Wednesday

Photo taken yesterday, one of our neighbors right outside of the front gate.

As we understand it, one of the 52 candidates on the ballot needs to have 50% majority. Seem very likely to you? We can pretty safely assume that won't happen, so, the next step will be to take the two candidates with they highest votes and then hold a run-off in March. They are hoping to announce the results this Friday.

We are attempting to remember to make the posting time accurate to our time in the Eastern Time Zone. Sometimes we forget to change it.

Photos from village tour on Tuesday

Jack and the two horned "puppies", back behind a few houses in the village.
Paige is easy to find. Hope and Isaac, not quite so easy.
Isaac being a protective big brother while they watched these kids play. That one kid is losing his pants. Sorry about that.
Hanging out. Pretending to know creole. Fooling no one.
Paige and the sick little guy she likes and is so worried about. His name is Jean.
Going for a walk with a few friends joining us.
After the walk, back at Lifeline, swinging and visiting.

Today,(Wednesday), once again, no school. That bums us out because we want the kids here. They come and eat and leave right away when there is not school. It is so cute to hear them in their classrooms learning. Thursday they come back as long as the government does not call school off again. It has been a great few days of getting the lay of the land. We miss you and hope you are doing well. Would you email us and tell us what is going on in your life when you get a chance? Hugs!

Election Exit Polling

(Troy and Noah turning off the generator this afternoon.)

We hear that there was not much trouble in PAP today. According to our source in Port, things were relatively calm. He says it will be a few days before they declare a winner. Our exit polling really did not reveal much to us. We heard "Manigat" when we asked the head cook. We also heard Preval and Baker. Time will tell. Keep praying for peace when the results are announced.

The one way the election may effect this ministry is that many, if not all vendors and businesses are closed --- some say for the whole week. (That makes zero sense to capitalists --- why would they do that? One would think they want to sell their wares.) The feeding program uses 300 gallons of propane a week to cook the food for 1,000 kids. We are low on propane right now and will need some before Friday. We need someone to open up and sell us some propane. The simple things can be come difficult quickly here.

We walked to the dam this afternoon, LaDigue means The Dam, and there really is one here. Then we visited for just a few minutes in the village. Isaac wanted to come back right way and swing and pouted when we were out walking. A few kids teased him about not knowing Creole but because they were teasing in creole he did not know it. :) The kids come running to hold your hand and walk with you. We trade names and ages but to do anything other than that we'll need more creole.

After our walk we did family prayer time up at the prayer rock, then played on the swings. We had our all starch dinner and are hanging out watching A Bug's Life and thinking of playing a game.

The computer is in high demand tonight (one is not working) so I will turn them over to the girls and post photos of our outing to the dam, sometime tomorrow.

Some Random Answers to Random Questions - in Random Order

Some friends have emailed with questions in the last few weeks. Since it is nap time and the grounds are very quiet due to election day it seems like a good time to answer them. In no particular order:
1-Weather in Haiti-
Just North of the equator means that we still have the same seasons as North America, they just vary much less. Winter is the most lovely time temperature-wise. It is about 80 or 85 each day and the evenings are perfect for sleeping. It is a tiny bit humid but not oppressive. The best months are November through February or March. The rest of the year it is much more humid, (read: oppressive) much hotter and not so easy to sleep. Take your very hottest, most humid Minnesota summer day and just string it out over a period of six months and you have Haiti weather. We are in the dry season right now so everything is very brown and extremely dusty. The rainy season starts in March (we are told ... we don't know!) and goes through September. It rains more days than not during this time, just short bursts of rain usually in the afternoons and evenings.

2-Mosquitos/bugs in Haiti-
There are mosquitos. Way more in the rainy season than the dry times. They are tiny compared to the ones in MN but the bites itch more and last longer before going away. We have learned taht the mosquitos that bite at night are the ones that might carry Malaria, the ones that bite during the day are the ones that could carry Dengue Fever ---- this is just one of those things. We know of people who lived here years and never had either of them and people who lived here a short time and got one or the other. We are prepared for Malaria and brought medicine to treat it ... we have asked God to give it to Troy or I instead of our kids --- that may sound silly ... either way we are prepared.

3-From our front porch you can see the Caribbean Sea ---- it is not very clear most days due to humidity but you can still see it. The little island that sits off of Haiti is visible on clearer days.

4-Sunsets here are one of the most lovely things you will ever see. Evidence of God all around us-even in the midst of poverty.

