Haiti: 30 days

Yesterday was 100 days until Orlando and today is 30 days until Haiti!!

I'm joining a team from my church for a weeklong mission trip to Haiti at the beginning of June. We're going to join up with Healing Haiti on the trip. There are 14 of us altogether going.

While we're there, we'll be delivering water, rocking babies, visiting with elderly people, playing with children, and more. I believe we'll be spending more of our time in Port au Prince.

These are homes in Port au Prince.

Grace Village

We'll also be visiting an organization called Grace Village. It's a part of Healing Haiti. It has several different branches.

• Grace Feeding Center Feeding over 400 Children, Elderly and Adults weekly.
• Grace Children's Homes Home to 44 abandoned or orphaned children.
• Grace Medical & Dental Clinic Serving Grace Village and the Village of Titanyen.
• Grace School A Christian school for 380 children.
• Grace Church A community church for up to 1000 people to praise and worship our creator.
• Grace Aquaponics Initiative An integrated Aquaponic Tilapia Farm providing a constant source of protein and fresh vegetables for Grace Feeding Center

While I won't have internet or my phone during the day, in the evenings, the guesthouse we're staying at does have wifi, so I'll be able to post about what I did that day! I won't have pictures until I get home because the team leader will have the only camera. We'll bring them all home on a memory stick.

I'm excited/nervous about the trip. It will be my first major mission trip. I've gone to Tulsa and Arlington and done VBS's for kids, but this is a whole different ball game. I'm one of the youngest on the trip, along with a friend who's my age and two girls from up north that none of us know yet, but I'm still looking forward to it.

I've slowly been gathering up what I need to take with. I bought a protein powder to take to drink for lunch. We'll be provided breakfast and dinner, but our lunches will be out in the field so we have to take our own food. I bought some long skirts to wear to church on the Sunday and to The Hospital for Sick and Dying Babies that we'll visit on one day. I still need lots of basketball shorts. We have strict rules about dress.

We've been asked to bring donations for the trip, so we're all working on gathering items. The donations will go in the checked luggage.

• Toothpaste
• Toothbrushes 
• Maxi pads
• Wound Wash
• Gauze pads - 2x2, 3x3
• Medical Tape
• Bacitracin/Neosporin
• Acne Cream
• Acne Face Wash

If you can help with any of those items, you can take them to Colonial Church or you can give them directly to me and I can take them where they need to go. If you give money, we can buy the items.

Mission Arlington

Sup guys! I just got back from a weeklong mission trip in Arlington. It was fantastic! We had a ton of fun. To prove it, I will be enclosing some Vines.

About a month before leaving, I switched to Paleo, which proved to be a difficulty when surrounded by high schoolers who eat junk. To stay on track, I took a cooler filled with Paleo meals along with us.
To keep them frozen, the cooler had some dry ice in it. That created ample opprutinity for fun once we arrived at our host church. I dumped the ice down the sink and some kid decided to pour water on it and then grab it with his hands. Big mistake.

Dry Ice fun at mission Arlington. #Missiontrip #colonialchurch #choochoo https://t.co/yPf3FVvYqE
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 8, 2013

Never take a group of 20 to a WalMart. It was awful, though I was able to buy fruit. That was nice.

Walmart!! #missionarlington #colonialchurch https://t.co/kbuqmWe5aP
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 9, 2013

Big Mike in his onesie. That can never be unseen.

Time for a group meeting... https://t.co/imXDXvBPGz
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 9, 2013

We had been discussing the "Shrek" musical during breakfast prep and all morning, he sang about Fiona.

Good morning all! #BigMike #missionarlington #ThaddeusMaximus https://t.co/laEAr9I0Ie
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 9, 2013

This was the chapel at the mission. Every morning and afternoon we met for around a half hour in order to make sure everyone knew what the next part of the day held.

Group time! https://t.co/WGU1ORu8aF
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 10, 2013

The boys created a game where they had to twerk. One kid ended up racking up over 300 twerks to complete.

Team twerk #twerk https://t.co/5ZA7peUkPX
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 12, 2013

Most mornings, Big Mike sang to the group at breakfast.

Song time with big mike! https://t.co/n3SbDryHcA
— Jordan Campagna (@jordan_campagna) June 15, 2013

Doesn't that look fun? We did do mission trip things. In the mornings, we did service projects. One morning, we picked up trash at our apartment complexes. One we held a free garage sale. Another, we gave out loaves of bread. I don't have many pictures because I didn't really have chances to pull out my phone and take them. We were too busy. I'll post pictures at the bottom.

We started the day knocking on doors, telling the parents that we were meeting at the playground. Parents would give us their children and we took them back a few hours later. We sang songs, played some games, colored and got into small groups.

The under 6 group mostly colored.

We went to a Hillsong concert one night. We were literally three rows away from the tip top of the theatre, but it was still incredible. I felt like I was on the front row. They didn't sing Cornerstone, which is my current song obsession, but I didn't mind too awfully much.

