Comments from Whitney

This week has been completely different than anything I had ever expected. I was only able to leave the SCORE complex one day, but even that one day made a huge impact on my life. Our first day arriving and on site we visited a sugar cane village. As soon as we were pulling into the village the bus driver started blowing his horn to tell the people that we were here! As soon as the horn started to blow, children from every house came out screaming and dancing. Never in my life had I seen anyone so excited to see people of a different ethnicity. Later on during the day as we were loving on and working with those children, we found out that they had not had running water in weeks and have been living off of sugar cane as well. It hit me hard. I never really understood how bad poverty really was, and the sad thing was, that was nothing compaired to how bad it is in other places. While children were playing baseball and playing swords with their balloons, this one little boy about two years old came to me and reached his arms up. I lifted him and as soon as he was in my arms he laid his head down and fell asleep. He was exauhsted, hungry, and in need of someone to love him. To think that that poor child had not had any food or water in weeks and wanted nothing but to be held in someone’s arms simply amazed me. I left that villiage heart broken. God has a plan and I have to remember that. I know that I am in his will. Yes we have come across many many challenges, yet all of them together do not compare to half of the trials those people have to go through. I will come back to America a changed person because of the encouters I have had.