"Home" in Port au Prince

The truth is, we have many places we call "home." Of course we look forward to spending eternity with the Lord as our final home, but it is nice to begin to feel settled in this one, too. Having my family here helped a lot. Todd has been spending time each night and even more time on the weekends doing all kinds of projects. We still have about 8 or 10 boxes of things that do not fit anywhere specific yet, but they are neatly tucked away, and it seems that we are constantly whittling down the pile.
Everything has a fresh coat of paint, there are pictures on the walls, curtains on the windows, we are accumulating the last few pieces of furniture (some given to us and some bought here), appliances are installed, most of the light switch and outlet plates are back on again...and tonight Todd and I sat in plastic chairs as we sipped coffee together on the small balcony right outside our room. Down below entertainment was provided by Kyle and Megan as they did tricks on their scooters. :) They called it our coffee date.

Routines

Now that Todd has started work and the kids have started school, our lives have begun to find a bit more of a steady rhythm. Todd usually gets up a little after 5 AM to shave, shower, fix his hair... :) This is also when we spend some quiet time with the Lord. Kyle usually wakes up around 6:30. By then Todd is finishing breakfast, fixing his lunch and taking care of the last minute details before he walks out the door to catch the "car pool" with Mark Williams and Will White (both neighbors and fellow MAFers). If they leave for the airport after 6:45, traffic is awful.
I wake Megan up, and the kids are ready for school by 7:30. We walk down to the King's house so that the kids can ride to school with them (most mornings). Most afternoons, I pick Megan and Hannah King up around noon. The morning is my time to clean, organize, email... Mondays and Fridays Crismen, a neighbor lady who has worked in this house for about 10 years or so, comes and helps me with sweeping/mopping the floors, dusting, bathrooms... On Wednesdays she has been cooking Haitian food for us. That has been a special treat. Today she is going to make plantain soup. I have never thought of mixing meat with plantains, but I am sure it will be good. Crismen has been such a helpful resource since she knows what other people have done with different things in the house...
Kyle comes home at 3 PM. Then we do homework, have dinner and go to bed. Usually there is a little time to play tucked in there somewhere. :) The kids love riding their scooters or playing with the neighbor kids. Recently Kyle has really enjoyed jumping rope. This Friday their school kicks off their Read a Thon where kids are challenged to read as much as possible with contests and prizes.
I am attaching a couple pics of the kids in their uniforms. Megan's kindergarten teacher is Mrs. Ackerman, and Kyle's second grade teacher is Ms. de Pooter.

MAF's First Kodiak!!!

We received the following in an email from MAF yesterday. Quest Aviation is an organization based in Sandpoint, Idaho that has worked closely in recent years with various mission organizations (including MAF) to develop an airplane which would better meet the needs of groups flying in remote areas, many times using short, rugged landing strips. Many groups preordered this plane, and MAF is now receiving its first one.

We have all been waiting a very long time to see our first Kodiak. It was an exciting day, last Thursday, to finally see it come taxiing up to the hangar in Nampa. The staff and the board were here to welcome it. There was a brief ceremony to welcome its arrival but the major event will take place on May 2 when the airplane will be dedicated.

Earlier in the week, on Monday, the delivery of the keys took place at the Quest factory in Sandpoint, Idaho. During that time all the 200+ employees at Quest gathered around the airplane and laid hands on it, sending it off with their prayers and blessing.

We are very excited to see this tangible result of the Kodiak project. The airplane will be out of service during April while the HF radio and other minor modifications are installed. Following the May dedication it will make some west coast visits to thank donors for their involvement. We expect to ferry it to Indonesia in June or July.

MAF’s second Kodiak is already well along in the assembly process and is due for delivery around July 1.

Visitors

Sunday we got to meet up with Esther Gobble, a friend from our church in Elizabethton, TN. She was down here with a work team ministering to a school a couple hours outside Port with Pastor Preval. We went to church with her in the morning, and she spent the afternoon with us. During the service all of the team members shared a short devotional or something God had laid on their heart. Todd shared a little bit from Galatians 5:22-25, and then they asked the kids to come sing something (thinking it would probably be in English). Kyle and Megan sang the Creole song they know best, I've Got the Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy Down in my Heart. Then the choir director spontaneously had the entire congregation stand and sing it! Oh my! They had the drums, trumpets, electric guitar, etc. plus clapping and beautiful, loud singing voices. It was a lot of fun to watch. They probably sang that chorus 13x or more. :)

Amazing Grace

While we were in Piyon, I got to hear some of the young girls from the church we attended practice several songs. My favorite was Amazing Grace in Creole and English (already on my Facebook page).
Watch them sway and tap their feet to keep rhythm. This is outside and acapella...amazingly beautiful anyway.

Bread

Before we left Idaho, we heard that fresh bread would be hard to find here in Haiti. Our church lovingly gave us a bread maker, we bought the necessary ingredients before we left the US, and we have enjoyed fresh, homemade bread here in Port. (Kyle, pictured left, enjoying breadmaker bread) Yum! You actually can get decent sliced bread in the stores here, but it does not last quite as long as US bread, possibly due to a lack of preservatives???
While we were in Piyon, it was just not practical to haul the bread maker and the necessary ingredients, so we left it behind. There in town we could buy bread at several "bakeries"--where they make 2 or 3 kinds of bread (not the sweet kinds) or in the local market.
We ended up always going to the same guy. If we timed it just right we could sometimes get hot bread, fresh out of the stone oven! That was our staple food in Piyon. :) It was delicious as cinnamon sugar toast in the morning for breakfast, a peanut butter, tuna or egg salad sandwich for lunch, or toasted with butter to go along with any meal for supper. (The bread is maybe difficult to see in these pictures, but it is like sub sandwich bread...maybe a little heavier, but just as soft.)

