weekend

Lisa, Evie, Bob, Launa and Brett left first thing Saturday morning, Rod and Kevin spent the morning at the Citadel, and we spent the morning with these dear ones, catching up on laundry and cooking and playing outside and missing!

Girlie's found about 20 of these 5-6 inch caterpillars that apparently turn into 1 foot hawk moths...my skin is STILL crawling.

This morning we headed to a church we'd never been to be for, where alumni Joshua and current student Garry pastor together.  The youth led this Sunday, Dr. Rod preached, and it was a gift to be there together and to worship with new family.

Then we took Kevin to the pool to thank him for the fantastic turn-around in our power situation...though I'm pretty sure the girls enjoyed it most!

We are all missing Emily, who has safely arrived in Bosnia and is loving being with her sis!  Haylie's helping me with the girls and the cooking, we're all enjoying being together...though last night when Rod, Phil, Ethan, Matt and Kevin were taking turns shocking each other with Emily's electroshock therapy kit...I realized we really need more women to balance all this out :)

Thankful for community!

First day of residential classes begin now!

visitor bliss

Can't believe these guys' two week intensive courses are drawing to an end!  This has been such a special and dynamic group of visiting professors, both blessing us and our students by their presence, life experiences, God-given gifts and time.

A missionary with New Tribes also joined us yesterday for 4 days to try to figure out all kinds of power issues we still have.  His bag full of tools is still not here, BUT, he is here, and we are very thankful to have Kevin with us and so knowledgable!  Yesterday, he even found an electrical issue dating back from over a year...and he got shocked a few times :)  

Blessed, again, so much by our visitors right now!!

Bex hasn't blogged for a while, but her post from yesterday is thought and faith provoking and SO worth the read..."Learning to Trust God."  Check it out if you haven't already.

utmost

We continue to feel very blessed by the many visitors gracing our lives...especially this little cutie!

Yesterday Charles preached at a church being held at the radio station with Matt translating.

It was great to worship with our Haitian, American and Canadian brothers and sisters there, and it's always special to have someone preach in our heart language.

After, the VPs (visiting professors) greatly blessed us by treating us to a trip to the pool and lunch!  Not cooking and enjoying the Christophe was a gift indeed!

I don't know what these crazies were doing on the way home up front, but Sofie sure was having a blast :)

Thankful for the Sabbath, thankful for each other, thankful to have Lisa and baby Evie here, thankful for a fresh new week, thankful for the quality classes being taught, thankful for our staff and students, thankful to have a generator guru on his way Wednesday, and thankful to be His.

Today's "Utmost for His Highest" is one of my very favorites, reminding me simply of this:

Never dull your sense of being your utmost for His highest--your best for His glory.

unto Him, a joy.

Sometimes the burden God has given us to teach and live His Word in Haiti feels so heavy.

And sometimes so light.

And when Pastor Bob...

Dr. Charles...

Dr. Brent...

and Dr. Rod are here, teaching and discipling with us,

it feels like nothing but the joy it always should.

It's been a great start to our second set of intensive courses this semester, and with classes ranging from Homiletics and New Testament to Evangelism, Discipleship and Pastoral Theology...it's good and deep and transforming.

New students continue to be added almost every day, making this year's first year class the biggest Matt and I have seen (almost 20!)

Having these guys (and Bob's fantastic wife, Launa) and Carol here also means lots of good community for our community, and everything from meals to game nights to our Monday night Bible study has been all the sweeter because of them.

Phil has been incredibly sick this past week and is finally on the mend, the girls are happy to have started school (first day went well!  M, W, F school, Tues., Thursday and Saturday, homeschool) and it is a joy to see our Emmaus family all at work:  translating, teaching, purchasing, printing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, singing, studying, writing, parenting, filing, learning, washing dishes and cutting grass...all unto Him.

the Source

Continue to 'be filled'

and the sweetness of your vital relationship with Jesus will FLOW as generously out of you as it has been given to you.

If you find that His life is not springing up as it should, you are to blame.

something is obstructing the flow.  

Stay at The Source.

We are to be fountains through which Jesus can flow rivers of living water--irrepressible life--

to everyone.

-o. chambers, of course.

catch up on...well...everybody!

Intensive Session #2!

After a big changeover weekend...lost three, kept 2, added 3...we are back at it in the classroom this week doing our final intensive session of the semester.

Chris Palmer has come all the way from Wales to teach for his first time at Emmaus.  With Simeon's help, first year is working through Missiology with Chris.  As I popped in this morning to take the picture, the class was discussing whether churches should require people to be baptized again if they were baptized through a different method than their church baptizes the first time.  

"Well, what does the Bible say about it?" Chris finally asked, and I always LOVE watching the class dive energetically into His Word.  "I really like to try to depend wholly on what His Word says..."

That's a good class.

Leroy Lindsey is back with us again, this time working through Wisdom Literature with our second year class and with Elio's help!

Pam's class is so full as they pick their way through Church History that it was actually 10 degrees hotter in there than any of the other rooms!  This morning they were looking at some of the symbols used during times of persecution to represent Christianity and why...good stuff!

Meanwhile, Phil and Pehpay have been all over the campus, pickaxing trenches to put in cable that will do...something good...for the internet situation, which is simply. never. resolved.    I hope that something good happens.  No matter what, they've been working like crazy.  

For Alfie and Maud asking about Junior and Ezechiel and Enick...here's a quick update:

Junior is back from his two weeks of residency at Indiana Weslyan, and loved it, even despite the cold.  He is back to work at Emmaus as the internet/computer guy, and is back to being a full-time student, this time online.  Getting the hang of that is proving to be a bit challenging...online learning isn't easy, especially with said internet issues, and with ESD (extreme social-ness disorder).  I get that :)

Ezechiel was here yesterday, and continues to pop through once every 10 days or so to check email, catch me up, so that we can pray together and sometimes to get some help for the school or church.  Should have taken his picture!  

