Rusty gold, turkeys, and growth

Today I had the opportunity to go with another long term missionary and the Haitian advocate for our transition program. I didn't need to go with them except that the long term wanted someone to walk home with for safety sake and I love an excuse to be out in the community, so I went. The mission was to go check out a place in Titanyen, that had matresses we could purchase for our transition kids (we find out later it wasn't matresses we were looking at but was instead bed frames). We took a ride down our little mountain in the kabota (we hitched a ride with our elderly 'Meals on wheels' program) and were dropped off at an intersection by the main road, Route 1. 

We walked a very short distance to a large area coordined off with barbed wire. As we aproached there was an older man sitting in a chair right outside of the entrance. He had a bright blue shirt on and faded old eyes and was so still that he didn't even disturb the 3 flies sitting on his hand. I'm not exactly sure what he said to our Haitian advocate but I do know he ended each sentence with 'no?'...very much like the Canadian's "ay?" After a few words he gave us leave to pass by him and a young woman came out of her home, a cement block enclosue, and led us behind to another enclosed space. 

This space was awesome. It was filled with rusty pieces of metal...filled. There was an old bed frame, bed springs, long pieces of straight metal, the frame of a motorcycle, something that my fellow long term missionary said looked like a bowflex, a metal pully thingy, and a couple of little generators. At first glance, it was overwhelming and frankly looked like junk. 

Our Haitian advocate was talking to the young woman and telling her that she wanted to talk to the man that makes the things. She told us that he was not there, but that she would call him. Our Haitian advocate cracked me up when she told the young woman to 'get her a chair since she has to wait'. There has to be some benefits to being older and knowing most people in the community. 

After some time a young man came up, pants hanging, but with a kind smile. I thought we were getting somewhere until I heard the woman say, "No, he isn't Tony, this is Ally". I still have no idea why he came since he wasn't who we were waiting for. Maybe Tony was too far away and this young man was standing in his stead. It appeared to us that he was just coming to keep us company while we waited and since he was kind we didn't oppose. 

He started to talk to us about how he had played soccer against our Grace Village boys and would we be interested in putting together another game on Dec 18th? The other long term let him know that they have school on that day and they are exams so that wouldn't work, how about the weekend? I have no idea why he thought that was such a silly idea, but it seems the weekends are not an option so the conversation about soccer ended. 

As all this was going on I began to look around and I saw this beautifully simple hutch. It was simple straight metal pieces welded together and it was pretty raw, but it was beautiful. The other missionary and I looked at each other and I knew we were both amazed at this creation among this rubble. Because of this discovery, I began to look around and I saw a queen sized bed frame, a metal oval table frame, and four chairs. They needed paint, but they were pretty. 

At this point, the social part of our conversation was over and they decided that 'Tony' was not going to be coming so they asked our Haitian advocate and the other long term if they wanted to see the catalogs. I talked to the other long term and she said how impressed she was that they had a catalog. 

And then they brought out the catalog. 

They had two, old, used, torn Sears or JcPenny's catalogs. To show us what we could have made they flipped through the catalog (past bedding, kitchen supplies, etc.) to find the metal furniture. They turned to one page and there was the hutch, the talbe, and the chairs that we could see in this rusty heap. It was amazing! They had found these ideas and had recreated it. All I could say was, "I love Haiti". I am just constantly amazed by their creativity, ingenuity, and never give up attitude. It was just like the buying the chickens. I kept thinking, "This is actually happening. I love this". 

So I started to really look around because I knew I wanted to blog about this. So here are some other things I saw. One wall surrounding the enclosure was made up of the back of shipping containers which were facing the main road. The other two sides were made up of surogated metal sheets, many of them falling down and offering no safety. In one corner, there was a tarp hung on three sides. It covered the space the size of a small loveseat, and underneath was; a bed with a matress and sheets, a very small night stand made of metal holding someone's personals, and a small fabric being used as a rug to keep the person's feet clean when they get out of their bed. Someone lives there, in that little tarp covered bed. This too is really happening. 

  

I said to another missionary the other day that I though being a missionary was about helping people and teaching others about Jesus. But what I am finding, is that God is using this to teach me more about Him and to help me. 

I have been praying daily for a long time that God makes me more like Jesus. His answer is to make more aware of my lacking. I am overcome with my own shortcomings and lack of ability to control those shortcomings. I literally can not do anything perfect (I'm a first born so I am still trying to get this word out of my vocabulary). But even worse than perfect, I simply can't do things with a good heart all the time. My sin nature ALWAYS kicks in. It is incredibly frustrating! 

