Week in Michigan...Cory heading back.

First full week in Michigan.

Monday: Cory and Anna went shopping, while Fritzlin and I unpacked and started back to school.

Tuesday: School, office work, organization. We also visited the local library.

Wednesday: My first 'zoom' leadership meeting on line: two locations in the USA and two in Haiti.

Thursday: EXCITING!! We loaded up in the truck and headed to Calvin to move Eli back to Allegan for the summer. A bit of shopping before and afterward rounded out our day. We enjoyed tacos and ice cream to celebrate being back together again.

Friday:  We headed, once again, out to check out Eli's suit, custom made due to his tall, thin frame. Cory bought a phone-so we hope to connect daily during Cory's trip to Haiti. We returned to Allegan and spent some time with a niece and nephew.

Saturday: Cleaning, packing, preparing for our Sunday sharing time, sorting through items and getting everyone's space worked out.

Sunday: We headed to Kalamazoo to share at Lighthouse. We set up our table, shared a few minutes in both services, enjoyed hearing Global Partners teammates sharing about the work in Macedonia. We then shared in one of the adult Sunday school classes while Anna and Fritzlin headed to children's Sunday school. More family visiting in the afternoon and Fritzlin tried out a bike that Cory's folks brought him to use.

Monday: Cory is packed up and will leave soon for his first flight back to Haiti today. He plans to fly into Cap on Tuesday; spend a few days in the north before heading to Délice, and then on to LaGonave for the celebration of WISH's 50th. Due to his being gone and busy...no editing the blog before I post.

Retreat and Michigan

I Read and agree with someone who compaired area retreat with the atmosphere of family camp.

Spending the week both with the Global Partner's team from Haiti as well as Central and South America was good for all of us.

During the morning meetings for the adults, Anna and Fritzlin did crafts with the others and got to spend time with the other missionary kids in their age groups.  The adults attended meetings, country meetings, or workshops in the mornings.

Most afternoons included free time for fun or individual meetings. The last night we celebrated Fritzlin's adoption with ice cream.

We stayed an extra 1/2 day so that I, Kris, could complete 8 hours of leadership training.

Saturday we flew from Tampa to Philipdelphia and then on to Grand Rapids.

A few exciting moments when our descent for landing became a rapid acceleration to avoid a larger plane that we were too close to in the clouds.

Family greeted us at the airport and then we enjoyed a meal together at Cory's sister's house.

Sunday we once again gathered together, this time at my brother Todd's church to celebrate Mother's Day with both our moms as well as Fritzlin's baptism.

Today Cory and Anna headed out shopping for food, as well as for items that Cory needs for his return to Haiti next week.

Fritzlin and I worked on some school work, and unpacked. Fritzlin worked on Lego's while I completed some office work.

This week we will:

• Continue to connect with supporting churches to set up visits
• Work on a new routine
• Move Eli back to Allegan after he finishes finals on Thursday
• Collect needed items for Cory's Haiti trip
• Mail out new prayer cards to the supporters we will not likely not be visiting this year
• Visit the library
• Work on the garden

Pre-travel - Travels

Prior to leaving Délice we finished moving our household items to the new house, and did some major cleaning at the house we left.

Thankfully with the spring rains starting up we could do some laundry and mopping.

Monday we finished up these tasks along with packing for our trip to northern Haiti and the USA.

Tuesday morning we loaded up early and enjoyed the sunrise as we traveled down the mountain.

Anna's cat joined us on this trip as he will be staying at Fauche for the summer.

We made good time even with a couple short stops.

Jean Pierre helped us to set up a small party for Anna's friends to celebrate her graduation.

The timing worked out that the women's volleyball teams returned from nationals that same day.


The three teams came in first, second, and third in their age groups.

Cory visited the trees and gardens around campus before we headed to Children of the Promise to visit Fritzlin's last foster house.

We spent the afternoon reconnecting with the Hope House family.

 Cory and Anna did travel to Cap Haitian to pick up our Haitian residential paperwork that was flown from Port-au-Prince to Cap due to our having to wait 8 days after having our fingerprints taken at the police station.

