conquering the list

Since my last blog post was a little depressing and pretty much full of my thoughts and emotions that come out around 2 am when I'm in bed alone and can't sleep... which, lets be honest, are never exactly accurate, I thought I'd do a post today to update my "101 in 1001" List. I know... did I completely forget about it or what? Not really, but kinda. The point is, I'm back at it. So, check it out yo.

#5: Learn a significant amount of another language. 
If I had thought this out, I would have clearly defined "significant." But, since I didn't, I guess it's up to me to decide what significant is. [as if it wasn't up to me in the first place? haha] I think that I have completed this goal, the language most obviously being Creole. Everyone wants to know if I learned it... and I am by no means fluent, but I picked up a bit here and there. I had some fabulous teachers. This goal is a little impossible to take a picture of, so, let me prove it this way:
Bonswa zanmi mwen! Mwen vle di ou m kapab pale creole paske profesier mwen te apran mwen sa. Yo apran mwen chak jour! ak zanmi mwen rele Kessy... li pran swen mwen chak jou! mwen manke Lani ak Naomi ak Clarianna anpil, et mwen vle Karis vini la kounya! Tanpri tanpri tanpri. M'ale. Mwen renmen ou anpil et Jezi renmen ou. Bon Nuit.

#27: Play in a sprinkler.
Totally conquered. My mom babysits, and for an "end of the year" party we had an outside splash party. My personal favorite was the water balloon fight at the end, but before that my brother rigged the water hose into sprinkler fashion, and I demonstrated to all the kids how to properly enjoy a sprinkler on a hot summer day! And it was a blast.

The party!

#69: Sew a skirt.
I forgot to mention in my last post that with all this unexpected free time I've recently stumbled upon, I've learned how to sew! My fabulous boy picked up a sewing machine from a girl off Craigs List for me while I was still in Haiti, and once I got settled I embraced it. And, I sewed a skirt, or 2!

Fourth of July skirt for me!

Twirly Skirt size 2T [for non-existant child- if you want it, let me know haha]

#73: Teach someone English. 
You all know by now that I did this in Haiti, but I didn't remember it was on my list! These are 2 of my favorite pictures with my class of beautiful ladies that I seriously miss every single day. 

#74: Keep a big secret.
I'm doing this right now! Sorry... thats about all I can tell you or I wouldn't be doing it anymore. Let me clarify though, so you don't have your hopes up. It has nothing to do with an engagement or a baby, for me or for anyone else. Darn, I know haha. 

I think thats pretty much it at this point. There are several more in the making... particularly #13, #30, #40, #43, #49, #53, and #79. I'll keep you posted, don't worry.

Oh, and one more thing. When I'm on day 3 of the 3 day cycle, this song snaps me back to reality and reminds me how faithful my Father is, and my faith is renewed. Whatever your battle is today, listen and be comforted:

my sweet Jesus.

I know my blogging has been all but nonexistent as of late, but hey, better late than never, right? Lots of stuff going on over here and things have been super busy, mostly due to the fact that we now have 2 interns living here, English class 3 times a week, back to back teams coming from now to at least May, I'm currently partnering with one of our Haitian staff to look after the Children's Home of 17 kids, the love of my life is 1000 miles away and I spend every second that I have to spare talking with him, and there are presently 11 other people living in this house besides me. All of that makes for a busy life, and when I'm not getting medicine to sick kids or planning English lessons or covering mattresses or taking kids to the dentist or talking through drama that comes from living too close together or fighting the internet to skype with John, my mind and body like to take a vacation to a faraway world called dreamland, and I sleep. :)

I'm thoroughly enjoying the way that the Lord is using me and this ministry, don't get me wrong. But it's enough to wear a girl out. I'm beyond excited that my church in Knoxville, Calvary Baptist, is coming with a big team in just a week and 2 days!! I can't wait to see my friends and church family. I should also let you know that I'll be flying back to the States on March 29th, which is about 3 1/2 weeks earlier than I had originally planned. It wasn't an easy decision but when God changes your plans, it's always best just to go with what He says... He always knows better! So, thats my plan. I don't know yet when I will return to Haiti. I know that the Lord has given me a love for this country and these people that won't just fade away, and they will forever be on my heart and I will find a way to support this ministry from the States, but I don't know exactly when I will physically return. We'll see what God's plan is!

