Best part, hands down, were the kids. They were just so amazing. A lot of these children have experience pain and abuse that we can't even imagine, and yet their strength and love for God and those around them was truly awesome to witness.
There were I think 64 children at the home while we were there. They have the children broken up by gender and age and they're in three separate houses: older girls, older boys, and toddlers. I spent the vast majority of my time with the toddlers. They were a handful!
After our physical labor, we would spend the afternoon playing with the kids and trying to wear them out. I say trying because they wore us out more than we wore them out! One of their favorite games was jungle gym. And guess what? They don't have jungle gyms--you're the jungle gym! And those kids can climb...
Unfortunately, it rained almost the whole time that we were there, so we had to play a lot of indoor activities with them.
And let me tell you...organized activities with about 30 or 40 children under the age of 6 doesn't always work out. We were able to have their attention for about half of our play time, doing crafts or playing I Spy, but
soon their focus deteriorated and it was back to jungle gym.
God did bless us, however, with two clear afternoons. The first was Friday. I had been working on a small treasure hun
t for the older toddlers most of the week, and I was so happy that we didn't get rained out! They had a lot of fun finding the clues and figuring out w
here they led to. At the end, their treasure was a bag of
"sweeties," a ton of American candy. It went so well, I was really very happy that we got to do it. The kids loved it so much!
The other clear day was Saturday, when we planned to do our carnival. Every time Chi Alpha comes to
the City of Refuge, we do a carnival for the kids. Most of them never get to experience anything like that, so it's really fun to bring the carnival to them. We had games like bobbing for apples (the most popular), ring toss, hit the can, lucky ducky, etc. We also had them trade in tickets that they got from lucky ducky for carnival food, which was fruit punch, Twizzlers, and popcorn. A couple of our girls dressed up as clowns, and they looked amazing! The day was a lot of fun.
These kids are amazing. They are so open and willing to be used by God, that I really learned a lot from them. Watching them worship God was inspiring, and their prayers would break your heart. I remember one boy praying for the criminals in Jamaica, the murderers, the thieves,
the rapists. His love for those people and his desire for them to know God made me cry, and it is even bringing tears to my eyes right now. I truly learned so much from their faith, love and strength.
We did spend one day in inner city Kingston in an area called Trenchtown. It's supposed to be the most dangerous area in Kingston, but they've had a time of peace these past few months. We walked through the city with a young man who grew up in the area, was a part of a gang, was saved, and is now going to college and working with the church group in the area. He told us a lot 
about the people and what sort of conditions they live in. We walked from the church center towards an old theater that Chi Alpha has visited every year since Missi and Tom, the Chi Alpha directors, first went on this trip. It was an abandoned building on their first trip, but their team prayed over the property and today it is a youth building where young men and women learn trade practices that can get them off the streets with a decent job. We prayed for people as we walked, took a tour of the building, and walked back to the church center. It really exposed us to the conditions of abject poverty, but it also gave us hope. The youth building was amazing, and some of the people recognized Missi and some of our other team members. It was probably the toughest part of the entire trip. To see human beings living in those conditions breaks my heart.
