Hello from Haiti!

  Bonjou!

       Lovely morning here in Borel.  I’m sure it’s a lovely and chilly morning where most of you are right now.  Sorry for the delay in blogging. I guess you could say it was my “Christmas break”.  I’ll be on a regular routine of blogging now and I’ll try to keep y’all up to date on what goes on here in Haiti.  Well, for the most part. 😉

       Our family has been in Haiti since Christmas day, about 3 weeks.  We brought a team of 11 with us and they stayed until January 1st.  Sharing pictures helps me remember everything we did, so I’ll share some pictures with captions. 

P.S. I don’t remember the exact order of when we did everything, so the pictures are in random order.
        

A sweet “welcome home” note on our door from our dear friend, Fritz (or his nickname, Pwason)

We had the opportunity to visit Karen’s orphanage down the road in Dechappelle.  It was our first time visiting the orphanage and it was such a fun time! We brought instruments and played some worship songs with the kids and we went for a walk down the canal.  

Our view walking along the canal with the kids

It’s become an annual tradition of helping Guivens have a Christmas party for his Little Seeds of Faith group. 

   

Trust me, they were a lot happier than what they look in these pictures 😉

 

And of course, we can’t bring a team to Haiti without taking them to see the muffin man!

 

These guys always love having visitors. Especially when the visitors give them good business.

 

These muffins are some of the best muffins I have ever tasted!

 

 

Our “mountain day”. Stopped here to take a team picture with the Artibonite Valley in the background.

  

We walked around and visited different Haitian homes and prayed with the residents. At this home in particular, God gave us the opportunity to present the Gospel to this family and many other neighbors who came to listen. We gave them a Haitian Creole Bible and prayed over them. These little girls in the picture didn’t have any clothes, so (thanks to all of you who donated clothing and supplies for our trip) we gave them each a dress.

 

 

As you can see, the conditions of this Haitian hospital are very different from what we’re used to in America. We try to make it a point to visit a hospital every time we come to Haiti. We usually take Bibles, some hygiene kits, and sometimes granola bars. The patients are extremely grateful for the prayers we offer. God does a mighty work through this ministry.

 
 

(L-R: Alex, Sadie, Matt, and Ashley) These four people here are some very brave people 😉 Right behind them is the Haitian “Red Cross” . We learned a couple years ago that we can go here to donate blood. So, getting stuck with a needle the size of a toothpick, these guys generously donated their blood. As you can see, they got some free T-shirts and also free snacks after it was over!

 
 

This little cutie here is Guesley. He is the Compassion Child of a friends of ours from Hannibal, Jonathan William. Jonathan had the opportunity to join us on our last trip to Haiti in June 2015. He got to meet Guesley in person and get to know his family. Guesley only lives a short walk away from our compound so it was an easy walk to his house. Jonathan sent a suitcase full of goodies for Guesley and his family to enjoy for Christmas. They we SO grateful. Guesley especially loved the soccer ball and the pictures Jonathan sent him. Guesley’s brother told us that Guesley prays for Jonathan everyday. Sponsorship is such a blessing!!

 
   

These last two pictures are of Edgard and Laura’s Bible study group (Edgard and Laura are Haitian missionaries on our compound. We sang worship songs around the campfire, and we introduced something very Amercian to these kids: S’MORES!!! They loved the smores!! It was such a fun night. Later on we showed them how to roast hot dogs 🙂

 
I know, it’s a lot of pictures. But, it helps you visualize things better. 😉 

Anyways, it was a blessing to get to work with the people on our team this trip! It’s always amazing to see how God puts our teams together.  We got to reunite with some friends from different home towns through this trip, so that was pretty awesome too. 

My sister, Annie, and Alex all stayed for another week after our team left.  We had lots of opportunities to visit with people in the community and to pray with them and pass out Bibles.  It’s always great to get to know the community better and to form relationships with people.

   
 

This past week, we worked with the College First team from Findley, Ohio. They built benches for the school at Savon Tapion and visited their sister church at Charette. They were a great team to work with and I can’t wait to work with them again! (Si Bondye vle: if God wants) We said goodbye to this team yesterday at noon.

We appreciate all the prayers you are sending up for us! Keep ’em coming! We see God doing amazing things in the lives of our Haitian friends and in our own lives as well. To God be the glory!

“Oh, magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt His name together.”

‭Psalms‬ ‭34:3‬ ‭