UNCLE RUSS' FAMILY IS HERE!

Saturday: A long watch at the airport. 

But worth the wait.

We've got it all planned out!



Sunday: Worship at Grace en Sion and then lunch and a swim at the Mont Jolie.

Rose and her family joined us and she helped out by translating for Aunt Alecia and Melissa.

The water's a *little* cold here in late December.  But that didn't keep our kids or their cousins out of the pool.

Back home, Sarah was intent on showing Uncle Russ how she can climb the rope swing and touch the tree branch.  Impressive!

We've been trying to keep everyone well-fed.  

Sunday night was spent unwrapping presents from their family to ours and vice versa.

Melissa knew Russ was hoping to find a Haitian-made nativity set while here.  The stable is a hollowed out coconut.

Uncle Russ also delivered Caleb's big gift that he'd been waiting on since Christmas.  Surprise - an Ipad Mini!  (Thanks, Angie and Phillip for your generosity! You made Caleb so happy.  He was quite surprised!)

Monday: Headed to Dhaloo Beach.

Caleb was the last one to leave the breakfast table.  That's my boy!

Beautiful day to spend with Russ' family and our good friend Jen and her visiting parents.

Plenty of cousin bonding time.

A bit of souvenir shopping on the beach.

By evening time, everybody was pooped out and ready for a bit of reading, journaling (like cousin Allison), or going to bed early (like Russ and Alecia).

Tuesday: A trip to the Citadel.

We've lived in Haiti for almost a year and a half and had not yet seen it's most famous landmark - and it's only about 20 or so miles from here.

The Citadel is a fortress built in 1806, shortly after Haiti gained its independence from France.  It is an IMPRESSIVE structure, located on the peak of a 3,000 foot mountain.

Rose went with us to help guide us in the right direction.

You drive halfway up the mountain and then park and proceed either on foot or on horseback.  I got to carry Sarah for part of the way.

Canon balls!

It's an amazing place to take pictures.  None of these have been edited (even properly cropped) because I wanted to update the blog while my brother is still here.  (I'm the last one up and needing to get some rest before another big day tomorrow.)  But still, the colors and the scenery and the way the light falls all make it hard to take a bad photo here!

Well, there's this one...

Cousins!

I don't think our kids will ever forget today!

Back down at the foot of the mountain are the remains of the Palace San Souci.  Also quite gorgeous. This place must have been quite the locale in its heyday.

I have so many other pictures to go through, but no energy left tonight.  Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and it will be time to stop playing tourist and start getting to work. We'll be hosting Daniel's Christmas party for the neighborhood kids here on the mission grounds tomorrow from 10 to 2.  I talked to Daniel on the phone tonight and the sound of children's voices filled the background.  Why? Because they are all coming to see him at his house and telling him they won't be able to sleep tonight in their excitement over the party!

No pressure!

We hit the market in Cap Haitien on our way back from the Citadel and picked up the plates, the candy, the balloons ...

And Uncle Russ has the rice.

And we put him to work after dinner making gift bags for 75 kids.

FIVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

Tuesday, December 23

A Care Package Tsunami!

After a couple of weeks of no deliveries from MFI, they finally had space on a flight for OMS boxes and mail just in time for Christmas!  It was honestly a bit overwhelming.  In a good way.

First up, a box from the Bradburns in Indiana.  These dear friends have blessed us several times with boxes at holiday times - and they seem to have a sixth sense about what will put a smile on our faces. For example, this time the box included a gingerbread mini village. - One of our past (cheapskate) Christmas traditions had been to find a gingerbread house on clearance at Wal-Mart after Christmas day for the kids to put together around New Year's Eve. They have missed this particular tradition. Needless to say, there's precious little gingerbread available around here!

Thanks, Jim and Celestia!

A former co-worker and (still current) friend of mine, Emily Silverman, coordinated putting together a box from her church, Shiloh Community, in Franklin, Indiana.  I have never seen a more tightly packed box arrive at our doorstep!  Every square inch was filled with goodies. They amazed us, also, by including a wrapped present for each member of the family - and each one was SO spot on.  For instance, Hannah's was a bracelet crafting kit.

