Peanut butter fruit and second visit to Second Mile

A thunderstorm last night added 1 1/2" to our summer rainfall totals and so far the area is wet.

Heat and moisture agrees with many plants on campus.

This week we all tried "peanut butter fruit" and at least 3 of us adamantly believe that the name should be changed as it sets your brain and tastes buds up for total disappointment.

 The pasty texture may be a bit like peanut butter but to us taste nothing like peanuts, more of a unique sweet, tangy taste.

Sunday we enjoyed watching Gener's two youngest boys get dedicated in church on Haitian father's day.

A funny moment when Gener went to return to his seat which he had taken with the men's Sunday school class earlier the Pastor briskly told him to sit with his wife and sons.

He grabbed his Bible and sheepishly returned to the front of the women's area.

Yesterday we worked hard on school work as well as finishing up our summer newsletters and June thank you notes. 


Thankfully we mostly finished before needing to unplug and turn off the inverter for the storm.

Today the kids and I continued with our school work while Cory and the guys headed with a truckload of plants back to Second Mile Haiti.

They enjoyed talking about the fruit trees and plants while placing them around the Second Mile property. 


They have good dirt, water and good gardeners so we expect the trees and plants will do well, providing not only nutritious fruits for the mothers and children at Second Mile but for the local families as well.



Since there is only one large tree on the campus there is plenty of room to plant.


The trees we planted included peach palm, acai palm, star fruit, jackfruit, breadfruit, everbearing bush mulberry,  barbados cherry, cupuasu (chocolate relative) large lime, lemon drop mangosteen, miracle fruit, bananas, ticazo vine and two types of bamboo. Also left chaya cuttings (vegetable bush), aloe barbadensis and artemisia (malaria medicine).

They shared fresh brown eggs from their chickens and a few pounds of their black eye pea harvest with us as a token of gratitude.

Always glad to share knowledge, trees and plants to those helping others.

On the way home the guys saw akee fruit and a different kind of breadfruit trees.

Last weekend in April.

Yesterday morning while working on-line the power went out.

Sadly what ever happened appears to have damaged our internet modem.

Thankfully we can borrow from folks on campus a second system that provides limited access, so we can check E-mails and do some on-line things.

Will be working next week to get the modem replaced as we need the high-speed for school, sending pictures and such.

Cory's talk to some of the local gardeners late Thursday afternoon went well. He shared fresh mulberries and cuttings.

They sold almost a couple dozen baby banana plants [couple types, disease resistant] then gave away a few small ones. The pastor placed an order as well.

Scott made it to the USA without problems.

The KCC team will be sharing their experiences tomorrow at 12:30 at a mission's meeting.

School continues to go well for Eli and Anna.

Prayer Requests: Getting the modem replaced or fixed. Book translation. Adoption paperwork [Some ideas how to get the home study done here-just need agency approval. Checking about medical testing in Cap Haitian.]

Bonus picture day!!

Truck loaded up for another tree/plant distribution tomorrow.

The guys plan to visit Bouk O'Boy tomorrow but time will tell as the reports of the road range from bad to passible.

Like the last distribution this one includes banana plants x 100, bamboo x 20, breadfruit x 30, chaya cuttings, 8-10 starfruit, jackfruit x 5, mulberry cuttings, [numbers are educate guesses as with 4 guys loading the truck the counting could be off].

Dad and the guys put in more steps to the Dearest house including fancy leaf pressed designs on the tops.

They look very nice.

They also took a trip to Port Margot to shop for some veggies, fruits and stuff.

 First of the key lime for the year so will try our hand at pie tomorrow.

Carrots for a very good price today and the corn not bad. Tomatoes and onion season is on so they are cheep.

 Dad overheard a lady commenting that the 'foreigners' are cheap too but he did not comment.

Mom finished stamping the books for the Book Herder project.

School continues to march forward.

Today Anna practiced volleyball a couple hours before school and then headed down again for a few hours of practice at 3 p.m.

A short school day with all the practice but when she's motivated she can complete school faster than normal.

The House of Hope will be filled tonight with 12 guests. Medical people coming to examine the school children in our community.


Cory, Mom, Dad and I took a short walk to see Gener's new son and give them a small gift.

Taking a few pictures did not bother the baby but woke up the middle son so we didn't stay long.

Think Gener will need to start replacing some of the bamboo on his rabbit cage soon as they appear to enjoy nibbling on it. 

Sharing Bountiful Bananas!

