Haiti Day One: Pastor Moise

One stop we made in Port au Prince was at the church of Pastor Moise Vaval. You may have seen this 60 Minutes video about him. He is a remarkable man doing remarkable things for the lost children of Haiti. They have set up a temporary outdoor chapel while they make plans to rebuild the church building that was destroyed by the quake. Josey, the Children's Minister that works for Global Orphan Project, led the kids in games and music and it was beautiful to see the joy these children have.

Joseph Volcy is a young Haitian man who grew up at Mission of Hope, one of Global Orphan's projects. He speaks both Creole and English and is affectionately called, "party in a box." His love for the children just shines and they love him completely and light up every time they see him.

A couple members of our team went and sat on some of the empty benches and their laps were immediately full of children. They seem so hungry for affection. I know they are well cared for in the places we visited but there are so many children and so few workers, the luxury of just being held probably doesn't happen for them very often.

So I joined the others and sat on the end of one of the benches. This young man was at the other end of the bench. I caught him looking at me out of the corner of my eye, then looking around to see if anyone would notice, he scooted over to me an inch or two at a time. I draped my arm around the back of the bench and that was the only invitation he needed to move right over next to me so I could put my arm around him. He was very sweet just sitting there allowing me to hold him.

This sweet face, likewise, took her turn sitting next to me, giving and receiving lots of hugs and affection. But she was a little more spunky and asked for me to take photo after photo so she and her little friend could see their faces on the screen of my camera.

After an hour or so, we had to say our goodbyes so we could go to the hotel for dinner and a pow-wow. The kids hung on us, not wanting us to leave and we hung onto them not wanting to leave. But there were more children to be seen on this trip and we knew they were in good hands.