Forest Baptist Church is Here!

On Wednesday, we were pleased to receive some of the men from Forest Baptist Church!  They will be continuing the work on the Lemuel house, getting it ready for Bonita to move in.

Electrician Brian and his son, Sean, spent Wednesday to Sunday with us on the Plateau re-wiring the Lemuel house.  It is lovely to have all the wiring, outlets, and switches inside the walls now!

Loring, who is spending the whole two weeks with us, has been pretty much everywhere, accomplishing all those important and nagging odd jobs.  He started off by fixing the generator!  In fact, he not only fixed ours, but the Bakers' as well.

Don't ask me what that is or what its for....

On Sunday, Brian, Sean and Loring drove to Atrel for Sunday service with the Bakers.  Loring had a good (ahem ahem?) experience driving on the leaves-much-to-be-desired roads with Lucson as his guide.  He returned the same afternoon with two new faces.  Brian and Sean remained in Atrel to do some work for the Bakers, and Simeon and Mitchell came in their place.

They have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into whatever they have been given, beginning by cleaning out the water cistern on the Lemuel house--no easy job considering it involves hauling up bucket after bucket of water on a rope.

In addition, they have been a big help with putting up hardware and painting at Manis and Judy's house.

In the meantime, Gulbert and his men have been hard at work with hammers of all sizes taking out the bathroom tile, smashing out the kitchen wall, and shattering the cement floor to get ready for ceramic tiles.

Recognize it?

So what happened to the kitchen and dining room?  Well, naturally, they moved into the gazebo!

In fact, we like our little outdoor arrangement so much, we joke about keeping it permanent!  I'm not sure how Lucson would feel about that though; he's had to spend some nights in the gazebo to keep the dogs away!

$2.50 in the Hand of a Child

Deep night, flaming stars, ruby embers, and smoke from the fire...

Last night, I decided to take a short walk and visit Wilda, a single mom in our community.  When I arrived at her house, I made my way past the tarps stretched out to form a sheltered porch in front of her house.  Her kids, ran up to meet me.  She was not home, but they were gathered in the darkness with two cousins around a fire they had built with some sticks.  A pot  containing a small amount of oil was over the fire, and Djanaika (one of the cousins...in fact, her beautiful smile welcomes you every time you get on the blog) was kneading some dough in a bowl to make some pat...which is basically fried dough.  I squatted beside the fire and thoroughly enjoyed listening to their child talk and laughter, mingled with the crackly smell of smoke.  One can learn a lot like this!  Just as they were telling me a story about an animal called a leza--which apparently glares balefully at you from the underbrush before rushing at you to cut at your legs with a sharp protrusion on its head <!>--their mother and aunts arrived home.

I moved to a chair on the porch beside Wilda, and her son Vladimi came and nuzzled up beside her.  

Vladimi is six years old, and this is a story about him.

His oldest brother, Djeffson (14, or so), is not with us tonight, because he is in school in Gonaives.  Wilda is the kind of hard worker determined to stare down a hard life right in the face.  Her kids are all good helpers, but Djeffson became the man of the house at a very early age.  The family all miss him when he is away.

Vladimi is the baby of the family, and to be honest I never could quite make out his character very well.  He is very shy.

Last night, he made a comment to his mother about some money sent into Djeffson.  He hoped it didn't get lost in transit.  His mother assured him it would get into Djeffson's hands.  I didn't think too much of it, at first.  

Soon after, Wilda related to me that Vladimi's father had given him a small portion of the garden in which was growing some millet.  When the millet was cut down, Vladimi asked his father for $20 Haitian dollars (the equivalent of about $2.50 US) on the condition that he would give his father all the millet flailed from the stalks of his section in the garden. He clasped that $20 in his little hand and walked home and gave it all to his mom to send to his big brother in Gonaives, so that he could pay for the taxi to take him to school.

"So shines a good deed in a weary world...."

Wilda told me that if his father gives him a pack of crackers, or some such item, he will not even open it until he gets home.  Then he breaks it open to share with his brother, sister, and cousins.  

In a hardening world, may God preserve such pure innocence and open generosity in his little heart.

One More Thing

I forgot to mention that Bonita and Krischelle (and occasionally maybe even Sam!) will now be contributing to the blog.  You will see the author of each post at the bottom.

Oh, and just so you know, the post times are still off... not sure how to fix that... It is currently 5:30 not 2:30.

A few items of business...

