FRIENDS OLD AND NEW - OUR GRUNDY CENTER TEAM

Sure, NOW we've had several sunny days in a row with only (relatively) moderate rains at night, but for the first three weeks of November, it was non-stop rains and the resulting floods around the Cap Haitien area.

Here's what the rains did to the potholes on our road to school:



Our friends from Grundy Center, Iowa joined us for what turned out to be the final week of the soggy weather. Pastor Phil and Connie Dicks brought along 11 eager, fun-loving, hard-working, challenge-meeting team members for their church's second annual Thanksgiving week mission trip. Phil had obviously done some extra pre-trip planning with the team on FLEXIBILITY ... and it paid off. 

Plus, Phil and Connie bring loads of extra JOY with them when they come to Haiti ...

... Not to mention, suitcases full of goodies, too. (We are always dumbfounded by the generosity of these two and of the entire Church!)

Johnny, Ruysdael and Mikken couldn't wait to see Phil and Connie again and Phil brought along special gifts for them too.

Our first morning together was Saturday and the original plans for the day - to host a party for the kids in Daniel's neighborhood - got scrapped completely. Daniel said there had been so much flooding that many families had left the neighborhood to visit relatives in the countryside. And those who remained behind were in survival mode and in no mood for parties. 

So we gathered outside the holiday house and came up with Plan B: we would deliver some peanut butter and crackers to Daniel so he could share some ready-to-eat food with water-logged neighbors and then we would take him shopping downtown to gather up some REAL food (rice and beans!!) that could be divided up among needy families. 

We stopped at the Babiole Market and bought out all the crackers and a box of bleach jugs.

When we arrived in Daniel's neighborhood, the water was about a foot high and most of the team, unfortunately, didn't have footwear that would allow them to help get the food back to Daniel's house. So they had to be content to observe life from the back of the truck. (Although, the group's resident photographer, Harlen, got down into the muck to get some pictures and ended up stepping in a hole and going into that "water" up to his chest. At that point, most of the others were more than happy to remain in the truck!)

Soon we had Daniel and his brother Romex with us and we headed to the market. We even took some extra time to show the Grundy folks the meat market and to greet Johnny's mom as she was working there. 

After several exhausting hours in the market place, rounding up twelve bags of rice, three huge bags of beans and several boxes of oil, tomato paste and canned fish, we had a short lull while Daniel went looking for some seasoning. Harlen was on the prowl with his camera and he talked this woman into posing for some pictures. This turned out to be my favorite of the pictures I took last week - just look at the expression on her face! (And note that Harlen is wearing Hannah's boots - which is what enabled him to go for the swim in Daniel's neighborhood. Very fashionable!)

On Sunday we worshiped with a church that is meeting currently in Cowman School's "cafeteria". A great service.

Afterwards we headed to the Villa Cana for lunch...

And then a little walking tour of the mission grounds during a lull in the rain.

Harlen kissed a goat for $5.

The goat was traumatized.

In the evening, we got to work filling 150 separate bags with a portions of rice, beans, tomato and etc. for a hardy couple of meals for 150 separate families.

Ruysdael and Sarah working together on the bags:

The finished pile of food:

On Monday, the team was at Cowman much of the day. Daniel came by in the afternoon for the food and we decided it would be safer for him if we loaded up a pick up with the bags and boxes and had one of our Haitian friends, Amos, drive it all with Daniel to his neighborhood. We had heard tales of food trucks being robbed in town recently and felt that a group of Americans accompanying the food would only draw unwanted attention. 

Instead, we took the team to the Potter's House orphanage for the afternoon. Always a heart-turning place.

On Tuesday, one of the team members, Somer, was leading a couple of nutrition seminars for Cowman parents. Here she is with other team members and Melissa at the radio station setting up some healthy snacks for the parents to enjoy during the training.

Much of the team came to my English class later in the afternoon to give my students a chance to practice conversational English. At 5:00, one of my students caught me as everyone was heading home and happily exclaimed, "I just spoke SO MUCH ENGLISH!"

Harlen, of course, was busy taking photos.

