Thankful

As the sun rays dance across me face, I look around in wonder. Tall trees, green grass, a playground, where am I? I look in the distance towards the mountains and for a minute I miss home. Although there are mountains in Haiti, I can't see them over our wall and mountains all around is what the Fraser Valley is famous for. It's a peaceful afternoon and I lower myself onto a swing as I watch Jayden run around. He races full speed, trips on a rock and crash lands. With a muttered "Oww" he pulls himself up, checks his hands and then deciding it's not so bad he starts to run once again. "Slow down Jayden", I yell after him, but he pays no attention. Instead, he makes a dash for the teeter totter. I watch him as he climbs up on it, stands up, jumps off, turns around, sits on it backwards, sits on it forwards, jumps off again and then pushes it up and down, up and down.

As I continue to watch him my thoughts wander to other parks I've taken Jayden too. One of the ones we really enjoyed was Towns End Park in Chilliwack and for a moment I imagine we're there. As I look around a little more I laugh. Jayden dashes off to take a closer look at the cows attached to strong ropes at the edge of the playground.

Cows in a park? Okay, probably not Towns End Park. 28 degrees at the end of November? Probably not Chilliwack either!

After Jayden has tried every single piece of playground equipment in multiple different ways in a matter of minutes, we hear the whistle blow in the distance. "Youth Group is starting Jayden, come on let's go," I say firmly. He struggles for a minute as I grab his hand, not wanting to leave. "We'll go back and play later, okay?" I say to him, and he now still somewhat reluctantly follows me. Reaching the church entrance we see about 85 teenagers, mostly Haitian and some American all lining up and getting organized for games. Jason and I help out every Saturday afternoon with the youth group and today is no exception. The only difference is, is that one of us usually plays with Jayden on the playground while the other takes on the role of youth leader. Since Jason had to fly today I kind of divide my time between supervising the youth and playing with Jayden. As I help Jayden up so he can get a better view I hear shouts of laugher from the teens. They always seem to enjoy the games the youth leaders come up with and it's fun to watch.

Jayden thinks the game is quite interesting too and watches intently from his perch.

Once the games are done, all the youth go into the chapel for Biblical teaching. Jayden soon gets restless, so I take him outside again, this time to the toddlers play area. The slide is his absolute favourite and he tries all kinds of different sliding methods!

Getting tired of standing I soon find a tree stump to sit on.

As I swat at mosquitoes buzzing around my legs I reflect on our past months here. God is good. He's kept us healthy, happy and safe, and even provided a park for Jayden to play in. I feel blessed.