The First Few Days

After two days of travel and a hectic few days leading up to our trip to Haiti, we were ready to spend Friday settling in and relaxing a bit.  Most of Friday was spent unpacking and getting comfortable in the apartment in Les Cayes.  This apartment is part of Tim and Joan Reinhard's home and so they will be close neighbors to us while we are here.  Tim and their daughters are home in the US on furlough, but Joan is here with their two younger children who are being adopted by the Reinhard family and not able to travel to the US at this time.  Joan spent some time with us on Friday to give us the info we needed for the weekend and then she and the two children (Mackenson 6 & Berlika 2) went on a camping trip with another family - they had this trip planned for some time before they knew we would be arriving this weekend.  

Our children were able to meet a few other missionary kids that live nearby and will be good friends.  Many of the missionary families are gone right now on furlough so we are thankful that a few are here.  Rick's cousin, LaNae Meyer is currently living next door while her husband, Randy, is working on a church/school building project at Cancer Redemption Project.  She visited us Friday afternoon and shared some taco salad fixin's so we were able to have some "American" food for supper.  We are excited to have Randy and LaNae so close and look forward to spending more time with them.  

Madam Lorette, who will be our cook during our time in Les Cayes, came on Friday and made our lunch.  She will also go to market for us and get fresh fruits and vegetable.  We hear that she is a talented cook and aims to please the families' tastes and preferences.  Our language teacher, Jean Claude, came by to meet us and set up a schedule to begin language classes on Monday AM.  We have heard that Jean Claude is an excellent teacher and is well respected in the community.  He is a pastor of a church and also teaches language at the local university so while he may introduce himself as Pastor Jean Claude, he is well known as Met Jean Claude. This means Master Jean Claude and reflects his status as a professor at the university. 

It sounds like Friday was busy with visitors, but it actually was a low-key day of unpacking and getting acquainted.  I loved the way others just dropped in to say hello and welcome!

Here is a fun pictures of Selah getting her bath on Friday evening.  We have a shower only in the bathroom so she will get many of her baths in the kitchen sink.

Since there were not many people around for the weekend, we decided to borrow a vehicle and travel up to Bonne Fin for the weekend.  We were able to spend some time in fellowship with the team that traveled from the airport with us as well as the Klopfensteins, the Luginbuhls and Sheila.  The Pfisters and the Hartzlers are both on furlough in the US.  It was exciting to see the progress that has continued on our future home and we found a fun surprise from the work team that traveled to Bonne Fin with us in May to work on our home.  On the night before we left to go home, each of them made a sneak trip back up to our house and wrote a message on the wall above the master bedroom door.  What a fun and touching surprise for us.

I will close with some additional pictures of progress on our home.  Enjoy!

The New Depot and Patio behind our house.
This area is protected by a natural rock wall and shaded by trees - a nice sanctuary!

Kitchen Cabinets with Haitian Red Paint.  Still awaiting wood for doors and  drawers.
The wood should arrive with our belongings on the Sea Container.

Start of our security fence around the yard.  It is hard to see, but barbed wire is strung
between the posts and then plants and cactus are planted to make a natural barrier wall.

The retaining wall that was built on the road up the hill and behind our house.
This wall should divert water when it rains and keep the back patio from flooding.

Inside the depot.  

Ready or Not... ...Here We Go!

The final week before our departure for life on the mission field in Haiti was filled with so many emotions.  I don't know that I will be able to communicate all that we experienced in our hearts and minds, but I will try to give an overview.  

If you read the last post, you know that our family was very busy in the weeks leading up to our move.  We are thankful for the activities that our children participated in and we are thankful that we could travel to say farewell to family and friends; however, all of the activity meant we were not doing as much packing as needed.  At the beginning of June, we decided that spending some time with family and friends was important and we would have to let others help us.  We had many offers and we needed to accept them.  I can't say that it was easy for me to let others help me so much, but I can say that I received an added blessing.  I believe I will always cherish the time I had with my friends and family during our packing sessions.  It was so encouraging to spend some extra time with loved ones and share thoughts and plans along with the work of packing.  I will also mention that Rick's parents, Roger and LaVonne, were a tremendous help to us.  They kept our children more times than I can even count and may have spent more time at our house packing this last week than they spent at their own home.  We could not have done it without them!

