Putting Together Elijah’s Crib

I don’t know if everyone knows or not, but I just arrived in Haiti yesterday for a very short last trip before all 4 of us (Jess, Sophie, Elijah, and I) can go down together.  Accompanying me on this trip is Danielle Keeler, a nursing student and part of Campus Outreach at Jacksonville University.  She will be here until July 27 hanging out with our kids, updating their Facebook pages and pictures, and then spending a couple of weeks at Haiti Health Ministries putting her nursing skills to use.  She has already jumped right in, on her first day, teaching the kids some english while the kids taught her how to play marbles.  She was with Gina this afternoon, and when the kids got to my house to help me put together the crib and watch a movie, they were already asking me where is Danielle.  All Things New is lucky to have her for a while, and stay tuned to the updates she will be making over the next couple of weeks.  

So, the point of today’s post is to tell you about our crib building day (really I guess crib “putting together” but that phrase did not sound right).  I have already put together 3 cribs (1 in Haiti and 2 in America) in the past year or so, and I figured I would knock this one out pretty quickly.  But, prior to coming down, Jess suggested that I ask some of the older boys to “help” me put it together this time.  That sounded like a terrible and time-consuming idea in some respects, but in the end it was the right thing.  I asked the kids last night (kind of hoping that none of them would take me up on it) if anyone wanted to help me put together Elijah’s crib.  I, of course, got the usual volunteers as Mimi, Vageley, Gladine, and Samara all raised their hands immediately.  I thanked them and then informed them that I was really looking for some of the older kids to help and Woodly, Herbison, and Kervinson all said they wanted to.  I was a little surprised at who raised their hand but I was also glad and curious to see if they would follow through on it the following day.

I went down to the kids house this morning to hang out a little and told them that after they ate lunch today they could come up and play Xbox and watch a movie.  The older boys (just like many Americans) love it when we get the Xbox out, so I was really curious to see if the 3 boys would give up Xbox time to put together a crib.  I got the Xbox going and the movie started and then unpacked the pieces of the crib.  I went back into the living room and, to my surprise, all 3 boys joined me in putting the crib together.  It took us about 2 hours, they questioned everything that I said (even though I was the only one who could read the instructions), and it was by far the best time I have ever had putting together a crib.  We talked about everything, laughed at all of the mistakes we (mostly Kervinson and Woodly) made, and made fun of Herbison because he was the self-proclaimed supervisor (a role he took very seriously as he did absolutely no work).  It was just a lot of fun, and way better than putting it together myself.  When we were done, I told them how thankful I was and that I did not have anything to offer them but a cup of water (which was true).  They said that I really do not have to offer anything, they just hope that Elijah will sleep well in the crib.  It’s funny that something as small as putting a crib together was such a good time to talk and hang out with the boys.