Where my trust is without borders ...

 This is the best picture we could get at a lookout point over Haiti

 Miguelson with Ava

 the girls helping, Jeremy, Charles' right hand 

guy plant a garden by our front door

This is what our lunch break looks like ... 

Julien is one of our helpers and Bickly is a neighborhood kid BGM has come to love ...

 BGM partnered with Hatians to build 40 homes for displaced families. These are the 40 painted homes on the hill from the top of the hill. The Hope Center is to the far right of the houses.

This week has been another "new normal" for us with no teams here and a less structured routine. After Charles came back from a place named Double Harvest with fresh spinach, carrots and eggplant, I made a real dinner Saturday night. It was nice to cook for the first time but our resources are limited and there's no running to the grocery store for last minute items. It was our first time to eat fresh ingredients. In Haiti, the foods that are in abundance and are common in every day cooking are rice, beans, canned vegetables, cabbage, plantains, and mangoes. A salad here may look more like shredded cabbage with a tomato slice on it for decoration.

Sunday we went to church which at this point is a hard commitment since we know so little Creole. Although, it was fun to hear familiar tunes and see faces from our community.

There are three young men who rotate here at the Hope Center and serve as interpreters and "security" for us (beyond the three security guards with shotguns). Vladimir and Alex live here at the Hope Center but Miguelson rotates in. Miguelson is a law student in Port Au Prince and is very bright. He was here this weekend and had a very keen sense of where the girls were and their overall safety at all times. This is not an easy job especially with Ava as she seems to be "everywhere" at any given moment. If any of you have seen the movie Man On Fire with Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, it reminds me of that.

Sunday after church Miguelson drove Tony and all of us to Petionville where a lot of expats live and the grocery stores liken to American grocery stores. It was nice to get outside the walls and see some more of Haiti. We went to a lookout and could see almost all of the island. This week is a holiday for Haitians known as Carnaval, however, they don't celebrate but mostly in Northern Haiti.

It was also good to have "church" by watching a DVD with Tony on Sunday night and be able to worship and study along with his home church in English. It's not the same as being in our own church community in Waco but we were thankful for it.

On Monday our house helper, Julien, started! She will be here every morning (M-F) to help us out with Ava while I homeschool Lilly and to do a few things around the house. She has already taught the girls some little tunes in Creole. I found it hilarious that she was very scared of Mack and yet killed a roach with her bare hands without flenching. We are so thankful for her. Communicating with her is more like Charades than a conversation! Ha!

Tuesday I spent the day helping Tony in the clinic. I decided it would be good to get one or two days outside of the house so I am helping out there and learning more and more Creole while hopefully helping Tony out with patients. I saw some pretty crazy stuff in the clinic yesterday. It's fun too how a little tylenol and a smile go a long way for these patients. Vladimir and Julien were willing to keep the girls for me.

We have several teams coming in this weekend so our routines will change again in the next 48 hours. Charles continues to sort out agriculture projects and tries to be patient with them progressing at Haiti speed and not his own personal time table. He is in Port Au Prince for the day today picking up supplies for the teams and paint for our own home. Life is starting to feel in full swing here in Haiti.

*Thank you all who offered to help out with the previous wish list. Most of those items will be arriving with teams this weekend!

If any of you have sermons from your church on CD or DVD that you no longer listen to or watch, we would appreciate if you wanted to send them to us.

 Don't take uploading and streaming for granted! We miss it!

I've been thinking about and praying through the lyrics of that song Oceans by Hillsong that says, "Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me ... take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, and my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Savior ... "