Yet I am finding that as I become more aware of my sin, I become even more grateful for the grace that  God always offers me. The more I understand God's grace, the easier it is for me to submit to His will. 

"To learn, you must love discipline; it is stupid to hate correction" Proverbs 12:1

"Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowances for each other's faults because of your love." Ephesians 4:2

"We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguements." 2 Corinthinas 10:4

My God has got me; he wants to help develop me into something new, to teach me to love like Jesus, and to teach me to get out of the way and let him get to work. 

Sierra and I jumped on a parent child trip for a couple of days this week. These are a few of the girsl from Sierra's first mission trip last year. We had so much fun!

Our beautiful friend Lisa Bless-Renstrom. 

Video games is a universal language. 

We spent Thanksgiving with the guesthouse long term missionary and her family, a board member family and the other long term missionaries from Grace, and a few different influential Haitians and their families. It was lots of people, lots of chaos and noise...just like home. 

The food was wonderful but our favorite part was Turkey Bingo. It had prizes and when you got a bingo you had to say, "Gobble, gobble". If you forgot to say gobble and you said bingo you had to run around the table saying Gobble all the way. I forgot twice. 

The kids won a ridiculous amount. 

Landen is our dog whisperer. 

I love how Haiti has changed how Sierra colors.

 

Beautiful Haiti sunset. 

Marriage in Haiti

If you have been following us since the beginning you know we made absolutely sure that God was calling us to Haiti before we moved. So our move was obedience. We prayed, telling God that we would do anything, that we gave him our everything, and that we want to be a Kingdom Couple and he answered. He doesn't always tell his people to move to Haiti, but it was VERY clear that he was telling us that that was the next step for us. 

We have learned the hard way that it is always better to be in Gods will than to be doing what we want. So we chose obedience. We chose to trust in God's goodness and faithfulness. He has proven to be all of that and more. We are finding that through our surrender to God's will and not our own, we are being blessed beyond what we would have imagined. Our marriage is stronger than it has ever been before (God put us through quite a bit of training on this marriage thing in the last 5 years, but thats another story for another time). We are sharing our job role, which if you are married you know can be a challenge; it is tricky to decide who does what, to give each other direction without tweaking the other person's triggers, and to make sure that the communication lines are always open. We are working as a strong team and enjoying the time we get to spend together. One of the coolest things is that when one of us is out of balance (Shane...hehe serves him right for not writing in the blog) the other person usually is able to be grown up about it and we avoid a big todo. Its a wonderful blessing. 

We have been married for 16 1/2 years and there have been many ups and downs, but this moving to Haiti thing, which has got to be the most stressful thing we have ever done, is bringing us closer to God and to each other. Our pastor one time described it like this; when each partner in marriage is pursuing a relationship with God, they end up finding each other because he is what holds them together. I made a picture to show what I mean. Look how close the couple can get to each other when they pursue God first?!? 

I know the pic is cheesy, but this closeness is what we were always demanding from each other and now we find that to get this closeness we each pursue God first. I can't wait to find out what he has planned to teach us in the next 16 years. 

"Seek the Kingdom of god above all else, and he will give you everything you need." 

Luke 12:31

One update; we have been praying like crazy about whether or not to purchase a vehicle in Haiti. We have been in Haiti for about 7 weeks and we have very limited access to the world outside of Grace Village. This is not to complain, but is a fact. We had put together some very specific things that needed to be present for us to consider purchasing a vehicle; it needed to be owned by only one owner, that owner needed to be a missionary, it needed to be 4 wheel drive, automatic, able to fit our family, and within our budget (which is not very much). We found a car that met all of these parameters and we knew it was the one. 

So, we took a leap of faith. Our faith is that God is in this, that this vehicle will continue to run, and that God will bless our finances to cover this expense. I don't do this often in my blogs because asking for donations is not something we want our ministry to be defined by. We want to be able to share how God is using us and how God is using Haiti to change us. But, we live on donations and THE hardest part of living as a missionary is funding. 

So, we want to open up the dialogue about donations. If you have felt moved to give, but didn't think we needed help, please consider dontating. If you have been touched by our blogs and want to be a part of what we are doing down here, please consider donating. We would love to be so blessed by sponsors that we are able to give to the needs we see around here. Healing Haiti has amazing programs that are giving directly to the people. Your donations will never be wasted or taken for granted. 

In light of this request, I want to take a minute to say 'Thank You!' to our monthly and one time sponsors. We could not do this without you! Your generosity is overwhelming  and we are just thrilled that you are on our team. 

