Last Night in the House and Haitian VBS (Part 1) Pics

Quick re-cap:  Melissa and I and the kids are hoping to be heading to Haiti in about a year.  We have applied to and interviewed with One Mission Society, an agency which maintains a multi-faceted ministry in Cap Haitien.  We should have an official acceptance within a week or two and then we'll be going through their orientation before beginning to raise support.  In an effort to pay down our debt, we have decided to rent out our house.  Melissa's mother, Trudy, has graciously agreed to house us for the next year so that the money that used to go to mortgage can be redirected to other bills.  Our neighbors recently had a house fire, so they are the ones who will be renting the house.  Tomorrow (Saturday, July 30) we'll have another moving sale, then clean the house up good and ... God willing ... turn the keys over to Rob and Jessica Monday morning.

Our kids are being such troopers about all these changes.  Melissa and I are so caught up in packing and pricing that the reality that this might be our last night in this house hasn't really sunk in yet. Maybe the kids aren't grasping the reality either...  A lot to process these days.

I want to share some pictures from our first three weekdays in Haiti.  A bit of background:  Our family was tagging along for VBS in Godin.  A 4-person mission team from Spokane was there to support the Godin church financially for both the VBS and a construction project  designed to both ease an erosion problem and provide the church and the connected school with some play area for children's use.  The Godin church is only 11 years old, but when they put the call out for VBS, they had to limit the participants to 150!  An important part of the VBS is providing lunch to all the kids.  Lunches cost $2 a kid, so three days and 150 kids costs nearly $1,000!  Many kids came even though they couldn't get a lunch.

Here are the pics:

On the truck, ready to head to Godin.  It was probably only 5 to 7 miles, but the trip took a half hour!  Dave Graffenberger, the interim director of the OMS ministry, drove us.

The Princess was worn out before we got half way!

The truck would only take us so far and the final quarter mile or so was on foot.  What a beautiful setting, huh?  On the first day, Dave got the truck hung up in a deep rut and spent most of his morning working it back out!

Justin, the leader of the Spokane group, drinks some water as Pastor Awoud (spelling??) greets us from his porch.  Dave is on the right with his back to the camera.



Over 150 kids inside the church - all impressively attentive and so willing to sing and to learn.



On the second day of VBS, The Princess stayed back on the compound with Jane.  Thanks, Jane!!

Picking up kids on the way to VBS for Day 2.  Melissa is looking happy!

We told the creation story with the flannelgraph and then the Pastor took it over and quizzed the kids on various aspects of the story.

Dave is undoubtedly sharing some wisdom as we wait on the Pastor's front porch for lunch.  They offered us some incredible food each day!

The Spokaners, Hannah, Jeremy, Logan and Justin, surround Renee, an intern who had spent the previous two months working alongside Jane at the compound.  This was her last day in Haiti before heading home to Indiana.

The kids got hot and thirsty and ... at times ... a bit cranky.

Some of the kids line up for their lunches.  In the background is the "Starfish" School that the church operates.

On our way back home, we gave a ride to some women who had harvested some plantains and were taking them to market.

The Drama Queen rode up front to provide some company for Dave as he drove.

Interview with OMS and More Haiti Pics - Our First Weekend

Tuesday, July 26.  Melissa and I went to Greenwood today to interview with One Mission Society as we move forward with plans to enter the mission field fulltime in about a year.  A panel of four met with Melissa for an hour and then separately with me for an hour.  Now they confer and run their recommendations past the president.  We won't get official word for a week or two, but we felt it went well.

Assuming they accept us, the next step is an orientation (which might take a bit of work to get into our schedules once school begins) and then we'll be starting the fundraising.

We've been back for a week already, and with all the packing and visiting, I haven't made the time to get all my pictures on-line yet, so here are a few more from our first days in Haiti:



Classic sibling behavior in the Miami airport.  Our flight was at 7:30, which meant we left
 Twila and Gonzo's condo at 5:00 AM!



Dats did some reading and journaling on the flight.

Bud and Jane picked us up at the Cap Haitien airport in the van.  The Princess was so exhausted she fell asleep on the armrest even as we bounced down the crazy Haitian road.

Without a TV or their Nintendos, the kids had to make their own fun - an incredibly refreshing development as far as Mommy and Daddy were concerned!  Here, Ida claims to be impersonating Elvis.

We stayed in the Bundy house while the Bundys are back in the states.  The Bundys have four kids too - our kids are looking forward to the day when they are our neighbors.  Here the Drama Queen does some journaling before bed.  Actually, there was very little Drama from the Queen during our entire two weeks in Haiti.

The whole family as we head off to church.  We went to the church right next to the compound.  Our kids did great considering they sat through a 2.5 hour service conducted in a foreign language in a hot sanctuary!

We got to go to the Christophe Hotel after worship for lunch and swimming.  In Haiti the Coke comes in bottles and is made with sugar cane.  Good stuff!

In the pool, Ida latched onto Tim Randolph - Tim brings a team to Haiti twice a year for medical work.

Throwing the kids in the pool.

