Praises

Well the week ends as it began...cleaning, home study homework, school.

Not much to report so I thought I'd thank the Lord: [in no special order]

• Thankful for mail this week including an official copy of Cory's birth certificate that our social worker needs to see in person next week.
• Thankful for a great book that Sonlight suggested for summer reading-that we purchased for the Kindle as a thank you to the kids for the extra cleaning...that I spend hours reading today to get to  30% done.
• Thankful for a family who's pitched in daily for cleaning and organizing.
• Thankful for getting one more church lined up for our time in the USA.
• Thankful for a couple different folks asking via E-mail for Haiti agricultural advice.
• Thankful for progress on the corrections/addition for the Creole Health book.
• Thankful my folk's internet is working again so we can stay in touch.
• Thankful for encouraging E-mails and a great support team.
• Thankful for a good week of school even though it is hard to hear about so many folks finishing up their year when we still have a couple months to go.
• Thankful for solar power, fans, internet. 
• Thankful for running water and cool showers.
• Thankful for sounds of my children laughing as they play with friends.
• Thankful for chocolate.

Curtain and weekend follow-up.

Monday's school day finished with our French lesson. Eli's out playing football [soccer] and Anna's heading for volleyball. Cory's on the computer doing more adoption home work and I'm.....here.

Saturday we cleaned some more and worked on the curtains. By cutting off the bottom of 2 of the living room valences they will work for a while.

The fringed kitchen curtains I could not do anything with so we will 'make-do' for a while with a couple from Anna's room.



When we went on our trip to Port Margot we let Eli and Anna each pick out a Creole hymnal of their own.

We'd talked about this now and then over the years but Cory didn't often see them in market. This man sold them near the courthouse and the kid's were able to pick the type they preferred.

We gave them as gifts for International Day of the Child...which we still have not celebrated on campus but know some areas in Haiti celebrated last week.

Today on advice from one of his men Cory traveled to Limbée to the bank and some shopping.

While we questioned a bit why the bank would not be busy on Monday's Cory decided to try it and found the long lines he'd hoped to avoid.

With time he completed his banking, received a new bank book and requested a bank letter needed for our adoption paperwork.

Picking up the letter will mean a second trip to Limbée unless we combined it with one of next week's trip.

We do have very nice flowers to help distract one's eyes from the curtains!!

Clean curtains?!?! Technically, Yes.

Those of you familiar with adoption home studies likely know that the recommendation for house cleaning runs along the lines of ‘do what you normally do’.......

However in my opinion the motivation of a social worker’s visit to check out one’s home, is a once in a life time motivational opportunity on par with having a coupon for a free gallon of  delectable chocolate ice cream.

Why would I not use this chance to spruce up the house?!?

Generally we aim for a clean house but not immaculate not being willing to put in the time, effort and cost to maintain that level of clean preferring to channel those resources into learning, family time or doing other things.

That being said, most of you who know me know that my Dutch cleaning genes do kick into a higher gear when teams or family come, especially my mom or mother-in-law.

One task that generally occurs before one of their visits did not occur this year despite both of them visiting at different times this winter/spring. My curtains did not get washed.

So this task landed on the list I’m calling ‘in honor of the home visit’ list. Knowing the dangers of putting off jobs like this one until the last minute [after all we could get a few days of rain making laundry problematic] we decided that yesterday’s sunny afternoon would work well to accomplish the task.

Cory, the family expert on stain removal [Interestingly the neatest person in the family who’s clothing almost appears to resist stains.] tackled the job with reportedly ‘the utmost care and delicate handling’. Ok maybe not in those words but he did said he was careful.

[After proofing this Cory wished to add he hand washed these and then used the kind, 'gentle' front load washer to complete the job]

I feel that the evidence speaks for it’s self and tells a much different story!

He claims that the sun must have weaken the cloth. Funny curtains from widows facing 3 different directions all suffered from strong sun.....

