Today was our third full day in Jamaica and so far our most eventful. We awoke to the sun and the smell of coffee. The morning was full of laughter, food, and sign language. We had a couple hours before we had to leave, so all of the team were bonding over the “laughing game”. It’s a game where you lay flat on the ground, arms crossed over your chest, and someone pushes down on your arms while you ‘fake’ laugh ( ha- ha – haha). This causes your true laugh to come out. Everyone willing and able participated in this game and the team spent most of the morning laughing by force. We then piled in the van and headed over to the children’s home again. I was really looking forward to this because I had met a girl the day before that I was excited to see. We get to the children’s home to see a bunch of happy children running towards us. I was overjoyed when the same little girl ran right to me. This little girl barely talked me yesterday as she was overwhelmed by the amount of people, but stuck to me like glue. Today, I heard her laugh. I don’t know how to describe the joy I felt hearing her infectious laugh. We spent the rest of the morning in our bubble of laughter, just the two of us. Around noon, we had to get back to the village and it about broke my heart to have to let my little girl go. I feel like I will see her again one day though. We traveled back home to be welcomed by a delicious lunch, and the lovely workers. Around 1 we headed up to the conference center to get our projects started. Kayla and I decided to paint again today, and when we got tired of running up and down the HUGE ladder and could not reach any farther up the wall, we took a short break. When we came back outside the backhoe was positioned for us to paint a little higher. We climbed the machine and plopped down in the bucket and painted the rest of the wall. We ended up painting the rest of the building in the bucket for the rest of the day. When we finished we came back to our little house/ mess hall and started playing with the resident’s children. They showed us how to “whip and nay/nay” on the roof of a building which was hilarious. The children here are so happy and have these infectious smiles that make you want to bring them all back to Tennessee. I am currently watching the team play Uno with some of the deaf residents, laughing and full of the Lord’s joy.

-Katie Nicole Smith