catch-up your Q&As

Are you one of those people who pray for us?

I want to tell you that we are running on His strength through your prayers...and a lot of coffee :)  And we are so blessed to be lifted up by you.  There is nothing stronger, nothing sweeter, nothing better that you can do for us than to pray for Matt and I, for our girls, for the Seminary, for the men and women we have aligned our lives with, and for His glory.  THANK YOU.

Here's a few answers to some of the questions coming through our email that I haven't gotten back to yet!

Hello?  Stacey?  You're not getting back to my emails!  Where are you?

Short answer: I am in the kitchen.

>insert Matt and/or Sam joke about that being every woman's office, why the fridge matches the wedding dress, blah, blah, blah<

>insert Stacey glare of un-appreciation<

With five visitors here right now, it's true :)  I'm spending a lot of time in the kitchen....baking bread, chop-chop-choping, bleaching veggies, defrosting meat, making salad dressing, icing cakes, pasteurizing milk, making soups and stews and pastas and...washing a lot of dishes.

The girls craft table has been moved into the kitchen, and they are "helping" me stir and wash and knead, and Micheline and Gertha in rotation are learning how to do things they've never done before-- I am SO THANKFUL for and dependent upon their help and friendship right now.  Thank you, Lord!

He's put a song in my heart about it all, reminding me over and over that every chop I chop and bed I make and nasty sock I wash unto Him with a grateful heart brings Him glory.  What an opportunity!

"Towels, dishes, sandals and all the other ordinary things in our lives
reveal what we are made of more quickly than anything else.
It takes God Almighty Incarnate in us to do the most menial duty as it ought to be done.
If we do not steadily minister in everyday opportunities, 
we will do nothing when the crisis arises."  O. Chambers, 9/11

What is Lily doing about school?

Lily has been asking to go back to school every day since we returned to Haiti.  Her experience at Pillatre Christian School down the road last year far exceeded our expectations...she learned Creole, she made friends, she loved her teachers, she has greatly grown out of her previously incredibly shy shell, and she even learned to write cursive :)  The only downside last year was the increased exposure for our family to so many of the germs, parasites and bacterias that four-year olds pick up when they start going to school.  (I'm sure many of you can relate!)

So, she was very disappointed when the national start to the school year was moved from September 2 to October 2.  Her uniform jumper was just finished this week...

and now just has to have mom sew her name on the bib.  Until October 2nd comes, I've been homeschooling Lily in the afternoons during Sofie's nap time.  

yes, that IS an old dart board turned bulletin board :)  Someone Pinterest that for me.

Once school starts in October, she'll go to Pillatre on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and continuing with homeschooling on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, making sure she's not only growing in her Creole, but in her English skills, too!

While homeschooling has proved to be a lot of work, I can honestly say that we are BOTH enjoying this undivided time together, and I am just continually impressed with what a sponge she is...soaking it up and growing in her writing, reading, time telling, counting, vocabulary, Bible verses, etc. every day.

Thank you for praying for our girls as they grow, and we're asking for your prayers for better immunities and health once school is underway!

What's happening at Emmaus?

We are three days into to Session 2 of Intensive courses.  We've got four visiting professors teaching, three from the States and one from Haiti.  Bill Moxen (not pictured) is living in Cap-Haitien and teaching our Inductive Bible Study course.  

Chris Geyer, with the help of Aly-Donnson (class of 2013) is teaching Systematic Theology to 2nd year...

Bryan Easley, with the help of Junior (class of 2013) is teaching Leadership to 3rd year...

and Bob Petruccio, with the help of Simeon (class of 2013) is teaching Pastoral Theology to 4th year!

Meanwhile, the rest of us are working hard to support the current classes, and to prepare for the residential term that starts on September 23rd, and for all of our classes that begin then.  

I'm preparing for English One, English Three and a new Advanced English course for upperclass students and staff members, Matt is prepping for Intro to the Old Testament and Old Testament Historical Books, Vilmer's prepping for Greek and Homiletics, Fanfan for Hebrew and Pentatuch, and Lucner is overseeing Senior Thesis-es (?) this year.