Roof is painted and the guest house roof started.

Birthday flowers.

Lots of bananas, star fruits and miracle fruits ripe this week.

For those of you unfamiliar with miracle fruits they are a bit of sweet pulp around a seed.

 After the pulp contacts your tongue it acts like a natural sweetener and flavor enhancer for about 30 minutes afterward making the star fruit and other fruits really taste good.

Miracle Fruit Tree

Yesterday Cory brought down bananas for over 200 children on campus for their Saturday Compassion Club meetings.

The leaders received star fruits and miracle fruits.

Today for Kid's Club about 150 children will receive both bananas and star fruit.

Eli pointed out yesterday how good it is to be able to count school days on one's fingers.

Yes, 10 to go [then a long weekend and we'll start the next 'year' for a couple weeks.

Anna pointed out this morning 35 days before we travel to the USA. So I guess we're into count down mode.

Next week my folks head out for a trip to South Africa with friends. So thankful that the Lord opened this door to bless them!

It will be strange not to have as much E-mail contact with them as we normally do..so extra E-mails and comments welcome.

Today: banana seeds, tiny earthquake, green room and more..

Monday rushes toward supper time. Today's minutes filled with school, book translation, office work, and smaller tasks.

This weekend we enjoyed a visit from Robert, a guest of Pastor Denord's from LaGonave.

Robert's project on LaGonave consisted of teaching construction while building the children's village near the airstrip.

Pastor drove him back down to catch the LaGonave ferry early this morning.

We enjoyed getting to know Robert a bit and the 'care package' that Joy sent us. Thanks!

Friday Eli and Anna passed the 50% mark of our school year, remaining on track for completion before our fall trip to the USA.


Cory found a few banana seeds in one of the cooking banana varieties so he let some get ripe to be able to plant the seeds. He doubts that the seeds will spout but will see what happens.

Never heard of a banana seed?

Because most folks do not want seeds in their bananas. They can be hard, these are very astringent if you bite into one. Most banana plants multiply by forming new plants from the bulb.







I did walk down to clinic today but the small clinic crowd did not need a third doctor as much as Eli and Anna needed a school teacher. 

I did take a few pictures of the patients having their vital signs taken in the new 'green' reception room.

 Pastor Rigo reported that the cholera treatment tent currently holds 9 patients.
This afternoon our heart rates accelerated rapidly when a very small earthquake rattled the house, sending us outside.

The quake started before our alarm sounded therefore the epicenter must have been local. Caused some excitement down at the Wesleyan school too, judging on the vocal noise!

Puppies growing well and starting to get into more mischief so will soon be finding new homes.

Thankfully late this afternoon when the large royal palm frond fell snapping our clothes line in half, no puppies or laundry were in the area at the time!

These make a loud whooshing sound right before the louder thud of ground impact.

Thank you for all the great comments on the Aloe post. I enjoy hearing from people who read the blog. If you do not or can not leave a comment on the blog remember E-mail or Facebook also work for comments. 

Saturday February 25th

A very nice Saturday especially since everyone felt well!

The second set of benches for the gazebo joined the first set. Dad and Eli worked on the ER gurney, thankful for completing the job.

 It looks much better.

Then they moved on to replanting some baby star fruit trees for Cory.

House cleaning and the making of chicken vegetable soup also completed Saturday morning.

Cory and Dad worked on organizing the back shed. Many banana bunches finish ripening in the shed. They also picked the ripe ones to be shared with the Kid's Club members today.

I talked Eli and Anna through making a daffodil cake for my mom.

Generally she does not get a birthday cake for her birthday in April so we celebrated early. Turned out very nice.


Mom, Eli, Anna and I also organized the video collection organizing them into sections: French Christian, French secular, English/non-French Christian and other.

 This will help Cory on Sunday selection for Kid's Club and Thursday night community movie night.

Today we will attend Fauche church and enjoy more family time. 

Naps are also on today's schedule as the drums played all night, stopping at 5 a.m.

Please pray for Haiti's government as the prime minister resigned this week after only 5 months in office.

Dad and mom leave for the USA on Wednesday, hoping to arrive home in Michigan on March 1st.

The Haiti His Hands team plans to share at the Allegan Wesleyan church on March 11, in the morning service that starts at 10:30.

Banana visit, trimming, and more.

 Cory enjoyed visiting some local gardens yesterday. During the walk he saw many of the imported banana plants, overall doing better than the local varieties. The nights continue to cool down and bring rains a few times a week.

