Seasons, Glasses & Peanut M&Ms...

Life continues to be so interesting here in Haiti!

Occasionally we run into unforseen problems explaining something in one of our classes. Today it was Stacey's turn, as she sought to teach her students "Summer, Autumn, Winter, Fall." While we thought these were cross-culturallly constant, we learned today that they are entirely based on location, opinion, and if there is a word for it in Creole. In Haiti, she learned there is "When it's less hot, when it's really hot, when we have lots of rain, and when we have drought." These are the four seasons, though they overlap some. No one could tell her what months these "seasons" happen, or even what season Christmas is in. (Christmas is in "less hot").

However, we aren't the only ones suprised. They are just as shocked to hear us talk about such things, like SNOW in WINTER or leaves magically changing colors and falling to the ground and even though the trees then have NO leaves, the leaves miraculously return again after the snow leaves. Their wonder really makes us think about all the things that were just normal when we grew up...fall, winter, and spring again ARE miracles :)

A lot of other mindsets are very different, too. We have a good friend here who has been wearing glasses without the arm pieces since we got here. She is brilliant...speaks French, Creole, some English and some Spanish. She works computers, and most of the seminary, raised three children alone, you get the picture.

Today, whenever someone gave her a new pair of badly needed glasses, she was thrilled. But they left them in the bag, with the little stregnth sticker in the middle of one lens. All day long she proudly wore her new frames, but left on the clearly sight blocking sticker, stuck right in the middle of the lens. Finally, we said, "Friend! Take off the sticker!" and then peeled it off for her. She looked at us like we were rocket scientists, and said that she had just assumed they came with that sticker built in, and that she was was trying not to complain with her new gift, even though she couldn't see well with the sticker. She was SO GRATEFUL to us for "fixing" them!

This seems like common sense, but on the flip side, a friend saw Stacey the other day furoiusly attacking a stream of ants, and walked away laughing at the foreigner who would be publicly caught paying attention to something so tiny and unimportant. We are quickly learning that nothing is dumb, just different!

The Lord continues to provide for us in so many big and small ways...

Last night we fell into bed exhausted at 9:30 and decided to watch one episode of "The Office" for fun. We are really starting to miss certain foods and "normal, American" things, and this became apparent as we both were salivating over the peanut M&M's that several of the characters were eating in the episode. Suddenly Stacey disappeared and came back with a whole BAG of Peanut M&Ms that her aunt had sent us weeks ago!

This may not sound like much, but to us, in a country where THERE IS NOT another bag of Peanut M&Ms, it was SUCH a joy, and truly a way that the Lord provided a few moments of comfort, laughter and fun.

Thank you for standing with us. It is truly our joy to be here and to be sharing His love with people who don't even know they are loved.