Edgerton Blog

2012

2012-01-08T04:37:00.000-08:00

A new year requires a new blog. :) Today is the first day of 2012. The beginning of a new year is always a time of reflection and thanks for what has been, and anticipation and hope for what is to come. Along with the traditional New Years celebrations with food and fireworks that many of us already know so well, January 1st is Haiti's Independence Day. Things typical of the holidays that we have come to expect around here are extra hours of electricity, extra time with family and friends, extra baking and visiting and celebrating. :) I love all of the traditions we are able to enjoy with friends from around the world. A couple weeks ago the ladies in my Spanish Bible study got together to make cookies and pizza. One lady from Venezuela made arepas, something I remember buying on the street when I first met Todd in Maracaibo. :) Last week we took a trip to the south of Haiti and bought some douce maccos in Petit Goave for the first time. Yesterday, two different Dutch families shared oliebollen with us. Of course, everyone in Haiti ate some soup joumou in celebration of Independence Day today, and I have had the promise from another friend that we will make Guatemalan tamales together this week. Yet, this afternoon I got a special visitor that I did not expect. Right at dusk we heard a little knock on the gate. My sweet neighbor Violet brought over a pate that she had made. Now, usually pates are about the size of a 3 x 5 card, but this one was so huge it covered an entire plate! It was delicious, but even more special than this or any of the other international treats or gifts we shared was the friendship it symbolized. God has placed so many special people in our path, and we are especially thankful for that special blessing this year.

MAF was not flying this past week, so we enjoyed extra time with Todd. On Christmas Eve we had a very meaningful family time talking about the reason we celbrate. We went to Quisqueya Chapel's candlelight service and then to Dr. Ed's for chili and fireworks. Kyle and Megan and other kids there even got to light some of the big ones. The next day we went to our church in the mountains and then shared Christmas dinner with our neighbors, the Harms. We had our MAF party and said good bye to the Krul family who will be in Canada for a few months, had a game day with our neighbors the Broersmas, took a long road trip along the southwestern part of the country and in between have enjoyed lots of time with family and friends.

This year our neighborhood has seen lots of changes. Our next-door neighbors, the Williams, who have lived here for 20 years returned to the US to work in MAF recruiting, so David and Christine Harms moved into their house. The Whites and Kings who lived across the street went on furlough, so the Schmicks and Broersmas came to stay in their homes. Although our other neighbors have not changed, we have enjoyed getting to know them a little better along with many of the people who are regularly on our street for one reason or another. I especially love seeing and hearing the precious kids at the school down the street.

This year, Todd has continued to help maintain the MAF planes and equipment. Along with the two 207s, they have been able to use the larger Caravan plane a lot more. We have been leasing it from Samaritan's Purse for a very low price, but MAF has now purchased another and is doing the necessary modifications before SP needs theirs back this spring. Aviation and airport officials continue to change, so the long process of receiving full approval to operate a Caravan here continues to elude us. We trust that God will somehow use all of this time of waiting for the best. In his free time Todd enjoys reading, spending time with the kids and fixing things around the house.

I still teach elementary art at the kids' school and tutor in the afternoons. I took an online masters course this fall which kept me pretty busy, and enjoyed the Spanish Bible study whenever it was possible to attend. This spring I hope to help more with the school down the street and some other things that are not so regular.

Kyle has grown so much! He is nearly to my chin now. Each morning he is up early with a cheerful smile on his face. This year he is 10 years old in the 5th grade. Time flies! New kids in his class and in the neighborhood have been a wonderful blessing. He loves swimming, hiking, jumping on the neighbor's trampoline, building things, having airsoft wars, playing games or having other adventures with the neighbor boys. Tae Kwon Do was not offered after school this year, but his homework load has been heavier. He and Megan are informally tutored in Creole for an hour each week by a sweet lady who works at school. It has been fun to hear them using their words and phrases more around home.