Family

My dad, mom and youngest sister Hannah just spent the past 2 1/2 weeks with us! We had such a nice time showing them where we live, where the kids go to school, the airport where Todd is now working, our church, neighbors.... Mom and dad came down Feb 28 and stayed until March 8. Hannah was here from March 4 to the 17th. We worked them hard, but they were good sports about everything. :)
When we were first here in Haiti Mom told me that she and Dad would be willing to come down and help us clean and get settled. When we realized we were going to paint the inside of our house, they volunteered to help with that, too. What a blessing!
Originally we were not supposed to come back from Piyon until the day before my parents were coming. We finished our language text books and saw many of the cultural things we had wanted to wanted to experience, so flights were arranged and we came back to Port a week early. Apparently we were just in time for Mardi Gras which is a BIG deal here. In fact, many stores and businesses even close that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. That was the case for the paint store so we were not able to order our house paint until the day before Dad and Mom got here. Thankfully, Todd was able to pick it up right before we got them on Saturday.
Mom and Dad painted, replaced many screens that had holes in them, put new contact paper down on the kitchen shelves, dad did some plumbing work, mom did some mending and washed lots of dishes... They spent time with the kids and just visiting. It was so special to share all of the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of Haiti with them.
Hannah was a big help around here too. It was fun to see her interacting with Kyle and Megan as Aunt Hannah, not my little sis. She painted Megan's nails and did her hair and played and read with Kyle. MAF-Haiti's retreat was this past weekend, so Hannah watched the 8 kids (ranging from ages 2-12) during the sessions. :)
They were a huge encouragement to us. They saw all kinds of possibilities for the house (which has a pool!!!), for ministering to others, etc. The painting seemed so overwhelming before they came, but room by room it got done. Now we continue adding those finishing touches that make this home.

Cute Kids 2

Here are some pictures of the kids that used to hang out at the camp with us. (Tatiana, Sonson, Mona, Luben & Djemsky)

Cute Kids

Kyle and Megan are precious little blessings from the Lord. Both of them love adventure and creatively using their imaginations. In Piyon, they were always catching creatures or hiking to the river when they were done with their school work. Lots of room to roam!!! :)

College de la Grace

College de la Grace is a Christian school in Piyon started by Caleb Lucien in 1993. He wanted to provide educational opportunities for kids in the area so that they did not have to go live on their own in Port au Prince or Cap Haitian in order to get a quality education. The school has grown over the years to now include around 900 students enrolled in their preschool through high school. There is still vision for future growth and improvement.
The school is located near the airport just outside town (about a 50 min. walk or a 10-15 min. Rhino ride from our camp). While we were in Piyon, the school allowed us to use their internet, so one of us usually visited a couple times a week. Pictured here are a few of the cute, little kids singing Happy Birthday to one of the administrators.

Can de la Grace

During our 3 months of language and culture study, we stayed at Can de la Grace, or Grace Camp. There were several different buildings sprawled out across the camp. A large tabernacle near the entrance was used once or twice while we were there...mostly reserved for camps and large gatherings. Behind the tabernacle was a cement pad which served as a basketball court. There was a shop and some storage sheds between the court and the dining hall where the Krulls stayed and where we cooked and ate our meals.
To the right of the dining hall was a round, palm branch roof, open-air gazebo-type structure where kids and teens hung out during the day and where others charged their cell phones at night. :) To the right of the gazebo were dorm rooms, so far just one story, but the roof suggests that there are plans to build higher. Another two story building also served as a dorm during camps. We stayed in the top part of a building just in front of the gazebo and there was another two story dorm building in front of that. To the left behind the kitchen was a cooking area where Todd helped install some larger industrial stoves, although they still cook with pots over a charcoal fire at times. Another nearby building houses the cooks when they have teams.
Beyond our building and the dorms was a wide-open cow pasture surrounded by some woods and on the back and side, a sugar cane field. Cane in that area seemed to be grown for making rum. There were many stills in the area. The property had several sweet orange trees, sour orange trees, and grapefruit trees. We had fresh juice nearly every night. Yum!
From the pasture you could get a clear view of Mt. Piyon (right). We intended to climb it (never did) but we enjoyed seeing it as a landmark all over the area.
Trash was burned and/or thrown down a steep embankment near the river behind the kitchen. Not so pretty... Down a little trail beside the cooking area was a pig sty and chicken coop made of tree branches woven together for a shelter. The pigs enjoyed our vegetable peelings. We really did not have scraps. Chickens roosted in the trees at night and roamed the camp during the day. Besides the pigs and chickens, there were cats, dogs, turkeys, goats, cows, a noisy donkey, lizards, spiders and even a snake. Horses loaded with sugar cane or sometimes just a rider would often cut through the property on the way to or from town.
For a while we had rats living in the loft above our rooms, making a terrible racket. Finally we caught one of the cats and let it loose up there one evening after the rats had outsmarted other traps. In just a matter of minutes she had caught one, so several other sibblings and the mother went scurrying out. We did not hear from them again, although on occasion we would see a tail hanging from the peak of the roof.
Jason and Willhelmina had a bat that would come and feast on mosquitos in the dining hall nearly every night. A couple times they even had a big spider on the mosquito net on their bed.