5-Electricity - Yes, the generator is our only source of electricity. It runs a few hours at a time to charge up batteries and then you switch to battery power. Once the batteries drain you go re-start the generator. This morning the fans went off at about 5:15 am so we knew that we were out of battery. We are teaching our kids to turn everything off as they leave rooms, etc --- but as you all know, kids don't easily change habits and we have allowed them to be wasteful so we have a lot of work to do to re-train them. There is no electricity in the entire village of La Digue.

6-Haiti is considered one of the three poorest countires in the world. One in two children will die of starvation or curable disease before they reach 15 years of age. The problems that cause hunger and poverty are many and are almost too complicated to succinctly explain or understand. Most of the children in this area will only eat one meal per day, the meal that is provided by the Lifeline mission and God's people who donate to make it happen. Hunger is something we cannot possibly understand as Americans ... at least I am sure I cannot. Being hungry for a few hours is not being hungry for your entire life. I sit here missing my fancy coffee creamer and cheese while everyone around me is thrilled to have a bowl of rice each day.

7-The election- Things are eerily quiet here. The kids had their meal first thing this morning because the cooks needed to walk quite a long way to vote. The only thing I hear as I sit writing is the roosters, the goats and the generator. Oh, and now Noah waking up.

Some Photos before I go get the nappers up: (captions under each photo)

Standing in our bedroom this morning. My Christmas gift from Troy hanging above our bed. :)
The kitchen is on the left, the patio is on the right. Behind Hope and Ike is the family room. Through the archway is the office (where I am sitting to post this) and to the right of the office archway are two bedrooms. One is ours and one is the four youngest kids bedroom. I am standing where Hope and Isaac were in the previous photo. So this is kichen to the right, patio to the left the whole mission team side of the house straight ahead- Britt has her room down there. (There are 8 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms on that end) Paige is pouring drinking water. We have done well remebering not to drink tap water.

We plan to go walk around the village a bit this afternoon and give Britt the full tour. We will try to take photos when we are out and about. Maybe we will do a little exit polling for you too so we can try and gauge the winner of the elections. Unlike major media outlets we will not disclose the winner until we are sure -- we want to be responsible journalists. No hanging chads either. (Oh, by the way, the ballots had photos of the candidates because so many Haitians cannot read.)

Serving a MIGHTY God-

Tara (for the Tribe)

10 Things

Just a few things we have learned in our short time here:

1-White is not a color to wear in Haiti
2-Black is not a color to wear in Haiti
3-If you sweat a lot you don't need the bathroom as often.
4-Water and Electricity are a really good thing to have.
5-CoffeMate French Vanilla Cream is a treat that should be appreciated.
6-Cheese is a treat that should be appreciated.
7-All Dairy products are a treat ... that should be appreciated.
8-Goats will eat dirty diapers if given the opportunity.
9-No one in Haiti is on the Atkins diet; all carbs, all the time.
10-Babies don't sleep well in sun-filled rooms next to a generator.

Monday's Photos

Jack-Jack standing on the lower level of the main building. New building in background. Our house directly above him. This is right outside of the classrooms. No school today though.
Troy with the Pastor of the Lifeline church, Pastor Odmy. He also has many other jobs here.
Britt, Paige, Ike & Jack at the "Prayer Rock." A neat spot where teams can have devotions.
Hope getting her hair braided by Madame Maxo, the head-cook of the feeding program.
Tara, Paige and Ike on the patio.
Britt showing off her refrigerator art work. If you sent us a photo, you're up there! Behind her is one of two doors out to the patio. That is it for photos for today. We had an awesome day today, the weather is so nice this time of year and we were all well rested. We'll write more tomorrow.

Monday Morning

We woke up to the strong smell of burning garbage. All of the garbage this house creates gets burned just up the hill from the house. One more reason to get Jack potty trained as quickly as possible! Gross.

We had a great night of rest, no one woke up screaming. Thank you Lord! Britt and Paige are off doing school work in their rooms. The three little ones are playing on the patio.

Today we feel much less frazzled. Thanks for your prayers regarding adjustment. It is not a small thing, I think I underestimated that. It will probably take months before some things seem normal.

We were unpacking some boxes from the container last night. There are not many clocks around here so Lifeline (when we say Lifeline, we mean Arnold - the founder & Donald, the director - they are our two "bosses") sent down 20 clocks.

