It has been a very long time since having more then just a half hour to sit down at a computer and type. In the last two weeks, whenever I did have that chance I would have to invest that time in responding to imperative emails, making airline reservations...(Did I say AIRLINE reservations?!) and sending out updates to the director of the orphanages. I have had so much pent up inside of me, so much that I have wanted to share with you, finally I can begin.

This post will explain to you the fun details of our 6 year Anniversary celebration of the Trinity House we recently celebrated.

Last Friday, the staff members from all three homes, including Pastor John all arrived in order to help prepare for the 6 year anniversary party of Trinity House.

Pastor John, the founder of the mentor program at the Trinity House, is out wonderful liberal Lutheran Pastor from Phoenix, Arizona who returned to Haiti for a three week stay with the boys.

The Anniversary was a huge success with over 90 people involved. My day began at 3:30 in the morning when I and few boys awoke begin preparing the food for the upcoming party. Fried chicken, fried plantains, the traditional tomato chicken sauce poured over beans and rice, potato salad, garden salad with homemade dressing a very special treat for the boys, Reeses Peanut Butter cups for desert was the menu. Between 3:30 am and 12:30 PM, I was in the kitchen preparing food, having barely enough time to dish up all 97 plates of food for the the visitors and boys before many of them had to leave at 1:15 PM.

I made tbe biggest green salad I have ever seen! It was so large I had to put it in the bucket used to wash clothes in! I cannot wait until I can get my photos on the computer so you can see what that salad looked like. Big enough to be a garden!


Pastor John had bought a brand new extra large griddle, a large package of Costco sized Krusteaz pancake mix, 9 bottles of imitation butter flavored syrup as well as we made a special run to a special market, in order to buy real butter, (something that I have never seen here in Haiti before.)

I did take a very fun break to enjoy the pancakes with the boys. We had a very exhilarating morning as Pastor John borrowed a stereo to put in the kitchen in order to play some high energy American music while drinking his most favorite coffee while mixing up and making pancakes enough for all of the Trinity boys, and staff members from the three orphanages who had come early in preparation for the party.

If you could have only been a fly on the wall. These boys were thrilled. We were all dancing around to the music in the kitchen, pouring syrup, slabbing butter and gobbling up the pancakes as if there may never be another one to taste again.

The Celebration began at 9 AM with a morning Sunday praise and worship/prayer service that Pastor John led, with michele (the new intern/staff member) translating English to Creole'. Once finished we all walked out to the new soccer field that, thanks to Claude has been re-designed, filled with fresh new dirt, leveled and marked with boundaries to create an actual field. A lot of work went into this, with hiring, firing, re-hiring, firing and hiring another company to bulldoze, transport and dump gravel, grate the field etc. In the end, and just in the nick of time, (literally just a half hour before the blessing of the field, the last bulldozer left the field, even though they began working on it over two weeks ago...) it was completed.

Almost 100 of us encircled the field while Pastor John did a dedication of the field just prior to the first of two soccer games that the boys played. The first game was for the younger children, 14 and under. The game was between the boys of the St. Josephs home in Petionville, and the Trinity House boys from Jacmel. YEAH!! Our little boys from the Trinity House won this game, and received a lovely basketball trophy as a reminder, that now sits on top of the refridgerator in the kitchen at the Trinity house. (In Jacmel we could only find one trophy resembling soccer players...not a lot of selection around here! The Older boys received the soccer trophy while the younger ones were quite content with the basketball!)

The second game played by the older boys, was not so fortunate for our Trinity boys, the St. Josephs team won 2-1. They now proudly display their trophy on their kitchen fridge as well.

After the games was the mad dash to serve up all the food, and then cater to while visiting the many friends I have made in the community and invited to the party. WOW! In Haiti, if anyone is invited to a party, even if they don't know the details or exact reasons what it is all about, they show up! 17 of the 19 people I had invited showed up!

I spent the next couple of hours cleaning up in order to enable Pastor John, Claude and Michele to take the boys down to the beautiful nearby beach where they all swam for the next few hours. This was a nice break for me, to have a little quite time and to have some space.

Overall it was a huge success, enabling the boys of the Trinity House to be encouraged as they experienced the excitement we all have of their continued success and well-being.