At Home??? in Haiti

Greetings in Christs name,

As you may know, I've been at Hospital Lumiere in Bonne Fin, Haiti this past week.  It seems very strange at times to know that soon we will call this place 'home.'   But God's presence has been with me in my activities this week...and so I know that while there will be trials and tests for our family in the coming months with preparations, moving, settling, learning etc. we will be 'home' where ever we are.

Short update:  This week has been (for me) about meeting, learning and beginning to know our missionary team here at HL.  I've been blessed to spend time with Bro. Rich Pfister, our Director of Operations, Bro. Daryl Luginbuhl, Director of Facilities, Bro. Lee Klopfenstien, (Future) Medical Director, Sis. Sheila Moser, Campus Support Manager, Eric Hartzler, Patient Care Manager, and Bro. Bob Beebe, Interim Administrator, as well as the Pfister, Hartzler, and Luginbuhl families.

The team that I traveled with consists of Don and Ada Plattner (non-medical and Nurse), Claudia Strahm (Nurse), Mellisa Mangers (Nurse), Linda Hodel (PTA), Margaret Hundley (Nurse), Dr. Kerry Glynn (my families GP) and Max and Judy Reimchisel (non-medical).

The last 2 1/2 days, Dr. Glynn and the majority of the nurses have been operating a cervical cancer screening clinic for the local population.  There have been many many participants (all women thankfully)....first 1/2 day there were about 40 patients, yesterday, about 90!!!! and today close to 100.  Over 200 patients served in such a short time.  Dr. Glynn has a wonderful servant heart as do the nurses.

We also had some sad news while here.  Steve Fischer, Bluffton, IN, who has spent much time and energy here at the Hospital assisting Daryl with facilities remodeling and maintenance, received news early this week that his father-in-law had passed away.  Steve was planning to stay for 3 more weeks to continue working here (and beginning on the Klopfenstiens house renovation), but of course headed home after receiving the news.  This left Daryl with a bit of a void in his plans....However, God provides for our every need!  God laid this need on the hearts of Max and Judy Reimchisel, and they decided that if Daryl and the Missionary families there would desire, they would be willing to stay for another 2 week!!!! I'm thankful for their stage in life where they can be so flexible, as well as the sacrifice of their family back home in Wichita.  May God bless their time at HL over the next two weeks.

I've benefited greatly from my time with our future missionary partners here at HL.  I've been able to spend several quiet conversations with each of my future fellow employees and am grateful at feeling God's hand with each of those conversations.

Also spent time in participating in some preparations for moving!  Komari (to this point) has really been shouldering the main burden here.....Hopefully this get's me engaged to help her!!!

Below is a picture of our future home!  lots of ideas about how to make it "home".....we're going to be looking for volunteers to participate in a work team in May...likely dates are May 4-11 (check your calendars if your of a heart to go???).  This work team will be tasked to work on the house we'll call home in Haiti.

On Wednesday, we took a short trip to visit the Cancer Redemption Project.  (www.cancerredemption.com).  This site is near the Hospital at Bonne Fin (down the mountain, a short 20 miles and 1 hour drive away!!!).  I wasn't going to go, due to other demands on time, but I learned that my dear cousins, Randy and LaNae Meyer, were there at CRP working!  So, I had the privilege of connecting with my cousin from Chicago in Haiti!

LaNae Meyer, me and Sheila Moser

I'll close this post with a request for continued prayer....Pray for the work here in Haiti.  Pray that we as a family can be used instruments in that work by God's Grace.

P.S.  Update from our trip back to Port-au-Prince.....recent months have shown a rise in some frustrations in the general population of Haiti.   There have been some mild protests recently, and one way this is done is by blocking the main road in Haiti.  This happened (for several reasons) on the Friday night/Saturday morning of our trip from Bonne Fin to Port-au-Prince.  So, we left the Hospital around 4.45 AM and our driver wasn't at Cavillion (9 miles from hospital) to meet us, because he had been stopped since 2.00 AM by a roadblock at Miragoane (halfway point, about 50 miles from the Hospital).  We reach the roadblock around 7.30 AM. We ran into another missionary family and work team that had been stopped there since 4.00 AM.  Our driver, while a mere 1.5 miles from us, might as well been in Miami.....So, our driver took a taxi (motorcyle) to meet us and after some discussion, we decided we (8 team members and the driver) would take 9 taxi's and all of our luggage on taxi's (motorcycles) to our bus....this would require us to go through the roadblocks (by this time the protesters were gone, but broken glass, remains of 4 debris road blocks and two very large vehicle (semi and bus) road blocks remained.  Candidly, this was pretty much on the edge of "wise" and stretched the comfort level of many of our team from a safety standpoint (we learned some info later about the reason of the roadblock that may have changed our decision to go).

That's me on the taxi

 However, after a 5 minute ride with luggage in hand, we arrived at our bus and by 9.00 we were on our way again.  We arrived without further incident at Port-au-Prince Airport and caught our flight home.  Again, thankful for God's protection.

