The last week has been extremely busy. I posted that we spoke with out realtor and we had planned to put the house up on Monday the 21st. Well, we were completely blessed by God using a friend of Tina’s (from her book study group) who stages homes (among other things) for a living. Tasha (http://www.cidhomeservices.com/) came and checked out our house. We like(d) lots of colors – mostly darker, relatively speaking. She encouraged us to change the colors and do various things to our house to help it sell.
All week we were packing things up and putting things in the garage to make the house look presentable and to get ready to leave. Our three car garage now has room for one car (if I would pack it all together). As it stands now, I cannot get the truck in the garage. We have to figure out still if we are going to container some things to Haiti or just sell it all. I am beginning to think that we should container it, but we have to figure out how to get it to MI (the “home base” of BHM) so they can ship it out to BHM in Haiti. It will take about 2-3 months to get the container there from MI to Haiti (slow ponies I guess).
Our children have been extremely well behaved. They have gone through so much and have been little affected by it (at least what is visible to us and others). On Saturday, April 26th, we made one of the most difficult decisions – to get rid of our cats. Tasha took our youngest cat, Spidey, home to her family where there is at least one other cat and a dog. Spidey didn’t want to be put in the cage out of our home, but as I understand it, he is doing good in his new home.
All week we were packing things up and putting things in the garage to make the house look presentable and to get ready to leave. Our three car garage now has room for one car (if I would pack it all together). As it stands now, I cannot get the truck in the garage. We have to figure out still if we are going to container some things to Haiti or just sell it all. I am beginning to think that we should container it, but we have to figure out how to get it to MI (the “home base” of BHM) so they can ship it out to BHM in Haiti. It will take about 2-3 months to get the container there from MI to Haiti (slow ponies I guess).
Our children have been extremely well behaved. They have gone through so much and have been little affected by it (at least what is visible to us and others). On Saturday, April 26th, we made one of the most difficult decisions – to get rid of our cats. Tasha took our youngest cat, Spidey, home to her family where there is at least one other cat and a dog. Spidey didn’t want to be put in the cage out of our home, but as I understand it, he is doing good in his new home.
The other three boys (cats) that we have had for 12 years were put to sleep. I had second, third, and fourth thoughts as I sat in line to give them up. There was a lady who just found out that her daughter has asthma and they had to give up their two cats (and a gerbil, but that died that morning). While she was giving up her cats, I had a lot of time to think. Tina was with the kids and cats in the truck while I waited in line. I took care of the paperwork and then I had to walk out to get the cats…some things I will never forget and this part of our journey is one of them. Kayla stayed in the truck and Tina and Carter came in with me. I had to grab my favorite cat by the arm as I pulled him from under the driver’s seat. When you have to give up a cat that has been with you for 12 years and that will come when you call him, it’s not easy.
Kayla was a little down for about a day and has since popped back to her normal self. Carter didn’t really seem to react much except to say that he missed Spidey once. The cats were such a large part of our daily routine that it’s quite an adjustment to not have them around.So…back to house stuff. Not having the cats and their litter boxes has made things much easier to keep clean. Dust bunnies have gone extinct and litter no longer points the direction to the little boxes. We had officially told our realtor that we are ready and gave him the pictures of our house when he stopped by this morning at 6:30am. It should be up on MLS tonight. We have one showing already – probably from a realtor our realtor knows. That’s at 5:30pm. Tina is putting finishing touches on the house with Tasha and will have it all set. My mom and dad have been gracious enough to invite us to dinner tonight during the showing. THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!!
Another thing to think about (to add to the list from a previous post) is how we will travel to Haiti. It turns out that the rules for American Airlines have changed and shipping a dog has a couple restrictions that we may not get past. First, the forecasted air temperature cannot be higher than 85 degree anywhere on the itinerary – Haiti’s average in it’s coldest month of January is 89 degrees. Additionally, AA (the only US airline that goes to Haiti) has a 100lbs. limit. Our dog with cage is already close to 100lbs and she is only 9 months old. We got her specifically with Haiti in mind. Haitian voodoo practices make practicing Haitians afraid of black dogs. And so I decided since I like Great Danes, we would get a black Grate Dane (the bigger the scarier, right?). I think we should have waited a bit so the dog wouldn’t be too big by the time we got there, but we’ll figure it out.
Recently, I have the thought of how we can save money in our travels and one way is to drive to FL and then fly to Haiti. The one airline that I can find that goes from FL to Haiti goes to Cap Haitian which is northern Haiti and we need to go to southern Haiti. That’s if we bring the dog (which I think we’ll go through quite a bit of effort because of what the children have gone through already). If we don’t bring the dog, it’ll be an easy trip via AA to Port au Prince. If we bring the dog, then we have to find a way to get from Cap Haitian to Kenscoff where BHM is located. We’ll also be maxing out our other luggage allowances so we’ll have one large load of stuff that will need to last us until the Lord brings us back, until the container meets up with us at BHM in 2-3 months, or…when in Rome…
Tina set up the appointment to speak with the psychologist on Thursday. This is the final step in Bethlehem’s Nurture Program before we sit down with the Mission Pastor to see if we can coordinate things with them for prayer and financial support. We are trusting in the Lord that whatever comes of this will be just fine. We are not sure how we will fit into their program, but we’ll soon find out.
So the journey continues. Christ Jesus is our treasure – not our home, not our cats or dog, not our possessions!
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