For tonight, I have a few small blessings that are what makes my day and what reminds me how sweet my God is. These are just a few praise moments when I stand in awe of how amazing my Father is.

-->  After English class this week 2 ladies stayed behind to tell me about a ministry they started in the tent camp where they meet and work with women who are victims of rape and abuse. They identified 2 rapists last week and were asking for prayers of protection as people retaliate. I was beyond blessed by their boldness and willingness to sacrifice their own safety for the benefit of someone else. [Please pray with me for them... Madame Martineau and Madame Jacqueline]

--> A Sunday afternoon at the Caribean Lodge eating nachos and salsa and swimming in a semi-clean pool with my family here.

--> Learning how to love other people through their shortcomings, and learning how to own up to mine and let other people love me through it as well.

--> This texting conversation that reminded me of how blessed I am to have the man of God that I have waiting on me at home:
Me: "I want you to do art with me when I come home. What do you think?" [knowing that John is the most anti-artistic person I have ever met, and he would rather stab himself in the eyeball with a needle than paint a picture on a canvas]
John: "I think I hate art but I'll do it with you when you get back." 
And this, ladies, is what you get when you wait on the Lord's timing and you don't try to force things and do things by yourself.

--> Watching a little girl eat chocolate ice cream for the first time after no tears at a doctors checkup! It was priceless.

--> Spending time with the kids and staff at the Children's Home the last couple days... watching the joy on the ladies' faces when I brought them a blender so they can get rid of the mortar and pestle they use on a daily basis, watching Solomon learn to walk like it's nobody's business, getting new shoes for one of the older boys who is relatively new and has been wearing girls tennis shoes since he can remember, and listening to Karis cackle while I tickled her stomach. Even on the worst of days, they remind me why I'm here.

God is good, all the time people. I encourage you to reflect on the last few days of your life. What are some of the little blessings God has given you?

oh and p.s. 15 minutes after I posted this, we had a tiny baby earthquake!! My bed shook for like 10 seconds.. everyone is okay, no damage. Just scared the heck out of the Haitians, with good reason! Praise the Lord it was just a baby one!

haitian days

Well, today was another of those Haitian days. It doesn't compare at all to the one I wrote about in this post, but it was taxing none-the-less. It seriously never ceases to amaze me how a day can turn out in Haiti... so much different than America it is truly impossible to explain and do it justice. But, I will do my best to give you a small glimpse into what went down in Haiti today.

Got up this morning and met with the awesome people I work with every day for prayer and planning at 9:00. After an hour discussion with our Haitian staff about how God is all-knowing yet we have free will at the same time [which is mind blowing, of course] and then some sweet prayer time, we began the day. The plan was to go to the grocery store and pay the phone bill first thing. However, the car we were going to take was in the shop and there was terrible traffic for the guy who was picking it up to bring it to us, so we didn't leave the house until about 11:15.

So, the plan was to drive to Petionville [about 20 minutes away] to pay the phone bill and get groceries. About halfway there, our car [that just got out of the shop] began driving a bit funny. We pulled over to realize we lost some lug nuts or something and the tire was on the verge of falling off. After searching the car high and low, we realized we didn't have the tools to tighten the things, so a sweet taptap driver stopped and lent us the wrench or whatever that thing is. Anyway, it worked. Finally got to the phone company, and after a 45 minute wait they informed us that the computers are down and therefore we cannot pay our bill today. We were able to get groceries though, which was a success worth mentioning.

After the groceries, the car was full. 6 people where 5 should be sitting, and a back seat full of groceries. Then we get the call asking if we can pick up the Roberts' dogs from the vet. So, we stop and get them.. 2 miniature shnowzer looking things. I'm a pretty big pet lover, but most of the people in the car were not. Nevertheless, we piled the 2 dogs [who didn't have baths at the vet, btw] onto our laps in the back seat. Doing our best to hold it together until we got home, we soon realized that our car was driving a bit funny again. Pull over, all the boys get out, and we see them saying "thats really bad. thats really bad. big problem. big problem" over and over. Sweet. Another kind taptap driver stopped and lent us the same tool that we lacked so we could tighten our tire again. No lie, 2 minutes down the road, we are having the same problem.

