Birthday, Painting, Trampoline, Sting, Sick, Anniversary, Happy Easter!

On Friday night at dining hall we celebrated Carter's birthday. He received many nice gifts from the families here at the Mission! We thank them all very much for making it a special evening for Carter!


Painting

Yesterday morning we finished up painting the outside of the first floor (the floor in which we live) of our building in the dark green color that was started. It looks really nice now and hopefully it will last a long time - this paint seems REALLY good.

Trampoline

After I got all cleaned up, I ran into Pastor Rob and talked with him about a trampoline that was sent by Cliff, the former mechanic from Michigan who was here about a month ago, and never put up. We went over the rule and location and then Carter, Christopher, and I started to put it together.

Sting

Where we were putting it up, there was a bee hive and after about 10 minutes of working, the bees decided that they didn't like us being there and that they were going to convince us to go elsewhere. After I got stung twice (once on the tip of my nose and once in my side), their convincing worked.

I went home and got iced up - I had never been stung before so I was watching for the allergic reaction which never happened (praise God!). So we waited about 20 minutes for them to settle down and then we sneaked around to disassemble it and found a new location. Mr. Neal and I finished it up and then the kids were bouncing their way to fun.




Sick

Last night Tina made one of her great pizza's. Tina's body decided that it wanted to evacuate all systems, so she was in the bathroom for most of the night. She was saying that it was the worst that she could ever remember. She is feeling pretty tired this morning. This event marks the second time in 9.5 months that someone in our family has vomited. That is far better than I ever expected - for that we Praise God!

Anniversary

12 years ago today, two young people who were born two days apart and were in the same hospital nursery together and who met as freshmen in high school (we have known each other well for 19 years), we joined forever in holy matrimony. Today marks a dozen year of marriage for us here on this earth and they have been great days. I continue to know more about my wife and have never regretted one moment my choice of a bride. I love her dearly and always will. I pray that we can stay strong and continue our relationship always focusing on one another. I love you Tina!

Our photographer took this great black and white picture of Tina and I walking down the aisle. Isn't her dress beautiful? (I don't have any wedding pictures on my computer unfortunately!)



HAPPY EASTER! HE IS RISEN!

Praise: My Mom's OK, Amazing Blessing, Frog

I talked to my dad last night and my mom is doing good - thank you for your prayers. Now the recovery...

Amazing Blessing

The World Servant people from the Netherlands took off this morning at 6AM. There is one lady who has been sick for a little while was occasionally passing out and the home base in the Netherlands told her not to travel so she will be staying at the mission with her husband until they can resolve the issue. It seems a little ironic that she would be told to stay because most people leave Haiti when they get sick, not stay.

The "Amazing Blessing" came in last night when Gerbin, the leader of the World Servant group that just left, walked into the house and gave me two great pair of pants (which I really need) and his boots (which I really, REALLY need). Gerbin is about 6-8 inches taller than me but his boots fit perfectly - I have been wearing them all morning. I had been wondering what I was going to do for boots because mine are wearing faster than I expected. I have holes in them and was anticipating what I would have to do - wait until we visited the US again or try to find a pair here. When Kris came early this week, I was tempted to ask her to get boots, but they would have to fit very good for them to be any benefit. God certainly looked out for me in this need and the pants.

Last night we also had a get together for their final evening with us. They gave us a small bag of goodies (a couple shirts, paper, markers, and a bunch of other nice stuff). I will miss them all, especially Gerbin. He was a great member of the BHM team while he was here for two months. I hope he comes back long term!

Frog

We had a frog on our porch last night (high resolution):


Boring Car Stuff...

We took the cage off the caged Landcruiser yesterday - that thing must have weighed close to a half-ton which is not good for the truck, transmission, or engine. The transmission keeps popping out of 1st gear so I will be taking a look at that and possibly rebuilding the transmission soon. Yesterday, and continuing today, I have been building the cage on the new Landcrusier. I should be done, Lord willing, in a few days. This takes priority over fixing the other one since we will not be putting that cage back on any time soon. The new cage should be, at most, half of the weight of the other one.

Canter - A Revelation

Today will be day four of working on the Canter and I finally realized something - and it's not how to fix the truck's brakes.

What I realized is that God works in EVERYTHING whether I (we) see it or not. Through my constant struggles with the Canter's brakes, numerous Haitian men have been watching me. Some of the Haitians are welders, some of them are drivers, some of them are landscapers and some of them are carpenters or masons. They work for the Mission (some have even come to visit me that do not work for the Mission). Not all of the workers at the Mission are Christian - I do not know how many are. They see that I have been working on the Canter and that I am always trying something to solve the problem. I am never sitting and staring at the vehicle. I am diligently working on trying to resolve the issue. I am not getting upset (outwardly at least).

I had two guys come up to me and tell me, in as much English as they know, that I am a hard worker. They see that I am there at 7:30 or before and that I am there until 4:30 or later. I am beginning now to see the ministry opportunity that the Lord has laid before me.

