Nov. 20th

Hello everyone!

I’m making time to sit and update you all about our trip to Jacmel because it was so good to spend a day with our girls. We drove on the windiest road ever and it took about 5 hours one way! Half way through the journey there, Kira threw up all over me! She was fevering the night before so I wasn’t sure if she was car sick or just sick. We went straight to the hotel to clean ourselves up and grab a quick bite for lunch and then headed to the girls home. When we arrived, Marlaine was not there but we went down to see the girls’ home that was recently built and that is where Lauren Cassandra was waiting for us! I think they took special care to dress her nicely and do her hair cute because we were coming. She was a little shy but happy to see us and she was more outgoing then she was last year. She was happy about swimming this time around too! The kids were excited to meet their siblings and Jordy and Lauren held hands for the longest time! I have some great pictures I want to upload! The baby wasn’t at the same home so we called and Marlaine said she would bring her to the hotel later. I gave my nice and nephew, Ginette and Jozafa, BIG hugs and kisses! They are so sweet and totally new who we were!! The were smiling like crazy along with Lauren and when I took a picture of the girls together they acted like they had always been cousins! Ginette turned and pushed another girl out of the picture…I’m not sure what she sad in Creole but she was telling her in no uncertain terms that she was not apart of this ‘family’ picture! I said it was ok, she could be apart too. But it was really cute to see that the kids know what’s going on and are pretty protective of their place in the scheme of things. We said a big hello to all the kids, many faces we recognized from last year. We gave Belinda the things you sent, Mini. She read your letter to me and I took a picture for you! We gave Jusula and Chrisemne their treats and gave Jesse and Fania and all the kids lots of love! I will try put these picts. online for you all.

After we had eaten dinner (Lauren Cassandra beating us all by FARJ), we spent time playing. Dawson is the typical older brother…being as funny as he could possibly be to make his little sisters laugh. Cassanda thinks he is great! Jordy is loving being the big helper and showing her new things and wanting to do everything with her. We were SO grateful to get in the pool. The days are so hot and it really tires us out.

Around 9pm, Melainey Rosalinda finally showed up! We were so excited to see her! She let me take her and hold her but was checking us out and trying to be brave. She is only 16 months old so she doesn’t know what’s going on but she did well and fell asleep on Sheldon’s shoulder. We set up the two playpens in the room and put the babies in them for the night. Lauren was so played out that she fell asleep about 5 minutes into the movie the kids out on with the little dvd player. We had a chance to visit Marlaine and our friend, Pastor Henri, was determined to change her mind about letting us bring our girls home to Canaan with us. I was just praying so hard that we would be able to but in the end we came home without them. We don’t understand this….if it was ok to live with our girls in Jacmel, why not in Montrouis? We didn’t get a conclusive reason but we know that God is sovereign in all things and we are trusting that he is working even where we do not se or understand. God’s plans cannot be thwarted (Deuteronomy), not by nature, people or the devil. So we are walking in faith not sight.

We came home the next day because the airport is not running to Jacmel and we had no other transportation but to go with our pastor friend and return the car we rented for the journey. The hotel was more then we expected too, so it was a good thing we didn’t stay but it was hard to give up our girls after only one wonderful day with themL. We are looking forward to Pete and Michelle coming in Dec. when we will go to Jacmel with them and spend a week with them and our children there.

On a difficult note, our kids have impetigo and it has proved hard to get rid of! We are getting weary of soaking their sores and peeling the blisters back to clean the bacteria so it will not get any bigger. Just when we are seeing some healing on one sore, three more have appeared on other spots of their bodies. It is spread through open sores and with all the mosquito bites and scratching them there are PLENTY to go around! Please pray for healing in this. Kira is especially hard as she doesn’t understand why we have to ‘torture’ her 3 or 4 times a day to help her beat it. Also, she has been saying ‘owee’ holding her ear today so I’m thinking “oh no….here we go”. I will grab my otoscope and see what I can see. Kira is also having a hard time with all the attention from the kids. At first I was feeling a little embarrassed she was acting so crabby about it but now I feel quite sorry for her because I have been observing how the kids all want her to come to them so they will hold something out to her “you want juice, Kira?” (or candy or a toy…) and then when she does they pull it away and give her the empty hand and try to take her. They mean well and just want to hold her and play with her but she is getting teased all day and very frustrated with that. I take her up to the little patio on our apartment and just hang out with her and have my quiet time while she has some time to herself. This is something she really needs in her day.