While we enjoyed the time we could spend with others while packing, Rick and I still felt an immense amount of stress.  Also, it was hard on Mara and Krae to see everything packed up in the only home they have ever known.  Krae ran a low-grade temperature for a few days and was not feeling well, so it was especially upsetting for him.  On the Saturday before departure, I took a break from packing for a few minutes and helped the kids make some tunnels between moving boxes and then drape old blankets over them to make a tent.  It was lots of fun and provided a fun play area for the rest of the weekend!

        

Some other positives (although still a bit stressful for the planning) during this week were selling our vehicle and getting an offer and a contract on our home.  We received an offer on our home exacting one week week before departure and we signed a contract that evening.  Fortunately, the closing will not be until September - this is helpful as the building that will store our household belongings will not be completed for a few more weeks.  We had to leave the responsibility of moving our household belongings to storage with Rick's parents and his business partner, Brad Strahm. I know they will appreciate help when the time to move stuff arrives. 

The last couple of days before our scheduled flight were some of the most stressful for Rick and myself. Getting all the last minute details wrapped up and having to leave so much of the moving to others was very difficult.  At the same time, God was teaching us a lesson about depending on others.  I guess the real lesson is depending on Him and letting Him use others to help us along this road.  To all of you that have helped, are currently helping and will help us in the future with this move, we want each of you to know how much we appreciate and love you. As well, we thank each of you for the prayers!!

On Tuesday evening (the night before scheduled departure), Rick and I sent our children home with Roger & LaVonne so they could get to bed and get a good night of sleep.  We finished packing for the trip to Haiti about 10:30 PM and then did a small amount of cleaning up in our home on Jefferson Street.  A bit before 11 PM, Rick made me quit and we said good-bye to our home and went out to his parent's home for the night.  It was a relief to finally be done with packing and to feel like we were on our way.

Wednesday AM was a good morning; LaVonne had a nice breakfast for us and Rick's sister Lori and her husband John came to give us a final hug.  We left a bit after 9 AM for the airport.  Lori decided to come along at the last minute so we had a nice send-off team with her and Roger and LaVonne.  Our flight from KC to Atlanta was delayed about 45 minutes and we appreciated the delay this time as it gave us more time to deal with all of our bags, eat a bite of lunch and then say our final farewells. 

Our flight went well and we arrived in Atlanta safely.  It was a bit challenging because we were not able to check our 10 bags through to Port Au Prince, so we had figure out a way to get our 10 checked bags, our 5 carry-on bags, our 4 backpacks, a diaper bag and a stroller to our hotel room.  For the first time ever, we used SkyCap service and let Delroy help us get our bags from baggage claim to the hotel shuttle.  The hotel had a locked storage area where we could keep 10 of the bags overnight. 

Our flight to Port Au Prince went smooothly and the kids did great on both flights.  It took a bit to  keep Selah entertained during the flights, but she did extremely well overall.  I believe all the prayers offered up on our behalf were being answered.  

We were thankful to meet up with Daryl and Norma Luginbuhl in the PAP airport as well as their grandson Josh.  They arrived shortly before us and were still in baggage claim so they were able to help us get all of our bags.  Several others had arrived early in the day and met us outside the airport.  This included Lon and Sandy Butikofer and Bob Pflederer and two of his grandsons.  All together, we had a bus load of 13 people for the drive from PAP.

The drive was uneventful, but long as we were stuck in traffic for about 1 hour right outside of Port because of some road construction.  After about 12 hours of travel on Thursday, we finally arrived at the apartment in Les Cayes that will be our home for the next few weeks.  

Looking back, the trip was as long as I remembered, but I did feel the prayers and a wonderful sense of peace from God.  After struggling with the decision to come, it was a relief to be here and to feel that we are following the path that God has laid out for us.  

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.     Psalms 19:14 

Prepare & Pack

Note:  My apologies!  I wrote this post about 1 week ago and thought I had published it. This info is a bit dated, but still pertinent.  I hope to have another post about our trip south soon.  K.

As I think back over the last few weeks, the best description would be "Prepare & Pack."
Once we returned from our last trip to Bonne Fin with the work team that did renovation work on our house, it was time to get make final preparations for the move.  

On May 17th, we had the opportunity to gather with our church family for a Farewell Potluck, Singing and Presentation.  It was encouraging to be together and to share a bit of our God's plan for our lives.  Bro. Kirk Plattner, who serves as the Mobilization Coordinator for ACWR, and his wife Sis. Keri made the trip out to Sabetha to be with us and to share missionary information with our church family.  Rick and I are thankful for their past work in the mission field as well as their current work in supporting new missionaries in the sending process.

