CAD

CAD (Center of Action for Development) is a place with 90+ children that are rescue victims from a variety of situations.  It functions as a foster-care like facility where new children are always arriving and some are being sent to live with relatives when someone can be found.

We spend quite a bit of time there during the week having Church, Kidz Club, Bible Class and English Class.  They are also provided with rice, beans, and granola bars every month for the kids.

The past few weeks have been really interesting.  Often times when we arrive the kids are running and playing before we start an activity, but recently this has not been the case.  When we arrive they are sitting in silence, barely greet us, and you can see that some of them have been crying.  It is disturbing to say the least.  There are plenty of make workers, but only a few females...sometimes only one.

This Sunday we did a few activities with the kids and Pastor Dave spoke.  Towards the end Pastor Dave and Chris took the time to pray for all the workers individually with Frank (translator).  During this time, I was sitting between two of the girls and they started poking one of the male workers in the butt.  In creole I told them not to touch him and they got mad at me.

Women are not thought of as much (at least in this area), so you can imagine how girls are treated.  After they were trying to poke this male worker, the three of us were just sitting together and he pulled out his video camera.  People here don't own those...ever.  It is the first one I've ever seen on a Haitian.  It was bizarre.

A very educated translator who used to work for Victory Compassion was talking to a volunteer once and the volunteer was trying to convince him that the world was round and not flat.  The translator insisted it was flat.

There aren't books in the schools either.  Can you imagine hearing stories about monkeys, but never actually seeing what it even looks like? Even in a book?

I know I got off topic for a minute, but bare with me.  After seeing this interaction between the male worker and these two girls, I realized the dire need that exists for small groups.  These kids don't have mothers or fathers and even though it isn't our orphanage, the knowledge we have of the situation needs to move us to action.  We need to help them share their emotions so they can grow into the nation shakers we know they can be.