cherished time

After a very long day Wednesday, we safely arrived in Philly and finally met our precious newest family member in the freezing airport pick-up!

Nora was not much better when I left, and was still quite unhappy and snotty this morning when we FaceTimed, but no more fever, and Matt is patiently loving on the two youngest girls with the help of PopPop....I'm so thankful.

Meanwhile, yesterday was a sweet day with my three nieces and my dear sister.  Lily and I played lots of trains, wiped lots of faces (apparently our house hasn't been the only one struck with illness) and traded Adaly back and forth as much as we could :)  She is so precious, and it is also wonderful to listen to Evie and Jayla and learn all their newest little antics!

It is a joy and encouragement to see my sister and brother-in-law following the Lord, working hard, loving each other and their children well, and raising them in the Lord.  Very thankful for this short-rare opportunity to BE with family.

It's also been a joy to spend this good time with Lily.  Having this chance to hear her thoughts and concerns and joys and fears uninterrupted and focused has been rich, and I really am just so proud of the young woman she's becoming.  She genuinely loves people, and I just don't get when she stopped being the little girl who needed so much help and guidance to this deep-thinking socialite.

Today Lisa's girls are all off for doctor's appointments, and I have a long-dreaded appointment with the oral surgeon, unable to safely put it off any longer.  My two great fears are tooth issues and Gollum from the Lord of the Rings (well, and being cold), and I am *trying* hard to be thankful for this chance at good medical care, from a surgeon who has been great and works in Haiti several times a year.  I'd rather do just about ANYTHING than have this work done.

Thank you for all your travel prayers and continued Nora prayers...I couldn't believe how many people on our flights were hacking and sneezing...it must just be flu season!!

trusting and taking our meds

Not kidding.  Nora is really really sick.

She struggled through Christmas day with a 101 fever, but by today she was just plain miserable, almost impossible to comfort and unable to play or do anything other than be held and whimper.  Our doctor's thinking it's viral and so we're waiting it out, but it's hard to see her so miserable and uncomfortable.  

The Edlers and a big crew spent the day at the beach, so Lily and Sofie went along and had a BLAST while we loved on Nora and tried to deal with a house that has been run by very sick people the last week.  Matt's finally doing well as long as he doesn't eat much, and I'm at 80% and very glad to be.

Depending on Nora-dear, tomorrow Lily and I are supposed to head to Philadelphia for four days with my newest little niece and her precious sisters, who is already a month old and I haven't kissed her sweet cheeks.  We knew if I didn't go now, the new semester would keep me from meeting her for another 6 months, and I'm just not that strong. 

Please be praying for Nora and for healing, and that I would clearly know whether to go or not.

Lily has had a rough past few months, and when Matt and I decided I would go, we prayed about Lily going with me and felt like a few days without her little (much more attention-needing) sisters and with some good Mommy time would be perfect.  Praying that this time with her is as sweet as it will be with her aunt, uncle and cousins!

Meanwhile, Matt's dad arrived today and we enjoyed a nice evening with Uncle Dave and Aunt Marilyn and catching up.  I'm thankful Matt and his dad will have this time together too with Sofie and Nora...for us, any time with family is just SO rare and previous.  Sofie is so excited to have some good Pop-Pop time, too, and Lily and I enjoyed time with him tonight!

Matt and I are fighting the urge to get frustrated with illness and get ON it already...there is SO much to do and a lot to fight and a lot of need and we wanna get on it and we don't have time or energy for this sickness stuff and now there's sweet Nora and somehow God's still asking me the age old question...Do I trust Him? 

 So we're trusting Him and taking our meds and holding our babies and giving them what they need and enjoying our friends and family and visitors and trying to stay on top of emails and trusting Him and thanking Him for giving us this break...even if it was to be sick for, slowing down our hearts.  As I've been watching your beautiful families and our students and Christmases on blogs and Facebook and Christmas cards, instead of rushing them by I've been thanking God for you and praying for you each.  

Also praying that Philadelphia will somehow be warm.  Because I have only sandals, and Lily has only short sleeves, and neither of us have coats :)

messy or not

Our friend Sue noted that while this may not be the merriest of Christmases, it will still be very blessed, and she is right.

We're all kind of a mess...Matt's still quite ill though he's been on strong antibiotics for a few days, my stomach is still not itself, and Sofie and Nora both have fevers and hacking coughs.  We tried a cookie party with friends yesterday and had to leave we were so miserable.  Knowing today we couldn't leave the house and that the girls shouldn't, it should have been a pretty miserable, movie-laden day.

But instead, the Edlers threw a big zoo-themed Christmas Eve, and watching the girls play lots of games and eat snacks and have fun, even if mostly from the sidelines, was a joy for Matt and I both.  Then they gave them their Christmas present...a mud kitchen that Bill built, and they LOVE it.