On May 25th, the Saturday before Memorial Day, we held a garage sale to clean out a bit before our move.  The sale was well attended and quite successful. The Pampered Chef items went especially well.  It seemed like a stressful time during the preparation for the sale, but sale day went well.  Most of our sales were in the first 45 minutes!

Selah enjoying ice cream during our garage sale!

At the end of May, Rick concluded his work responsibilities with KSi Conveyors, Inc. and I was thrilled to have him home and focused on  the upcoming move.

In Haiti, work continued on our home with the Haitian Crew as well as a work team that traveled down with Sis. Heather Steiner.  Here are a few pictures of the continued progress.

Work being done on  the Stone Wall that will be part of our Wash Depot

Most of the homes on the HL campus have an unattached outbuilding called a Depot.  This building serves as a wash room for laundry as well as area for storage.  Our home had these facilities as part of the house.  We choose to take out the wall of the wash room to give us an eat-in kitchen.  It was also our preference to have the wash room outside the house.  

Kitchen Cabinets with a coat of Rouge (Haitian Red)

June brought an urgency to get packing and a busy schedule for Mom and kids with Krae taking Swimming Lessons, Mara and Krae participating in a week long Art Workshop and  Mara and Krae participating in VBS at church.  During the first couple of weeks of June, we frantically packed and purchased the items that will go to Haiti on a Sea Container.  
We have decided that Amazon Prime service is a pretty good deal for us!

We traveled to Lester, IA the first weekend in June to attend the Knoblock reunion and say our farewells to that side of the family.  

The weekend of June 8-9, we listened to our nephew, Marcus Baumgartner, give his testimony of faith and then witnessed his baptism.  It was a wonderful weekend, yet busy as we loaded a moving truck with the items we are taking to Haiti.  Unfortunately, Rick injured his back during this process and was in pain for a few days.  A special thanks to Dr. Simpson and Dr. Lukert for their chiropractic adjustments and prayers for his healing!  

Rick and I pulled out on Sunday evening for the trip to Bluffton, IN.  He was driving a 24' moving truck and I followed in our personal vehicle.  We drove to Springfield, IL that evening and then on to Cincinnati, OH on Monday to an IKEA store.  

We purchased the majority of our furniture at IKEA.  It might take two men a week to put it all together once the boxes arrive in Bonne Fin.  That said, loading the pallets for the Sea Container is simplified with furniture that is not assembled yet.  This was our first time in an IKEA, so it was a fun day.  Pulling three flatbeds and one regular shopping cart up to the check out counter was a bit challenging, but we were thankful for the ease of finding items and some help loading our items into the moving truck. (especially with Rick's sore back)

We hit Sam's Club in Cincinnati (three shopping carts and another session of loading into the truck) and then made the final leg to Bluffton, IN.  Apostolic Christian World Relief sends supplies to missionaries in the field from the Bluffton Distribution Center (BDC).  Bro. Bob & Sis Mary Honegger oversee this service and are amazingly committed souls.  This was our first visit to BDC and we were quite impressed with the work that is done there.

Our "stuff" after unloading at BDC

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Rick, Rich Pfister & Steve Fischer waiting for the fork lift to move another load off the truck.
(Yes, they are working and not just hanging out in the truck!)

Once we unloaded the moving truck, we had a bit more shopping to do, but we were able to have dinner with Bro. Rich and Sis. Amber Pfister who are on furlough from HL.  We were able to meet their new daughter, Baby Esther, who was born in late May - what a little sweetie!  Bob and Mary Honegger hosted us overnight; we enjoyed getting to know them and hearing about how they support mission service.  We thank God for the work they do in His name!

On Wednesday, we headed back home with a stop in Morton, IL for a day(Thursday) of pre-placement counseling at Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services.  We arrived back home in Sabetha at about midnight on Thursday night.  It was an exhausting week, but we are thankful that all went smoothly.  Our children spent the week with Grandpa and Grandma Aberle and had a great week.

We were home for a day on Friday and then headed south to Kiowa, KS on Saturday to say our farewells to my family and our church family there.  This was a quick trip with our return on Sunday, but we were thankful to be with loved ones for the short time we were there.

Once we were back in Sabetha, we had about 10 days to pack up the rest of the house and pack our bags for travel to Haiti.  I am going to write more about our final week at home in another post since this one is getting a bit long.

A couple of highlights for our kids during the last few weeks have been farewell parties with some of their friends.  It meant alot for Mara and Krae to have some special time to be with their friends and say farewell.  Here are a few pics from their parties:

Krae eating with his buddies

Buddies hanging out in the tube slide

Mara eating with her friends

The girls at the pool!