Chinese New Year for these 2 Americans in Haiti!

We had a special New Year's Eve last night with the other missionaries here! Everyone made Chinese food, and we had a Chinese buffet! We had homemade egg rolls, sweet and sour chicken, chow mien, broccoli beef, and a lot more! It was so special just to have Chinese food and to be together! No one made it anywhere close to midnight, but it was fun to talk about what we had done for New Year's in previous years.

We don't usually commit to lists of New Year's Resolutions, but as we start this new year in Haiti, we want to become healthier people. We want to re-commit to having a healthy marriage with Christ at the center, want to strive after HIS ministry here, not our own. We want to not let the fear of what people might think dictate our actions, and we want to focus on loving the missionaries and nationals around us more than ourselves. Most of all, we want to bring His health, transformation and hope to this sick and weary land.

As parties rage long and loud tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday (New Year and Haiti's Independence Day), please pray with us that Haiti would realize that it has only traded one kind of slavery for another...There is no freedom here! The vast majority of people on this island are slave to their own desires and wills, and live in fear of superstitions, curses and threatenings. Pray with us that we might be blazing lights of freedom in this dark enslaved land for 2008!

HAPPY NEW YEAR...we would be such very small lights without you!

finally back online...kind of!

Sorry, all...our internet has been down for days now, and we are still working to get it up and going again! Pictures are coming....the internet is still not strong enough to put up many photos!

It has been a very busy week! Stacey's family has come and gone, and we had a WONDERFUL week! We spent Christmas day at home, and enjoyed very much being together. Wednesday we went to visit Hershneice and Mishlean and shared Christmas with them (THANK YOU, Hope!). We then went and spent the afternoon with Madame Gislaine, a good friend of ours from the Seminary. That was an awesome day, shared with friends, and, as Madame Gislaine said, remembering that in Christ we are brothers and sisters...the same children of God. Thursday we worked all morning cleaning out the destroyed classrooms from our recent storms, washing desks and putting things back together.
then took Stacey's dad, brother and sister out to see the new seminary site and to have lunch with some of our good friends here with OMS. We also gave them a tour of the other OMS ministries and introduced them to several staff at the seminary and several other good friends (everyone has been quite excited to meet them, and are convinced that Lisa and Stacey are identical twins. "All white people look the same!" they keep saying :) Friday was our vacation day...we drove the 75 minutes (8 miles) to the beach and spent the day snorkeling, playing games on the beach and enjoying being together.

It was SUCH a blessing to have our family here, and so good to have time with them to talk and laugh, work and relax. We feel so renewed having had them.

It was a beautiful week, but also full of heart-ache. We visited Mishlean and her children on Wednesday morning, and took "Christmas" with us, thanks to a good friend from Ohio. We brought corn, rice, milk, oil, peanut butter, and several small gifts for all of the kids. Hershneice was feeling a little bit better than she had been on our previous visit. Her favorite gifts were curly pink hair bands, and she was even strong enough to ask that I put several in her hair. She watched as her family opened gifts, and we were so blessed to be a part of all of it with them.
Thursday afternoon we spoke with our Doctor about her again, and he told us that the future was bleak for Hershneice. "She could die due to 10 different reasons at this point, but all of these reasons are going to be very ugly," he told us. Three hours later he came to the house to tell us that Hershneice had just passed away. What symptom finally caused her death is unknown.

Though we expected her to pass away a long time ago, and though we have felt for a while now that Hersheneice's quality of life wasn't worth living for, we don't know how you ever prepare to lose a little girl, or how her mother could ever be prepared to face that. Please be praying for Mishlean and her family...and pray that we might be able to somehow be an encouragement and an example of faith to this broken family.

Somethings there just aren't answers for...so we're trying to seek Him instead...

i'll be home for Christmas...

We are feeling awfully blessed this evening! Matt's family got together for their family Christmas today, and called us on video Skype to wish us a Merry Christmas. It was beautiful to see everyone and to talk to each family member! Then they told us that for Christmas this year, instead of all exchanging gifts, they put the money towards the work we are doing here in Haiti!...we are still feeling quite overwhelmed and speechless about their generosity, but most because of their sacrificial love for us...

...a precious reminder about what Christmas, and HOME, is all about...

We love you!

Oh, Come All Ye Faithful!

We have never received so many Christmas cards, just another reminder of how very blessed we are here in Haiti! We had expected to feel quite lonely here, quite far from home and very "detached" from everyone, but instead we feel so very loved. The church that commissioned us promised that if we would go to the ends of the earth to tell the lost about Him, they would promise to "hold our ropes" by prayer, support and encouragement. SO MANY of your are holding those ropes, and having this time to reflect at Christmas has made us so aware of this! As we seek to be faithful to Him in what He has called us to do, so many have been so faithful to help us be here, stay here, work here and live here!