Then the Gross family drove the trampoline they picked up for us in the Dominican out, and instead of Matt and Bill trying to set it up alone in the dark, Steve and Samuel stayed and helped them build it and hide it, which Matt just couldn't have physically done right now.  

The girls had an awesome day, we all snuggled and watched the Nativity Story, sang Christmas hymns and all three girls went to bed exhausted and calling it the most awesome Christmas Eve.  Even if Matt and I were on the floor for half of it.  

Very thankful for friends making the day special for our kids when we couldn't, thankful for the powerful retelling of the great story of Christmas and the way it hit all of us what all was done for US that night 2000 years ago.  While we were still sinners.  When we're a mess.  When we're on the floor, clinging to worship.  

It means there's hope for Haiti, hope for the world, hope for me, hope born that night.

Merry Christmas dear friends...so incredibly thankful for you and your prayers and your love in our lives.

the actual Christmas Christmas

Also just kidding about our iron stomachs.  Matt, Nora and I have been variations of wicked sick the last two days...stomach nightmares times three.

As Matt moans and groans beside me, I can't help but smirk a little at how most of the grand plans I had for this Christmas have tanked.  To finish off everything with school and then head right to the DR and then get home and be sick...I just never planned on being so tired, on us being sick, on the girls being so tired, on all of us being so worn out.

It was a whirl of a semester.  We're all tired.  And it's still Christmas...but we're weary elves, and no amount of pep talking and seasons cheer have seemed to motivate us to have crazy Christmas energy.

But you know what?

We HAVE been listening to and singing a lot of Christmas worship, and watching a lot of Christmas movies, and reading lots of Christmas stories (all the easy, non major messy/energy activities) and something that keeps striking me is the reality of Christmas.

All this Christmas we've made the last many years we've made.

But actual Christmas?  When God thought of us, today, 2000 years ago?

There were NO decorations, there were no Christmas crafts, no parties, and Mary?  She. Was. Tired.  and sore. And overwhelmed.

And her worship that Christmas?  It was kisses.  It was sitting and pondering and kissing and praying.

No matter how tired or messy we may be today, I can do THAT.  I can focus on Jesus, I can worship with my girls, kissing their heads and listening, I can dwell in a rather stinky place and ponder Him and pray.

You didn't get an Ayars Christmas card this year because for the first time ever I never managed to make a picture happen. Not even close.  The girls and I have baked no cookies (NONE!) and I seriously started wrapping gifts TODAY from the cheap-o Dominican wrapping paper Matt finally found in a literal hole-in-the-wall store buried under a pile of junk.  Which took 20 minutes to buy because the paper is 2 feet by 2 feet and was sold per sheet.

These realities threaten to keep me UP at night with sadness and feelings of guilt-mom...the worst Christmas EVER thanks to tired, sick Stacey.

But you know what?

It HASN'T been the worst Christmas ever.  The girls have yet to ASK to bake cookies, you probably didn't notice we hadn't sent a Christmas card amongst the many who did, and the girls will never remember the "Feliz Navidad" wrapping paper.  And we've had a lot of good time together.

And I'm just gonna keep replacing my bedtime woes with that image of Mary, the twinkling lights of only the stars, the many guests she didn't feed, the stables she didn't clean, that image of her we have in so many books and manger scenes...SITTING...resting, worshiping next to Jesus.  I'm gonna hang there this Christmas and let Martha Steward have her own.

Whatever it's looking like these days, allow yourself to be what you are...tired, sore, overwhelmed... by His manger throne, with me.

adventure

Just kidding about posts from the Dominican...internet was not happening and I finally quit trying and decided just to wait 'till we got home, which we safely did after a long 7 hour road and border crossing this afternoon at 4:30.

The DR and Haiti have many differences, but they are still closely related, and traveling between the two holds lots of the same kind of adventures, except we only speak the language well in one.  It's always more of an adventure than you thought you signed up for...the room had air conditioning!  But it was NOT the room pictured or described online :)  No screens, the phone didn't work, the tub wouldn't plug, and no matter how many times we asked, we could NOT manage to get more than 2 towels for the 5 of us.  The roads are in FAR better condition, but we got stuck two different times behind herds of cows entirely taking over the road, one of those times with the cowboy being an older gentlemen on a moped with a stick.  My dad and his wife were sick from the food almost the entire time, though our Haiti stomachs faired far better.  We managed to successfully get in some shopping, even with Spanish and pesos, and the DR DOES have cat food (not just cats that equal food) but no wrapping paper.  Like, ANYWHERE.

By the time we got home this afternoon, it really did feel a bit like a miracle...but I hated leaving that quiet poolside, watching the girlies swim and make friends while someone else worried about the next meal, and cleaning up from the previous one.  We needed a getaway, even a far too adventurous one, and I'm thankful.

