Going Bananas!

            The orphanage crew ... all dressed up in their Sunday best

 The Orphanage Garden ... first harvest of beets!

 We had our friends over for a goodbye party for Leyna!

 Lilly and Widlene were dressed alike and so cute!

 Girls hated to see the interns go ... Lilly getting one last squeeze from Hunter "Friday"

 Bye Hunter!

 Bye Leyna!!

 Watermelons that charles is growing

 All the bananas on the tree outside our house! 

Going bananas!

This has been a week of ups and downs!

The week started with the womens' Bible study on Kindness. I decided it was a real challenge to teach on how kindness relates to actual deeds of love and especially so to the poor when most of these women live on less than $2/day. Several of them had stories of people's kindness to them. One of the ladies who works with us, Jilien, said that she lived in the Tent City with nothing for her kids for over two years. It was after her husband had died in a motorcycle accident and left her with the children and no income. One lady started helping provide food for Jilien's 4 kids and for them to get to school. Jilien wishes she could find the lady who helped her and said she will never forget the kindness she was shown. It is examples like these that make me realize how much I have and how little I know poverty. I am reading the book (again) When Helping Hurts out loud to Charles and find so many things applicable and thought provoking about how we as Americans try to help and where we fall short. It's an excellent read for anyone interested in poverty around the world and ways to actually help.

One morning this week Charles, Lilly and I went down to the orphanage with a few friends and picked beets from the garden. It was so fun for the kids! Charles and I were so thankful for the beets representing God's goodness in a fruitful season of rain and sunshine. There is so much growing in the garden! In addition to that garden, we have a banana tree in front of our house that grew the first stalk of bananas! Lilly and Ava had a blast pulling a banana off the tree and eating it. 

Charles built a chicken coop several months ago and filled it with 6 chickens. We have waited and waited for eggs but we have only had one chicken laying one egg a day. It has still been fun to have the one egg a day but this week the other chickens have joined in and we are collecting 4 or 5 eggs a day. It has been encouraging to eat the fruits and vegetables as well as the eggs that are grown here at the Hope Center.

We had to say goodbye to the interns Leyna and Hunter this week which was sad for all of us but two new interns, Abby and Mary Marie, arrived this week. Lilly and Ava have already taken to them and we are grateful for all of their help.

I went down to the orphanage to have our little friends draw Leyna a picture for a goodbye present. They did and one of them wanted to give it to Leyna herself so I said let's go. They all started talking 90 miles a minute in Creole gibberish I didn't understand and scurrying out of the room. I go into their room and see them all changing clothes. They all took showers and put on their nicest clothes to come to our house and say goodbye. They skipped up to the gate and came in with proud faces and big smiles to give Leyna their pictures. She was out on the trampoline. Tears rolled down her faces and several of the faces of the team members as we watched the kids pile on the trampoline with their best art work in hand. It was sweet and yet simple. I love watching the little moments that make being here a blessing. That was definitely one.

Chikingunya, the mosquito spread virus that is rampant in Haiti, is affecting more and more people nearby us. Several staff members have it and Tony saw 25+ patients on Friday with the virus. We can only treat it with Tylenol and Ibuprofen so there are many hurting people around us that are enduring it. We are holding our breath and using lots of bug spray to fight the mosquitos.

Thankfully we are all feeling better. Ava still has bouts with stomach aches but overall we are fairing very well and cannot complain at all about our health.

Yesterday we said goodbye to the Summit team of 20 who held a basketball camp last week and welcomed a new team this week who will be doing a variety of ministry between Bible studies, construction and woodworking.

Friday afternoon we ended the week with a movie at our house with all of our friends from the orphanage. Although squirmy, they really enjoy the Friday afternoon movies outside of the walls in which they live and we really enjoy the change of pace for the 24 hours we have between teams.

Our family continues to try to figure out balance and life here. It is an emotional roller coaster sometims for teams to come. Sweep in, sweep out. Lilly and Ava attach to the girls like leeches sometimes only to watch them pack their bags a few days later. We are learning the cycle and trying out best to adapt. Lilly continues to home school and Ava continues to try to explore on her own. I spent the better part of the week organizing the 35+ suitcases that teams have left behind full of items they want to donate. It's a little bit of helping here and there between mommy duties and keeping the house together. I'm thankful for the little projects and for all the time I have with the girls.  We are doing our best to make it all work. Thankfully, we have grown closer with the national staff members here and couldn't love them more. It's been a blessing to have some consistency with them.

Charles and I are excited to go back to Port Au Prince Fellowship tomorrow for church where the congregation is made up of Americans and the service is in English. It's been encouraging to visit there and to meet more Americans each time and a break from the local Haitian church.

We are excited to see many of you as we head to the States in two weeks!

Thank you for being a part of this crazy journey!


We leave in two weeks for the States!