By: Olivia Bunz
Summer for us in Fond Blanc is a very exciting time of the year. Not only does it represent a break from our studies, but it also represents the return of many of our friends that we have made over these last few years, through Next Step Ministries’ summer mission trips. This summer was no different! We had a fabulous ending to the school year, with almost all of our children passing their tests and moving into the next grade level. With that, we had much to celebrate with all of our incoming friends! This year was a great combination of both returning groups, as well as a handful of new teams.
The children’s schedule changes drastically with teams around, but they are all fun, high energy changes that the kids adore. We still have morning prayer before the teams get up, and many of us are well into our chores when the teams get up and get to work. But that doesn’t stop us from jumping in and lending a hand wherever we can in NextStep projects. Whenever teams aren’t working, our kids spend majority of their time under the mango tree out front, developing and furthering relationships with the students. Come dinner time, we know we have a few hours of free time, so typically we try to drag our friends into a friendly game of soccer, Haitians vs Americans. To date, the Americans have only won once. At the end of the day, when the NSM students have worship, we still end our night in evening prayers, out on the veranda, under the stars. And at the end of the week, we are always sad to see our friends go, but we know, come Sunday, a new group of friends will arrive.
Overall, our summer was fun. It was amazing for us to be able to see old friends, and we made so many new ones that we will never forget. The kids were sad to see the NextStep staff go, but were in need of a few weeks’ rest before the school year starts back up.
We need to give a huge thanks to all of our Haitian partners, all of whom were essential parts of this summer, and without whom this summer would not have run quite as smoothly!