Also very thankful for some time with Dad and Cindy, catching up on the last many months and the girls enjoying so very much being with them.  Very thankful they came so far to spend a few days with us!

Here's a few pix from the days!

It rained the one whole day, which deterred everyone but Nora...who swam non-stop.

Thank you for praying us safely home, and for being along for the ongoing adventure!

so we trust.

Grading is finished, most student registration for next semester is done, girls are done with school as of today, and while I wish I could say we're all caught up on office work...that has never ever been the case, so there's no point breaking tradition now.  Nonetheless, it is officially mostly Christmas break, and tomorrow morning we head for four days in the Dominican Republic to see my dad and his wife. The girls are very excited for some pool time with Grandpa (mom and dad think December is WAY too cold for swimming pools, but the kids don't, and Grandpa is coming from snow...so hopefully he won't, either :)

Tonight is our team Christmas dinner, because by the time we get back, the Heckmans will be gone, spending Christmas and New Year's in New Jersey.

The girls want to make gingerbread houses, sleep by the Christmas tree, make ornaments, bake cookies, act out the Christmas story with costumes and NOT do school work...so we'll have plenty of time when we get back for all that before Christmas.

The guys did NOT get their visas.  Again.  I'm still not at a great place about it, so we're gonna have to talk abut that more later, but for now I am saddened for a need not being met, frustrated for a people we love who often feel like "calling and dreams and visions" are things for other nationalities, but not for Haiti, I am sad for the men and women around us who we will continue to encourage and tell them they CAN, when all the ducks are in the row and then some, and they CAN'T.

Both Jerry and Jean William were immediately confident that God has a plan, and that He redeems and works and can, and that that is sufficient.  So.

They are right, of course.  Always humbling me and silencing my buts.

Nobody's dreams are dashed on our God, are they.  So I guess I can put it all on Him and trust Him with how things seem or feel or are, trust Him with our His young men and women in Haiti, trust Him with their hearts and lives and callings.  Trust Him with refugees in Italy, trust Him to make a way, trust Him to pursue and provide.

Thank you for helping and praying and being a part of the journey for Jerry and Jean-William, for so many other young men and women here at EBS, a journey which is NOT over, which is staked deeply on God, and therefore WILL blossom, WILL beautiful, WILL be used by Him and will be for His glory.

My prayers and my praises, always rolling into one, because of who He is.

so we trust.

Next post from the other side of the island...

thankful Christmas

It was a late night wrapping presents and blowing up balloons, an early morning rolling out pie crusts and baking quiches, but it was all worth it for one of my very FAVORITE days of the year, EBS Staff Christmas Party.  We had 100% turnout this year, and had cinnamon rolls, quiche, papaya and fresh pineapple, tons of very intense hilarious games, a beautiful time of reflection on the past year, tons of laughter and good conversation, celebrated a birthday, passed out Christmas presents, and had a photo booth.

I'm just so thankful for this precious group of men and women, working hard and serving alongside.  Each person pictured here is an answer to prayer, and it's impossible to know all the ways that God is at work here in Haiti and around the world through these people, from my husband always taking courage to the last night watchman, always ready to serve.

These men and women work really, really hard all hours of their days and weeks, involved in all the ministry happening here on campus, and an awful lot ministry not here on campus.  They are there for our students 100%, many of them having students interning at their churches, coming for Bible studies in their homes, eating with them, and at least 2 students I know of LIVING with staff members.  

The newest member of our family, Anne-Yolie, said it best.  When giving her "newest member" speech, she timidly said, "The way everyone is with me is always just so KIND," she said, and Fanfan burst out, "Because that's the way we ARE!" and it's just true.  The ways it seems like we love and respect and value each other are because we genuinely do, and I'm just so thankful for these men and women...serving up rice, opening and closing doors, fixing leaks, helping with papers, preaching, traveling, visiting, discipling, teaching, modeling. 

We also have some really incredibly randomly talented staff members...some of whom caught over 30 m&m's in their mouths launched from 6 feet away in 60 seconds, some of whom could sort them with spoons in their mouths ridiculously fast, some of whom could pop balloons like crazy wearing two oven mitts, and some who could keep two balloons in the air for a record amount of time :)

The "dance the ping-pong balls out of the kleenex-box tied to your rear-end" game is always everyone's very favorite.  I was crying. Again.

We also had a REALLY incredible company (Scoby Brothers of Sabetha, KS!) make us these gorgeous EBS logo umbrellas, and everyone was SO so thrilled...like, wouldn't put them down :)  So thankful for their incredible partnership.

The girls are still testing, we're all still working this week, and then on to Christmas break...but for today, I'm just really really thankful.