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!

NEW ROOMS

Hurricane Matthew has passed by with little negative effect on our region of Haiti. We won't be resuming school until Thursday. Tomorrow  (Wednesday) we will gather at Cowman to give thanks that the Lord spared us from this storm and to pray for all those in Haiti and elsewhere who were harmed by Matthew. 

I hope to also use part of the day tomorrow to get my new room in order. 

Here are a few pictures from the move yesterday...

Loading up the truck with desks, shelves and boxes:

Caleb and Samuel and many others helped out, making quick work of it.

Since we were a few days ahead of schedule, the new rooms were still being prepped when we arrived with the first load:

Not too sad to leave this little box of a room behind:

Everything got dumped in the middle of the new science room:

My new room beginning to take shape:

Meanwhile, today was all about celebrating our newest teenager. I think Samuel will always remember his 13th birthday. 

We certainly appreciate all the friends and family who have offered up prayers over the last few days for us and all of Haiti. Keep the Haitian people in your prayers and we'll continue praying that Matthew loses steam on its way to the U.S.!

THE MOVE BACK TO CAMPUS - AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

This post was originally entitled "TWO WEEKS TO GO", but thanks to a week-long struggle with our lousy internet connection (bless its heart) and then a jump ahead on our timetable, our junior and senior high classes are moved back to the Cowman campus as of this morning.

I remember the days of dial up internet. THAT was FAST and RELIABLE compared to what we've had here since our return in August. When it takes two and a half hours to upload three photos, I have no patience or time left for writing. 

So most of these pictures were taken just over a week ago. We've been reuniting with the younger grades back on Cowman campus each Friday morning for the chapel service before loading our 27 older students into a few pick ups and heading back to our temporary home base. 

And it's been odd. We've been so separated from the rest of the staff and the younger students that it makes me feel a bit homesick to be there just 45 minutes a week. It's also odd because the consensus among our students is that they would like to STAY PUT in the temporary classrooms long term. The number one reason? Noise level. Our teens, unsurprisingly, have little appreciation for the screaming kindergarten set. AND Cowman has been a very loud construction zone for over a year now, most of it right outside our window. Not to mention the constant hum of the generator just over the school wall. 

It WILL be difficult to leave the quiet. But I am over the claustrophobia of my temporary room and ready to be back HOME. When we first came back to Haiti in August, I was not enthusiastic about the plan to set up temporary classrooms on the OMS grounds for several weeks while our new classrooms were finished up. (That's actually quite an understatement.) But now I see it as part of God's plan for us all - it was a bonding experience for us and a chance to establish our identity (among both teachers and students) as not just "the big kids at Cowman", but rather as the bona fide Cowman Junior and Senior High.   

Thanks to the arrival of Jeff (math) and Chris (science) Love and our good friend John Adams (history, appropriately enough) and the return of Pastor Jethro for French lessons, our students now see five different teachers in the course of each day. Hard to remember three years ago when Caleb and Hannah were basically with one teacher ... me ... ALL DAY LONG. 

I don't have the ability to upload the most recent pictures of the new rooms, but when I do, you'll see how much progress has been made in a very short time. About ten days ago, my new room looked something like this:

That's Jeff and Chris Love, with Melissa in between. 

That day, we came back to Cowman in the afternoon for a staff meeting. Good to be with friends!

Here is the outside door to my classroom.

The scaffolding that supported the new concrete roof was ready to come down that day after being left in place for two weeks while the roof had cured. 

The view of the kindergarten building from Chris' new science room.

Next up, as long as funds hold out, we'll be building upwards. Yes, it will probably be noisy. 

And here's a shot of what will soon become a distant memory - Mr. Mikken teaching art class to the junior and senior high boys in the temporary science room.