We were excited to unpackage them and hang a few. We opened the box and found that the clocks are a pharmacuetical promotional item. Of all the drug posssibilites, they advertise Zoloft! We got a good laugh about that, if ever you wanted an anti-depressent this would be the country to have one! Troy thought maybe just looking at all the Zoloft clocks throughout the day would be good enough. ;) Ha.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, is finally election day. The former President left in early 2004, leaving an interim government to run the country. Haiti has been without a solid government (or system of democracy) for 200 years so it is very easy to just shrug it off and ignore the whole thing because it seems hopeless that anything could change.



We just know that God has the answers and He knows. Our obligation, or part to play, is just to pray that His will would be done. Mainly we are praying that people go vote and that there is not violence or un-rest as a result of the elections. The UN and Police are out in stronger force, we saw a lot of blue helmets on our way out here on Friday, pray for them too.

Lastly, we feel totally safe. We are very far removed from the city and removed from the main roads north. Our little village feels like it is somehow removed from the chaos. People are doing their jobs, caring for their children and are not interested in protesting or causing trouble.

Sunday in LaDigue

Here are the photos from this morning. We
were bummed to find out that the family pictures we took outside of the church did not turn out. The little baby Britt is holding is a girl who looked to weigh about 7 pounds and is being cared for by the lady sitting next to Britt with the straw hat. Church is very interesting, we cannot figure out if they follow any sort of "order of service" or not. The singing is the most fun. Our plan is to attend church here at Lifeline twice a month to show our support for this congregation but to go to PAP twice a month and do groceries and church at an English speaking church outside of Port au Prince, in Petionville. We'll see if that ends up happening, plans sort of seem to go by the way-side here.

Today at church Noah picked up on the "amen's" and since the word is the same in Creole and English he got a kick out of joining in with an Amen when he could. He also seems to enjoy saying "Bon Swa" every chance he gets --- that is "good afernoon."

Isaac had some night terrors or something last night. Tonight is off to a better start so we are praying that this is not something he will struggle with here. Hope is great and seems at home. Noah seems needy of Troy and a bit worried or insecure. We think all of this moving has been confusing for the boys.

Britt and Paige both seem to be doing pretty well and enjoying all the odd things you see and hear here. The roosters are retarded and crow all night long ... we all thought roosters crowed in the morning only, but that is not so in LaDigue. (Noah calls them puppies.)

Paige had one moment of tears today over a little boy in the village. He is sick and dying and has gotten much worse since we saw him in September when Paige was here. He has HIV and just sits in his wheelchair and looks so sad. Paige said "I just want him to get better or go be with Jesus, there is no point in him being here in pain." We hugged our way through it and she is fine now. The sad things are all around us so it will be something to learn to cope with for all of us.

We'll keep you posted as often as possible.
T - T- B - P - I - H - N

Paige-Hope-Ike&Jack-Jack's Room

Paige and Hope showing off their new bedroom. The floors are getting ceramic tile later this spring. The walls were these colors and the kids say they want to keep it this way. Paige and Hope have the full size bed and Isaac is in the twin, Noah in the crib. It is a huge bedroom. Right past Noah's crib is their bathroom. We had fun decorating it with duckie stuff (aka puppies) and only have yellow paint left to make it complete. Britt wants to finish her room before she shows it to you. We need to paint her room. That's the report for tonight. Hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the Super Bowl. Not having a TV is weird, but a good weird. Goodnight!

Troy's Pledge

Hey- Happy Sunday!

We went to church. Britt held the tiniest baby girl during the entire service. Her mother died during childbirth so there was a relative caring for the baby. Hope said "She sure is precious." Noah loved the music and stood in the aisle doing his goofy white-boy dance ... he looked like a fool but we were laughing our buns off.

We are having a quiet afternoon at the house. Troy is off getting the two 55 gallon drums filled up with diesel before we run out and lose our generator/electricity supply. That is about 30 minutes away so he did not go to Port for it. When he gets home he is hanging everyones pictures up and finishing the last few things we have left to set up our space.

About the title of this blog entry...it seems that Troy thinks he should wear ugly shirts most of the time in Haiti. He is taking pride in wearing colors and patterns that he would never wear at home. Today for church he wore a normal shirt, but when you see him on the blog in really hideous shirts, just know that I do not dress the man -- and he is getting a kick out of his new plan to wear shirts that he would never wear in the Untied States. He has one mauve one that is especially ugly. I think that he was wearing it the day he did payroll so the photo shows it, but does not do its hideousness justice.