We have so far had no luck with finding a place in Jacmel. Marlaine hasn’t been looking and we have found out from our friends here that because Jacmel in the new ‘cancun’, it is very hard to rent a house. There is much demand and because of the holiday season upon us, people are renting their houses for the month or even by the week for lots of money. It wouldn’t make sense for them to make a deal with us for more time for less and we can’t afford the $11,000.00 house that’s availableJ. So, we wait and we pray and we try to serve the Lord and the people where we are at. We have been involved with supervising in the ACE school they have here. I have checked out the clinic and find that very interesting. There is a nurse here form BC helping. She’s leaving on the 17 of Dec. so I may be helping out more there. We have tiled and painted and have a big list of things to get done as there is a team coming today for 10 days, and after that more and more keep coming. There is also an ACE seminar in Dec. that pastor Wayne Shenk is coming for Dec 9^th. They are having 50 people from around Haiti to introduce the Christian education and the vision with that is to see it taught through out Haiti. I am very impressed with what I see here. The vision is great and Pastor Henri’s enthusiasm is contagious! He has been SUCH a huge blessing to us here. He has brought Jesus to us in so many ways already. He reminds me of when Paul was talking about loving people but especially those who are our brothers and sisters in Christ. He has truly been such an example of this to us. He has loved us and taken us under his wing. He has taken our goals as his own and has been so supportive in info. about our adoption. He knows many people and has checked out where everything is at and keeps us up to date on the way Haiti works. He really is the ‘father’ here in this community and I can see why he is so dearly loved. Sheldon told me last night “I don’t think a person could have a better friend here then Pastor Henri.” I think he’s right!

So, we are thankful for much, struggling with some, seeking God in everything and ask for your prayers through it all. We are playing things by ear and trusting God to make the way clear. Should health continue to be a concern or get any worse we may need to think about coming home but in the mean time we are praying for healing and continuing on…. “Consider it pure joy….perseverance must finish its work in you, that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything…” hmmm…pure joy….when my baby is screaming as we clean her sores……. Joy…when we say goodbye to our daughters (sisters) and go to live in another part of the country that brought us to them…. Joy…..when the heat saps the little energy we have left and leaves you tired and wondering what we are here for. We choose to trust.

Love to you all.

Sheldon, Kim, and kids

Nov. 15

Hey everyone! Just quick note to say we are doing good! We killed two rats so far in our place and so hope that our shoes, wallets, bibles and anything else they have been eating will be a little safer! We can't believe it's friday again tomorrow! The week has flown by! We are planning to go to Jacmel on Sat. and see our girls!!!! AAHHHH!! SO excited!! Please pray with us that God will make a way for us to be together with them during our time here. Things are going good except that feeling that we are not quite complete without them. We went to a beautiful beach today with a bunch of people that are visiting. Kira loves the ocean along with he big brother and sister. It was good also because she Dawson and Jordan have some impetagio and the salt water is good to help clean that up. We think they must have gotten it from Carl who had it when we came but is good now. The pain is that it spreads through open sores and with all the bug bites, the kids are ALWAYS scratching! Pray that we can beat that soon! It's getting old having to wash them all with soap and water 4 times a day EACH and
do the whole polysporin thing in between...feels like that's all I've been doing!