And mine included chocolate.  ;-) 

Thanks for all your effort and the thoughtfulness of your church, Emily!

And last, but certainly not least, TWO boxes from the Kooikers in Iowa arrived on Tuesday.  (They had been mailed at least three weeks prior!) Dixie Kooiker KNOWS what makes us happy and she and her husband have been incredibly generous.  

Better than Amazon!! Thanks so much, Dixie and Cal!

Sometimes the boxes take a bit of a beating before they arrive at our front door.  Dixie, here's how one of your boxes looked when it arrived:

Most things arrive perfectly intact, (Dixie even successfully sent some light bulbs.) But we had to laugh this time around.  Potato chip bags tend to explode on MFI flights, so the kids were frantically pulling a variety of chips out of the bottoms of a couple of Tuesday's boxes and popping them into their mouths. Nothing went to waste.

We even had a can of frosting pop open and this box of Little Debbie snack cakes didn't fare so well.

But that won't stop us from enjoying every bite - and crumb.

Thanks again to all the folks who sent gifts (Including a couple of friends in Ninevah, Indiana who paid for the shipping on a couple of boxes of items for Melissa's classroom.) - it really made us feel extra special this Christmas.  And it makes it possible for us to share some special things with friends here.  God bless you!

To top the day off, Melissa fixed an extraordinary dinner - some pork chops she brought back from the States with her.  Add some pineapple salsa, green beans and mashed potatoes and you have PERFECTION.

Wednesday, December 24

A Day at Chouchou Bay

On Christmas Eve, we got to explore a new beach about two hours west of here. Unlike the other beaches we tend to frequent, this one is nothing more than a public beach (although a local man tried to charge us admission when we arrived!).  There's no restaurant, no restroom, no building of any kind.  

The Bundy family invited us and about 15 other friends to come along with them as they celebrated their oldest daughter's birthday. 

It was a memorable day!

 Brianna opened birthday presents in the sand.

We saw very little activity on the beach, except for this mattress delivery!

Melissa and I even had a bit of alone time together. Some of the other adults offered to keep an eye on our kids as we went for a walk, soaked in the scenery and looked for seashells.

Christmas Party on the Mountainside

Christmas parties are rarer here than in the States and when Johnny, Ruysdael, and Mikenn shyly came to me a few weeks ago asking if I would "sponsor" their party, I had to think twice about it.  But since they were really just needing enough chicken to feed all their families and neighbors and were willing to do all the work themselves and put some of their own funds towards a generator and balloons and a custom-made shelter, I decided it was something we ought to be a part of.  

After a day at the beach, Caleb and I were the only ones up for actually attending the party, though.  I am glad we went. The boys seemed to be relishing their role as hosts for friends, family and neighbors.  

This was the first time we had the chance to see Buddy since we had to send him away - his reaction to seeing Caleb and me was priceless: squealing, jumping, and twisting this way and that.  He could hardly contain himself.

Here Caleb is trying to hold him still long enough for me to get a non-blurry picture.  

Besides the chicken, my other major role was to bring my projector and laptop in order to show "Home Alone 2" on the wall.  The crowd got so tickled at seeing the bad guys fall for Kevin's booby traps over and over again.  

I didn't get home until after 11:00 - and there were still dishes to be washed and stocking stuffers to be wrapped.

Thursday, December 25

Christmas Day

 Melissa always does such a nice job in making the breakfast and the stockings and the tree extra special for the big morning.

We had some very practical gifts!

This was sweet: for a year now, the boys have been growing a homemade card game that their friend Ethan introduced them to. As a gift, Caleb made a special deck of cards for Samuel and Samuel did the same for Caleb.

The kids were psyched about the root beer!

We had a bit of fun with Hannah's big gift.  Melissa found a great deal on a Casio keyboard but we were afraid if we wrapped it and left it under the tree, she would figure it out.  So instead we wrapped the stand for it and waited for her to puzzle out what in the world these metal pieces were for.

