Today I started seeing some of the youngest children for play therapy.  The mothers of nearly all of the children here in this orphanage have died.  It seems that in addition to the loss of their mothers many have experienced various other losses and significant trauma.  I feel it is privilege to be able to journey with these children and pray that my presence, love, and skills will enable me to somehow be a healing presence for each of them.  Since I am doing clinical social work, and am very conscious of confidentiality, I will not post any pictures of the children on this blog, but trust me, if you were to see their smiles, and even at times their tears you could not help but love them. 

Over the weekend I was included in the region meeting for the Sisters of Holy Cross in Haiti.  Walking into the building when I arrived at the site of the meetings, there was large picture of Fr. Moreau, the founder Holy Cross.  Certainly the connections and charism common to the Holy Cross family has helped me to feel at home here.  I was happy to meet so many sisters and felt very welcomed and included in their meetings and conversations at table and during breaks.    

I brought my pocket Haitian Creole-English Dictionary to the meeting over the weekend so I could look up any unknown words.  The dictionary proved useless however, not because of my vastly improved knowledge of Creole, but because the meetings were held in French.  Fortunately, for me, there were two American sisters there, who were willing and very able to translate what was being said directly into English for me during the meetings.  When we broke off into groups on Saturday to share, for my sake, an English speaking group was formed.  On Sunday when we shared briefly in small groups, the sisters near me where willing to share in Creole instead of French which I appreciated, and an American sister was in the group to clarify anything I did not understand well.   I was very grateful for their willingness to accommodate me.

Internet connections have been challenging.  After many attempts sometimes I can get on for a few minutes.  I have not been able to fully access my Facebook page at all.  If you are expecting an email response and have not received one this is the reason. 

There are several other topics I had wanted to write about including: hearing about the death of the former president/dictator Papa Doc during the meetings,  learning to remove beans from pods, the funeral of the father of one of the workers, the houses that are being knocked down that we pass on our way to church, the American airlines flights that started coming into Cap Haitian, and getting a phone, but it is getting late and may take a while to get on line and paste this into the blog, so maybe I will say more about some of those later or just leave the details to your imagination.   Bon Nwit!