much everyone headed for shelter except for my friend Kevin and me. I tried to convince him that we should head in and play with everyone else in the dry areas, but he wasn't about to budge from his prime spot on the jungle gym so he taught me how to avoid the rain by creating a sweet rain outfit. I was pretty excited about his creation as you can see on the right. But I guess these rain outfits only last a short while before you have to head inside, so that is what we did. We had multiple choices on what dry activities to do. We walked by a little covered area where most some of the girls, some older ladies, and the kids were singing worship songs, but Kevin wanted to pass on that so we moved on and found a card game to join in to. You can see us on the right playing this intense game of Go Fish and Sam dominating, although Marlon (in the red shirt) gave him a run for his money! Other activities that were going on during this rainy day were some reading with funny accents (look for Stef on the right) and some good old handholding and snuggling with Katie (and yup, you guessed it, on the right). There was also a "happening" dance party going on to some great worship songs turned kiddy-pop. This went on for quite some time too, I remember hearing the music playing almost the entire last two hours of our time there. On the right is a picture of Lindsey, Grace, and Sammy teaching the kids some off the hook moves... haha.
Now, joking aside, today and yesterday have been a whole lot of fun and a good change from the heaviness of Blossom Gardens. But after the rain let up I ventured into one the houses on the premise I hadn't been into yet and found a room full of beds, which all the houses had, but with this house there were still kids on these beds in the middle of the day. And with most of these kids it didn't matter what time of the day it was. It reminded me a lot of the four precious kids at Blossom Gardens Sam talked about a couple days ago. But one good thing is that these kids are getting taken care of better here at West Haven, but it still is absolutely heartbreaking to see. It was definitely a blessing to have been able to come here and have some goofy fun with the kids of West Haven for our entire team, but when I walked into that room I knew I had to stay and love on these kids in much need, like a few of my teammates were already doing. You can see Garrett with 19 year old Rackelle on the right, and no, 19 is not a typo. This just opened my eyes to the fact that these kids are not an extreme rarity. It was brutal to see the kids at Blossom Gardens, but for some reason I told myself that those four were the only suffering kids like that. Then I came into this room at West Haven and there were much more, and all these kids are only from two orphanages in the little country of Jamaica. It definitely was overwhelming for me and my teammates. I'm sorry I don't really know where I'm going with this, I just wanted to share some of my feelings of the day...
Most of our team, though, never walked into that room and were out shaking their groove thing at the dance party or just hanging out and sharing God's love with the kids. The general mood for today was definitely a happy one, it was just extremely hard for me to see those kids at the end of the day today.
After a nap-filled drive home we.... honestly I don't know what the others did since i continued my nap till dinner, haha. But I'm sure they had a lot of fun before dinner, maybe swimming or something. Then we had dinner and goof around for a while before team time and bed time. Some of this goofing around included a pretty crazy pillow fight after Sam caught Stef and Grace trying to steal his mattress. They did a great job defending themselves from him, but with his rock hard temprapedic pillow they decided to call a truce (see photo on right).
Tomorrow is our last day at an orphanage so please pray that we just have a great last burst of energy and love for the kids at Blossom Gardens. Also please pray for the team's continued good health and safety of course! We love all your guys and are excited for a fresh batch of comments tomorrow night! Lets break some records huh? I'm gonna say aim for 30, I know you guys have it in you! :-D

To all my homies: Molls - Congrats on the job!!! That is so cool! I hope the first day was a lot of fun too! Will you do me a favor? Keep your schedule clear for the 4th of June? :-) Thanks cutie! When I look to the sky... Miss you mucho! Mr. and Mrs. Lambert and Sheesh - Thank you guys so much for your support and prayers! They mean a ton! And I'm so incredibly excited to get to hang with the Lambert's once again real soon! :-) Dad - thanks so much for the continued love and support you give. I'm missing you but am really excited for our trip once I get back, yea baby! Love you! Bails - I love you sis, I'm excited to see you and hang out with you this summer! Mama - I'm really wishing I could be home for all this... We are still praying for you every day. I love you. And about Kristen... :-( Cate, Amy, and whoever else reads this in my family, I'm sorry guys. She was a beautiful soul and always graced us with her presence but I guess God wanted her company a little more... Send my love to the Hauges please...

...love love love...
Team Jamaica