I know some strong laundry ladies who could rub a stain so hard that it, as well as the cloth disappeared. While Cory is strong, suspect the stain remover was stronger.

The goal of washing the curtains did occur. And the remaining remanents are much cleaner!

If I did not trust him I’d say he’s trying to get out of ever washing curtains again.

These did not have fringe before the wash!

Considering that the chore only occurs in this house on average once a year I find this avoidance tactic a bit overdramatic.

Thankfully we still have one week to see what we can come up with for curtains.

Wonder if my sewing machine still works?

Time to get creative and 'make do'.

Trip to Port Margot: health clinic, courthouse, and market.

I do not find paperwork and homework very exciting to blog about so forgive me for stretching the posting times a bit. The end results from the office work will be exciting!

Saturday, the morning spent cleaning and doing paperwork. Afternoon filled with family time and some paperwork.

'Courthouse' with flag behind Cory.

Sunday we attended church with Anna attending children's church. The afternoon we watched the first episodes of the History Channel's Bible that someone sent to the missionaries. We watched it with a Bible in hand and paused occasionally to read the stories.

Monday started with paperwork at 6 a.m. which continued throughout the day with a few breaks for school, dealing with folks at the door, a couple walks down to lab, and some exercise. All that hard work resulted in five envelopes ready to be delivered to Tuesday's MFI mail bag to the USA.

Tuesday we continued with some more paperwork and homework that needs to be done before the social worker's visit. We learned early in the week that she did confirm flights into Haiti on June 17th! She will stay here 2 nights before traveling to another part of Haiti for 2 nights with another family.

Today our family and Genner drove to Port Margot at 10 o'clock. Earlier research indicated that Eli and Anna, being children, could have TB skin tests at the public health clinic. After we walked in an explained to a nice lady what we needed, she led us past rows of waiting mom's and children to the lab.

The lab person sat at an empty desk and quickly preformed the tests. Because Dr. Jean Pierre works at our clinic on campus we will be able to just walk down the hill on Friday morning for the results.

Next stop basically the local courthouse. Earlier Cory talked with one of the local police man about our need for a police letter and learned we would need to see the justice of the peace as the local police station is currently closed.

Across the river from market.

Before we reached the office the judge saw us and looked over our paperwork right beside the truck. He let us know what paperwork we needed 'Certificate of Good Life and Manners' is the literal translation and how much it would cost.

While the paperwork was being processed we proceeded to market where Genner, Cory and Anna shopped while Eli and I read in the truck.

Then back to the office for a bit of a wait and more reading. Not as long as Cory thought however and we returned home by lunch time.

With the help of the computer I translated the French document into English and will ask our French teacher to help with a couple of rough spots before E-mailing the agency. We will either mail the documents or hand them to the social worker during her visit.

Cory will be trying to call the Embassy to learn about fingerprint processing.

Moringa visit.

See if I can get this post written and posted before the thunderclouds reduce the internet or move so close we need to unplug all electronics.

Yesterday each of us spent most of the day studying or working on paperwork.

We remain hopeful that our home study social worker will firm up tickets to visit us the week of June 17 and therefore started on the 'new' list of documents and forms that we need to complete and sign for this step of the process.

Eli and Anna continue to work on school as just over two months remain in our school 'year.'

Today for a change of pace we hosted a short visit from some Americans and Haitian pastors working in Cap Haitian who wanted to learn more about Moringa.

Well they learned about Moringa and more in the few hours of their visit and we enjoyed chatting over lunch. During lunch they were able to try miracle fruit which we currently have many of, star fruit, mulberries and bilimbe.

They left with Moringa seeds and cuttings, mulberry cuttings, chaya cuttings, a breadfruit tree and malay apple tree.

Wednesday after French class Alert discussed with me some of the additions for the Creole Konsey book. Thankful to start winding down this project and getting it into shape to publish again.

Glad to share knowledge and samples with others working around Haiti.