I could give a bunch of excuses, but it all comes down to our lives being busy. For some reason, I had the notion that life in Haiti would be simpler, slower paced and I would have some more free time to do things like blogging. Needless to say, that notion was a misconception as it seems our lives are busier than ever. Most of the time, I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water and I have to keep telling myself to Just Keep Swimming!
The past month was filled with many celebrations. We have most of our birthdays and our anniversary in October and several of the other missionaries in Bonne Fin also celebrate birthdays and anniversaries too. Our little Selah had her second birthday and is having a great time riding her new trike that she received as a gift. Krae had his seventh birthday and was especially excited to receive a box with gifts from his school buddies back home. (Thanks to the moms who put the box together for him!)
We hosted several work teams in the last month with the largest having about 20 people. The big team was a construction team from Rockville, CT. This group has been coming for several years and they worked on renovating the hospital lab this year. It looks like a new space and we are thankful for their labors. A medical team left yesterday; they did some special training with the nursing staff and we also had an internet team here last week that installed a new satellite dish on the hospital. Our internet has been fairly consistent recently; not all, but a big part of the reason why is a guy named Rick Aberle. I (and several others) are thankful for his IT knowledge and his make it work attitude.
Several of you have asked about how our household help is working out. Madam Elina (pronounced as long A-Lee-Na) has been with us for a bit over one month and she continues to do a good job and has a beautiful, joyful spirit. It is not uncommon to hear her singing hymns in Creole while she is working. We hired a young man named Mackenson to be our gardener. He is 22 years old and has aspirations to attend university. Mackenson has finished school and speaks some English. He is taking classes at an English school in Les Cayes. He enjoys plants and wants to study agronomy. He has been busy cleaning up debris and weeds in our yard and has planted new plants along our fence, in beds along the side of our house and in our back patio area. So far, he has been a hard worker and very respectful. For cooking, we hired a women named Suzette, but we call her Madam Frantz. (Frantz being her husband's name; I am called Madam Rick). This last week was her first week and it went well. Madam Frantz is 29 years old and has one child with her husband. Her little girl is about the same age as Selah, but she is rather afraid of white people. She will cook Haitian food for us and our household help for the noon meal on Mondays and Fridays and she will go to the open air market for me on Wednesdays. So all of our helpers work on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This seems to be working well and I think I like it better than having others in our home every day except Sunday. It appears that God has provided us with some wonderful, Christian people to work in our home. I am thankful for this blessing and I thank each of you that prayed for us while we were hiring people. Also, I will mention that I still do a lot of cooking and cleaning myself. It seems that the floors constantly need to be swept and only two meals of the week are cooked by someone else.
And then there is laundry! Since our power is sporadic and is often low (only 90 volts coming into the house is common) I always wait to run my washing machine until we have good power so we don't burn up the motor. Madam Elina hangs clothes out for me when it is not raining, but I am running the machine to try and avoid ruining the motor. Sometimes the simple task of doing laundry can be quite challenging. Think about having to wait to start a load until you have enough electricity. You are finally able to get a load washed and hung on the line and a rain cloud rolls in and it rains on the one load you were able to wash. On the flip side, it is still faster than taking my clothes to the river and washing them by hand and laying them out on the rocks to dry in the sun. Just when I want to complain, I have to remember that compared to my neighbors, I have it easy!!
We are mostly settled into our home. We still have several small projects to do like building shelves for our depot and then organizing the depot once we have shelves for things. We also need to do a lot of touch up painting in our house and other various little jobs. Below are a few pictures to give everyone an idea of where we live.
 |
| Living Room |
 |
| Dining Area (open to kitchen) I am still looking for a Haitian painting to hang in this area. |
 |
| Kitchen |
Our school teacher, Desma Klopfenstein, is on furlough right now so I am doing school with the children as well. Jami Hartzler and I are working together to help with the load. We trade off each week with one of us teaching for the week and the other one having toddler time with our little ones. Miss Desma will return around the 10 of December and we will be glad to have her back. Our kids are missing their classroom as well. Even though we miss Miss Desma and the school, it has been good for me to work with the children on their schoolwork and realize that I can do it. It is very likely that I will teach them myself at some point during our service in Haiti.
We are looking forward to a quick trip home in December. A loving and generous couple from our home church in Sabetha is providing the funds for us to fly home for Christmas. This trip was not planned so we are very thankful for their generosity and the opportunity to be with family for the holidays. We plan to leave Haiti on December 20th and will arrive in KC on the 21st. We will return on January 3rd & 4th. As many of you know, Rick has traveled back several times in the last few months, but this will be the first trip home since June 26th for the kids and me.
In closing, I will leave you with a poem that was given to me recently. This poem really sums up life in Haiti. Enjoy!
ANTS IN THE SUGAR BOWL
By Elizabeth Givens
So send I you
To ants in the sugar bowl,
To things that fly, creep and crawl into the house,
To uncertain water, sporadic electricity.
To long hours, sweltering heat, exhausting days,
To uncomfortable vehicles, crowded jeeps, smelly buses.
To noisy early, early mornings,
To rice, rice and more rice.
To poverty you didn’t believe existed,
To masses of people like you have never seen,
To know and work with people who have never known comfort,
So send I you, and I expect you to adjust.
So send I you
To people who will give to you from their poverty,
To friends who will embarrass you with their generosity,
To pastors who will entertain you from their lack, with beauty.
To hungry, receptive, questioning people who want to know God,
To study, to teach, to learn from your study and teaching,
To prove your own motives, values and beliefs,
To learn about yourself and the culture that has reared you,
To know God and to understand more deeply dependence on Him,
So send I you.
Are you going? I’ll go with you all the way.