On Wednesday the Grundy Center team went out to distribute radios and share Jesus with folks in a small village near the Dominican Republic border. They came home with lots of great stories from the trip. By all accounts, it was a Kingdom-growing day.

On Thursday - Thanksgiving Day! - the group was back at Cowman, helping in the classes in the morning and setting up for an afternoon "Fall Family Festival". 

Phil and Kayden made the rounds reading stories and leading songs with all the students.

It was another rainy day, so all the planned outside games got moved inside. Kayden and Caleb set up hopscotch in my classroom.

Here's Mr. Reggie with a giant sized Kerplunk game that the team brought with them from Iowa.

The day was a great event and the kids and parents had lots of fun and lots of food and lots of special treats.

Phil is not one to waste even an hour, so after school the whole group decided it would be fun to visit Johnny and Ruysdael's neighborhood up on the mountainside. 

Harlen got a picture of Johnny's niece.

And we got a great group picture out behind Ruysdael's house.

Sarah and Kayden became fast friends through the course of the week. They're looking forward to a reunion this coming summer!

All of a sudden, Friday was upon us. Before boarding the plane for home, the team came to Cowman one last time - to lead our chapel service.

Phil led a rousing version of "Whose Side Are You Leaning On?"

Along with several other very active songs. The joy hung so thick in the air that it was almost tangible!

Chapel ended much too quickly and all that was left was a series of tearful goodbyes.

Here's Somer and Scott with Rose and Coach.

And the whole team saying final FINAL goodbyes.

We are so thankful for this incredible team of people willing to give up feasting with family and Black Friday shopping with the crazy people in order to serve the Lord in Haiti. God bless you all! My family and I will surely look forward to visiting you in Grundy Center this coming summer, Lord willing. Thank you for serving God and the people of Haiti with so much love, joy and flexibility!

P.S. The SUN came out bright and beautiful the very next morning!  You guys will need to come back again to see what Haiti looks like with blue skies!

MID-NOVEMBER UPDATE

I am thankful to say that I no longer have my standard excuse for my infrequent blog updates. At long last we have a viable, dependable internet signal at home. (Maybe someday at school, too.) A lot of men spent a lot of hours and burned a lot of calories burying internet cables around the mission grounds and ... voilà ... we are reconnected to the outside world! 

So I need to do a quick update (in pictures) to get us current. Let's go back to Melissa's birthday at the end of October. We celebrated with lots of family time, breakfast in bed and some honest-to-goodness cheesecake. 



Halloween around our house was just the way I like it - virtually non-existent. A friend brought us some candy corn and that's all I needed to celebrate the end of October. 

Then, the first Thursday in November, Melissa and Hannah left home for a trip to the Dominican Republic, accompanied by our friend and co-worker, Cassie. The goal - to get working on a solution for Hannah's chronic jaw pain. Cassie knew of a good orthodontist in Santiago and helped Melissa make an appointment for assessment on Thursday afternoon. 

Long story short, their three day trip turned into a six day absence due to delays in getting a follow up visit with the doctor. In the end, though, Melissa was happy with the orthodontist and he was able to set up Hannah with braces both above and below.

The ladies made the most out of their extra time, getting their hair styled and nails done and visiting restaurants you can't find in Haiti, like Burger King and TGIFriday's. Melissa also did some grocery shopping and picked up a few household items at a store that was remarkably similar to a Sam's Club. She was in shopper's heaven.



While the two of them were living the high life in the DR, we were blissfully unaware of coming floods back home. On that Saturday noon, many Cowman teachers gathered for the funeral of our first grade teacher's mother. Ben's mom had died quite unexpectedly at a young 56 years of age after a short illness. We were heart-broken for him.

It was a beautiful ceremony at a local church and there had to be easily 4 or 5 hundred people in attendance. She was obviously a well loved woman.

The boys and I had to get a picture with us all dressed in our best.



At the tail end of the funeral, a light rain began to fall. As we drove home, it continued and gained strength.

It had been raining a bit now and then over previous days and at first it was simply a welcome break from the Haitian heat.

At school one day I had scrambled to grab my camera when I saw the teachers of the 4-year-olds pass by my open door, guarding their students like a couple of mother hens. 