Thankfully we receive the paperwork before heading to the airport!

Thursday we flew to the USA.

 You can read more about this on our adoption blog here.

Unfortunately  Fritzlin did not feel well all day.

We were all ready for bed by the time we reached our hotel in Ft. Myers.


Friday everyone enjoyed visiting ECHO as we connected with friends and Cory talked plants.

We showed the kids Cory's intern picture on the wall...Fritz was surprised that Dad looked 'like a kid'.

Friday night-Sunday morning we enjoyed time with Cory's Uncle and Aunt. Good food-Chinese buffet, burgers, ice cream! Swimming. Shopping at Good Will.

Sunday we surprised one of Kris' missionary aunts but showing up at Fellowship Community Church in Spring Hill before heading over to worship at Brooksville Wesleyan.

We enjoyed the park for the afternoon before returning to share in the evening service.

Always great to be able to thank people in person for their support of our family and ministry, as well as answering questions.

Good-byes for now.

A few peach palms from Costa Rica seed collected in '14 have flower buds!

Working on learning to swim

Mid-week..

Lots to do before we travel next week...lots getting done.

Scheduling summer events and travel.
School, grades...
Packing, loading, short drive, unload..repeat the next day.
Work on house: door hanging & hardware, caulk, rat/rain proofing under doors and roof, plumbing....
Cleaning

Septic tank

Week review and hike to village

Will cut to size once we buy the door.

Monday the 16th- we headed to Port-au-Prince: 
   -picked up Fritzlin's visa at the Embassy;

     - Cory and I had fingerprints done at a police station for our Haitian residence visas; it took a while to get back out of the limited parking area

      -bought a stove

     - grocery shopping, ice cream treat

    - dropped off mail with only 3 minutes to spare

     -bank which took three stops to find one without a big, hour long line

     -picked up some Konsey books at the Wesleyan Church office

     -2 hardware stores-tile, bathroom sink, spray foam, etc.

     -gas, propane tank filled

    -school work while waiting

- and a few more stops but returned up the mountain without any problems.

Rodent, wind, fog, and rain proofing. 

School work

Tuesday-Thursday: school, work on Blessing {the house} [painting floors, second shiplap wall, finished kitchen cabinets hardware, digging canal for water line] office work-focusing on updates and starting to line up speaking engagements and things like driver's training for Anna, for our summer in the USA.


Friday Cory headed down the mountain again: picking up the last paperwork we need to be able to bring Fritzlin to the USA and then speaking about agriculture in Haiti at Extollo, an organizaiton that works to train Haitians in building skills.

The topics included growing Moringa and making leaf powder, seed saving, selecting good varieties to plant, especially with certain crops like corn, papaya, coconut. Pest control, citrus greening disease. Introduction to some of the less common fruits that did well in north Haiti like starfruit, jackfruit, peach palm, egg fruit, malay apple.

Extollo has large gardens of banana and other crops and some small orchards that they would like to expand with more varieties of fruits. It looks like a good place to demonstrate new kinds of fruits and crops.

Saturday: school and work on the house. We brought over our third load of household items as we prepare to move from the Byxbes to our place.

Anna painted for me while I read her a school book in the morning.

Konsey books being shared at Extollo agriculture seminar.

Cory worked on fixing some of the leaking areas where the roof tin overlaps.

Nightly rains help us locate the leaks as well as having the water cisterns filling up.

Looks like we will have plenty of water since we are only a few weeks into the rainy season and the cistern is already more than half full. It is about 5'x9'x40'

Early afternoon we took a break when a missionary and friend stopped in during a visit to Fort Douet.

Nice to get to know a bit about other ministries and meet new folks.

Our house... top center

Today we hiked to the village where many of the local men who worked on our house live.

Almost 5 hours later-we puffed our way up the last hill, as a light sprinkle of rain started which was followed by several heavier rains.

Corn storage

Thankful we made it back when we did!

Seeds for living fence

Steep, muddy, slippery, but all made it safely.

Mountain bean garden.