Beach Day

Our last day at the beach was my favorite beach time!  We went with our normal arsenal of equipment  -  soccer balls, footballs, and Frisbees. Also, in our van was some leftover VBS supplies that we planned to donate to the church. Upon getting to the beach though we decided to break out some of the leftover books from VBS and let the kids draw and color. It was incredible to see the kids stop playing with the athletic equipment and come over to sit in the sand with us and draw.  A grown man who was riding his motorcycle stopped and drew with us for at least 30 minutes.  When he completed his drawing, he showed it around to all of us and we could see how proud he was to have created something of his own. 

My favorite part of this beach day was when one of the meanest boys  from our time in Haiti joined us to color.  This boy had injured different people throughout the week and he appeared to have some severe anger issues: he had chucked a football at Brandi’s head, tried to break my finger, and he had even been involved in a fight at VBS the day before.  I tried to reach out to this boy and try to find something good amongst the bad. Maille-Maille, our translator, asked him what his name was.  We discovered his name was Stevenson and I showed him how to write it down.  He had never written his name down before and therefore he didn’t know how to spell it.  (I hope I showed  him the correct spelling!). After realizing that names could be written down, he asked me how to write down everyone else’s name on the beach.  It was amazing to see his calm demeanor!  We spent some time playing tic tac toe in the sand together and he was proud each time he won. 

At the end of this beach day we decided to let this boy be one of the select few to receive a Frisbee. Later, we talked in the van about  how we loved to see him learning and not being so competitive.  We’ll never know if he has been to school. We’ll never know if he has parents. We’ll never know what makes him so angry.  However, we do know that he has a loving side and we know his name is Stevenson.  

~Molly