Plans

As the saying goes:  We plan.  God laughs.  Today was like that.
Our morning session went great.  Some of the students were very progressed on their knitting and had made color switches and almost completed a bag.  They were  very interested in learning how to add embellishments or crochet an edging to finish them off.  It was a small group with older women/teens.
Things became more interesting in the afternoon.  Some of the girls had done more work on their own but many of them had not or had some wonky-looking bags!  Soon there became more "stragglers"who had not been there previously including a pair of cute 11 year old boys (same age as my Alex).  We struggled to help the serious knitters while still trying to include the latecomers.  We started a braiding headband/bracelet station and I've never threaded so many needles or sewed through so many layers in my life!  The flower-making/embellishment station was going full bore as well with a thick cluster of kids around it!  Hard to keep any organization in the chaos.  It was taxing to our patience but we went with it.  At one point there were 27 of them with only 5 of us plus our translator.  Amazingly, they all quieted down for our bible lesson where we talked about how we are like fragile jars of clay to let God's light shine through....except our translator couldn't really understand how to translate fragile, or clay jars or the whole concept!  So I went with the sample knitted bag with the holes in it and how it was too weak to hold 100 mangoes.  But with God's help in our lives, He will give us the strength to face our difficulties, of which there are many in this country.  A little thinking on the fly and a lot of God's help to get through that lesson!
So many things that happened today were definitely not on our radar as we were carefully planning for this project...but we kept praying for God to bring who He wanted and for us to be open to trusting Him with our plans.
A wonderful blessing to us has been our translator, Herphlyne (pronounced Eff-Leen').  She is 20 and the daughter of Rosita, the cook here at the guest house.  I think she is one of the only Haitians I have ever met here that actually knows how to knit which is a miracle in itself!  So she has been a huge help to us with her knowledge of knitting plus she can really relate to the young women here.  This morning they all immediately went to sit right next to her.  She is a natural teacher although would never think that was so.  She is amazing and it has been so cool to hear more of her story.  She hopes to attend the university this fall and I believe God has some powerful things in store for her, given her giftings.  After we returned to the guest house she showed us how to make beautiful flowers out of organdy ribbon.  The creativity of the Haitian people with the little they have continues to astound us!
We ran out of TShirts and most of the yarn but want to have enough for people to finish so we sent Claudy, Ashlee's (the director of the guest house) husband to the market to buy more used shirts for us. He didn't really know the going rate and we think he got a little ripped off even though he told them he was buying them for prisoners!  So our hands are all pretty tired from all the cutting and our remaining scissors are pretty dull!
We have been having a lot of fun and enjoying each others company .  We are sure we are the most fun group they have ever had:)  We are the first all-woman group.  God has blessed us with  wonderful friendships!
We look forward to what  tomorrow has to bring and hope to be "knittable"for God according to His plans.