We feel incredibly blessed to have both the staff and the students that we have, representing so much of the island of Haiti and so many gifts of the Spirit and all growing and serving and working daily together.

Thank you for your prayers for this new school year and for all the parts of His Body here at EBS in Haiti!

How can we pray?

Giselaine's (Granny's) health continues to be very poor.  

Claudin buried a 4-year old boy from his church yesterday when he choked to death on a kinep, a very common fruit in season here right now with a large pit.  

Lucner's wife has had very poor health (malaria? sickle cell anemia?) since delivering their son almost 2 months ago, causing she and Lucner a lot of time, money and frustration.

The senior pastor at the Vaudreil church stepped down on Sunday, adding a huge burden to Lucner, who has told the church he simply cannot take the position (he is an associate pastor there.)  Please pray for the church and community and for Lucner as they work to find a new pastor...

The Heckman family continues to transition and adjust to their new life in Haiti, homeschooling the kids, learning the language, etc.  Please keep praying for this process for them!

Matt's brother and his wife are scheduled to deliver our new niece on MONDAY...we are very excited for them, and appreciate your prayers for her surgery and everybody's good health!  

Many families are scrounging and struggling and working to make ends meet right now to send their children to school on October 2nd.  We're helping as many people as we can in whatever ways He is prompting us too, but this is just a huge and overwhelming need for SO many.  September is a very stressful month for many, and we know of several families personally who are selling the food from their gardens to pay for uniforms and books...and going hungry.  Thank you for praying...

Many of our past and present students pastor churches that have schools inside their churches for their communities...and many of them are struggling to find ways to pay staff, get ready for the new year, etc...again, we're doing all we can, but would appreciate your prayers.  Ezechiel, Enick, Petit-Sauvelt, Belony...

What's been GOOD?

Matt has been having SUCH a good time with our VP's, with Phil and Sam...it's hard to remember the days that we lived alone with empty houses all around us and Lily's only friends were 35 year old students!  Sunday he got to jam with Phil, Emily and Bryan in the chapel...he and Ryan are hitting up the Heckman's bowflex and hitting the punching bag, Matt and all the VP's are engaging in all kinds of theological conversations that I have little to no understanding of, the evenings are filled with man movies and games, the girls are loving having so many "monsters" to chase them around the house and loving the new kids next door...yesterday evening we all chatted and played frisbee in the yard until it was too dark to see...working and living in community is good.

Bob brought his wife Launa with him, and they are setting up all three of our missionary couples for a date night Friday night...paying for us to go out to eat together AND watching all of our kids AND feeding the kids and all the visitors for us.  Needless to say, this does NOT happen often...what a gift!  We are all really excited!

Friends.  On Monday night, Emily fed the visitors (THAT has been good, too!), freeing the girls and my afternoon up to do something we wanted to do...visit Noel's huge family!  When we first arrived, the girls weren't sure what to "do"...Sofie asking incessantly to play with the kids toys (there WERE none) and Lily being shy.  

But within minutes, Nata and Mausha pulled out a big bucket with about an inch of water in it, and before I knew it, all 6 kiddos were elbow's deep in "making soup"...gathering sticks and leaves and rocks, chattering away in Creole, charging about the yard...freeing me up to sit with Noel, her parents, her brother and six sisters and visit, listen, laugh, encourage, pray and relationship.  

Afternoons like those bless and renew my mom/missionary/sister/friend heart in so many ways!

God is good...all the time.  Thank you for your prayers!

love and prayers

We are just having internet issues galore!  It's been down for several days and I'm finally able to get on the blog but am struggling to post it and can't receive email...ah.  What can you do?  We may soon be relying upon smoke signals.

So, 10 Random Things to Share...

1) Eric and Jeremiah successfully determined the problem of generator 2, which has been down for 6 months, and fixed it...Praise the Lord and THANK YOU.  

2) We also had a new generator that we've been waiting a long time for make it in on Wednesday, and Uncle Don and Sam are working on hooking it up as we speak.  This new energy efficient generator should save us a gallon of fuel an hour, which saves around $68 dollars a day...$476 dollars a week....Yeah, this could be BIG!  Electricity (and anything that most people don't have) is SO EXPENSIVE!

