week 5

Hey Everybody,
Having bible studies is the purpose of this trip, so I'll just tell you about a couple lovely people I have been able to speak with lately.
Last thursday morning, Valerie, the sister we're living with, and I started off the day with some door to door and continued making return visits. We were in Mamat's area, so we stopped at her house. I called out, "Bonjour", and this girl literally screamed, "Ashley!", ran and jumped of her raised porch, and greeted us both with a kiss on the cheek. I was not expecting that reaction. She'd been waiting for us to come back and even had a small present waiting for me; nothing out of the ordinary, but the fact that she was thinking about our visit enough to save something till the next time really touched my heart. Not everybody does that. We continued our study that day, and we're gonna continue tomorrow. She had a crazy question though- where did Cain get his wife. Random right? I'll give y'all an update;-)
Valerie and I continued on to visit Anada. She is very quiet and doesn't say much; you can tell she has a lot of deep thoughts though. As we were going through the lesson Valerie asked her how she felt about the fact that Jehovah cares about her personally. She started trying to say something about her life but couldn't continue. She tried to finish, but she couldn't speak through her tears. We didn't push her talk anymore. We just continued with the lesson. Afterward, we assured her that we are always in Anse-Pitre and are always there if she needs someone to talk to. Unfortunately, she moved back to Porte-au-Prince the next day for school. We encouraged her to stay close to the Witnesses there because she wouldn't have just a church- she has a family there; she promised she would. After we left, I asked Valerie why she cried. Apparently, she came from Port-au-Prince to begin with and had seen many horrible things because the earthquake. Also, her grandmother recently died from aftermath complications. I realized later that she had much help from the Witnesses in that area, so she'd seen firsthand how much the brothers and sisters love each other and their neighbors and that we really are a family. I'm never gonna forget Anada and the impact the truth is having on her life. In fact, she has given me a renewed appreciation of what it really means to be a Jehovah's Witness and a renewed appreciation for the beauty of the truth. Jenni and I are hoping to see her again when we visit Port-au-Prince. We'll keep you updated on that too.
That's all folks;-)
Ashley
PS- We didn't have Internet access all day. I got home and decided to do the dishes but was so excited to find the internet was working that I forgot to turn the kitchen faucet off ( I had an e-mail from Bruce:-)) Don't laugh Rox- I hope Valerie doesn't read this.