SO MANY people around the world are seeking Him right now, and SO MANY people don't know where to find Him. Pray for us, as we pray for you, to be the star that leads so many to Jesus.

Merry Christmas!

Deck the Halls

We are all decorated for Christmas, and spending lots of time with the compound's children, giving parents chances to get ready for Christmas! I'm not sure we could be much more excited about Stacey's dad, sister and brother coming. What a reminder that family truly makes the holiday...we are ok with no snow and no stores and no turkey's and no traditions as long as our family is coming. We're trying to start new traditions this year, like Christmas beans and rice, Christmas coffee (with candy canes in it...thank you Aunt Patty!), going to the beach right after Christmas, visiting friends throughout Haiti for Christmas pumpkin soup, watching Christmas movies with the kids, and turning off our Christmas music from time to time to listen to all of the area churches sing Haitian Christmas carols. While they are quite different, we are beginning to recognize them as Christmas songs. We are just continually reminded that we have SO MUCH to be thankful for this Christmas, especially that God sent His Son for us and for this little island.

prayer requests of our students...

We asked our students to give us their prayer requests for break, and wanted to share them for your prayers...

Loubens: "I ask you to help me in your prayer because I want that Jesus grow my spirit life and I will tell you thanks if you put your voice together for this."

Noel: "Please pray for me for my vacation and for my family. They have so much difficulty. I have a big family and mother and father, they are old and cannot work."

Rony: "Help me pray for God give me a church to help and a wife to help me."

Cherimse: "Pray for that I find a job, and that you and me can stay the good friends."

Eugene: "I would like to pray for my family's ministry and my spirit life."

Laguerre: "Pray to God for my father because he is sick, and for the money to stay."

Luma: "The life that we live in this world is very difficult. Each person need the prayer of another, especially the way that we would like to live for Jesus. Pray for the new year that what I do for Christ would succeed."

Pierre: "You will go to pray for me for God to give me more power in the work I do for him. I need God to give my son a work. Since 3 years he graduate, but he has no work, cannot find work."

Petit: "Pray for the activities with children i do in my church for Christmas. Pray that all my work in God goes good."

Special men with special requests as they go through lives that we will never really understand. Being Christian is not popular in a country where voodoo is a matter of national pride. Please be praying with us for these men as they are His hands and feet in a country that desperately needs Him.

Christmas Consistencies

Despite all the changes in Christmas this year, we've still had a few consistencies. All of the missionary kids and a few other children that go to our missionary school put on a Christmas play, "A Mouse's Tale", that was very special. We've been making candy cane coffee, one of our favorite Christmas things, listening to Christmas music, and watching every Christmas movie we can get our hands on. When the breeze is blowing in the evenings, you could almost convince us it was snowing outside, though during the day it continues to be a balmy 78. One of our greatest Christmas consistencies has been all of the Christmas cards we've been receiving! Thank you for sending us your love!

oh, the weather outside is frightful!

We have had some terrible storms, worse than some missionaries say they have ever seen in Haiti! The wind was blowing so hard that there are trees down all over OMS's campus, but the worst damage was done to our Seminary :( Here's some before and after pictures of Matt's classroom, which he had been teaching in just 15 hours earlier. We are so thankful for His perfect timing, because all the students left Tuesday afternoon before the storms set in Tuesday evening! Please be praying for us as we are doing clean-up. We're reminded again why the new seminary building project is so important...our current seminary is just very old and not too strong. Matt is out at the new Seminary pouring floors today, and Stacey is grading papers and beginning lesson plans for next session! Thanks for your prayers...we praise God no one was hurt!

ordination

It was our pleasure to attend the ordination of one of Matt's students on Sunday. Matt was asked to pray over him, and then even got in on a family photo :) The pictures are from the very front of the church, because as missionaries and guests, that's where we "got" to sit. I'm not sure when we'll get used to sitting on the front stage, looking at the congregation the entire service, but, it does keep you focused for the three hour service! It was very special for both of us to be there and very obviously meant a lot to Matt's students to have his family and his teacher there (and, Stacey got in some good "baby-time", so everyone was happy:)

We have never been in Haiti long enough to do things like this...build relationships and attend culturally important services, and it is truly our joy to be a part of things like this!

Today is our last day of class before break, and much like we remember from our college days, everyone is READY to get home for a few weeks

beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The OMS women had our annual Ladies Christmas Brunch yesterday! It was such a nice time to sit and eat and share together, and we all made special dishes that you never find in Haiti. For example, we had a salad with RED PEPPERS and GRAPES and APPLES and omelets with BROCCOLI, and my mom's cheese ball, with PECANS, CHEDDAR and CREAM CHEESE! Wow...everything came in from the Dominican or Florida, and made for such a special morning and afternoon. It was truly "like Christmas" to have special foods that we haven't eaten for almost four months now!

