two more weeks!

2 more weeks of class after today, and our first semester is finished! What joy to be teachers, and have a "Christmas Break" to catch up on everything we've fallen behind in, and get ahead for the new year. It is unbelievable that we have taught an entire semester at Emmaus Bibilical, a school we continue to be blessed to be a part of. Please be praying for us these last two weeks: Matt is teaching a course on Isaiah, and there is much to do to finish the year well!

hard to say good-bye!

Matt's parents left this morning, after a truly wonderful 5 days in Haiti! They were able to do so much: visit the Citadel, eat Haitian food, watch us teach, meet our students, visit Mishlean and Hershniece, see inside a Haitian home, go to the "grocery store", see the new seminary building site, and enjoy lots of time together. They even claim they will be back, and that alone was a blessing to us :) They also brought us Christmas decorations, some new clothes, and photos and stories from home and family. We are SO thankful they could come, and understand a little bit better what we are doing here and what our day-to-day life is like. It was difficult to see them off this morning, and a true reminder, as we stayed and sent them on their way, that this is now our home.

Citadel!

We are just back from visiting the Citadel, Haiti's one tourist attraction :) It took us almost 2 hours to get there, and then we rode donkey's for 20 minutes to get to the top. The view was UNBELIEVABLE, as was the structure! It was built in the early 1800's, took 20 years to build, and the death count to build it was over 20,000 people. It was full of gun powder, canon balls and canons, but was never once attacked. It was truly unbelievable, and we had a nice day as a family!

family

Matt's parents are coming today, our first visitors! Since seeing them last (the first week of August) we have changed countries, homes, and work, learned a new language, made new friends and started in new ministries. This is the first time in almost 2 years that we have had a home of our own, and we are excited to have guests! It will also be interesting to live the week through their eyes, as we are now getting used to our surroundings.

Please pray for a safe journey and that we would all have a wonderful and eye-opening week!

from Burkina Faso...

We have good friends who have now been serving in Burkina Faso for almost 6 months, and we just received their newsletter. They wrote a little bit about the poverty, and it strikes us close to home. Wanted to share...

"Poverty can be intense. Poverty affects almost every part of every day of our lives at our new home. It’s not just the begging that tugs at your heart strings. It’s more than that. It’s being gawked at and visibly envied over things we consider mundane in the USA. It’s the worry we see on peoples’ faces when they’re praying to God for rain so that their crops will survive. It’s the lying, cheating, and stealing that occur daily because people think they have to in order to get by. It’s the resources that are destroyed from over-use because there isn’t enough to go around. Kids can’t go to school because they can’t afford it. The kids who can manage to find $30 to attend school struggle to keep up with homework because their old gas lanterns don’t work very well. People die from snake bites because they can’t afford the anti-venom. Old men ask us for manual labor because they don’t have enough to eat. It’s enough to make your head spin, and it’s constant.

In sharp contrast to the poverty here is the generosity of our neighbors. We can hardly go anywhere without someone wanting to buy something (candy, cookies, etc) for Caleb (our son.) Our friends bring us gifts or help us paint our house without even being asked. My language helper’s mom has made dinner for us a couple of times, despite the fact that we have plenty of food and many of our neighbors do not. There is an under-lying richness to many of these people that can’t be balanced in a bank account.

Our experiences with poverty here have helped me reflect more on Luke 18 (the subject of my first sermon here). Contrary to what people in Jesus’ time thought, money and wealth do not make us better or more righteous. Instead, Jesus taught, “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” All of our stuff (which we’re grateful to have, now that the container has arrived) can be a serious hindrance to our spiritual lives. Despite the fact that we got rid of over half of our earthly belongings last year, it’s obvious that we still have much more “earthly baggage” than most of the rest of the world.
Please pray for us as we continue to make daily decisions on how to deal with the poverty around us. Pray that we will have wisdom, strength, and compassion. But also please remember to pray that your earthly possessions don’t weigh your spirit down…that they would have a loose hold on you, as Jesus demanded of the rich young ruler."

all or nothing

"If you come to Me,
then I will restore you--
Before Me you will stand;
and if you extract the precious from the worthless,
You will become My spokesman."
Jeremiah 15:19

That's what the Christian life is all about..sorting out that which is precious and pursing it among the mountains and mountains of what is worthless. Pursing peace...pursing humility. Forgiveness. Dying to self. Putting others before us, in that we do not even think of our own needs and desires before their own. Choosing these things is one thing, and realizing that the other things are WORTHLESS is another. Self-gratification. Money, pride, possessions. Selfishness, grudges, being heard and getting what we want...being recognized, being valued, being impressive.

We don't see any middle ground in this passage...there is that which is precious and that which is worthless...no lukewarm or "on the fence." The Lord says SO many times in the Bible that He desires all of us or nothing at all, not half-hearted surrenders or nonchalant comittments.

Each day we seek to spend our time, our energy, our hearts, our passions, our gifts, our money, and our words on that which is precious to the Lord, and precious to the kingdom...but are so often caught up with the chaffe! Please keep praying for us, that HIS plan for Haiti, HIS call for our lives, and HIS desires for our ministry would be all that we seek.

so much rain

We have had torrential downpours for the past several nights. We continue to be hit with how much things like rain and flooding really mess things up in places like Haiti. Impassible roads, flooded homes, stagnant water, floating garbage, mosquitos, colds and destroyed towns are all part of the toll, and the death count this week alone is up to 16 (known).

This is so devestating, especially in a country where so few people know the Lord. The attitude of the people feels so hopeless...hard hard lives just made harder. We are trying to remind ourselves that we are doing what we can, and doing what makes a lasting difference: sharing Christ and living as examples of Him!