Our kids spent a lot of time on the rope swing right out in front of the Bundy house.  Our kids wouldn't be out on the lawn for too long before some neighborhood kids would join them.  The Princess was  especially popular with the Haitian kids - many would sneak a touch of her curls!

Lots of soccer was played - even by those who don't usually play a whole lot of soccer, like the Drama Queen ...

...and Ida!

Renting Out the House

So the last time I wrote, I mentioned how I had woken up early this past Friday morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep because I had all these questions about how things were going to work out.  We were getting ready to have a moving sale and hoping to vacate our house and yet we had no lease written up … much less a family lined up to rent our place!  I wasn’t even sure how to go about finding a renter … or how long it might take.

In my last post, I also mentioned our next door neighbors, Jessica and Rob, whose house had burned the previous Sunday.  Friday evening, while we were in the midst of figuring out what furniture and other items would be going into our sale and what the price tags should be, we noticed that Jessica and Rob and their three little girls were at their house doing a bit of yard maintenance.

We popped over to see how they were doing and they have obviously been through a lot of stress.  They had spent five days in a small hotel room together and were just longing for everything to be back to normal.  But the best estimates put reconstruction of their house at six to eight months!

When conversation turned to their next moves, they said the insurance was going to pay for them to find a house or apartment temporarily, but the rental market was already tight and they were looking for a very specific place:  big enough for their family, furnished, in the same school district, close enough to the burned house so that Rob could help with the reconstruction, available immediately, and willing to be rented on a three month lease followed by month to month after that!

Sometimes God has to make things very obvious for the light bulb to go off in my head …

We decided that we wouldn’t put some of our furniture in the sale the next morning and that Jessica would call her insurance company and see if arrangements could be made.

Looks like it's going to work out.  I'll keep you posted.

Our first moving sale.  Another one planned for this coming Saturday.  Oh joy!

Hopefully Jessica and Rob will be able to move into our house.  Their kittens have already moved to our back yard.  The kids are loving it!

We sold The Princess' bed, so she's on an air mattress for the time being.  Ida and Dats are on the air mattress tonight because their room is such a mess as Melissa is sorting through their possessions.  The kids are handling it all very well.

Belongings

I'm sure our neighbors, Jessica and Rob, would appreciate your prayers. 

They were tent camping with their three daughters last weekend.  Everyone was having trouble sleeping Saturday night in the heat, so they eventually packed it in and headed home.  When they pulled up to their house Sunday at 4:00 AM, they discovered it was on fire!  Jessica says if they had been home overnight instead of camping, there very well could have been loss of life.  And if they hadn't returned from camping early, the house would have been nothing but ashes.

The structure will be salvagable, but between heat and smoke damage, most of their belongings are gone.

Heartbreaking!

We are sad that we were not here for them when it happened - we were leaving Miami Sunday morning and were far from home.  Yesterday (Thursday) was the first we had seen them since the fire - they have been living in a hotel. 

They caught us on a busy day: we are preparing to have a moving sale this Saturday and my brother Russ and his family (to be) were coming for dinner.  Even our kids were sorting through their toys and other belongings and starting to decide which items to sell.  (Our crazy plan is to have a sale tomorrow, rent our house out before the school year starts and move in with my mother-in-law ... all in an effort to pay off debts so that none will be outstanding when we enter the mission field in a year, God willing.)

Anyway, I was so proud of Hannah yesterday.  She surprised me in the afternoon by asking if she could sell her Nintendo DS.  She explained that she doesn't really play it all that much and doesn't need it.  The boys are firmly attached to theirs and, honestly, I hate those things because of their time and creativity-sapping tendencies, so I was more than happy to say, "Sure, sell it."

A couple of hours later, Jessica was over and showed Melissa around the fire-gutted house.  She said living in the hotel has been rough because there's so little to occupy the kids.  Then she mentioned that her oldest daughter, at 7, had recently received a DS for her birthday and that was one more thing lost to the fire.  Jessica sighed, "It sure would be handy to have that DS for a little entertainment at the hotel."  Melissa told Hannah and, without hesitation, Hannah said, "She can have my DS."  So she found a couple of games that would be appropriate for a 7 year old and gave them and the DS to Jessica!

I woke up early this morning and couldn't fall back to sleep because my thoughts were crowded with anxieties:  Will anybody show up for the moving sale with the heat like it is?  What will we do with stuff that doesn't sell?  What do we know about renting and leases and such?  How do we find a reliable renter?  How can all this happen before school starts up? 

So I got out of bed, made a cup of coffee and sat on the couch (which already has a price tag on it!) and stared at a picture on the wall ($5!) and thought, even if our plans fall through in places, I still want to lighten the load of belongings.  "Stuff" just clutters up our lives.  And if we store up treasures on earth, ultimately they will all be destroyed by moth and rust ... or fire!  And all that time and money spent chasing and storing up earthly treasures will have been squandered. 