We are still teaching at the ACE school they have here in Canaan. Jaimee does the little guys and it's a BIG challenge as they are VERY rambuncious and when she tries to tell them to behave they laugh at her because they don't understand too much engkish yet. Melissa is helping with our two and with others as well. Steph and Carl are in classes of thier own as well. Sheldon and I have been keeping busy with tiling the kitchen, painting, sorting through TONS of clothing that has been sent, cleaning the school office etc... I had to laugh when Gladys asked me to clean the office. It was so insane with stuff piled EVERYWHERE that I didn't know where to start. Since I get easily overwhelmed I had to just sit and laugh at God's sense of humor because the fact is that my office at home is usually chaos.... I never know where to start on it so I find something else to do instead. Wouldn't God have a chuckle at one of my first assignments being to organize someone ELSES office!!! Anyway....After 4 days of working hard I am very proud of what was accomplished! We have an office!

Gotta run today...the teams waiting on me for devotions. We have met nightly to share and pray and think on God and His word. It has been a blessing and has pulled us together as a team in a big way. Please pray again for God to make a way with our girls. We hopefully will have a better feeling of what's going on after our visit. Thanks so much for your love and prayers! I'll write as son as I can.....:) Kim

Nov 9th

HEY everyone! GOT MY SUITCASE!! Thanks for praying! Things have been a lot better the last few days (phew...). Went intoPAP yesterday and in into the cargo garage of Air Canada. Let me just say....if you have EVER lost a suitcase flying Air Canada.....it's probably there!!! There was this room of hundreds of suitcases and they were like "do you see yours?" haha....right. They let me in to look as they went through someone elses and took whatever looked. After a bit I realized the dust was gettin thick and mine wasn't there. Back to the airport (who told us to check out the cargo) and lo and behold....my suitcase was still in the same room we first arrived in and found the other suircases. I am SOOOOO thankful to have my things (especially because the whole families Malaria meds were in it!) Of course, not everything was there but most of it (they took my shampoo and some stuff)

Tomorrow we are hitting the waves with the kids.... we're going to try make it a weekly thing so the kids have something to look forward to.
We miss you guys and thank you so much for your prayers over the miles. It makes the heat, bugs, rats and other differences a little more tolerable. We are putting out the poison tonight for the rat that was stuck in the net around Kira's playpen last night.....:( 3 in the morning we were trying to kill it (again) We hear the pitter patter of rats on the roof at night and they come in and lok for goodies. One ate part of the binding of my funky Camo bible!!!! Dailey bread I guess....:) Talk soon!

Nov 6th

Hey Guys!!

Wow! If I even am able to connect and let you all know we are still alive it will be a miracle!! Yes….we made it to Haiti. The heat is almost unbearable and the whiney kids are driving me crazy at times and my suitcase never made it…….yeah. Please pray for me when you think of it. Wondering what God wants to do in all this keeps me thinking. We are going to Jacmel to see our girls on the 15^th. That is when Marlaine gets back from the states. That has been very hard too. I feel like we haven’t really arrived yet cause we haven’t seen our girls yet. Jacmel was affected by the storms and they are struggling there and some of the kids are sick. We plan to go soon and give everyone the things they sent their kids or sponsored child.

Jordan says Hi to Georgia, Cass and her friends back home. She seems to be struggling the most. She wants to come home badly and lets us ALL KNOW IT ALL THE TIME!!! We finally have had to put our foot down and go the hard route instead of coddling her. She is not allowed to say negative things and bring us all down. Kira is getting used to the attention and isn’t as crabby as at first but she is hungry and tired as a baby can be and the laid back schedule of lunch at 1:30 (maybe) and the like has been definitely difficult. Dawson is doing well….he’s a pretty amazing little guy. Always able to make the bst of every situation and even find all the reasons to be glad in them. He’s been a real blessing to me lately. The kids are antsy to see their sisters and we are looking forward to staying with them in Jacmel for a few days before coming back to Canaan. It has been good here and perhaps a blessing in disguise as we realize that being ‘on our own’ would have indeed been a huge challenge. Shopping, cooking,etc… Here we can get into the swing of things and then try it on our own. We are still thinking to pursue a rental in Jacmel to be close to our girls. Wheather or not it suits to come along side and serve ‘Faith and Love In Action’ is yet to be seen but we can do whatever we can wherever we are at. The more we plan the more we are reminded that ‘Life is what happens while you make other plans’. Yup…God’s plans sure look different than our sometimes…most times. Every day we gather for a devotion…to share out thoughts on the day and what we are learing. My ‘little’ brother said something tonight that is so true… That hardship is never fun when your in it but on the other side you can see what God did in you and realize is was for a purpose.