Thank you for your continued prayers and for your living examples of Him through your prayers and various means of support!

imagine...

...the shack on the left was your home. where you raise your children, feed your family and go to bed each night. These are pictures of your backyard, of the playground for your children and of the horizon you see each day. imagine the smells, the insects, the heat. imagine when it rains, when the water rises, or when the sun beats down on the piles of rancid garbage. The street where we took these pictures was so full of people that lived there, that we fought to get our car through. Even standing right there, smelling it and standing in it, we just canNOT imagine.

These are His people, whom He dearly loves. We can't help but feel a bit of His heartbreak for the suffering of humanity when we walk through town. Please keep praying for the people of Haiti...so dearly loved and so few that know it.

teachers...

Stacey's mom was a teacher. Stacey's sister is a teacher. Two of her aunts are teachers. And on that day of college graduation, we both sweared that we were DONE with the classroom. We should have been more detailed :) Teaching, we are beginning to realize, is a whole different form of learning, and we are loving it. Pictured here is Matt with part of his class. Matt is now teaching four hours a day, all in Creole: an hour of Hebrew and three hours of Matthew. He will start Isaiah soon, and then Psalms in 2008. His guys continue to come up to his desk after class and thank him, every single day, for what he shared with them that they had never heard before, and will now be using in their churches.

this is so exciting to us, to realize that what we are teaching during the week is being taken directly out into Haiti each weekend and shared in churches and villages across the country!

Stacey is preaching in chapel today, her first major public presentation in Creole. Be in prayer for her, and please keep praying for us both as we prepare and present classes based on the Gospel, the life-transforming Gospel!

the #1 difference between the US and Haiti? dinosaurs

Last week, a missionary friend of ours with OMS was working in the wood shop (John). His right hand man, a Haitian, was working alongside of him. Somewhere in a pile of old boxes, Jackie found a tiny plastic dinosaur, and thought he would play a trick on his American friend.

So, Jackie put the dinosaur on John's neck while he was bent over some work. Jackie and John shared a good laugh over his surprise, and John picked up the dinosaur. Always trying to work on his Creole, our friend showed it to Jackie: "In America, we call this a T-Rex. It is a dinosaur. How do you say 'dinosaur' in Creole?"

Jackie thought for a second, and then shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know!" he said. "We don't have those in Haiti!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

With 14 Canadians, 1 Irishman and 6 Americans, we had difficulty choosing an OMS Thanksgiving this year, and therefore celebrated yesterday :) Matt and I have decided that this is the BEST way to have Thanksgiving, because all we had to do was make 2 pies, but we got to eat the whole meal! It was a good, relaxing day, celebrating being together and all of the many things we have to be thankful for in our ministries and in our lives.

We have 2 visiting professors teaching with us at the Seminary this week. This means that 2 teachers from the States or Canada will each be teaching one 2 week course at the seminary, one in Matthew and the other in Sunday School. It is fun to have some new faces in the classroom.
We visited Mishlean and Hershneice on Friday, and had quite the adventure. They live way out in the country, and about a mile from her house, we became completely stuck in a huge section of "road" that had turned to mud in the storms. We watched in amazement as men and women came, literally, out of nowhere, and rallied around to help. As I stood to the side with the other women and children, holding about 20 pairs of flip-flops, dozens of Haitian men and boys stood nearly knee-deep in the muck and pushed the truck out. We were so humbled by their willingness to help, get sweaty and filthy for 2 people they had never even seen before.

We then walked the rest of the way to Mishlean's house, and were thrilled to see Hershneice sitting up in a chair. It was wonderful to see the whole family, and to watch Hershneice smile at one of Matt's jokes, the FIRST time we have seen her feeling well enough to grin. While Hershneice still looks and feels terrible, there was a contentedness about the family, soley because she is alive and feeling well enough to sit with them. Please keep praying for this family and for little Hershneice!
This experience alone reminded us of how blessed we are to be His hands and feet to this world! "Thanksgiving" in Creole is literally, "Actions of Grace", and we are so grateful for His grace in our lives.

if not for friends...

...our work here in Haiti would be SO MUCH more difficult! Pictured here are Greg and Cathie Benson, missionaries in Port-au-Prince with Christian Service International. They are like family to us, and they took good care of us this weekend. We are so grateful for so many of you, that continue to take care of us, pray for us, email and write us, and let us know that we are a part of your lives. We often feel very far away, but it is you who keep us feeling a part of your lives. THANK YOU!

We had another rather rough day at the Seminary, today with an issue of cheating. We were told after catching a student cheating that we do not understand the Haitian culture: in the Haitian culture, it is perfectly acceptable to cheat. PRAISE THE LORD for His Word, that gives us ONE standard, ONE truth and ONE pattern for living. We were able to say to this student: "We don't CARE what Haitian culture says is acceptable. Or what American culture says is acceptable, or what ANYONE says is acceptable. THIS Bible is our standard. And the Bible says do not lie, and do not steal."
While these continued problems at the seminary can be such a discouragement to us, we are reminded that 1) He is in control, 2) that we are here to serve Him, not to MAKE people do things a certain way, and 3) that He can use just one person to make all the difference in Haiti. If we have just 10 men or women in the Seminary that have the courage and the perseverence and the faithfulness to follow Him in Haiti, whatever the cost, then we WILL see change in this very lost country. And for every student that we have pursing their own desires, we have one that is pursuing His desires, and this brings us hope.

Even today, we thank the Lord for putting us in ministry here. His faithfulness is unmistakeable and transforming in our lives, and we are grateful to be used in the kingdom, alongside of you!