A great week-
Troy, Noah, Jamie and Sharon are headed to the airport. A week has never gone by faster in Haiti. It was such a blessing to speak and be understood all week long. Friends are such a gift ... People you can be real with and know they love you and accept you, flaws and all. We had a fun night last night, just chatting and watching 24 together. This morning we went to the Prayer Rock together and then cleaned up and got ready to send them off.
Britt and Paige learned so much this week and Jamie and Sharon did a lot of work ... the patient load this week was huge --- and so many serious cases. God sees us ... because Britt has never had a week like this before and on the week where all serious things came walking up our drive, she has an ER Doc and a Family Practice Doc at her disposal.
When our own kid needed help; God provided. J & S are Hope and Isaac's Godparents and we know they are covering our little Haitian Sensations in prayer each week. For us, that was the only important duty of a Godparent. Skip the gifts, we'll take prayers. Thank you guys for loving them so well and for everything you do!
The red-rimmed eyes in the photos are because goodbye's are hard. Please pray for J and S. They are entering into a new phase of their lives soon and will be serving in the Air Force as Doctors ... so they will be leaving Iowa City and heading to an unknown location to work and live.
Hope asked me this morning "Is the baby coming today, Mama?" She saw the photos of her b-mom pregnant, so she is "getting" it even more now. We did not bring her in yesterday, we wanted her to lay low and rest her leg. Hope saw her back in late June, so we will get them together again early next year or sooner. Someone had asked if our kids see their birth parents. We are okay with it, we met them in June and the kids both got to spend time with their Haitian family. They are a little too young to grasp it, but they understand parts of it. We plan to see them twice a year and send photos whenever they want. When God calls us back to the States we will continue to do photos. The one boundary we have is that they do not yet know where we live in Haiti. We hope to keep it that way, but if something happens where they find out where we're living, we trust that God is big enough to help us deal with that in a healthy and loving way. To see photos of Ike's b-mom and his older brother, go to the archives from June ... we posted those on June 30.
Looking ahead-
After Troy and Noah drop J and S off, they are picking up a young lady named Lindsay. We were contacted a while back by email and she asked us about our work here. She shared that she was moving to Haiti to teach English and hoped to make some friends. She's a single twenty-something new to full-time service in Haiti. We are hoping to encourage her and get to know her for a few days. She'll be with us four nights. She is flying back to Indiana on Wednesday. She just needed a place to stay a few days and wants to see more of the country. Her ministry base is inland to the north quite a distance. She will return to Haiti again in six weeks to begin her more permanent stint here. She is a brave chick to come here single ... or at least *I* think she is!
Monday is 'git r dun' day --- team shopping and room preparation. Tuesday one team member arrives and Wednesday 11 arrive. Now that it seems that the baby will wait longer than we anticipated, we are less spazzy and ready to see what God has for our team and the week ahead.
We have some more fun photos from the week ... we'll try to do a photo post tomorrow. We will try to lay-off on the nasty medical photos --- you've seen plenty for now. :)
May the Lord Bless you and Keep you. We love you. Thank you for everything you do to support us!
