Happy Birthday Isabel!

The Elliott Family in Haiti

Today Isabel turned eight! I can hardly believe it! She had quite the birthday celebration. As soon as she realized we would be in Haiti for her birthday she immediately declared her desire to hike a mountain on her birthday. While it wasn't exactly on her birthday, she did hike a mountain on Saturday. Goat Mountain is what it is called. Because.... it has a lot of goats of course :)

Goats on Goat Mountain

But Isabel thinks they should call it Thorn Mountain because there are more thorns than goats.

One of the many thorns on the mountain.

Hiking on the mountain

Isabel loves riding in the back of the pickup.

Pastor Pierre drove us up to a mountain that we were able to hike up. On the way up we stopped to see the house of one of the workers here at NVM. He is truly the poorest of the poor. He lives with his family in a lean-to built of sticks and grass.

Sitota watches bathtime

There were old, holey tarps and suitcases as a roof. To walk to work was about a 5 mile hike down the mountain, as is the closest water source. Hard to imagine life in those conditions.

While we were there the lady pictured below cut her finger with her machete so nurse Aubree whipped out her first aid skills and saved the day!

The sky was beautiful. A bright blue you only see in the carribbean. And only a few wispy white couds. Gorgeous! At the top of the mountain, Isabel opened up a few birthday presents we had packed then we hiked back down the mountain.

After lunch we had a little celebration with cake and singing.

Then today, on her actual birthday, she had about 90 people sing to her during dinner. And for lunch she got to eat a hamburger and fries! Pastor's wife, Dianne, knew she loved hamburgers and fries so she stopped and bought some for lunch!