Trip Update!
If you have not had a chance to read our blog from Tuesday, please click here. The way that Jess described the difficulty of coming home and the difficulty of the daily routine of the children that we love will really help you to understand what GOD is leading us to do. I am going to try and update you with as much information as I can, but to hear the emotion of coming back from a place where you belong and where GOD wants you, you are going to want to read that blog.
So, there is a lot to say. We had 3 major goals for this last trip that we got back from this past Saturday.
- Spend a lot of time with the kids so that we could get a feel of what their daily routine is.
- Buy a truck.
- Hire a cook.
Just so you know, we accomplished 2 out of 3 of those goals and I will explain in a little more detail. When we were first planning this trip, we thought that we would spend a lot of time driving into Port and trying to find birth certificates, death certificates of parents, and any other needed paperwork. As we prayed and talked about our trip, we realized that we have never really just been their with the kids on a day-in day-out basis. We always brought teams or had other purposes for our trips. We always hung out with the kids as much as possible, but we wanted to really focus on seeing what their days looked and felt like…If you read Jess’ blog from earlier this week, you will see what it was like! It was so important for us to do this and to really get a feel for their days. What’s more, we grew even closer to the kids and got a better idea of how we could help them and pray for them.
The only goal that we did not accomplish was purchasing a truck. There were a few reasons for this, but one of the main reasons is that we are going to be extremely cautious with our resources and make sure that we make good decisions to start with. Personally, I have trouble pulling the trigger on a new pair of running shoes, much less a truck that will get us around a 3rd world country for the next couple of years. Another reason is that trucks turned out to be a little more expensive than we even knew. We were very specific with what we wanted – a 4×4 pickup with a diesel engine – and this ended up being more difficult to find for a decent price than we expected. A third reason is that we didn’t have a chance to drive into Port Au Prince on this trip. When we go back to Haiti, we will spend more time searching for this extremely important piece of our ministry, and we are asking each of you to be in prayer for us as we do!
The last, and probably most important, goal that we did accomplish was hiring a cook. Her name is Marjorie and she is awesome! Both of her sisters cook at Christianville and her mom is the cook for the Christianville school, so it is definitely in her blood. With the hiring of a cook, we now have someone who focuses solely on the nutritional health of our children. She uses more vegetables, she will use eggs on some mornings, and we are purchasing chicken for our kids every week! This is incredible. It was an added expense, but it is extremely worth it. This will help our children as much as anything else we have done to this point in our ministry. Thank you for helping us get to this point! If you want to find out more about the importance of animal protein in a child’s diet or if you want to join with us financially to help us continue to provide this to our children, please click here.
There is a lot more to talk about! We went and looked at the land we hope to purchase, we met some people who may want to help us in our ministry, and we spent some incredible time with our kids and with other people in Haiti. We will continue to keep you updated, but I will stop here for now! Thanks again for everything, and please feel free to message us or comment with any questions you may have about our ministry. We are so incredibly excited about what GOD is doing in and through All Things New.