Eric and his brother Joel. Joel didn't speak a lick of English and kept correcting me on the pronunciation of his name. It's kind of like "Zho-el." He was always smiling. He liked me because I knew what "bebe agua" meant. 

This is Stephanie. She was the sister of the boys above. 

Jenny, Gabriela, and Stephanie

Gabriela colored me a picture of Dora. She also taught me how to say "booger" in Spanish. It's "moco." They all laughed when I said it. 

I have a few videos that I really wanted to post, but my youtube app is being ridiculous. I upload them, and they aren't on youtube. I don't know what the deal is. Oh well.

My favorite part of the trip was day three. It was salvation bracelet day. I was sitting next to Joel, helping him with his bracelet and reading what each color means in Spanish. A 10 year old names Fransico was sitting near us too. He gave me an A- on my reading, btws.

We got to the white bead, which represented new life, or nuevo vida. He said "I want one of those." We talked for a few minutes about what he meant by that. He said he wanted the joy we sang about in the song.

And away I go!

Today, I'm leaving for a mission trip in Arlington, Texas. I am going as a leader (for the first time) with my church youth group to Mission Arlington. Mission Arlington (during the summer) hosts groups that lead a "Rainbow Express" for inner-city apartment kids. Rainbow Express is like a VBS. During the winter, they have a Christmas Store. It's all free and we help organize it and deliver things. I've been over winter, but never summer, so I'm doing something new!

In the morning, we'll work at the mission doing whatever Mrs. Tillie tells us to do. Sometimes it's cleaning, sometimes it's sorting donations, sometimes it's delivering bicycles. Anything.

In the afternoon, we do Rainbow Express. I've never experienced Rainbow Express, but I've heard amazing things.

While we're there, we are going to a Hillsong United concert one evening!

Take it All in Spanish!

We'll also go to Twisted Root burgers! I linked to the menu. Just look at it. I have never had ANYTHING that tastes better than kangaroo. Thanks Twisted Root for opening my eyes to the wonders of Australian hopping animals.

We'll go to Six Flags too, but that's just Six Flags. It'll be really hot. I'll get sunburned.

On a London note: I bought my carry-on bag.

I decided to use it for this trip, just to see how much I could fit in it. It almost became a game.

I used a strategy I saw on a different blog, only in place of the towel, was a suit. Towels take up a lot of room, right? Well, I flattened part of it on the bottom and started stacking my (rolled) clothes on top. At the end, I folded the towel over the top. Saved me so much room.

Inside the regulation size carry-on, I fit

• 15 shirts (half work shirts, half for evening outings)
• 8 Nike shorts
• 2 jean shorts
• 1 Bible
• 1 swimsuit
• 1 toiletry bag
• 1 waterbottle
• 1 pair Reebok Nanos
• 2 bottles sunscreen
• 5 pair socks
• 1 box bandaids

I also have a lime green fanny pack filled with a few things (chapstick, pens, chargers, Neosporin, etc.)

I was worried about not having enough space to pack for London. After fitting a weeks worth of stuff in a carry-on, I'm not as worried. 

So much to do, so little time

There are only 30 days left until I leave! That sounds like enough time to get things done, right? You'd think so.

Seven of those days, though, I'll be in Arlington on a mission trip where I get to attend a Hillsong United concert.

Five of those evenings I'll be at the Wichita Theatre helping out with Wizard of Oz.

One of those days I'll be at a Justin Bieber concert in Dallas.

Another one of those days I'll be assisting with a dance.

(I'm already down to 16 days left of actual planning time.)

Oooh, I think I'll figure this in hours.

720 hours until I leave. (This isn't 100% accurate because the plane doesn't leave at midnight and so forth and so on, but pretend it does.)

168 hours are on a mission trip.

I'll spend approximately four hours an evening at the theatre for five nights equaling 20 hours there.

I figure the concert will take around 8 hours with driving and eating dinner as well as the concert itself.

The dance itself is 4 hours and I expect to spend at least 2 hours helping with decorating.

Oh, and you can't forget Crossfit every morning. That is around 45 minutes each day, six days a week. I have 21 more left until I leave, totaling 63 hours.

I also spend 3 hours at church on Sundays and 2 on Wednesdays. I have 3 Sundays left and 2 Wednesdays left. I will spend 13 hours at church.

You can't forget sleeping! I usually get between 8 and 9 hours of sleep, but for this, we'll go with 8. I am leaving out the mission trip since those hours are counted there. I have 23 days to sleep. That's around 184 hours in sleeping.

Now, subtract all of those numbers and you end up with 256 hours of unfilled time until I go to London.

All together, that's almost 11 days of completely open time. Not too far off from my original 16 days of time!

In those 256 hours of unfilled time, I have to:

• Pack for the mission trip
• Unpack from the mission trip
• Work at my dad's office
• Take showers
• Bake cookies for the dance
• Paint things at the theatre
• Potentially have a going away party
• Reddit/Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook
• Make fancy lists for Paris and Manchester and Cardiff
• Pack for London
• Drive to the airport

Can I do it?

YES I CAN.