The overarching reality for Ezechiel is that the more he does, the more that needs done.  The more he's home, the more he needs to be, the more he's on the mountain, the more he needs to be there.  The more he helps with the school, the more help they need, and the more he preaches the Gospel, the more people come to hear more of the Gospel!  Every time I shake his hand and pray with him, I am overwhelmed by the many and heavy burdens on his shoulders, and am always reminding him what I'm really reminding myself: God knows, they are God's burdens, and Ezechiel is only called to do what God places before him for the day.

There is so much need.

We are incredibly thankful for the help of a special group of people in Canada and in the US who are getting some support to him to help pay his teachers, finish building the school, and keep good education happening in a place that never had any for over 200 little ones.  

Meanwhile, his family is doing well, the road project continues each Saturday, each Saturday, and Ezechiel continues to just never seem discouraged.

I am planning to join him again on the mountain in March as soon as we have a few less visitors.

Finally, Enick is in one day a week, coming to check internet, eat (man, does that boy need to EAT!), get a good night's sleep IN A BED (all the rest of the time he continues to live and sleep on the floor of the school) and to run to town for supplies.  It's always a joy to see him, and the things the Lord is doing on His/his mountain are inspiring.  Voodoo continues to be very prevalent in Enick's area, so he is never without a story of great prayer and fasting over people drowning under Satan's grip. 

Like Ezechiel, Enick seems NEVER to be discouraged, living fully in the confidence and knowledge that our All Powerful God is Victorious.  His brother (current EBS student Walnique) continues to join him every other Sunday, helping preach and teach and disciple, which is a great encouragement to Enick.  He works hard to always be above reproach, and the same great love and dedication that the Lord has given him for his people I see in them for Enick.

Again, we all plan to join him on his mountain as soon as we have a few less visitors.  

All the while we have one EBS family wrapping up, and a new EBS family moving in.

The Weavers, a young couple from Sabetha, Kansas, are moving down in two weeks to join our team (more info on them soon!) and the Aberles are heading back to Sabetha, Kansas in April upon completing their two year term!  We're so thankful for both of these families and for the many people God continues to weave into our lives from every tribe, tongue and nation!

at work!

Session one, complete!  Visiting professors and translators are working hard to grade final exams and projects, and it's hard to believe session one is wrapping up already!

This has been a really special group of teachers, and we're thankful for the many sacrifices they made to leave jobs, wives, kids, churches and the comforts of home to help us teach His Word here!

This is Jerry's 13th year teaching here at Emmaus!  He was teaching our second week of living in Haiti and stayed in our home then, too.  We were so blessed again not only by his expertise and experience in the classroom, but by his humble and passionate spirit, his God-heart for young adults in every culture, and to find him every evening in the kitchen as the "dry-man." 

This was our second year with Larry, and while leaving 6 children and his Verna and his church behind is not easy, coming to Haiti seems to be a bit like coming home for Larry.  He was raised in Haiti as a child, and continues to be able to teach entirely in Creole and to play soccer with the guys each afternoon!

This was also Brent's second year joining us, and we were so thankful he brought one of his students from Gannon University with him!  Haiti holds a special place in Brent and Julie's hearts, too, as that God hemmed two Haitian kiddos into their family this past year.  

Brent is also fully responsible for sneaking into our kitchen every afternoon after class to "check out the fridge", "fix that cabinet", and "make sure the water is running properly"...and leave with hands full of cold Cokes and chocolate chip cookies.  Over the days he managed to suck several others into his gang.  

Lily refers to him only as "The Cookie Man."

However, he does dishes. And if you know me, there is NO GREATER love language.

I don't know if Pam even knows how many courses she has taught here, but as long as we keep her tea-times on schedule, she perseveres!  Apocalyptic literature is no picnic, and we're so thankful to have her very capably attacking it with our fourth year students.  She's here for next session, as well, and despite having to hike across the yard in her bath-towel each morning at 6 am to shower at our house, Pam never complains!

As we have been blessed to care for these four, they have been blessed to help form these 45 in His Word, and these 45 students continue to share and teach and live what they are learning here in 45 different places and circles throughout Haiti...

Blessed to continue to be a part, with you, of Christ at Work.

busy fun

These last few days with our VP's have been fun and busy!!

To celebrate the end of a long hard week Friday we all played soccer, with the little ones playing goalie.

They were super cute and rather fearless...

We were all laughing so hard about this picture last night, because while most of the players were too sweet to shoot at the goal the girls were in, not Brent :)  He didn't even mind celebrating :)

After a busy week in the classrooms, and lesson planning and grading all evening, we finally got the VP's out and about today!

Royal Carribean was docked at the beach again today (in a restricted area) and we floated right on past in a much smaller boat to Dhaloo.

We forced the kids to come.

 Then, we all took the plunge :)

Kate is famous for always being game...and she was!

Super fun!

As soon as we got to the sign, Sofie said, "Take my picture!"  These girls know the drill :)

Tomorrow, Brent is preaching at the prison in Cap-Haitian and Larry is preaching at the church in Vaudreil...so we are splitting up forces and heading out!

So thankful for this special group of men and women who have spent the past week pouring out so selflessly and passionately God's Word on our staff and students!  Looking forward to week two!

During dinner tonight, Junior walked in!  The girls were elated and tackled him...and I think Matt and I were almost as glad :)  Good to have him home and to hear the stories that touched him from his time in the States.

Best food?  Hamburger.

Best experience?  Snowball fight.