It didn't take long until it dawned on her - and then she literally cried.

Gift Bag Delivery to The Potter's House

Our good friends Bud and Jane no longer live in Haiti full-time, but they wanted to still send in some special Christmas treats for the orphans and asked us to assemble the gift bags and deliver them on their behalf.  We were more than happy to do it!

These kids are so very sweet and special.  This is Blondine - who always had a special bond with Bud.  

Holiday Treat Delivery

Melissa also put together some special holiday treats for the two sweet ladies who help our family get by from day to day, Ma Lwi and Madam Arnold. We knew where Ma Lwi lived and her grandson was able to point us to Madam Arnold's house.

Both were surprised and happy to see us and we were sad that we couldn't spare the time for a real visit.

Dinner with David and Rose and Kids

By 5:00 we were back home and ready to sit down to a turkey dinner with our good friends and co-workers Rose and David and their kids.  Ryan and Rasheid are super cute and this is becoming one of our favorite new Christmas traditions.

Rose had had a rough week and deserved a bit of party time.  Not only had she been fighting an illness, she had also been the victim of a robbery.  

A few days ago she had waded through the crowds at the market with the equivalent of about $70 U.S. tucked away in her purse.  When she reached into her purse to make a purchase, she discovered someone had cut a "V" into the side of it and had fished out her wallet. 

And this is SO Rose: she said she cried quite a bit when it happened until she came across another woman crying.  That woman had stepped out of one of the money transfer offices downtown with $300 someone had sent her and a man on a motorcycle had snatched her purse right out of her hands as he drove by.  

It's a sad reminder of the darkness of this world.  AND the need for Him in Whom "was life, and that life was the light of all mankind."

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

Thursday, December 26

Odds and Ends

Our kids were very patient with our busy Christmas day - Hannah didn't even have time to pull her big surprise out of its box until the next morning. Undoubtedly she will now find it much more convenient to practice what she is learning from her piano lessons with Enoch.

One of the items that Dixie had put in the mail three weeks ago was a new set of Christmas lights. Even though Christmas was past, with my brother coming the following day and all our major planning and cleaning done, I decided to take the time - and the duct tape - to put a few strings up on the front of the house.  

The evening brought a very pleasant gathering of our fellow OMS missionaries at the Bundy house next door.  So much good food and lots of laughs. You need to try Brett Bundy's homemade deep-fried mozzarella cheese sticks!  (Keep in mind, "homemade" is not a term used loosely here - he starts with two gallons of MILK.)

Looks like Lily's putting off the new diet until after the first of the year...

Saturday, December 27

My Brother's Family Arrived Today!

We've been anticipating this day for MONTHS now.  Uncle Russ and Aunt Alecia and cousins Ethan, Allison and Logan sacrificed a quieter Christmas at home and drove all the way from Indiana to Miami over the last two days, boarding a plane this morning, and then touching down at the Cap Haitien airport a bit after noon.

It was a long wait in the hot sun outside the airport as Russ' family worked their way through the confusion of customs and baggage retrieval.

First order of business after the pick up: lunch back at our house.

Current holder of "Favorite Uncle" title:

Russ and Alecia brought all their personal items in their carry-on bags, so they had five 50 pound suitcases to devote to presents, hard-to-find food items, and supplies for Daniel's upcoming party. Melissa had great fun going through all of it.

Grandma Trudy even sent a bag of homemade noodles to Hannah after learning that that's a part of Thanksgiving in Indiana that Hannah really missed this year.

And now, let the cousin bonding time begin!

What an amazing and blessed holiday this has already proven to be!  So much joy packed into these days already.  And so many fun possibilities in the week ahead. We have been truly blessed by so many people in so many ways.  We thank God for you all!



Tomorrow's plan: Worship with the fine folks at Grace en Sion Church in the morning and catch lunch and some swimming at a hotel downtown in the afternoon.