February Update

Andrew playing a game of bean bag toss (made by our last team)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a month since I last update you!  Wow, time sure does fly by!!

We had a great visit back to the states to see family, friends and supporters.  Thank the Lord for His hand on us as we traveled those two weeks.  Faith did get to see and play in the snow for the first time (only for a day), so that was pretty fun :-). 

We had many opportunities to share with and update supporters as we traveled.  We were able to share our story and ministry with a Sunday school class at a “new-to-us” church outside of Atlanta.  The next two weeks after that were packed with connecting with family and friends in SC, NC, NY and FL.  We were really excited because after sharing about what God is doing in Haiti, two other couples have joined our monthly support team!  Praise the Lord!!! 

We returned last Wednesday night to a riot of 31 kids at our place :-).  They were so excited, as were we that we had come back home.  It was so good to be back after living out of a suitcase for almost 3 weeks.  I didn’t realize how much I had missed the kids until I got back and got my 31 kisses :-).  What a joy!!!

There was a hard working group that was just here from PA.  They left last Friday and were a tremendous help!  There were so many improvements made to our campus since we left.  We also welcomed our first Grand Goave intern, Joy, on Friday!  She is a high school senior that finished early and has a heart for missions and wants to spend the next 2 months with us here!!!  She has been a huge help already- wow!

Andrew just started, this week, doing a devotional with all the kids after dinner.  He has been doing it all in Creole and is doing a great job!  We’re starting in Genesis and working our way through the Bible.  The book that he’s using is awesome because Monday-Thursday you study a passage of Scripture and then on Friday it ties it in to the cross and the New Testament with a passage out of the psalms or prophets.  The kids have been enjoying it and it’s been a blessing to us to be a little more involved in their spiritual journey.  We will also be starting, this Thursday, a worship service here on our site.  I’m really excited about being able to use my keyboard in leading them in worship.    We will do a “blended service” of Creole and English songs :-).

Our kids love their bi-weekly trips to the Hands and Feet store.  I was really impressed with several of our kids this past Saturday that didn’t want to buy anything!  They didn’t even want to buy a small piece of candy because they wanted to save up for the next time.  We also just recently were given some musical instruments for our kids to use.  So now- we can have a full band.  We have a drum set (no cymbals yet), several guitars, a flute, tambourines and a keyboard.  The kids love their supervised time in the new music room, thanks to Joy!

An update on the mountain property.  Over the past month, we have been testing our well a few hours a day to see how much water it really is producing.  It’s giving us between 3-5 gal/min so far (during the driest time of the year.)  So now, we’re expanding our test a little and seeing how long will it sustain at that rate.  Today we have a few of our workers up there running it for 10-12 hours.  We will continue this over the next few weeks to see if it will sustain or if we’ll need to drill for another well.  We have the go ahead to drill another well (or just drill deeper in our existing well) if we need to – so that’s exciting!  Once we figure out this water situation, we’ll be able to get a better timeline for when we’ll start with our permanent structures up there on the mountain.

Praises:

-       Praise the Lord for safe travels as we visited family and friends back in the States.

-       Praise the Lord for our new financial supporters and prayer warriors!

-       I am so thankful to the Lord for Joy, our new intern who is helping out so much around here!  I now have time to focus on some activities that I’ve wanted to do for a while with the kids.

-       Thankful for all the opportunities we’ve had lately to be able to talk to the kids about Christ and his power over their fear of demons and spirits.

Prayer:

-       - Please continue to pray for our kids spiritually.  We are just now entering a time of the year where voodoo holidays and practices are more prevalent.  Our next-door neighbors have been practicing voodoo by celebrating, sacrificing and playing drums from about midnight until 5am- keeping a lot of us awake several nights.  With that comes a lot of fear among our kids.  Two prayer requests here: 1.  Pray for our kids and that they would realize that if they truly do have Christ in their hearts, there is nothing to worry about.  Pray that these conversations would lead them closer to Christ!  2.  Pray that we would be a witness to our neighbors who are practicing voodoo.  Andrew has been next-door a few times to talk with them.  Pray for good conversations and that they would be drawn to Christ in him.

-       - Pray for our well situation on the mountain property.  As we do these tests over the next few weeks, please pray that we would be able to get some answers about how much this well will produce- so we can move forward with our permanent buildings.

-       - Continue to pray for our family.  Please pray that we would be able to keep our marriage a priority amongst all the demands of living at a Children’s Village.  Pray that our marriage would be strong so these kids can see what it looks like to have a biblical marriage, in a culture where the families are all mixed up.

-       - Pray for our upcoming short-term teams.  We have one coming this Saturday, and then three different teams in March.  Pray that we’d be an encouragement to them and that God would touch their hearts and give them His vision for the world!

-       - Lastly, continue to pray for vision.  Pray that God would give us His vision for and wisdom on how to raise these children.