The tall banana plant in the back with a bunch of green bananas was imported while the small plants in front are local.

Yesterday the guys worked to 'trim' some trees on campus. Cory calls it trimming while the rest of us would use 'major pruning' or 'tree mutilation' to describe the major limb removal. This work served two major purposes-to remove weak, dangerous limbs and open up areas for planting breadfruit trees on campus. Cory would add that the trees now look better after their shaping.

My Moringa tree garden by the house continues to grow well, with the trees now reaching waist high.

Kid's Club leaders met yesterday with ideas on how to expand and improve their impact on the community. They plan to hold a Christmas party next month for the children.

While looking for good movies for our family for Christmas we made sure to check if the disk included a French translation or subtitles. That way the video can be shared with the community as well as watched in French in our home to help Eli, Anna and I improve our language skills.

While we occasionally grumble about using the computers most of the time we remain very thankful for these machines that impact our lives greatly: communication with family/supporters/team, on-line shopping, school, information/research, entertainment [i.e. Kindle books], word processing, staying connected with the world and pictures.

 Having the right tools for the job can make a large difference. As I learn about preparing students for college many experts advise to take time to train them for life: taking responsibility for ones actions, attitudes and work, being organized, managing time, living healthy.....

I'm thankful for the 'tools' and skills that my parents and teachers taught me growing up and continue to work on adding the good while pruning the bad.

This and That

This week our Fall Newsletters headed for the USA to be mailed as well as went out on E-mail. I think most of the information already found its way on the blog but will share a bit. 

Banana Plants

Before leaving Haiti Cory discovered, to our disappointment, that some of the 'disease resistant' banana plants appeared sick. He worried that Panama Disease had somehow infected the plants. He feared plants bought and distributed in the last few years would continue to grow and produce for a number of years but with time that the plants would become diseased. On our return to Haiti the plants looked better. More research and touring local gardens confirmed that it was not Panama Disease. He now suspects a nutrient deficiency or unbalance in certain soils. Several varieties still show better production and disease resistance over local varieties. So we will again start to purchase and distribute banana plants.

 {Photo-New baby banana plants from the USA that came in on Thursday}

Prayer Request: "New Christians to grow in faith: Haiti’s evangelical crusade in July reportedly reached 121,000 people for the Lord!"

Some of the smaller bananas currently waiting to be shared and enjoyed by the Kid's Club members. Thankfully able to share. 

School week finished well. Both children enjoyed French but need to learn in mom's opinion to stay on task. By getting us away from common words we end up the French words for 'door frame' and 'veterinarian'. While I'm glad that they enjoyed the class I feel that we need to focus on common and useful words first!

The almost daily afternoon rains water my growing Moringa trees. The sad trees we planted just three weeks ago recovered nicely. The large Moringa that the storm cracked the top out of now sports a nice green head of leafy new growth as well. 

Yesterday we learned that the hospital ran out of IV fluids the afternoon before. Thankfully by the end of the day a nice amount of IV's reached Fauche safely in the middle of a heavy rain storm. Please pray for John Pierre as he spends many hours traveling for supplies.

Think THEN Act...

I'm finding that part of living more intentionally means questioning the motivation behind what I do.

'Kandarian' disease resistant cooking banana. Good ripe too!

Last week I realized that both my students and therefore teacher, more days than not, felt overwhelmed. Deep breath. Step Back.

Stop. Think. Act [A sign in our house used to read this for a member of the family who often acted without thinking.]

After stopping to think things through I discovered that the overwhelmed feeling taking away the fun of learning could be fixed by doing one day of school per day. Simple right.....

Well when we started to use Sonlight we slid into 6 days of school a week. When Eli and Anna attended international school they left the house around 6:30 a.m. and returned between 3:30 and 4. Starting at 7 a.m. taking a nice long break at noon and then finishing up around 3 p.m. we easily completed more than a day's lessons. Great. We finished one day and started the next with any 'extra time'.

Everyone remained happy. More time at home. More time to play with friends. Rare homework [which for Eli the year before took 1-2 hours at night]. And the accelerated pace worked out very well with our scheduled time in the USA.

Fast forward to now. More complicated classes take more time. Pressure causes frustration which removes the joy and fun of learning and spills over into the rest of life making positive attitudes hard to maintain.