3)  Sunday at Coup-a-David was fabulous.  Rick and Carol joined us for their first trek up, and we all had a great time seeing “the world” and walking through peoples lives.  I also got to see the triplets who were new born last time we came through, and they are pudgy and happy and blessed. 

Enick preached a powerful and humbling sermon on the widow who had just enough flour and oil left in her jar for two last loaves and made bread, instead, for Elijah, from 1^st Kings 17.  Oh man, it was good.  We don’t have to have much to give it, and to trust Him with the results.

It was a great and MUDDY mud day, great worship, good fellowship, and the feeling (for me, anyway) that it was a good day to be in Haiti.

4)  Sofie very proudly and happily brought me a dead bird today.  Like, was flinging it around happily and tried to hand it to me, pronouncing "GUCK!".  What if we had had boys???

5)  Random made-me-crack-up of the day Monday: 

Eric:  “I was welding the gate, and then a couple kids showed up.  They wanted me to sharpen their machetes and knives, so I did, and before I knew it, there were TONS of kids.”

Me:  “So what’d you do?”

Eric:  “I sharpened all the knives.”

Me:  “So….You sharpened knives for small children today?”

Eric:  “A dull knife is very dangerous!  This will help them so much.”

If you’re not laughing here, remember this is a very different culture.  Every little boy is wielding a machet by 5.  You can laugh…

Plus, in the midst of fist-bumps and machetes, check out that loaded banana truck!

6) Bible study: The women’s Bible Study I’m a part of on Monday’s continues to be a really powerful and touching time.  We studied the end of 1 Corinthians 1 yesterday, in which we’re reminded that the wisdom of God is seen as foolishness to the world, and vice versa.  I asked if anyone had any examples of this, and one woman shared a very common story.

Her husband left her and her five small children a few years ago for another woman…and soon left that woman for another.  My friend worked and struggled to care for their five children, and shared with us painstaking and sacrificial ways she had managed to get some of them some education.

After three years, her husband came back…three years with NO word to her or their children, with not a penny to help.  He returned with NOTHING, deathly ill, hungry.

I was devastated at this point to hear her share this dark time.

And do you know what she did?  Wisdom of the world: Kick his mangy butt to the curb.  (or Stacey wisdom.)  Wisdom of God, Word of God: She took him in.  She cared for him.   She bought him medicine, fed him their food, took care of him. 

This man who had damaged and abandoned their family and her heart entirely.  Who had caused such suffering.  She cared for him, and restored him to health.  Because she felt this was what the Bible told her to do.  Love endlessly.  Care for the sick.  BE the Good Samaritan.

I can’t even imagine.  To close, I asked if their relationship has been restored.

“Once he got his feet under him again,” she told us, “He left with another woman.  Now I see the Bible is also telling me to forgive, so I’m trying to do that.  Can you pray for me?”

It’s a good hour.

7)  Eric and Jeremiah left Wednesday (Thank you guys and your families SO much!) but much to Lily's relief, Uncle Don is still here for another week. She told me today when upset with me for making her take a nap, "When I grow up, I'm living at Uncle Don's house!"

8)   This is our road.  The guys weren't supper impressed.  We think it's getting better.

9) Lily...I'm just so proud of Lily.  When I wait outside the gate for her each afternoon, and see her come around the bend, meshed in a huge crowd of kiddos, grinning and chattering...ah, it just kills me.  She has done it.  The impossible.  The cross-cultural.  The bi-lingual.  The terrifying.

With joy.  

Despite her worry-wort mother.  She's singing her sha-la-la, writing her A's and O's, eating her Chico's and busting out her classic Haitian kid camera pose.  She's chatting in Creole, she's playing with 200 kids on three swings and a balance beam, she's sporting her ribbons...

With joy.

  

10.  It has been MONTHS, months months since Matt and I have had a meal together by ourselves...or had anything that comes close to a date.  And today, we finally just put the girls down for their naps and went out for lunch, and yes, it was rice and beans and the road is bad and it was only 90 minutes...but the girls never even knew we were gone and it was GREAT to have some time together.  

We've got to stop neglecting that.  Someone remind me :)

Love and Prayers and Joy for today!

all i need

Well, SHOCKER...God is good.  