Stop again, and another kind soul stopped to help. This was an older Haitian man who lent us the wrench thing, and while our guys are trying to fix it, the wrench broke in half. Sweet. We offer to pay him, but he says his boss will buy him a new one haha. Good news for us. At this point, the guys decide we cannot drive with the tire the way it was so we call for backup. I'd like to insert that we were still in Petionville and it was now 3:00, which is the exact time that we were supposed to be starting an English class/Bible study across town in a tent camp.

It took nearly 30 minutes for our friends to come and pick us up and bring a tire or however they fixed the car. In this time, we were just chilling out on the side of the road, staring at Haitian people who were staring at the dogs we had in the car because 2 small high-maintenance-looking dogs are very out of place in Haiti [believe it or not]. Finally, they came. But by then it was 3:30, and we had groceries that were half thawed in the back of the car. So we took the car they brought to help us, and left our Haitian guys on the side of the road trying to fix our car.

Rushed back to the house, grabbed our papers and Bibles, put our groceries in the fridge, and rushed to the tent camp we were supposed to be at. By the time we got there, we were an hour late and it was 4:00. I thought to myself "I'm almost certain that my ladies have gone home already, thinking we aren't coming today." But, to my surprise, when I climbed into the bus [because we use old school buses as classrooms at this camp], it was full! All of our usual students plus 5 new ladies! Their faces lit up when they saw us, and I smiled and said "well, nou genyen pa bon machine!!!!" ["well, we have a bad car!]. They cracked up laughing, forgave us for being late, and we started class.

We go to this camp on Mondays and Wednesdays, and I am working on teaching the ladies how to conjugate regular verbs. They are learning so quickly. Just for fun, this past Monday I gave them a list of verbs and told them for homework if they wanted to they could conjugate all the verbs into past, present, and future tense. I thought I would have whoever did it [because I thought homework for a class they aren't paying for probably wasn't too high in the priority list, considering their lives] come to the board and write some of them up for the class to practice today. When we got there, an hour late, I asked if anyone had done their homework. To my absolute joy and surprise, the ladies' faces lit up like nothing you've seen before and they all scrambled to pass their homework to the front. In all, I received 15 pages of scrap paper with conjugated verbs written as neatly as possible for me to grade. It seriously almost made me cry. I taught them for 30 minutes, and then asked if they wanted more homework for next week to which they enthusiastically responded "Wi!!" So I assigned new homework and then let Sara take over and do the Bible study.

These ladies are living in beyond less than ideal situations. Many of them live with other families and friends in small tents, hardly any of them work, and most of them barely have enough money to feed and clothe themselves and their children. But they show up twice a week to learn English and study the Word, and hang out and get to know us and each other. Most Haitian women don't have the opportunity to focus much on themselves because from as young as 15 or so, they start families and spend all their time taking care of kids and husbands [or live-in boyfriends]. It's so exciting for me to see them come together so often and really get to spend quality time on themselves. One lady that comes is at least 50 years old! It's amazing what God can do through us when we are obedient.

Anyway... I realize this was a long post and it probably seemed like it took forever to read it [if you made it this far]. But I promise it seemed like an even longer day when I was living it haha. I was really totally over the Haitian day by 4:00 in the afternoon.. but I was so refreshed and renewed and excited by the ladies in our class. It reminded me of how tired God must get of me some times, when I'm not listening or being disobedient or defiant. But He never gives up on me. He never lets me go do my own thing, and He never gets tired of me. Praise the Lord for that! And praise Him also for the work He is doing in this tent camp! :)

p.s. I still miss home, and I definitely feel like I've been here a lot longer than a week. And I still am certain this is where God would have me for  now!

Thank you for your prayers! Love from Haiti!