We took some photos at church today and will try to get them on the blog tonight.
Sending Love North-
Tara

Afternoon ... Things are looking up!

Hey everybody ... have we told you lately that we love you? We do. There is no way I would ever want to be here if there were not people to support us with prayer.

We have accomplished a lot today! We found underwear for everyone and clothes too! We found toys and sunscreen. We are busy figuring out where everybody wants to have their bed set up and Paige and Britt are strategically placing the posters they brought down. We have some photos up already and it is starting to feel like "our place".

Troy is still in PAP. He said the market was insanely busy. He said it was a lot of people, just like him, trying to stock up so they would not need to go to PAP the week of the election. They would not take his credit card, I guess they are all paranoid right now and thought it was not good ... thank the Lord he had not done an errand that would have meant dropping $200 U.S. off to someone ---- so he still had the $200 to get the groceries.

He called a bit ago and said that traffic was heavy and he was headed home. It was so great to see him standing outside the fence at the airport. Noah spotted him first and it would make you bawl to see and hear his excitement and reaction to seeing his daddy. He cried and cried when Troy left for PAP this morning but is doing well now that we located the toys.

One thing before I go back to sorting. For some reason we cannot get our Yahoo mail account to work correctly. We have been able to read/receive your emails but we cannot get it to let us reply. I wonder if it is not something with Yahoo because I can get on the blog just fine. Anyway, all that is just to say that we LOVE hearing from you and we want to know what is going on with you and your family ... but until we figure out how to fix the yahoo problem we cannot reply to you personally. Mom, Tina, Karla, Kris, Char, Dianne, Vonda ... 0h, Marcy ... I got your emails. Thank you! I love you all so much.

We'll try to take some pictures once the kids have their rooms set up so you can see their space.

Thanking Him for YOU!
Tara

Saturday - Whoa!

I am avoiding deciding what to do first. I have seven hundred choices.

As much as you mentally prepare yourself it still hits like a ton of bricks. This will be a massive lesson in patience and flexibility and learning to live without. The cold showers were a hit last night because everyone was hot. This morning, when the water was gone as Troy was pulling out, I chased him down and asked him to give us water to clean and do laundry today ... he says I have 400 gallons now. How long does that last?

As far as drinking water ... we are out soon so hopefully Troy gets back this afternoon before the kids clean us out.

I made milk for the cherrios this morning. No one thought it was such a great tasting thing. They all said they could get used to it though.

Isaac and Noah both seem to have a cough but are still riding up and down the patio/porch as fast as they can on the little bike we sent down.

Hope really seems Haitian to me now. Isaac is a little more wierded out but Hope acts like she is not the least bit affected by being here. That is Hope though. She is tough and always has been.
Dad - since I cannot access yahoo today I wanted to tell you that Isaac got real sad on the ride up here yesterday and said "I miss my papa." I thought you might like to cry again since we've all barely done that at all in the last few days. ;) Waaaaaahhhhh.

Britt and Paige are starting to scope out the way they want to set up their bedrooms. Britt has her own bathroom so she is pretty excited about that.

As Troy left to bring the Amish Team back to the airport so they could get out of here before election day, a man came up and said to Troy "There is a baby down there that is going to die if you don't go help today or tomorrow." Troy seems to be a different guy to me ... he said okay, and said he would go see about it this afternoon ... his response would lead you to believe that he had heard that his whole life ---- God must be equipping him. The other thing, yesterday when we were in trafic outside of PAP this truck would not let us in, so Troy just rolls down the window, sticks his head out and yells at him in creole that he had better let us in ... the guy listened. I said "Who are you and what have you done with my husband?" He just laughed.

Troy has easily lost five pounds since I last saw him ... aahhh, the Haitian diet. Work hard all day in circumstances that more than challenge your abilities and then eat food that you're not all that interested in.

We know that these first few weeks will be hardest. We know that our God is greater than any of these problems and changes we face. We thank you for your prayers and we beg you to keep praying.
Pressing In,
Tara

All together in La Digue

Just a quick note to let you know that we are here safe and sound and a bit frazzled and a lot tired. We don't know where anything is so everyone is sort of rolling with it and trying to be flexible until we have a full day of an empty house to try and unpack the things that were sent ahead on the container and the things that we brought on the airplane.