Our paperwork has finally been submitted to IBESR in Port-Au-Prince and I have the file numbers to I can keep track of them!! I know that some of you have been trying to phone and haven’t had any luck getting through. Keep trying. That’s Haiti. Our # is 011-509-551-3002. It is ridiculous for us to phone North America but if you phone us we can talk for no charge on our borrowed cell phone.

Well…it’s been a week….they say that’s the hardest so lets hope we’re in for some smooth sailing:). Keep praying my suitcase will show up…. Love you…

HELLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOO from Haiti!!!!

Well….WE MADE IT!!! We were wondering what other surprises God had planned for us as we started out on the journey. At the Air Canada counter in Prince a lady informed us of a tropical storm that was brewing. She said chances were good that we would get to Montreal and no further because the flight was pending cancellation. She said Air Canada would fly us home or put us up till we could go. The guy in Vancouver was pretty grim …and not as strong in the PR departement. He said he had ‘officially’ warned us about the flight status and so if we ended up in Montreal with no plane going to Haiti we were on our own!

Praise be to God we are here, safe and sound and Kira didn’t even make anyone angry on all the airplane rides!! I have to admit I was nervous about how she would do and it was pretty exciting for her on the first jaunt from PG to Vancouver. The long one to Toronto she slept. To Montreal she did fairly well…she found that playing with the button was kind of fun and that they turned the lights on and off! We were careful to keep her from pressing the one to call the stewardess too many timesJ.

After all was said and done we got through immagration, picked up our luggage and out the door where Pasto Henri was waiting for us as promised. We had to fight off all the guys that just wanted to put their hand on your suitcase so they can say they helped you and get paid for it….what a crazy place the airport is!! We ended up giving them way more then normal but…”c’est la vie” – they were nice guys.

So we loaded all the stuff and people onto a big flat deck truck (Kira and I in the truck) and drove to a gas station where there was another vehicle waiting. We tarped the luggage down (it was pretty wet and still threatening to rain) and piled in the two truck and drove about 2 hours to Cannan. It is 80km north of PAP by a village called Montrouis. (MOWEE)

The time is two hours ahead until you guys go back. Time here will stay the same so you will then be 3 hours behind us. Pastor Henri has been AMAZINGLY warm and friendly and so helpful…..did I say that my suitcase was the only one we don’t have? Hehe…thanks for those gatcho pants, Mini!! They are my new best friend!! Thankfully I shoved em in my carry on!! PLEASE pray we do get my suitcase yet! It would be so nice to have! I felt like God was trying to remind me that just because we have made it this far and all these things I was a little nervous about are over, I STILL need to trust him! So…I am having a GREAT attitude about handwashing my ONLY pair of underwear!!!

I have talked with Marlaine and we are going to go see our girls in Jacmel when we can arrange the details. We are still getting by a day at a time and trusting God to bring the details together. We were sad yesterday to not have the big birthday party we planned for our Lauren Cassandra but we wait patiently to see the girls soon. Dawson and Jordan keep asking when we are going to the ‘real’ Haiti. They want to go where their sisters are.