Last week our plan was to have four days of class this week and then take Friday off (and the following Monday) to make the move back to Cowman. Then along came Hurricane Matthew. With all the uncertainty of the storm's path and speed, the Haitian government urged all local schools to cancel classes for today and tomorrow. Since we weren't yet getting anything more than occasional sprinkles, we decided to make good use of the day by moving the classrooms back to campus. Within a few hours, the temporary classrooms were empty and the new classrooms were ... in disarray. But it was so much better than sitting around waiting for the coming storm. 

We're not sure what tomorrow will bring. God willing, my family will weather the storm without too much disruption. We're on high ground in a well-built house. We do covet your prayers for friends and others across Cap Haitien and the rest of Haiti who may have a much rougher course ahead of them. We're praying the storm will rapidly lose its strength. We'll keep you up to date as the internet allows. 

FIRST WEEK IN THE BOOKS

And what a week it was!

It's Sunday evening and our Internet is being less than cooperative with my laptop, so I'm trying to blog on my phone. I have little patience for thumb typing, so I'll keep the commentary short!

In all the activity of preparing to teach, I didn't forget that this was a new school year for the kids as well. Caleb is now a sophomore, Hannah a freshman, Samuel an 8th grader and Sarah is in 4th!

These folks have been crazy busy since arriving in Haiti last month and we are so very happy to have Jeff supervising math, Chris teaching science classes and Camden as a new 7th grader.

Our classes are upstairs from where I usually teach adult English classes. (This Tuesday will begin our new year for THAT!)

Ruysdael is helping us out at the temporary site. It's good to have him close.

Our other new teacher is John Adams. He is off to a great start with the social study classes.

Ruysdael is continuing his role this year as Creole teacher for the missionary kids. I didn't realize until the first day of school that I actually have free time while he teaches Caleb and Hannah,  so I'm joining the class!

Lunch time. No cafeteria!

The start of school always makes AFTER school times that much sweeter. Here Caleb and Brianna practice some guitar.

These two ladies are like family now, but their time in Haiti is drawing to a close this coming Tuesday. So we're trying to jam in as many experiences as possible for Jan and Judy. We asked Johnny to grab a couple of coconuts to share with them. What a guy!

Friday morning was an OMS prayer time, so we didn't have classes. Melissa and I took Jan and Judy in the afternoon to tour the Meds and Food for Kids facility on the other side of Cap Haitien.  They have an impressive operation producing nutritional peanut butter based snacks for malnourished children.

We were there to buy some of those snacks for the Potter's House orphans courtesy of Maelyn Kiser, an enterprising young lady from our home church who raised money last year as a high school senior to help the orphans.

The kids enjoyed their extra day off at home: Friday afternoon in the yard on the rope swing.

Yesterday we took Jan and Judy to the beach - a well deserved reward for so much work they've done for Cowman over the last two weeks.

As a bonus for us, our friends from Emmaus Seminary were also there. Sarah enjoyed some time with Lily and Sofie and baby Nora.

And we inaugurated our new inflatable kayak - a little family toy I snuck onto the container early in August.

I loved watching Jan play in the sand with Samuel and Camden!

A fantastic lunch all together at Cormier Beach. I almost forgot to mention that Valerie Colie was also with us - she's another one who has worked tirelessly to get Cowman off to a good start this year!

This morning I took Jan and Judy out to see Daniel and his kids. It's always eye-opening and humbling to see the neighborhood kids who come to eat and to watch Daniel at the helm, week after week serving his neighborhood in Jesus' name. 

Afterward, I spent most of the afternoon ... and the evening with my head under the kitchen sink.  I was determined to finally get rid of what Melissa has been calling the "camping sink" and install the nice deep sink and new faucet that my brother Spencer gave us (over a year ago!).

I'm not the most skilled handy man on the planet, but I persevered.

And ALMOST succeeded. 

It's not clipped down or caulked and there's a small drip underneath, but good enough to start washing some dishes. Samuel got the honor of being the first to use the new sink.

I have to say it again: We are BLESSED! Good friends, fulfilling work and running water. We can't ask for much more. Thanks for your support and prayers. We are looking forward to seeing what week number two holds!