Bear with me through this overly-dramatic-but-true-to-where-I'm-at post.

When we found out my mom had cancer, I left university and moved into the Cleveland Clinic with her.  Those days before her death--though awful in many ways--gave me precious time with her, and gave me witness to her walk with God in a way I hadn't previously experienced.

I saw her suffer, and saw her response.  She wasn't just my mom anymore, but a child of God, living out her battle before Him and with me watching from the bed-side. 

Perhaps her biggest struggle was being absent from the side of her children, a pain I couldn't really understand until these last few years of being a mother.  

Mom had NEVER been absent before.  She was the ever-present, ever-serving, ever-cooking, ever-giving, ever-helping, ever-praying mother...and suddenly she was locked up in a tiny respirator room, reduced (or so she must have felt) to the ever-praying mother.

And sitting there beside her, I heard one prayer over and over: God, I can't be there for my children.  I can't be there.  It breaks my heart.  God, I wish to be the one, but I cannot.  Send someone else, God.  Use someone else, God.  Put someone there, there when they need them, being what I should be, doing what I should do, fill my place, Lord, with someone else.

As heartbreaking a prayer that must have been for her, I heard it over and over again, and I have been touched a thousand times since then to feel God answer her prayer despite her now-continual absence. 

Quite unexpectedly, this morning was one of those mornings.

After a rather sleepless night next to my Lily girl, praying her continually into His hands, we all woke early, had breakfast, all getting ready for school, etc.  I was in the back room getting ready before I planned to attack Lily's hair, somewhat intimidated by the task of smoothing and braiding and clipping all her tresses in the Haitian style.  Nervous.  Rushed.  Trying to trust.

When I heard Lily unexpectedly laughing from the other room, I peeked down the hall, anxious to get started on the task.  And there, I saw her seated in my desk chair, a towel around her, Noel and Gertha (whom I didn't even know were here) both an hour early for work, bent over her, working on her hair and fussing over her uniform.  

"What are you guys even doing here at this hour?" I asked, and they looked confused.  "Everyone knows we have a ti-moun going off to school today!" they said.  "Of COURSE we're here!"

And so there they were, with a child they greatly love, loving me by loving her, and giving me the very family that I needed on my first child's first day of school.  When it was time to get in the car, Noel swept away with Sofie, and Gertha climbed in with me..."so you don't have to do it alone," she told me matter-of-factly.  

And she looked so adorable.  Even when I left her, sitting on her bench surrounded by other blue-ribboned beauties, she looked lovely and calm and BRAVE.  The first song they sang was her favorite little Haitian song, and Lily jumped right in...I felt the Lord calm my heart, reminding me that He knows Lily better than I do, and will meet her needs.  

I mean, she is so brave!  She went off, away from her mother, away from home, for her first day of school, alone, in a class full of kiddos speaking her second language, with a teacher she'd never met, at a big old school she's only been to twice....

A friend told me that no matter how hard it was to see your child face some of these independences, when they DO it, you are SO incredibly proud, and I am.

Noel and Gertha, our family, with Lily.  

And Sofie, who didn't care, as long as she had clips.

So I stayed with her until the mothers were all asked to leave, and she held my hand..."Don't leave me!"  But the moment she saw all the other mother's had gone, she let my hand go.  "OK!  You can go now!"

Sweet Gideon.  As petrified as he was about heading to school today ("I think I might run away from the classroom and hide in a bush!" he told me yesterday) he was such a great big brother, holding on to the girls, looking all old, and being strong for them :)

Now, Lily has been retrieved, brought home and is sound asleep, completely exhausted, and while her ridiculously perfectionistic mother had so hoped that she would have had the best day of her life, she made it, she never did cry, and she was content when I picked her up.  

She also says it was no fun at all, that she was too shy to talk to any of the other children, and that she never wants to go again.

Ah, my heart.  This mothering thing is ridiculously hard and overly emotional.

But He is good, and gave me family right when I needed it, gave my Lily everything she needed, and (again, shocker) just continues to be and provide what we need, when we need it, even that which we thought could never be.  

I am so grateful, and so small a mother, before Him.