For the first time in history, Matt wished he could go to a ladies party with me :)

This morning we attended the ordination of one of Matt's students (pictures to come). It was a truly special service, and Matt was asked to be involved...it was really special, and clearly meant a lot to his student. We learn so much culturally whenever we attend events like this! Haiti is finally beginning to feel like home, and we are so thankful for the true miracle that is. He is so faithful...

First time...

we've ever been to a Christmas party that consisted of a soccer match and a three hour program in a cafeteria, half of which had absolutely no electricity. What a great cultural experience, and as always, a good learning experience. We learned from the 40 minutes of stand up comedy that we will probably NEVER understand Haitian humor, though it was a blast to watch the students rolling with laughter. We learned that a TUB of beans and rice that looks like it could feed an entire village for a week was barely enough to feed 70 people. We learned that you only must have pieces of a tree to have a Christmas tree that everyone thinks is gorgeous. We learned that while Americans can attempt to play soccer with Haitians, they will be quickly left in the dust (though everyone was quite gracious, nonetheless :). We were also touched to learn that a Christmas party is only a Christmas party if it includes a lot of hymn singing (though not Christmas hymns), a sermon, prayer time, and the wearing of church clothes.

Most of all, we realized during the party that our students truly care about us, and that was a big Christmas blessing for us both. We will miss them while they are gone for 3 weeks! The year ends Tuesday. Please be praying for our men and woman as they go throughout literally all of Haiti for break...pray that they would be shining lights of the Word that they have been studying, that they would be safe, and that they would be a reflection of Jesus as they encounter people who have never heard of Him!

the most wonderful time...

...of the year, but does seem to be the busiest, doesn't it! Between teaching, preparing our Christmas newsletters, preparing for the Seminary Christmas party, the mission Christmas party, the women's Christmas party, creating "Thank You" DVD's for Seminary donors, and participating in daily ministry such as mentoring and relationship building, MAN, things are fast-paced. However, a cup of tea, an evergreen candle, and Josh Groban's Christmas CD is all it takes to give us a peaceful, Christmas-y evening of studying the Bible for classes tomorrow and being together.

My class (Stacey) is going through the Christmas story this week, and today as I read them a kid's book about Christmas, I was overwhelmed (probably for the first time in years) with the magnitude of Christ coming into the world, simply to "take away people's badness" as the book explained. Looking at the pictures of the book, littered with dozens of hairy shepherds and then hundreds of singing angels overhead just gave me goose-bumps, thinking about all of the miracles scattered throughout the story of His coming. The book continually emphasized the "good news", first to Mary that she would have a baby, and that was good news. Then to the shepherds, that they could see THE KING, and that was "good news", but then the book ended with the BEST news...that He came for US, for ME, to take away all of my badness, and to give me a transformed life.

Reading this to my students and recounting it to Matt later, we are just reminded all over again that He came into the world for these hundreds of thousands of people on this island that have NO CLUE of His love, His coming, His death, His resurrection, His grace...WOW, what a challenge!

May we be busy with THIS: telling the World the GOOD NEWS of GREAT JOY which is for ALL PEOPLE!

to be rich

Whew! We made it through a long week, with Matt being sick, teaching a new class in Hebrew, and both of us preparing for the Seminary Christmas party this week! Our students and all the children who frequent our lives continue to bring us joy and refreshment.

Stacey's English class this week learned about "daily routines." As a homework assignment, they were asked how their daily routines would change if they were very very rich. Assignments like this allow us to see so much into the culture and lives of our students!
Every single paper (of 15) claimed that if they were very rich, they would have a job. I was not at all expecting this to be an answer, especially because in the States, we remember thinking that if you were very rich, you would NOT have a job!

The second answer was that they would have a car. Not a nice car, or a fancy car, just a car.

One student said that if he was very rich, he would eat food daily, and take trips to many different cities in Haiti. One student would go to Texas.
Most touching, however, was that most students had a vision for how they would help Haiti...

"I buy a big house for the very poor children..." "I make a school for the poors and those who cannot speak."

The student who speaks the most English, however, gave us some insights about priorities:

"If I were very very rich, I think that I will very very busy, because i need to prepare myself early to go to my desk and many people come always to me to talk with them. I need to visit many different places as my buildings, my schools, my stores, etc. So, I don't have even time to talk with my children nor my wife. I would be very very busy!"
Our prayer is renewed, following an insanely busy week, that we must never be to busy for the students, for each other, for the Lord, and that we can show them that wealthy lives have nothing to do with money.