Those of you who are covering us in prayer, we say a huge 'Thank you' as well. I am reading "Draw the Circle" and it is all about the power of prayer. Then today we sang a song about how the same power that raised Jesus from the grave, lives in those who believe in Jesus. That power holds the universe together, yet it lives in us. Wow! Prayer matters...your prayers matter. Thank you. 

Shane and I pray a blessing on those that read this blog. We pray that God will bless you with wisdom. That you will understand more and more about God every day. We pray that He will continue to help you grow to be more and more like Jesus; filled with love for others and grace for their faults. We pray that he shows you his purpose for your life and that you would have the courage to say, "yes" to his call. 

"I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God's love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God." 

Ephesians 3:16-19

In Jesus name, Amen. 

"How are your kids doiing?" and Miscellaneous thoughts

Everyone askes us, "How are your kids doing?" So I thought I would let you all know, the kids are doing very well. I think they have adjusted into our new life better than Shane and I. In fact, its gotten so routine for them that they are starting to act their 'normal'. 

A typical day looks like this; they wake up anywhere between 6am and 7:30 and have breakfast. Breakfast varies from cereal, toast, breakfast bar, banana, or protein smoothie. Then they begin their schooling. We read the Bible together, do a daily spelling test, math, science, handwritting, Creole, Languag Arts, and independant fictional reading on history & geography. I may have forgotten something in there, but that's the general idea. 

They usually get really squirrely around 10 ish so they will go out and play on the playground for 20 minutes, then they return to their school work. School usually takes about 2 to 2 1/2 hours so they are done about 11. They then play games with each other, play their hour of video games or hang out and wait for the Grace Village kids to get done with school. The Grace kids are out of school between 1 and 2 and my kids like to play with them until the Grace kids eat lunch, usually around 2:30. From 3:30-5:30pm the Grace kids have their lessons and my kids go back to playing around the house. Many evenings they will go and play soccer with the kids or just do kids stuff with them. 

Our old nanny was on a trip a couple of weeks ago and she made the observation of how calm my kids are in Haiti. Its true so it got me thinking why. It could be because we spend a lot of time together (like all of our time), because there are so few transitions that have to be made (we rarely leave Grace), or maybe its food. Whatever it is, its fun to watch my creative kids make up games, play with each other and continue to develope friendships with the Haitian kiddos. 

We have been here almost 6 weeks and already I have some memories. I thought I would share a couple of them. 

My favorite is of my big gentle husband. One of the little boys from Grace fell and hit his head pretty hard. He would not allow any of us to comfort him, touch him, or put ice on the lump on his head. Instead he laid on the ground and sobbed. It was the saddest thing and I wasn't really sure what to do with him. I offered him to sit with me on the porch but he was sad beyond words. Shane comes out of the house because of the crying and asks me what is happening. I updated him and then watched as he walks over to this little sobbing boy, picks him up and proceeds to cradle him in his arms as he cries. He rubbed his back and just held him, man to man. It still makes me cry when I think about it. Eventually the little boy settled enough that we were able to get ice on his head, give him tylonol, and a drink of water. But Shane probably sat with him for 45 minutes. 

This little man is sad a lot, his life has been hard and unfair. However, when Shane sees him, Shane will run over to him, pick him up, and give him a huge hug. This little man's smile gets so huge, its like a ray of sunshine. 

One night Sierra was in her room and heard/saw a big girl hitting a little girl. I went stomping out there to find out who was hitting this little girl. No one admitted to it, but I was able to take the little girl away from the situation. Tell her that no one was ever allowed to hit her and if they did she should ALWAYS get help. I told her I would always be there to listen if that happened again. She settled into my arms and relaxed. At one point we were standing around some of the other kids and she went to hit them, which brought the entire situation to a full circle. She and I discussed how she is also not allowed to hit either (life lessons). 

We have been giving the teams their tour at Grace Village. We walk them around telling about what God is doing through Healing Haiti, what is being worked on, and what the different buildings at Grace are. Shane and I enjoy this so much. We have a heart for the teams; using their energy to make an impact in Haiti and watching how God transforms their heart. I am so glad I still get to connect with them. Plus, since we know many of the leaders, its like having friends visit every week. 

The long term missionaries have been amazing with our kids, treating them as niece and nephews. Hanna brought the kids and I with her to deliver meals to the elderly the other day. Sierra was invited to a pizza, movie , and nail polish night. Austin and Landen were also invited up to their apartment for a movie night. My kids were having problems with one of the kids and Bianca spent the extra time listening and even got the kids together and translated for them. Jessica will listen to them talk...thank you Lord! Skye has brought them down to cut flowers. Kayleen is often in or near the house and helps watch them and gives advice on how making food. Rachel is our resident nurse and always available to ask questions. Elisa brings us Peanut Butter Captain Crunch...she knows the way to my families heart. Its a pretty good team and I appreciate so much how they are feeding into my kids lives. 