Besides, I already have EVERYTHING - all the belongings I need.  I've been rereading this morning one of my favorite New Testament passages.  It's one of those where you just get the feeling there's some truly profound Truth that you have not been able to plumb completely yet, but you really, really, really want to live it as reality.  Know what I mean?  Here it is:

I Corinthians 3:18-23 (Emphasis mine)
Let no man deceive himself.  If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become foolish that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God.  For it is written, "He is the one who catches the wise in their craftiness"'; and again, "The Lord knows the reasonings of the wise, that they are useless."  So then let no one boast in men.  For ALL THINGS BELONG TO YOU, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; ALL things BELONG to you, and YOU BELONG to Christ; and Christ BELONGS to God.



Price tags are going on.  We are also trying to sort out what things might go into long-term storage and what would be usefull in Haiti, so we have color-coded stickers.  I notice this morning that the picture in this photo  has a yellow sticker now ("for sale") but originally had a pink sticker ("long term storage").  I wonder what made Melissa change her mind ...



On the Way to Haiti

I'm not sure how to organize all the pictures from our trip to Haiti now that we're back and I have internet access, so I'll just start chronologically.  Three weeks ago today we were in Pensacola, Florida.

Jeff and Sheila Forshee were kind enough to put us up for a few nights.  We drove all day - through constant rain - on a Tuesday and then had Wednesday and Thursday to relax, catch up with friends and see some of the sights.

Melissa and I moved to Pensacola a couple of weeks after we got married in 2000.  Within a month and a half of our arrival, we found out Caleb was "in the oven".  By May of the next year, with our first child in arm and no grandparents close by, we felt awfully isolated at times.  Then along came Jeff and Sheila, and their two teenage sons Tyler and Preston, who would actually periodically call us up and ask to have Caleb for the day!  They were a true blessing then and a great blessing to us as we made our way down to Haiti now with a family of four.

Packed in tight and enjoying a nutritious lunch on the go from McDonalds!

The Forshee's house is just across the street from the Bayou.

Looking for fish, snails and crabs in the Bayou.

Found something.  Just a bit later, Hannah discovered fire ants and what happens when you sit on one of their nests!

Caught a fish! And proud of it!  (Wishing his friend Matthew was there to share this moment.)

We took a little tour around Pensacola First United Methodist Church, where I served as youth pastor.  Some things had changed, much had not.  This is the "One Way Cafe" in the youth building.

Got to spend some time out on the beach.  Waters were rough and Caleb and Sammy were wishing they had their boogie board.

We also got to swim in the neighbor's pool.

Miss Sheila and Sarah in the midst of a serious conversation...

On Thursday, Samuel, Caleb and Hannah visited Ft. Pickens while Sarah and Mommy got an afternoon nap.  The Fort is an impressive structure from the early 1800s.

Sandy the dog was very patient with all of Sarah's antics and affections.

Coco is a long-time favorite.  After Caleb's last visit to the Forshees (when he was just two or three) he came home and talked about Coco for a month.  Thus Coco was the reason we ended up getting Oreo for Caleb.

Mr. Jeff bought dozens of Krispy Kreme donuts for us before we headed out to Miami and then sent the leftovers with us.  I can't resist a good donut - I literally ate at least 9 of them myself throughout the day!  I didn't feel so good by evening. 

Samuel in particular got attached - literally- to Mr. Jeff.  At one of our pit stops on the way to Miami, he said sadly, "I miss Sandy and Coco."  I said, "You miss the Forshee's dogs?  What about Oreo?"  He thought about it a second then replied, "Well, I guess actually I miss the Forshees."

Even Tyler was around a bit - now all grown up.

Saturday, July 16 - Back in the U.S.

FINALLY!  I have a usable internet link!  We flew back to Miami today and the kids were excited about the prospect of swimming and playing their Nintendo games ... for me, it was the chance to finally post some pictures from our two weeks in Haiti.

We have a long drive to Atlanta area tomorrow, so I don't dare stay up too late tonight writing - I really can't think of where to start anyway.  So I'll just post a smattering of pictures here, maybe comment on a few and then I'll sort through the rest in the next few days.

But first let me publicly give praise to God for these past two weeks in Haiti!  If our central purpose for this trip was to confirm our sense of calling to the mission field of Haiti AS A FAMILY, then I have to say it was a resounding success.  Samuel (age 7) wanted to extend our trip by a week.  As we sat in the airport in Cap Haitien around 9:00 this morning, poor Sarah (age 4) was heartbroken.  She said she missed "Aunt" Jane.  (More about Jane and Bud later.)  Then she said in a sad little whimpering voice, "I just love Haiti."

Wow.  So do I.  So does Melissa.  And so does Jesus!

Our first Sunday morning - off to worship at the Vaudreuil church.

Hannah plays soccer with the "neighborhood" kids.

Picking up kids on the way to VBS in the mountains.

The Princess got tired sometimes ... but overall, she was a trooper!

The path to the church of Gaudin where we helped with VBS.

Caleb on the plane ride into Cap Haitien.

One of the infamous tarantulas!

One of my favorite pics from the trip ...

More pics to come later.  Again, a great big THANK YOU to all who supported us and made this trip a reality.  God bless you!