Preparations Begin

After the bustle of the Holidays, the month of January gave us a bit more time to focus  our minds on our upcoming move to Haiti and the transition into mission service.  

While Rick stayed busy with work and travel for work, I began making preparations to put our home on the market.  These preparations mostly involved  cleaning and organizing and I am quite thankful for the help of my in-laws, LaVonne and Lori and my good friends Selena and Joni.  These kind ladies spent a day helping me with some deep cleaning and their help was much appreciated!!  If possible, we prefer to sell our home in Sabetha, but we will see what the Lord has planned for this possession that He has entrusted to us.  We are starting to show our home to some interested couples, and will list it officially with Rick's parents (they are real estate agents) if nothing developed in the next few weeks.  

Rick and I were able to set some dates on our moving timeline and this has helped the planner in me to set some goals and organize my action steps leading up to the move.  Obviously, we need to remain flexible to changes, but I do find comfort in having a plan in place.  At this point, we plan to move to Haiti in June.  Hopefully, we will still be able to spend some time in Les Cayes doing some language and cultural training; however, needs at the hospital in Bonne Fin may shorten this time.   

We are already into the second half of February and I can hardly believe how fast the time is going.  We had plans to travel to Illinois last weekend (Feb. 7th - 10th) for some missionary counseling at Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services (ACCFS), but Krae became ill the night before we were to leave.  He tested positive for Influenza A so we stayed home.  I think Rick probably had it too while he was traveling for work that week and Selah ran a fever for a few days as well.  Thankfully, rest and a bit of Tamiflu kept the little ones from being too sick; they just had fevers and slept a lot. 

At this writing Rick is in Haiti and spending some time at Hospital Lumiere.  He will be there from Feb. 16th - Feb 23rd and will arrive back home on the 24th.  During his time there, he hopes to learn as much as possible about the hospital and start to build relationships with the management team and staff.  Prayers for this time are needed and appreciated!!  We hope to travel down at least one more time before we move and take Mara and Krae with us.

Looking ahead, Rick will spend some time at Regional Medical Center in Manchester, IA in the month of March.  He will spend time with Lon Butikofer who is the Chief Operating Executive there.  Lon also serves on the Hospital Lumiere Governance Board.  We also plan to travel to Illinois for our re-scheduled day of counseling at ACCFS.  Along with our other activities for church and school, it will be a busy month.


I wish that I could say that the last few weeks have gone by without any doubts or anxiety regarding our transition into mission service.  Satan continues to work on us, but we are quick to see the signs and turn our focus back to God.  A few weeks ago, I was struggling with the financial changes that we will face with this move.  By the standards of the society we live in, this change in our lives will be costly to our financial situation.  Rick is leaving a position with KSi that he enjoys during the years of his life that have the most potential earning power.  My plans and thoughts of remodeling our kitchen or even building a new home will probably not be realized.  These are the thoughts that Satan was using to disturb my peace.  Fortunately, I have a beautiful relationship with God and He is so very faithful.  On a day when I was feeling weighed down by my doubts, God brought just the right scriptures to me:

Each morning on the way to school, I share a verse with our children.  I use a daily verse app on my phone and the verse for that day was: 

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also    Matthew 6:21

Needless to say, I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit regarding the thoughts I had allowed to distract me.

Later in the morning, I sat down to do my personal daily devotion and it was focused on the 6th chapter in Matthew as well.  These verses were the central point:

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  Matthew 6:33-34

Once again, reading this chapter was so very timely and encouraging to me.

That afternoon, Rick forwarded a devotional that he had received from a good friend of ours that put me in tears and really helped me to re-focus my heart and mind on the will of God.  The devotional was written by David Platt as he is referencing John Piper and  is entitled Risk or Retreat.  I will insert a small bit of it that spoke to my heart:


We can retreat into a wilderness of wasted opportunity. We can rest content in casual, convenient, cozy, comfortable Christian lives as we cling to the safety and security this world offers. We can coast through a cultural landscape marked by materialism, characterized by consumerism, and engulfed in individualism. We can assent to the spirit of this age and choose to spend our lives seeking worldly pleasures, acquiring worldly possessions, and pursuing worldly ambitions — all under the banner of cultural Christianity.

Or we can decide that Jesus is worth more than this. We can recognize that he has created us, saved us, and called us for a much greater purpose than anything this world could ever offer us. We can die to ourselves, our hopes, our dreams, our ambitions, our priorities, and our plans. We can do all of this because we believe that the person and the plan of Christ bring reward that makes any risk more than worth it.

Are you in tears yet?  

I have been convicted for several years that I need to follow God's leading and His will with joy in my heart for the opportunity to serve Him.  My first inclination is to serve Him, but to do so grudgingly.  I will close this post with a verse and ask that you join me in prayer, asking for joyful hearts in service to Him.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.    Matthew 13:44