When it rains there is one window that the rain always comes in, so it is closed often. Its easy to forget to open it since it doesn't provide a ton of air during the day. But every night that we forget it closed, a small gecko starts to yell at us until we open it. Our God is so creative, even the geckos have personalities. Do you think the cockroaches do too?...nah. 

At times, I am overwhelmed with the life of an orphan. Its not fair. Even in an amazing place like this, they don't have a family. Someone that belongs to you, someone to mess you up in a special way because they love you. I can see why the Bible says;

"Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for the orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you."

James 1:27

I can't fix their problems for them, but I can do something. We can help continue to make Grace a safe place, we can help with job accountability so it is run smoothly, encourage the social workers and psychologist, offer the children a safe place to come, discipline with love, and offer a hug and a kiss when they need it. Its not a lot, but its something. We pray that God does more than we could ever imagine with the 'something' we have to offer. 

Delivering meals to the elderly

Marie says she is 104. She has got lots of spunk...kinda like Sierra. 

Ofan has leprosy but he doesn't let it drag his spirit down. Love his personality. 

He welcomed us into his home with pride and joy. 

The view to Elie's house...its by the orange you see. 

He really did enjoy having us and Austin did have fun...they have the same camera 'smile'. :) 

Elie grabbed my camera to see what he looked like and zoomed into his face right away. Made both Austin and I laugh. 

Sierra jumped on a team and charmed them while they visited the elderly. Lovin some babies.

There is a huge bush behind our house growing a type of pea pods. We picked about 100 of them and the boys and I took he peas out of the pods. It took a long time. To be honest, the boys worked at it for about 45 minutes and then I did it for 30. At the end we got about a cup and a half of peas. We sauted them in oil with garlic and salt and they tasted pretty good. 

Today was Fish Harvest Day at the aquaponics. One of the tanks was harvested of its 350ish Tilapia. To harvest, 10 women from Titanyen are invited up to help gut and descale the fish. They are amazingly fast and hard workers. As payement they receive some of the fish. We got permission to take about 7 of them and fillet them American style. 

And invited ALL the girls over for dinner! Even Jessica tried it and said it was pretty good (apparently she doesn't eat fish). 

God's Kingdom work, chicken, and forgiveness...oh and bugs.

One of our jobs is to help keep our staff at Grace Village accountable. It is a big job. The cool thing is that we get to know and/or be a part of a lot of really amazing things that God is doing. 

The Transition Program is a program to help our kids from ages 16-20 transition out of the orphanage and into society. We are trying to make sure that we are helping set them up for a successful future. 

The Elderly program has just hired someone to help the elderly make jewelry. The jewelry is sold to Americans and the elderly are able to make a profit and begin supporting themselves. 

Our 'Aqua Girl' will be leaving as of December and it has been great to see how well she has helped transition her position over to the Haitians. It is green, beautiful and ready for harvesting tilapia. We should have 250-300 fish available to eat next Wednesday. 

The outreach program is working on getting the bread ovens up and running so that our elderly, family of staff, and eventually the community will have access to make bread and sell it if they choose. The outreach program also visits the children that have been reunited with their families to see how we can help them support themselves and we help with school for the children. 

The medical clinic has opened and they are seeing the Grace Village children, the 340ish school children, our elderly and staff. The hope is to grow and be able to open it up to the village of Titanyen soon. We also have a Dr coming to do minor surgeries and a dentist to fix problems and do preventative maintenance. 

The school is continuing to move forward as they grow and learn. We have just started to be blessed with the opportunity to learn more. 

Our church is run by an amazingly passionate man. He loves Jesus and takes Jesus' call to share the Good News with others seriously. Grace Church has been able to bring people to Christ weekly, minister to the children, do community outreach, and a hospital outreach program. Amazing stuff!

A silly struggle we have is finding meat in Haiti that doesn't have a funny taste. So today we decided to try to purchase chicken to eat from a new place that our missionary friends suggested. This place is a chicken factory, sort of. They raise and sell chicks, make and sell chicken feed, and butcher and sell chicken (chicken that looks and tastes like we buy in the states). It is only a 4 minute drive from Grace so I told Etienne, our driver, "It will be quick." I forgot were we are. 

