The Past few months in Haiti

1.        Friends come and friends go

2.      R&R in Boone

3.      Starting a garden

4.      Finding a tutor for beach kids

5.      Work, Work, Work

6.      Community Kid’s Soccer League

7.       Helping with bible lessons for beach kids

 

v  Let’s see who has left: Jessica, Charles and Debbie, Evy, Paul, Michael, Andrew, Darin, Brianna, Andrea and Blaine.  Here are the arrivals: Paul, Michael, Andrew, Darin (yes the same ones that left came back a few weeks later), Brianna (came back 2 months later), Viviane, Pamela, Drew, Rian, Rebecca, Jiesha, Chris.  It is hard to see so much change.  To become friends with someone and then they are gone.  I am very thankful for the friendships of those departed and look forward for the friendships to come.

v  R&R was great.  Family.  Friends.  Great food.  We celebrated 10 years of marriage.  We vacationed at home for our anniversary!  When we got back to Haiti we felt like we needed a vacation from our vacation!

v   Haiti is blessed to have constant sunshine.  Because of this we brought veggie seeds with us when we first came.  I have finally gotten around to starting a garden after eight months.  Decided to start out small and see how it goes.  It is a 3’ by 7’ raised bed vegetable garden.  Had to do everything by hand and now my body is very sore.  Plus the ants did not appreciate me digging in their homes and I have the bites all over my feet as proof.  Ants are amazing creatures, but I do not like them!  Once the soil dries out the planting will begin.  I pray that this garden produces fruit!  After only 1 week seeds are already sprouting.  Exciting!

v  We have been reading Pilgrim’s Progress in Creole.  Robert had some of the older beach kids read to him one night.  It took one 30 minutes to read one page.  Robert had to teach them about different Creole contractions.  We were stunned.  The school year starts in October.  We interviewed a couple of local teachers about tutoring 4 of the beach kids.  The plan is to have the tutor meet with each kid three times a week for an hour each time.  Pray that the children are motivated and that the tutor is able to teach.

v  Work, work, work.  No explanation needed.  Very thankful to have the weekends off!

v  Francois, heavy equipment operator with Robert, has a soccer league in the surrounding community.  This is the second year and the players love it.  The whole community comes out to watch.  Several of the beach kids are on teams, so we go watch their games to support them.  These kids love Robert.  One kid, Gladson, will look at Robert after each play to see if he was watching.  We really enjoy going to these games.  It is just as much fun to watch the spectators as it is to watch the players.  When their team scores the sideline erupts in cheering.  Play stops as everyone celebrates.  Never a dull moment at these games.

v  We were able to help another couple for two Saturdays with bible lessons for some of the beach kids.  We taught the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  At each lesson, breakfast is served, they retell last week’s story and then the new lesson is taught.  They are able to retell all the details.  After each bible lesson they teach them a skill or play a game with the kids.  We played soccer with a basketball on the helipad.  The kids will play soccer with just about any round ball.  This was a lot of fun and we hope to help out more in the future.

There is so much that goes on in day to day life here.  It is hard to pick out certain things to talk about and not repeat yourself.  Please pray for continued energy and encouragement for all SP workers.