4 Days in Haiti

I have been in Haiti for the past 4 days.  I arrived Thursday at about 2 and arrived at All Things New at around 5.  There were scheduled manifestations on Friday, but only a couple of small things ever materialized.  In fact, it has been pretty much business as usual since I have been here and we are praying that it stays like this indefinitely.  The kids start their exams this week, and they will then have a week (or 2) off for Easter.  I am also meeting with our group of computer coders, our employees, and taking care of a few issues that have popped up since we left back in February.  All in all, this will be a short (I am leaving Saturday the 6th) trip but I believe it will be a very productive trip as well.

Also, please especially pray for the kids this week.  It is their test week, and whatever they make on their tests in each subject this week will be their grade for the 3rd control (quarter).  It is a lot of pressure to know that no matter what type of work you have done for the past 10 weeks, your grade comes down to this week of tests.

Here are some things I have done so far:

• Thursday, the kids came over to play Xbox and to watch a movie early in the afternoon and we spent some time together.  It has been a while since I have eaten the food cooked down at the kids house, but I did and it was quite delicious.
• Friday I had 4 meetings and some errands to run in the morning.  In the afternoon I had some followup meetings.  After the kids finished their lessons and ate, we went over to Hope Rising and played basketball and soccer for a good 3 hours.  It was a lot of fun at the time, but the next day it was quite difficult for me to walk.  The kids kept asking me why I was limping a little and then made fun of me for being old.  We ended the night with our Friday night movie.
• Saturday was a day to just be with the kids.  We played at their house, I walked with them to a new area where they play soccer, they came over to watch television and some of them played Xbox.  Besides a couple of hours for me to eat and relax, we spent the whole day together just catching up.
• Sunday we went to church together where the guest speaker showed a few extremely graphic pictures of his recent accident and subsequent eye surgery.  This was followed by the powerpoint tech forgetting to turn the screen off and an awkward 5-7 minutes of a gruesome picture continually flashing on screen while the guy was trying to preach (someone finally told him to turn it off).  We then watched our Sunday afternoon movie together and then I spent some time at their house just hanging out.  We found out the older kids did not have school so they were allowed to stay after service and watch some Fresh Prince.
• Monday, at least so far, has included 3 meetings with employees, going over budgets (usually Jessica’s job), figuring out a few issues, and sending Lener in to Port to renew our permanent residencies. 

Just wanted to keep you guys up to date about what the days look like here.  It is always a lot different being here by myself, and especially now that we are a family of 5, but I definitely stay busy.  In fact, I am positive that Jess being home with the 3 kids is more difficult than me being here in Haiti in a lot of ways.  Thanks for praying for us and for the ministry.  Things, in general, seem to be going quite well here.  There is always room for improvement, but the kids are doing great, our employees are excellent, and some of our new job creation initiatives are showing some promise.  Please continue to pray and thank you for always supporting our ministry!