Today is Kira’s birthday! My little one is 2 years old already! She has had a bit of a time adjusting and I think the heat makes it worse. We actually have had it pretty good so far. We haven’t yet seen the sun and so it’s only been high twenties I’ll bet. God’s climatizing us gradually! The kids are doing well…..running and playing and making friends with all the kids here. I think there is around 100! There is a precious baby girl here with her mom for a short time. She is 7 months old and Kira loves her! I think because she is smaller than Kira. Otherwise Kira has been a pain…she has been rude to the girls who all think she is so cute and try to say hi to her and help her. She screams at them! I try to tell them that she will hopefully be better in a couple days….yikes! I sure hope so! I realized that maybe she is overwhelmed by all the people who look different than she’s used to. Also by the attention of the big crowds. She has been napping more and I wonder if it’s the heat or just catching up from the travel. She is so cranky that Sheldon and I are feeling pretty frustrated at times. Like now…I am sitting in our room writing this as she naps. It’s only 8:30 in the morning but she had been so cranky the last hour that we could not endure it so up to bed she goes! We are up around 6am so maybe that’s not too bad after all. It’s very dark here early on so we’ve been going to bed earlier than usual but it’s good.

We had a tour of Canaan yesterday (our first full day here). It is really neat. There is a couple new building where they have just opened a clinic/pharmacy because a new law is at a place with over a certain amount of kids you HAVE to have a medical facility. This is very cool because I can see Sheldon and I helping out there if God wills it. The other big focus here is the Christian school. They are teaching the English ACE curriculum and already our team has been helping out wherever they need a hand. We have kids read paragraphs to us and then initial that they have done it, do flashcards for math, answer grammatical questions etc….

There is a boys dorm, a girls dorm, a kitchen, dining hall, playground, and bathrooms throughout with running water! Praise God!! J I will try upload some pictures with this. Two new friends (some older girls) came to our door and gave Kira some birthday presents!!! I was touched and blessed by these people who have nothing but give so freely. Kira did give them a kiss so perhaps she is warming up a bit.

We are staying in a two room place above the girls dorm. It has bunkbeds in one room for Dawson and Jordan, and a couch. Then a room with a double bed for us and we have Kira in a playpen there too. A bathroom as well.

Melissa, Jaimee and Steph are with Bonnie, a gal from Oregon who comes down often. She leaves tomorrow and already I am so sad for her and her ‘son’, Carter, who has adopted her. They are inseperable! That will be a VERY hard goodbye! These girls are in a room with two bunkbeds. It is crowded all around but we aren’t in our room much anyway.

Carl is in a huge room by himself that has three bunkbeds…go figure. Hehe.. There are three guys here from the states close to around his age. Wes, Danny and Brad. They are helping out wherever…mostly with school although Wes is apre-med student and is at the clinic a lot.

Gladys, the ‘mom’ is coming back from the states on Sat. We will then make plans with her to go see our girls. I just phoned our lawyer, Jean, who said he will be depositing our dossiers into IBESR on Mon or Tues. and figures that is taking about two and a half months. After that the paperwork goes back to Jacmel to Parquet and courts and then Immagration, visas, passports and home!! Jean thinks it is possible by the time we go but we will see. I am afraid to hope.

Jordy and Dawson did some homeschool today…6 pages in their books. This is good to get them into a routine. Dawson’s doing fine but Jordan is struggling a little. She had a bit of a meltdown saying that we took her away from her friends and now she has to eat this yucky food and she is NOT going to school etc…. We are dealing well with her trying to se sensitive but I think the best thing was the ‘attitude adjustment’ daddy gave her this morning. If I didn’t mention yet, the food is AWESOME!!! So much etter than I expected! We have had rice and beans of course, but also chicken and bread, fried plantains, sweet tea… so good! And it is all done for us, which is a blessing I never planned on! SO GREAT!!

I think I have rambled enough for one day! I wait to see about my suitcase with baited breath! Thanks for you love and prayers! Yes, we are all drinking lots of water (to the moms out thereJ). Talk soon!

Kim and Sheldon

Dawson, Jordy and Kira (little miss grumpy pantsL)