The traveling circus made its appearance in Minneapolis and Miami and Port Au Prince airports all in one day and now we are tired of being stared at and wondered about ... which is kind of funny since everyone in La Digue is wondering about us now.

Cutest comment of the day, made by Hope. "I like it here. They look like me. They match me."

We will not be blogging for at least the weekend because we need to find our underwear.

Much Love from La Digue from T & T and the whole tribe

Crazy Days, Crazier Nights

Wow. I've been here just two weeks. The amount of work we've done makes it feel like two months. How quickly it's passed feels like 2 days. I can't believe Tara and the kids will be here tomorrow. This whole experience still doesn't seem real. It will be even stranger (and better of course) to have my family here. Please pray for us all as we travel to meet each other and to our new home, and especially for protection from spiritual attack.

This morning I started the task of paying the employees here. Tonight, I'm still not done. It is quite a process, and will get quicker in time I'm sure. The way money works here...well, it doesn't work for me. You basically have to convert everything twice with two different exchange rates to get from point A to point B. One point is the currency in your hand, the middle is a made-up denomination called the Haitian Dollar, the other point being a US dollar. One US dollar equals approximately 8.5 Haitian dollars, which is 42.5 Gourdes. The currency is all in Gourdes, but everything is priced with the mythical Haitian Dollar, which is actually 5 Gourdes. Makes perfect sense, I know. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time with it.

It is strange to pay someone their monthly wages with a stack of bills 5 inches thick, and then realize it amounts to less than twenty dollars US. When exchanging money for the payroll, I asked for it in small bills - I got a huge bag of 50's and 100's. Those are the small bills here, since the money has been so devalued. That was fun to travel the countryside with.
(Oh, by the way, I have already been in a car accident in Port-Au-Prince - that's another story. Have I mentioned the driving here?)

Tonight I went through all of the money to pay the cooks and others directly preparing and delivering the food to the children. I worked with Madame Maxo, who is the "head" cook and manages the feeding program. She does an amazing job, has a huge heart for the children, and is a blessing to this mission. She was quite entertained by my attempts to communicate in Creole and my struggle to convert money into mythical figures.

I can't wait to see all of my family tomorrow and settle in together on this adventure. Our visiting team leaves on Saturday, so it will be another crazy night, I'm sure. The list of things to do grows by the second, and I keep enjoying it more.

Troy

Two Notes

On a serious note: Prayer requests

~For Troy while he prepares for our invasion and comes to PAP to get us
~For safe and uneventful air travel for the six of us (that Noah would sit still - or at least not make everyone on the plane hate us)
~For safe travel while driving from PAP to LaDigue
~For the adjustments we’ll make as we settle in to our new life in Haiti
~Thanksgiving for the numerous answers to prayer thus far
~Bon Dieu Bon! (God is good!)

On a not so serious note:

You know how when you are on vacation, or maybe it is a special occasion, you justify eating more dessert and more in general? You say things to yourself like “It’s a holiday� or, “I won’t be on vacation forever.�

Well, here is the deal … I found excellent reason to justify many, many extra servings of brownies and ice cream in the last few weeks. The problem is that it started WAY too soon. Four plus weeks of saying things to myself such as, “There is not an easy way to get ice cream in Haiti� or “There are no restaurants like this in Haiti� or “Chocolate is not so easy to come by in…� You get the idea. Maybe, just maybe, brownies with ice cream at 11pm for four weeks straight would cause some weight gain. Gluttony…bad, bad, and bad.

I have definitely made the most of my last days of living in a country of vast prosperity. But, because of my long-term justification of consuming massive amounts of food; I wanted to give Troy a “heads up.�

Here it is. Do not look for the Tara you said goodbye to in Minneapolis on Jan. 18th. Look for someone who looks a bit more like Jiminy Glick than your wife. See you soon baby! I can’t wait to squeeze you! ~Tara~

More Packing for Dummies by Britt

I would like you all to know that all of my school books combined, equal 47.5 lbs.

Wouldn't it be a shame if that was the one and only bag of our 10 checked items that got lost? (My email is dudeiminhaiti@yahoo.com if anyone knows of anyone who can aide in this operation, particularily someone employed with American Airlines, that might help.) Man oh man, I hope it doesn't get misplaced or like shipped to Madagascar instead. Wouldn't that just be the end of me?

Okay, enough silliness. I am really excited to get up at 3am and start the journey "home" to my new house, bedroom, and new life of adventure.