First, I wanted to let you all know that my office hours have changed.  Since we don't have internet at the house, I will be working in the office from 3:30 to 5:30PM while Ani is in school.  If you need to get a hold of us urgently please write to Bonita at bonita.sparling@gmail.com (yes I know I still have not officially introduced her... it's coming!) or Krischelle at krischelle.frost@gmail.com.  You can also call us on the office phone at 011-509-2258-4977 (this number actually works in the office so we no longer have to go stand in the sun to find signal :)). 

I also wanted to let you know that we have had a bit of a mailing issue recently.  While Krischelle was in the US in November/December she and my mom wrote close to 100 post-cards to those who have been supporting Lemuel to thank you and to let you know how much we appreciate you.  We are going to be trying to do this more often this year.  Well, the post office had a little mix-up and sent quite a few of them to the RETURN address on the post card instead of to the address the post-card was to go to!!!  We will be trying to correct this problem for future mailings but for now, if you have been supporting Lemuel and did not receive a post-card recently it is probably here among the stack in our office.

In further news, the team from the Village Church left around 5:00 this morning to head into PauP for a flight out at 3:00.  I assume they are somewhere between here and Canada now.  A special thanks to all those who came (Rob, Martin, Amanda, Dan, Janna, Sonja, Simonne, and Karen) and to all of those who made their trip possible.

God bless!

Five Offices in One... and more

The team from The Village Church in Milton has been hard at work putting the new drop ceiling in the Lemuel house for Bonita. 

 
The group working in the school had their last day today.  They reported that the children remembered the English verses they had learned during English Camp in December, so that is good!  I am sorry I didn't get any pictures!


Part of the process of changing out the ceiling means moving out all of the offices.  Basically we had to move Krischelle, Bonita and my offices into Manis'.  Add to that Ani's desk that was moved into his office when we moved out of the Lemuel house and that makes FIVE!

It was a little crazy at first, with all that stuff (well, the most important stuff) thrown into Manis' office.

 

Pastor Rob joined us for a little while to bring some entertainment to the office.

But with Sam's help, a little entertainment from Pastor Rob, and Bonita giving moral support from her chair (she is still recovering from Dengue and will be for a while) we got things worked out pretty (relatively!) quickly. 

I have been working on this post since last night but the internet was giving me FITS!!!  The pictures have finally uploaded properly so now moving on to today...

Today some of the ladies taught the girls in the embroidery class to make tissue paper flowers and origami!  Tissue paper flowers are commonly used here for decoration so to know how to make them is very valuable!

The men continue to work on the ceiling and Martin (one of the team leaders) has been kind enough to teach us a little bit about video editing!

We were planning a trip to the beach this afternoon (yes, those of you in frigid lands - be jealous!) but we heard there are sea lice and I am not risking that, so looks like the beach trip is canceled (nevermind, those of you in frigid lands, no need to be jealous).  Instead we will be having a little party along with the teachers from the school and some of the staff.  We will be celebrating the school director's birthday and also having an opportunity for the team to get to know more of our staff.

The Village Team Here!

Yesterday a team of 8 people arrived here from The Village Church in Milton, Ontario.  Some are working with the third, fourth and fifth grade in the school while the rest are starting renovations on the Lemuel House where Bonita will be living. 

Speaking of Bonita, she is back here on the Plateau.  It will take a long time before she completely recovers from the Dengue but she is at least able to be up and around some. Thank you all for your prayers.

I will post pictures as soon as I get a chance to take some :)

Prayer Request

Dear All,

I am really late in sending this out but things have been pretty hectic here with Manis and I moving, getting the Lemuel house cleaned out for a team next week, and trying to figure out how best to help Bonita - that is where our prayer request comes in...

Last Thursday Bonita started not feeling well.  She had just finished her antibiotics from her tooth infection so it was kind of weird that she be sick again so soon.  We watched it for a few days but she only seemed to get worse.  On Monday we decided to call the plane to come get her as she was too sick to take the road and too sick to stay here.  She was kept in a hospital in Port-au-Prince for most of the day yesterday and was given IVs as she was very dehydrated, despite drinking constantly.  Last night she was allowed to go home with Schmids (missionary friends of ours) because a doctor who lives near them was going to continue IVs for her.  They have been unable, however, to find a vein so she is on oral rehydration fluids. 

This afternoon they got the results from her blood tests and it is confirmed that she has Dengue fever... a miserable virus that wipes out your immune system and takes months to fully recover from.  My heart aches for her as she has had one set-back after another since she got here.  I know she would greatly appreciate your prayers right now.  I am not sure if she is able to check emails but any words of encouragement in the comments below or to her email I am sure will be appreciated when she can read them. 

Thanks everyone for walking with us through all of this and for the support of your prayers.