 What if we slowed down? Did not need to work so hard to 'keep up'. How can one feel 'behind' one's self when going at a rapid pace? Silly I know.  What if?? A bit of math showed that even with the majority of weeks only finishing 5 days of lessons a week we will likely finish this school year and the whole next year before our tentative visit to the USA next fall.

We can use any extra time to explore interesting subjects in depth or additional subjects of interest. What a concept!! Yes I admit sometimes I learn things slowly and the hard way. Sadly sometimes my kids join me in the painful learning process.

So WHY push it? No reason at all other than we fell back into a routine that no longer fits or works for us. We did not think through the schedule. We let habit rule over being intentional and rational. Mistake.

So this week we started anew. A fresh plan. Only time will tell if the 5 days a week works for us or not.
 Eli and Anna proposed maybe every other week-a 6 day week, once they 'catch up'.  But maybe this time we can evaluate more intentionally avoiding building up frustrations and resentments.

Back to that great life word. FLEXIBILITY.

Thankful: Pastor Rigo's wife and newborn son doing well.
Prayer: Revival meetings at Fauche church this week.

Windy Night

Friday's nice afternoon trade winds seemed to lose out to hot, sticky, still weather. One of those afternoons that you just know if you give into a refreshing shower that the refreshing feeling would end as soon as the shower and you would return to being sticky.  Not an afternoon that brings to mind nice sleeping weather.

Clothes Line Moringa Tree

But then a few rain drops....and Cory yelling prepare for wind. Doors banged shut as we scurried to take picture frames containing glass off the walls, pull the couch away from the big window, pin curtains to the bars in the windows and forgot to remove the shampoos from the bathroom windowsill. BAM!

Anna asked if a hurricane hit. No just a short violent local thunderstorm. In addition to the wind preparation we also unplugged everything in the house, grabbed flashlights and threw the switch-disconnecting the electricity to the House of Hope and the Dearest  House [both unoccupied at this time].

Wind Damaged Banana Plants

Thankfully the report on Saturday revealed that no local homes received any damage. Thank you Lord. But two of our Moringa trees lost their tops [we enjoyed some Moringa leaves for lunch on Saturday] and one took out the main stem of the Jujube tree on it's way down. Despite being located under the tree limbs none of the baby breadfruit trees received any damage.

After cleaning up the area near our clothes line Cory checked for further damage. As expected some banana plants went down. Because they contain only soft plant material not wood, winds can easily knock over these plants. A few palm fronds were liberated at the same time.

Small Breadfruit Trees

Need to add to our Moringa information the danger of letting the tree get too tall. We could of avoided this by eating more Moringa leaves!

Today the Pastor talked about what we need during the troubles [storms] of life: Patience and prayer. God will save us in His own time. We just need to pray and be patient.

Thankful: limited storm damage.
Prayer: Schools preparing to start first of October.

Sept. 17. Garden visit, bananas and Moringa garden

Kid's voices fill the air as they play soccer in the front lawn. Thankful Eli and Anna can play with friends in the afternoons. This morning both spent time finishing up some homework and helping to clean the house.

I worked on the computer, finishing up a children's lesson on Haiti/devotional, cleaning up my in-box, writing some E-mails as well as working on a 'about us' post as suggested by a fellow blogger. Hard to boil down one's family into a page but trying to capture the essence of our family and ministry.

Down loaded a few Kindle books..after not having access to a library for years it is nice to be able to read new books with just the push of a few buttons. I am learning to watch what I get as it is easy to waste my time on books that do not benefit my mind or life at all.  Goes back again to being intentional with the time that the Lord gives me on this earth.

Cory visited some gardens across the river yesterday and the community garden. He reports that down by the river many people were busy planting peanuts. Most of the donated banana plants continue to grow well and some are starting to produce large bunches of bananas. Genner's plants produced several big bunches [about 50+] pounds each] already and off shoots-which he gives away to others.

Some of the bamboo plants now top 20 foot tall while others remain small. Next week he plans to distribute more bamboo plants as they are taking over the nursery area with their rapid growth.

We spent some time as a family yesterday afternoon planting our Moringa trees near the house. Now 4 rows of 51 rescued baby Moringa trees can grow and hopefully thrive in their new home. The goal-easy access and enough Moringa trees to provide leaves to eat a few times a week even during team season.

Hand made truck.

Our growing season is just starting in Northern Haiti with the end of dry season and early start to rainy season.

Thankful for family this week and rapid communications.

Prayer Request: Last few business days in Port-au-Prince violent protests calling for the UN to leave. Pray for safety and wisdom for leaders.