We drive onto the road and Etienne asks me if I know where it is, um...no. I figured we just drive down the road and look for a big factory. Only it appears that there are two big factories right next to each other and we went to the wrong one first. 

As we pulled up to the chicken factory there are barbed wire topped gates and security guards with shot guns to greet us. They take our driver's badge and give hime a pass to put in the car. We then park the car and walk into an air conditioned office building. There was no one to greet us so we kind of looked around goofily until Etienne said, "Sit." He kills me. So we sat. It wasn't long before a nice looking Haitian lady came out of her office and invited us in. We sat and told her that we would like to purchase chicken. The options were numerous and with the language barrier, she spoke English but was misunderstanding, it took about 10 minutes to tell her what we would like to order. 

Once we were all on the same page she called the factory to find out how much the packages that we were ordering weighed so that she could give us a price. Only problem was they weren't answering the phone. After quite a few times of calling he answered, I assume it was a guy, and said he would call her back. She looked at us and said to please wait for 5 minutes. 

Now keep in mind, this entire time we are sitting across from her desk looking at her as she looks at us. It is seriously a strange situation. She waits about 10 minutes and tries to get a hold of him again. After quite a few calls he picks up and she gets the weight. Only for some reason she gets disconnected 2x and has to call back to verify. Finally, the weight of the chicken packages are verified and she is able to begin the invoicing process. 

To begin with she does a proposed invoice. She types it into the computer, prints it, stamps it, and puts her signature on it. It was a perfect signature. She then hands the pre invoice to me for approval. It looks good to me so I gave it back to her. 

A man enters bringing large plastic bags with the companies name on it. 

Then this nice lady creates, prints, stamps, and signs an invoice. I sign this along with another one for her records. She staples my paperwork together and then remembers that she needs to add a paper to hand the security guard (the security shack is maybe a 100 feet away). So she takes the staples out, adds the new paper in the stack, folds them three times so they fit into an envelope and hands them to us. 

At this time, the man from the factory arrives, hair net and all, carrying a plastic bin with our chicken in it. She takes two trays of chicken out of the bin and puts them in one bag. She does this four times. She hands us our bags and says thank you and out we go. One hour later. 

The entire time, I couldn't stop from smiling. It was such an adventure and SO Haiti. 

We recently had an incident with one of the littlest boys and Landen. I won't go into detail, but the little boy purposely hurt Landen. It was not a malicious thing so much as a 'I am not thinking about consequences and I am not implementing my impulse control' kind of things. While momma was sad that this happened to my little man, it was also a great opportunity for us to learn. The little boy was disciplined, he was also allowed to come and say he was sorry to Landen. Landen was able to say he forgives him, and mean it (Landen is by far my most quickly forgiving child). And this little man was able to receive forgiveness. I thought, "Lesson learned, it is finished." However two days later, one of our 17 year olds noticed Landen's injury and asked me, "Did I know who did this to Landen?" I told them yes, I did. They then asked, "Did I like that boy still?" To which I replied yes, I do. In fact, I had made sure that I gave him an extra hug and let him see my eyes as well and the forgiveness I offered him. However, I could see this young man, and the kids around us, not understanding how I could like someone that had hurt my child. Culturally if someone slights you it is a BIG deal. A grudge can be held FOREVER. So this kind of forgiveness was obviously hard to understand. 

It made me think of God the Father and Jesus the Son. I'm absolutely not comparing myself to God, but the situation is similar. We actually killed his child, and yet he offers us complete forgiveness if we will take it. Absolute grace and mercy.      

"For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God."

Romans 5:10-11

I am so grateful I serve and submit to a God that gives such amazing grace. He reached down and forgives us, daily. I want to be able to ooze that same grace and love to the people around me. I want to be more like Jesus and so much less like me. 

Prayer request; 

Please pray for unity of those of us in leadership at Grace Village. We want to be a strong team unified through our mission to serve God's Kingdom. 

Please pray for protection; spiritual, mental, and physical. 

Please pray for sleep...its been a challenge. 

Finally, please pray for the kids. We have 52 children living at Grace and we just desperately want to do right by them. We want to teach them to love Jesus with all of their hearts. We also want to be able to meet their emotional needs well. 

Thank you friends!

Kiddos playing in the rain. :)

Semy, one of our translators, hamming it up. 

Shane's crafty key board. We have decided its gonna be a huge hit and we can sell it in the states for lots of money. What do you think? 

The above two are some of the seriously cool bugs we have. The one below is not. It was in our bed. It stung Shane. It is now dead. (Shane is ok). Yuck. 

Seriously...think about how big and index card is. I have some questions of 'Why' when I get to heaven. :)