Celebration Kids Club

Sometimes God has to give you a little push! Joy has wanted to start a ministry to our local kids where we meet with them each week and share the love of Jesus with them. She has been wanting me to schedule a time and decide the best way to go about it. I have just been slack in getting it going. So God handled it.

About a month ago a little girl showed up at our yard all dirty with matted hair and dirty clothes. She began to tell us how her parents were killed in the quake and she was living in the refugee camp down the road. Joy took her in and gave her a shower and everything and we fed her and fixed her hair. We had her go home and told her to come back the next day. When she came back some things just did not seem exactly right so we decided to go check things out. It turns out she has a mother and a father doing just fine and an aunt had put her up to the lie to try to see what she could get out of it.

So a month goes by. Then Saturday I am sitting in the yard and about a dozen kids come peeking around the wall. One would come out and then run back and then another and another. Finally I motioned for them to come over and asked them what was going on. They said they had been told we were giving away bicycles and baby dolls to every kid that came to our house that day. So here we had a dozen kids wanting bikes and babies. Guess who told them that...

You guessed it. The little "orphan" from the month before. So I took the opportunity to sit the kids down and find out their names and ages. Then I asked if the little fibber was on the other side of the wall... she was (she is the one on the back left in the picture looking all scared about her punishment for lying!). So she came too and I told the story of the boy that cried wolf and shared with them the importance of honesty.. . and forgiveness. Then since it was the day before Haitian Mother's Day we gave them all a gift bag of hygeine supplies etc. to give to their mothers. We also invited them back on Wednesday after school for the first official meeting of Joy's Celebration Kids club.

Fish Tale

I have a group of fisherman that I am trying to minister to by helping them be able to catch more fish and sell them to support their families. Another way we help them is by being a good customer. Last week 2 of my guys that fish in a little canot- wooden boat- showed up at the house with the fish you see here. They caught him on a 50 foot line tied to a bleach jug with a small fish on the end. They take their 10-15 jugs out to the deep water around the islands and lets them float. Then they go back about 4 hours later to check them. Today was a lucky day! When they see one of the jugs going across the water they chase it down paddling and begin to pull the fish in by hand. This was a sword fish that we were able to buy over 50 pounds of meat after they cleaned it. They don't like the fact that I will not buy the head to make soup out of but they are happy to sell the rest.

The biggest issues surrounding them are finding bait fish. They go out at night and place an oil lamp on a paddle extended out over the water. That draws in little fish that they can catch to use for bait. If they do not find bait, they can't go out for the fish that they can sell. We are trying to find some lights that are rechargable that we can mount on a board or something over the water to bring in more bait fish. We also are in the process of getting them good hooks and line so that when they do hang one they don't loose it. The guys that brought us the sword fish have not sold tried to sell us anything in weeks. One fish may have to provide the income to feed the family and continue to fishing business for weeks. We are trying to help these guys and share with them the love of Jesus Christ too. And we get to eat good fresh fish everyday. God is good!

Finally Reconnected!

It has been a full month since our internet went down and we had not been able to get it back up and running until yesterday.

We missed being able to talk to everyone. We are all doing fine. We have all been sick some but I think we are on the mend now. The kids are doing great. Jacy Klaire is doing good in her home schooling and piano lessons. Judah and Jaxon had their birthday party Saturday. Judah is 5 and Jaxon is 2. Josie is as witty as ever. She keeps us all in line. She speaks a little bit of creole but she speaks mostly bad English. She talks to the Haitians the way they speak English to her. So she tells the girls "me need eat" or "me want play out". She says it with a haitian accent though! Jaxon is just learning to talk and he speaks about half and half. He is into everything and constantly injured. He has a second degree burn on his leg right now from a motorcycle muffler.
Justice is growing and smiling. She is healthy and becoming a part of the family. We are frustrated with the process of trying to get anything accomplished with her case but we know the Lord is in charge. We would like to get a passport for her so we could bring her to the states for vaccinations and so we can visit family. We can't locate the mother but the father is anxious to get her legally into our custody so we are working on it.

Both sets of twins are doing good. We were able to buy an exersaucer off the street for one set so they can start developing some muscle tone. They are growing and developing well.

The mission is coming right along. We are ready to paint the kitchen and we finished the Tiki hut dining area. We have the appliances in the kitchen and ready to cook up some rice and beans.

We have our approval for the children's home from UNICEF and Heartland Alliance but we are waiting on licensing from Haitian social services. We have paid all the crazy fees so we think it should not be long before they give us the go ahead to start recieving kids.

We spent a good part of yesterday in a tent village outside PAP. It has become a permanent settlement now and they are errecting tarp schools and churches with the belief they are not going anywhere. The tarps are slowly being replaced by scraps of tin or wood. Thankfully, a group came in and put in latrines and two water bladders for the people to have but I don't know how long they will transport water to fill the bladders daily. We will see. They want our help in getting a school for the kids there. There are hundreds of kids with no access to school at all. We aer praying about how we can help.

Today Joy is gone with a group of doctors from Texas to visit one of the schools and feed them. I am going with an engineer from California this morning to another school to see about developing a feeding program there and building them a building. We are thankful for the chance to work with such fine folks from around the U.S.

I will try to get some pictures posted in the next day or so since we are back in the land of technonlogy. Thank you all for your prayers.