Thank you all so much for the prayers throughout the last months. They are beyond appreciated and have definitely been evident. We quarreled & stressed significantly less in the last few weeks than expected and all I can say is it must be God.

Well I need to go help my mom figure out how to pack pillows. We are finding them very troublesome. Where there's a will, there's a way!
~Britt

Packing for Dummies

Britt and I are taking a break from packing because there are three small children who are making it difficult to spread all our stuff out and think straight.

We are determining if we need to bring 40 VHS movies or if we really could live with just our DVD collection which is smaller in number of movies and easier to pack. These sorts of decisions should be easy, for some reason today they are not.

Goodbye Godfathers Pizza and CoffeeMate French Vanilla Cream. I will miss you.

Back to work. ~Tara

Time Management - and other random mind dumping

Time Management
I have taken the change in our plans in stride. We can get it done and be ready at 4am on Friday but it won't be pretty. I made phone calls while eating, thinking, writing lists, soothing children, and driving. Thank the Lord no one was injured by my distracted driving. (Thank you Lord.)

Troy and I are sure that God is all over this new date. We are thankful for that specific answer to our prayers. I cannot wait to see my prince charming ... I know, Gag gag (gag some more) ... but he really is my prince. Sorry to make you roll your eyes. I'll stop now.

Other random mind dumping ...

Emotions are running high and today was a really hard day for me, in particular. The whole story is not shareable (is that a word?) but my day started out by being falsely accused, which led to anger, hurt and tears.

After that confrontation I was left wondering what it would be like to not believe that God is in conrol of all things.(Even confrontations) I believe He is, with every part of my being ... even when bad things happen, I believe it. When babies die and people get sick, I believe it. God has all the pieces. I don't. I don't want all the pieces, who needs that sort of pressure? Not me.

Like I said last night, (in my post) I have very few pieces of the puzzle. I don't understand why today was so difficult and I probably never will but it really doesn't matter because someone bigger, and stronger, and more powerful, saw me... and was with me today. (And he sent good friends and family to love me too!)

God will be with me tomorrow and He can give me enough of His grace and mercy to get through whatever attack comes my way in the future. It is mind-numbing to me and I don't think I will fully comprehend His sovereignty until I am standing in Heaven ... but for now I am okay with just waiting on the answers and leaning on Him.

"The Christian life is not a constant high. I have my moments of deep discouragement. I have to go to God in prayer with tears in my eyes, and say, 'O God, forgive me,' or 'Help me.' " ~Billy Graham

New Departure

The kids and I are booked to go Friday morning the 3rd of February. We will arrive around 2pm. Thanks for your prayers. Hugs to all!

Sorry for the delay...

Well, I've had a hard time getting back to the blog lately. Between hosting and organizing and driving 20 people around, I've been grateful for the few hours of sleep I can sneak in when I'm not manually starting a generator in the middle of the night or trying to program a battery inverter backup system. I think I finally have that solved after last night, but we'll see if the fans make it through the night for once.

It's been really crazy around here. One major part of our job duties is to host mission teams that come here to stay for short-term trips. I have been blessed and exhausted by having two very large teams right in a row. At least I had three days to get ready and learn where everything is and adjust to entirely new surroundings before I had to be the expert. No problem. Semper Gumby. It has all gone remarkably well, and we've accomplished more than we expected so far, even with all the supply problems we have faced. Normally, we would never have more than one team in one month, but there is a big push to finish the new building. (It will house a medical clinic and additional classrooms as well as additional missionary living quarters.)

I have been asked numerous questions on the following topics by our visitors and employees so far, (and I'm supposed to be the expert on):
Plumbing, carpentry, legal paperwork, US consulate relations, visas, road construction, Haitian history, Caribbean culture, voodoo, water tables, water wells, septic sytems, presidential elections, crop irrigation, hurricanes, water pumps, cooking, goats, and the Creole language, to name a few. I think I've answered most of them fairly well. I'm mainly trying to avoid just making stuff up.

All that being said, the great thing I can see already about having mission teams here is the fresh perspective they bring as they experience this different world for the first time. I can already see how it has changed some lives just like it has changed mine. We have had a lot of laughs and made new friends.

Having visitors reminds me how different and amazing this place is. Seeing all the poverty and the need here reminds me how blessed I am. Sensing the desperation of so many people makes me see deeper needs and understand how small my part is in this world. I am thankful for the opportunity God has given me to be a tiny part of His huge and perfect plan.

Here is the group I worked with during the first week: