Espere (Hope) for Haiti: Flag Day, Fun Day!

This morning we had the opportunity to join the kids at school as they prepared for Flag Day (which is tomorrow and is equivalent to the 4th of July in the U.S.) and also celebrated their teachers.

The morning began with the pledge and raising of the flag in the main quad of the school - check out the video below of the kids singing while the flag was raised.

After the opening festivities a few of us got to go back to the kids classrooms and help them make Haitian flags to use in the Flag Day parade scheduled for later in the day.

Second graders learn all about the history of Flag Day before making their flags.

After the flags were made, it was out the door and around the neighborhood for a parade!

Pam lines up with the kindergarteners for the parade.

As the parade began the teachers paired the kids up two by two and some of the kids grabbed members of our team to be their buddy for the parade. It must be said here that our pastor, David Beck, is loved by these kids. He has been to Haiti on a couple of trips previously and these kids remember and love him (check out this great blog post he wrote about these connections). As you will see in the video below, David was quite the popular parade buddy - and he's got some serious parade moves!

The parade itself was awesome. These kids ages 5 to 16 or so walked all around their neighborhood, singing the entire time. People came out of the their houses to watch and to cheer them on. It was really fun to be a part of it. After the parade it was all about the cake to thank the teachers for their hard work. It was such a blessing for us to be able to provide just this one small gesture to the school and the teachers.

Ivans, the school principal, with cake to feed 75!

Following our fun morning at school we headed back to the guest house for lunch and then got to work on the projects we started yesterday. But it couldn't be all work and no play, so we headed back over to the boys house late in the day to hang out some more with the kids - honestly we just can't get enough of them.

Rose brought some awesome dress-up clothes from home to play with - we could hardly get Davidson and Daphne out of them (her husband is probably thinking these outfits look familiar)!