Henri and Gladys were the most adorable thing. Paige, Troy, Lydie, Phoebe and I went to the wedding. We figured Lydie and Phoebe got ripped off not getting to go to Britt and Chris's wedding, so we took them. Phoebe did well, Lydie was less than well behaved but her white skin did entertain a lot of interested children at the reception...although she did get tired of being poked at. And she also hates sentences that end with a preposition.
For those who don't know these names, these two beautiful Haitian people have known and worked together for years and have been running a great ministry called Canaan in Montrouis, Haiti (pronounced Moe - eee).Many have wondered over the years if they had an interest in one another. When Henri called Troy to say he was getting married, Troy said, "Who is the lucky lady?" Henri's response was "Oh, you know her." The entire way to the wedding we wondered if we were getting ahead of ourselves and maybe there might be some other mystery bride. T.I.H after all. :)
They openly share that they were both slaves to a horrible life of drugs and alcohol but that they have been set free from that and want to serve their country and their people.Their testimonies are amazing, they truly are a redemption story - God writes those stories and they are SO encouraging. Anyone who believes they cannot be used by God to do big things is dead wrong. Ask Gladys and Henri. :)We learned of the wedding 24 hours before it happened and were thrilled to be able to go. Haitian weddings are totally entertaining, different than American weddings in fun ways. They do not walk down the aisle, they dance down the aisle. There are so many little quirks that make them unique. To choose one example- the wedding that was supposed to begin at 3pm - instead began at 4:45ish and at the time there was still a man bringing and unloading tables to set up for the reception.
The ministry of Canaan has been to raise and educate abandoned children. They use the ACE curriculum and the kids even get to travel to the States for homeschooling competitions. It is a warm place where you can easily tell the children are loved.
My favorite part of the entire thing was when the minister (who came from B.C. Canada) pronounced them husband and wife and they kissed --- the kids went NUTS laughing and screaming -- they thought it was great. You can tell that Henri and Gladys had never done that in front of the kids. We have had the pleasure of introducing lots of our friends and guests to this ministry, we figured this news would make you grin as much as it did us.
This photo of Troy in 6th grade showed up on FaceBook recently, I was amazed at how much 11 year old Troy looks like 33 year old Troy and 4 year old Noah. Noah sat most of the weekend out with a high fever. This morning he woke up in our bed announcing he had wet our bed. He then moved to his bed where he puked five minutes later. It's cool though ... because I barely do any laundry and I was totally bored and looking for a chore.
The little girl I shared about in this post ... has gone back to her birth family. This is amazing news! Paige found out today and cried because she did not get to say goodbye but ultimately this is REALLY good - and we are all thankful to those of you who prayed for her. :)
Today we went to church., then we went to lunch with the crew from Teen Challenge afterward. Isaac and Paige got voted onto the "go out to lunch" team. Ike almost melted down when he ordered Pomme Caramel thinking he was getting a good old fashioned apple on a stick with caramel wrapped around it. The face he made when he saw what it actually was- screamed "this is not what I had in mind!"
Tomorrow Troy will assist the TC visitors in getting from points A to B as they look at rental properties and prospective locations for their ministry plant. They will end their day with dinner here at the loud house - John McHoul warned them it might be corn from a can. John might have been invited to dinner, but we crossed him off the list when he got smart like that.