Blessings!

The team this week blessed our family by inviting us to Wahoo Beach! It was an amazing time to recharge, have fun, and enjoy the beauty of Haiti. 

Our kiddos first experience in the ocean. 

A sea creature...Landen wanted a pic with it but wouldn't touch it. 

I sure like this guy. 

Beautiful! Wish you where here!

Alot of people ask us what our job is at Grace Village so I thought I would take a minute to share. Shane and I are still trying to figure out exactly what our job entails here, but so far this is what we have come up with. Our title is Grace Village Directors, this means that we are to oversee all of the many different aspects of Grace Village. Grace has an orphanage, a school, a church, a medical clinic, a feeding center, and aquaponics system. We are kind of like the mayor of this little town; we are here to help with job accountability, budgets, hiring and firing, encouraging, building a team atmosphere, and sharing God's love. We are also to act as an information bridge between those in America and those of us in Haiti. There are wonderful things happening here and we feel honored to be a part of it all.  

One thing that surprised me how quickly something can become a job. You would think that as missionaries it would be all about God all the time. You would think it would be easy to keep focused on God. But its not true. Our human nature kicks in and we find it is easy to forget that our mission in life is to glorify God daily. So...even as missionaries we have to remind ourselves daily to dedicate the next 24 hours to God. 

"Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name." Hebrew 13:15

To do this, we are finding it takes intentionality. We have to read our Bible every morning and spend time in prayer daily. We want to live our lives with God's grace and love surrounding all of our contacts with others. We want to be able to deliver truth with respect and that same love. Its a tall order but we want to cling to those three truths; God's love, grace, and truth. I don't think there is any way to do this unless we spend time daily with Him. We want our ministry to ooze God's love. So Lord, let us glorify you today! 

Allison has been our nanny for the last two years. We loved seeing her!

We visited Gertrude's Special needs orphanage:

We have started a new program for the kiddos. We have a handful of games that the kids can come over and play. When they return the game to me, I count the pieces to make sure that all of the pieces are accounted for. The rules are that if all the pieces are returned they can play with them the next day, but if they are not all returned...no playing the next day. So far twice there have been missing pieces. Everyone knows the rules so eventually I get all of the pieces back because the kids love playing with the games. We are using this to teach about taking care of their things, about responsibility, about owning up to mistakes and taking consequences, and about forgiveness. Plus I love to hear their little voices playing.

Could they be any cuter?