Building, celebrations, and prayer requests

Continued thankfullness that Hurricane Irma did not cause severe damage in most of Haiti.

The masons returned to work on Monday morning to work on our house, barely making it up the mountain road on motorcycles due to the errosion and damage from the rain. Today the road remains closed to 4-wheel vehicles.

The water cistern is already blessing us, as the workers can use the rainwater from the rains to make the mortar for the lower level walls.

The rock collecting team and gravel digging team continue to work as well.

A few of the men not needed for other jobs are working on the road where the rains caused some erosion.

This week slipped easily into rountine of school, house hold chores, getting out an email update, and watching the work on the house continue.

We celebrated 19 years since our move to Haiti on Monday. I tried to think of something profound to mark this important milestone in our lives...but still thinking.

Unfortunately on the heels of our celebrating our adoption case finally exiting IBESR, [1,333 days total] we learned yesterday that all the judges in Haiti went on strike. If the government does not respond to the judge's strike by September 22 the strike will continue.  Prayers appreciated.

Prayers also needed as protests in the capital over increased taxes have turned violent the last three days. At some point in the next week or two Cory should travel for household/ food shopping and purchasing of building supplies.

Thinking of family this week as they prepare to celebrate my parent's 50th anniversary. So very thankful for them and their continued Godly example of ministry in many ways.

Busy, busy, busy..

Writing this from the comfort of my own living room, as we returned from our unexpected but greatly anticipated trip last week.

We received our adoption referral late Thursday afternoon, made plans on Friday afternoon for our socialization trip and left for the trip on Saturday.

Praising the Lord! , our adoption blog about the referral.

We enjoyed the week at the other mission.

Activities included: playing with F's foster family and the children who live with them; helping to educate the hostess responsible for  visitors about life in Haiti; Eli and Anna connected with the other missionary children; Cory worked a bit on book editing; I spoke to a pre-natal class of moms as well as a class of young people about their health.

We traveled to Cap Haitian once for paperwork and a second time to pick up Becca.

Becca, on the Global Partners member care team, specializes and focuses on the children of missionaries, MK's.

The mission we were visiting contains 15 MK's at this time. On Thursday, we will head down for missionary retreat and the Haiti team kids attending the retreat this year should number 16, if Becca counted correctly.

Today we finished unpacking, did laundry, will start repacking, worked on paperwork and office work. Cory checked the gardens with the gardeners and did some planting. Will be more of the same tomorrow as we plan to leave on Thursday morning.

Now with our socialization visit completed we can continue to work on getting needed appointments set up for our time in the USA.

Only 23 days remain before we fly to the USA.

Living in Anticipation

Six weeks and three days living waiting for the phone call...more than 15 months really, but will count from when we received the E-mail to be on stand-by waiting on the referral call.

I know I normally keep the adoption updates on our second blog, but the overlap into our daily lives remains huge!

Tomorrow we would need to be heading to the crèche for our two week visit to avoid needing to rearrange other ministry plans for our final weeks in Haiti before leaving mid-June for our USA trip.

Everyday while listening for that important phone call we fill the hours working to clear our schedule for a short-notice two-week trip.

I've not packed but do have a list ready. Writing it reminded me of when I compiled my evacuation packing list. Praise the Lord, Haiti's been stable enough that I do not have a current in-case-of evacuation list on this computer.

Eli and Anna are working hard to finish up their school year as much as possible.

Cory's printing out our Spring Newsletter and working on office tasks.

I continue to help with school, work on the Kid's Konsey and fill my time with other tasks.

The rough draft of our referral acceptance letter waits, ready to be printed once the blank spots are filled it with a NAME and information that we do not yet posses.

Laundry is being done daily incase we need to pack and go!

Thank you to those praying. Thank you for those reminding us that the Lord's timing will be best, He's in control. He has a plan.

My mind tries to guess the reasons for delay...perhaps the orphanage will need Creole speaking helpers in a couple of weeks, perhaps our next visitor is supposed to visit the orphanage, maybe we needed the motivation to get things done, maybe......

But I really do not want need to know. I can rest at the Lord's feet, confident that following Him in faith and obedience will lead to interesting, exciting places that draw me nearer to Him.  

Looking forward in EAGER anticipation on how the Lord will guide and direct our lives today, tomorrow and next 6 weeks.

This and that...

Middle of the week and middle of the month. 

We enjoyed celebrating Cory's birthday on Sunday which included watching a new video for us about Rich Mullins' life. Thankfully we finished right before we needed to unplug all electronics and turn off the power due to a very powerful thunderstorm.

A repeat thunderstorm occurred on Monday night again causing us to protect all electronics. Thankfully no lightning strikes in our area.

Monday we worked on finishing up the newsletters as well as starting our school week. Cory took the completed newsletters to Cap Haitian yesterday and did some shopping.

Now will try to get out the e-mail copies of the newsletter on our spotty and slow internet! Very thankful for our faithful support team. 

With Cory's birthday and Thanksgiving in Canada being completed the season of Christmas music starts in our home. This year with family coming for Christmas week we look forward to many fun family memories.

Yesterday marked our 9th month in IBESR. So if you think in terms of a 9 month pregnancy then we've waited that long for one of the children. Still praying we receive our referral soon so we can know more about our children and pray specifically. 

Cory took his guys and a truck load of trees to the Port Margot market today to increase awareness and education about some of the new trees. 

Work on the book continues...starting to check the fonts, numbering, contents and making sure everything made it in that we wanted included. Found a few missing items that we'll now translate and edit. Getting closer!

Day in Port-au-Prince

At 5 a.m. I paused a bit on the way to breakfast to gaze at the stars sparkling across the black night sky. Normally not up or outside at this time I do not often appreciate the glory of His handiwork. Awesome.

Grabbed a quick bite and the three of us jumped in the truck to town. Eli and Anna stayed with Pastor Dan for the day. At one point they spend an hour putting rocks into large metal baskets for the new wharf project and then enjoyed a bit of additional time in the sea.

Johntinny in blue shirt. Family early this summer.

We made it to the line outside the Embassy by 20 to 7 a.m. You can read more about that part of the day here.

Our next stop across town was to renew our Haitian residential visas which expire on Oct. 1st. With the check, our passports and our visas in Haiti Cory entered hoping that it being the first day not many other foreigners would be there to renew. Johntinny and I stayed in the truck.

With a couple books, snack food, water and music I did not mind the wait. Crazy ants must have a home in the truck so as they wandered over my arms and the truck seat I reduced their numbers. Soon Cory returned. One of the Wesleyan drivers couple picked up our renewed visas later. Legal for another year.

Now we headed to check out locations for washing machines on our way back to plant quarantine to pick up the seeds Cory dropped off the day before. These Moringa seeds will be sent to ECHO for distribution.

Despite recent rains many parts of Port get very dusty within a days time. Johntinny had not traveled to Port in over 6 years. He pointed out a neighborhood where he once lived, his church and most of the buildings survived the quake in 2010. He talked about his children all who are doing well in school [it was their first day of the year] and each one dreams of what they will grow up to be, the oldest 3: doctor, nurse and agriculturalist.

We were all impressed with the number of solar lights now found in Port and I wonder how many of them work.

At the end of the day we headed back with a new washing machine, a water cooler, a few groceries, fingerprints, and paperwork being renewed! We ran into a bit of light rain showers and saw a beautiful rainbow on arrival at the Ortlip center.

Anna was snorkeling with a visiting team member. We enjoyed visiting with different members of the team and shared supper with them. Early bed we headed home in the morning.

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.