But by that Saturday night, the rain was coming down HARD and not letting up - for hours on end. And then it continued through the day on Sunday.

The weather system stalled out right over Cap Haitien and dumped inches upon inches of water. That water came rushing down the mountainside and overflowed the banks of the Grand River, carrying mud and rocks and garbage and sewage with it and carving deep ravines through roads as it went.

One of my adult English students later sent me this picture from his neighborhood:

Much of Cap Haitien looked this bad ... or worse. The main road through town, Route 1 Nationale, was strewn with mud and garbage and foul water.

On Sunday afternoon there was a short lull in the rain and bulldozers were quickly employed to clear the main road at least. I took the following picture to show how thick the mud was on the road compared to the lane in the foreground that had just been bulldozed clear. Several feet thick!

Sunday evening, after dark, Brett Bundy and I headed out to Rose and David's house to rescue the family from rising waters. We floated their two boys down the street on a large surfboard while Rose and her cousin Sonny waded through the water alongside us back to the waiting truck. David stayed back at the house to protect it from any possible looting.

Since Melissa and Hannah were still away and Sarah was sleeping in the boys' room, we put Ryan and Rasheid and Sonny in Hannah's room and Rose stayed next door with the Bundys. 

School was canceled for Monday, then Tuesday, then ... the whole week. I ended up spending a lot of time in the kitchen (missing Melissa intensely) while everyone else had plenty of free time on their hands. Sometimes we used it well; here's Samuel reading a "Froggy" book to Ryan.

I was able to check in with Daniel at one point. His neighborhood and his house had flooded. There were piles of freshly shoveled mud up and down the streets. His neighbors and the children he feeds each weekend had helped him get the water out of his house.

This shot is from inside Daniel's house. Maybe you can tell that his threshold has a raised lip on it and then his floor is sunken a good 8 or 9 inches below that lip. The flood waters had come over the lip and then filled his floor like a shallow dark pool. Thankfully, he had managed to get all of the rice and beans and other food supplies up onto cinder blocks and out of the reach of the water.

By Tuesday noon, Melissa and Hannah managed to drive through Cap Haitien - slowly - to return home from the DR. And there was much rejoicing. Especially since they came bearing gifts of doughnuts and apples and potato chips and all kinds of assorted goodies.

The rains finally started to let up by mid-week, enough that we were able to join Storly Michel and his work team at Radio 4VEH to celebrate the (near) completion of a much needed remodel of the station's sound studios.

Our family felt honored to join voices with others in singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" for the microphones. The newly refurbished recording studio was then rededicated to God's service in spreading the gospel across Haiti. 

Little by little, life has returned to normal ... for us, anyway. 

There are still hundreds of families who continue to suffer the aftereffects of the flooding - loss of food, loss of crops, loss of property. And we are praying against the possibility of cholera outbreaks.

If the Lord brings Haiti to your mind, please lift these friends and neighbors in your prayers, in addition to all those in the southwest of Haiti still recovering from Hurricane Matthew. Also, this Sunday will see the do-over presidential elections here. We're praying for a safe, quiet and honest election day and that God would raise up God-fearing men and women who will lead this nation in a positive direction.

And if I can add one more prayer request, please remember our friend and co-worker Chris Love. She is Cowman's new junior and senior high science teacher and she has been hit hard by a mysterious virus. She has been out of commission for over two weeks now, suffering fevers and pain and dehydration. Some days she has been so weak she could barely speak. Please join us in praying for her complete recovery and for extra strength and grace and peace for her and her husband and their son as they endure what has been a long and intense trial.

Here's Chris in better days showing Hannah and Maxiane some cool sciencey things.

Currently, we are glad to be back in school this week after so much time off. It's going to be a short week, though, since Friday is a Haitian holiday. All the OMS missionaries will be making the day into an early Thanksgiving since school will be in session on the following Thursday.

We are also looking forward to welcoming a short term team from Grundy Center, Iowa this coming weekend, led by our dear friends Phil and Connie Dicks. They are always such a delight to have around and we will be anxious to see what God does in and through this new team.

God bless you, and, as always, thank you so much for your support!