West Haven: Day 1

Hello friends and family, this is Jen!! I’m writing to you as most of the team is sound asleep taking naps, because it is raining once again. It has pretty much been rainy throughout our time here. The last two days have been hot and rain-free, so the rain today is actually not so bad…(however that tan that I bragged about before leaving may take a little work once back in the states. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy rubbing that in haha!)…back to naps though! We have discovered that a few of our team members have quite peculiar sleeping habits. Garrett (who is really good looking)for example, sleeps like he is in a coffin…arms crossed and partially sitting up…kinda creepy hehe. Tyler on the other hand twitches all the time. We think he may be practicing guitar in his sleep. Lucky Samuel, gets the pleasure of sleeping between these two. Stefene pretty much sleeps with her eyes open and Samantha sprawls out like she’s still in her King size bed from home. The rest of us are perfect little sleeping beauties…haha we wish! Anyways…let me get to our day today.

Our day started a little later than usual, and we began with a devotional led by Kristin. (You may have already noticed, but we do devotionals every morning, which are led by anyone who would like to volunteer.) As you know, today was our first day at West Haven Children’s Home. We were all a little nervous and apprehensive, as we were unsure of what to expect and how we were going to interact with these kids. Our leaders, Lindsey and Kristen, spent one day at West Haven on their trip last year, and knew that this would be a challenge for our team. Their words of wisdom were to just have fun during the day, and be prepared to share many laughs as a team. Throughout our time at the past two orphanages, we have come across a few disabled children, but West Haven is solely devoted to taking care of children with special needs. We arrived this morning, after a beautiful drive through the hills on yet another narrow and windy road. Every day I am amazed by the physical beauty of Jamaica. On our drives, there is an abundance of green in every direction, only broken up by clusters of colorful homes throughout the countryside. We even passed a beautiful river today with bamboo rafts that can be taken down the river for miles. Our wonderful bus driver Chris points out all these things which we would never notice without him, and we are so lucky to have him. The rest of Jamaica seems to love him as well, since he pretty much honks at every 10th person we see. They are all his schoolmates, neighbors, racing buddies, etc. Sami likes to guess who it is every time, along with mimicking Chris’ Jamaican accent. It sounds more like Russian and Spanish than anything else. Okay I’m off on a tangent again, so back to our day.

We arrived at West Haven, had a little tour, and were introduced to some of the children who approached us right away. Immediately they were holding our hands, hugging us, and even giving us some kisses. We soon found out that there are currently 86 “children” at West Haven, who range from 4 to 31 and have a variety of both physical and mental disabilities. There is only one boy at the facility without a mental handicap. He loved hanging out with our boys, especially Sam. They played Frisbee, football, and even scaled some monstrous trees for Ethiopian apples, with a bunch of the other young boys. There were four different cottages on the property which housed the different age groups and genders. We each made our way around getting to know the different kids…actually “made our way around” isn’t really an accurate description. It was more like the kids grabbed our hands and led us around the property. They were all so friendly and loving, and we definitely had a wonderful time hanging out with them today. There were a few scary and unsure moments, but our team is always there for each other. We had wheelchair races, sang worship songs, danced, and helped to feed the kids lunch. A women’s league from the community also came to sing for them and bring treats, so we helped out there and lent our beautiful singing voices he he. Overall, we had both a fun and challenging time at West Haven. As usual, it was different then I expected, but I think we were all glad to be stretched and pushed outside our comfort zone.

After our day at West Haven, we headed back to Fair Haven for naps, dinner, and some swimming. As you all know today is Labor Day so the beach in front of our house is full of the locals enjoying their free time, and the music from the hotel/club next door is extra loud. None of us are expecting to get much sleep tonight, but hopefully well rest up somehow for another day tomorrow at West Haven.

Also...today was the official half way point through our trip. We got to read the Barnabas letters from those of you who sent them. Thanks so much, it felt like you were here with us!

Now for my personal hellos!!! Mom, Dad, and Ally I love you all so much and am glad to hear that things are going well on the home front. Too bad I missed out on that Marine night! I know you would all love the kids here, I hope you get the chance to do something like this. Thanks for all the love and prayers, keep them coming! Ally, unfortunately I think that cooking gene just isn’t in our family! GG…you are so funny, we all love reading the comments that you leave. I’m a little confused about that whole “bobcat/moth” situation, but you can explain when I get home…and GG, I don’t think you get to call yourself my pool buddy until you actually go to the pool with me haha! Uncle Larry and Aunt Sue I love hearing from you guys as well. I hope everything is good, tell Maxie I say hi. Love you and miss you both! Pigs-in-a-blanket when I get back? Oh Rachel…you make me laugh…not that that’s anything new. I love you and miss you. You are gonna LOVE me when you see the present I got for you, I know you’ll love it! BP, I think you’re in China right now, so I hope that it's going well. I’m sure you are doing amazing things. Thanks for the comments before! Joe…thanks for the blog comments! I really appreciate you volunteering me for Garrett’s massage request haha! Hope your summer is going well and the cabin is looking fabulous. I’m sure my mom has the vacation planned already. Love to all of you!