Through my efforts in working on the vehicles, I can be an example of hard, diligent work (as often as I can, thanks to God). I can be an example of perseverance and patience. And in all that I do, I can point to the Lord as the reason for the way that I work and for the reason I am here.

My language skills are increasing and I am learning new words every day. I have not been studying books, but rather I am in the shop with the drivers and others who stop by to see what is going on. I talk with them about what I am doing and ask what the words are for various things and usually have many opportunities to use the new words in the following days.

One of the few young Haitian boys who lives on the Mission (because their parent does) was hanging out with me at the shop yesterday. He was teaching me creole and I was having him use the big air tools because he wanted to help (he could hardly lift the air gun). I had to bury my opinion of him because he is sometimes a crazy kid that causes trouble. The more I let him help me out, the more he may become less crazy. He may even become a mechanic some day.

All of these thoughts thrown out on this blog to say that I am beginning to see the fruit of my labor thus far. I am seeing that others are watching me and that I should be a good example. I am seeing that there are people here that may want to become involved in mechanic work. Whatever the Lord is pleased to have me do is what I want to do and I will be doing it willingly (or trying to do it willingly). I want to give Him as much credit as possible. God is why I am here. God is why I became a mechanic at a mission working on concrete from being a product manager for a broker/dealer who sits at a desk all day long. God is the reason for everything that I am. To God I am thankful!

God is Amazing!

First thing is first - giving all the glory to God:

As if it wasn't amazing enough that we ran into Troy and Tara at the market when we went to pick up Lou, you have to read their comment to see how God really works all things out - He is just amazing. These things cannot be merely coincidences.

OK, now to our day: Our first night with Lou went really well. He slept all night (if you call getting up at 4 AM "all night"). Tina worked on getting the kitchen set most of the day and did finish it up. We have a number of things that we would like to get (food and otherwise), but we don't have anything that we cannot live without. I want to be careful, too, not to get caught up in materialism here. The things that I want/need are things like a mop for the concrete floor, a stopper for the sink (I am using a shaving cream cap), etc... Things that we should be able to get here, but just haven't had much time to go out yet.

I was invited on Tuesday to a devotional/Bible study time on Wednesdays. Because there is so much going on right now at the Mission, I was told that there were fewer than normal people attending. There were 5 people total including myself. One of the Missionaries, Len, led the study and there were three Haitian workers there as well. We went through part of one of the chapters in Romans. It was good and interesting to read various verses and see the differences in thinking between the Americans and Haitians. I was trying to observe the differences as much as possible to help me to understand things better. We closed in prayer after about an hour and said goodbye until next week.

Yesterday afternoon after speaking with one of the other missionaries (Chris), I headed up to the church to watch as they taught about 230 Haitian school directors a "walk through" of the Bible. This was so incredible to watch. There was a gentleman from Canada speaking English up front with a translator speaking French. What they were doing was showing how to put the Bible stories in memory using a physical, body movement method as a memorization technique. It took me about 10 minutes of watching (probably with my mouth hanging open), to realize that something like that is not dependent upon language - all the body motions apply to whatever language you are familiar with. Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, David and Goliath. But it wasn't just the major aspectes of the Bible they were memorizing - they were talking numbers of years and locations around Isreal. They were memorizing a lot. And every once in a while they would get up and practice it. So you had about 230 people (mostly men) talking loudly and going through the motions. I brought Kayla with me to watch the walk-through of the Bible training and she seemed impressed.



This training was not only incredible from the standpoint of it being just cool to watch, but in addition, these 230 folks will be going back home and teaching these methods and Biblical accounts to the teachers and student of the school they provide direction for. This is what Biblical-based teaching is all about. These are the types of things that the Baptist Haiti Mission puts on that affects many, many people's lives. And this is only the beginning. Chris is running an accredited masters degree program here at the Mission as well.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays all the missionaries get together for dinner. We ate with the person teaching the 230 people, the translator, the photographer, and the coordinator of that event as well. It was a very good time! We had fried plantains (like bananas), beans & rice, bread, fried acra (not sure what that was exactly, but it was good), and banana bread for dessert.

Doing dinner this way is a great way to continue to get to know people and for the women to catch a break from cooking. They bring a cook in and each family is charged a small fee for each person eating. At the end we read a little from the Bible, took prayer requests and prayed to close the evening.

After dinner, I spoke with Pastor Baker, the director, and he was getting a sense for how we were doing. He told me of some things that he had that need to get done some time and that when I was ready to take a look and start working, that I should let him know. I am guessing that this will be pretty soon because I am struggling with not helping out when I know that they are all very busy with a number of things.

I have one prayer request that I would like to pass on: Carter has been having a little trouble paying attention and following direction (he is 8). It is for his safety and benefit, but I would like your prayers for both his understanding and mine on how we can get him to settle in here and focus on what his responsibilities are. Most of this is typical kid stuff, but I have been struggling with it the last few days. Thank you in advance!

The picture here is a full resolution picture of the house we are living in. We are in the lower level and Chris and his family is in the upper level. The internet connection is very, very slow so this will most likely be one of the few full resolution pictures that I will post on this blog.