down and dirty

Today was our first day at Jamaica Christian School for the Deaf. It was an early morning since we left Fairhaven by 7 am. We spent the morning working in a garden to remove "the smelly plants" which we soon discovered were huge marigolds. We did more gardening as well and may have pulled out some "weeds" that we later discovered were actually plants. We also hauled rocks to even out some land near the clotheslines. After lunch we waited to see if they had any more jobs for us to do. They didn't really have anything else for us to do, so we were just going to wait for our driver to come get us and then go get seeds to plant in the garden tomorrow. However, our driver did not show up and after much confusion, we finally got picked up after 5:00. So we ended up sitting around doing a bunch of nothing for about 5 hours. We did get to practice our (for the most part very poor) sign language skills with the kids after school was out though, which was fun. Then on our way home when we were very hungry, there was a huge traffic jam and it took forever to get back to Fairhaven. But we survived and got our macaroni and cheese for supper. Most of us got sunburned today as well as some of us getting rashes from the soil that we worked with. But life is still good here in Jamaica and we all have kids we want to take home with us. We were able to hear the stories of some of the children at JCSD and they broke our hearts. We're excited to go back and work in the classrooms, do devotions, and continue gardening tomorrow.