Megan is our little sunbeam. She is always creating or arranging something in a cute way. She just turned 9 and is in 3rd grade. Her teacher, Ms. Borg, is from Australia. This year her two classmates from our neighborhood are in the US. She misses them a lot but has enjoyed getting to know some of the new girls in her class. Several of the 2nd and 3rd graders spend their recess doing cheers and gymnastics. Megan's latest trick is cartwheeling. :) She also enjoys reading, climbing anything high and dangerous, doing art projects and anything girly.

Our cat Snuggles who just turned 1 year old gave us four baby kittens the Sunday before Christmas. They now have their eyes open and are cute little furry things. She is a great mom. Pretty soon we will be looking for homes for them!!

We enjoyed visits from our family friend Susie Bagwell and Todd's cousin Lee and his family at the beginning of the summer. We drove to the Dominican Republic and then over to the Citadelle in the north of Haiti this summer. In the coming months we look forward to a visit from Todd's parents in February and then seeing many of you this summer and fall when we are back in the US on furlough. Thanks so much to everyone who continues to pray for us, encourage us and support us as we seek to honor God with our lives wherever we may be. Please pray for us to make both the easy and tough decisions depending on His grace and wisdom.

Spring News

2011-05-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Spring

We never have snow here, so we do not wait for the daffodils to peek their yellow heads up from the sleeping ground or for the dogwoods to flower as we did in Tennessee. Here until a week or two ago the roads (and our house) were SOOO dusty, but since the rains began I do not feel like I am giving the pedestrians on the dirt roads a dust bath as I pass at maybe 5 MPH. :) Last Saturday, I realized it was spring when I had the urge to work with some of my scrawny plants and plant others. May 1 was Agriculture and Work Day here in Haiti. We were ready!!!! :) Although it is always warm, it is getting warmer. We are swimming more and taking cold showers on purpose some days.

Easter comes at such a wonderful time. New life seems to be bursting forth all around us. It was especially easy to celebrate the joy of the Resurrection this year. We are so very thankful for the life and hope Christ gives. We went to the English-speaking church for Palm Sunday and especially enjoyed songs by the children and Haiti’s national amputee soccer team. A neighbor had a little party where we decorated eggs, hunted for treats and heard the Easter story For Easter Sunday we went to our little Creole church in the mountains, and in spite of being earlier than normal we had to sit separately because it was already full. I especially love to hear the singing in Creole when the church is packed, and when everyone knows the songs by heart and sings from their soul. I think God must love that too.

Kyle’s Wonderful Poem

Last week Kyle came home reciting the following poem by Shel Silverstein:

A tree house, a free house, a secret you and me house, a high up in the leafy branches cozy as can be house. A street house, a neat house, be sure to wipe your feet house, not my kind of house at all, let's go live in a tree house.

Reminds me of the HOURS we used to spend in the backyard building forts when we were kids and now the tree-climbing that Kyle and Megan do. They love to hide away “high up in the leafy branches, cozy as can be” reading a book or just spying.

Megan’s Taste Buds

Last Wednesday when we got home from school Megan asked where the beans and rice was...where the sos wouj was. I told her that I had some chicken I needed to use up and did not want them to get tired of the beans and rice every Wednesday, so I was making a mandarin chicken stir-fry dish with white rice. Normally each Wednesday when Crismen is here she makes some Haitian food. Sos wouj is our favorite (Kyle eats it but prefers sos pwa--bean sauce--most of the time.). Megs almost got teary and asked if Crismen could make sos wouj on Friday when she comes. I told her that I was planning pizza. Kyle piped up and said that I could make the pizza on Saturday, but that they would really like the sos wouj on Friday. Blew me away!!! Sos wouj with beans and rice instead of pizza???!! Really??!!!! Cool! It is fun to see the kids loving things about Haiti without me forcing it.

Timing and Growth

We continue to see God's timing and his plan to work all things together for good. MAF-Haiti is growing and changing. The Williams family who has been here for 20 years will be heading back to the States in another month, and we are hoping that two new families, the Rogers and Schandorffs, will be joining us next year. Drew and Shelley Ham from Idaho spent several days sharing about the book of Phillipians with our team at our staff retreat in the Dominican Republic last month. Shelley Turley, also from Idaho, watched the babies during our sessions and helped in the MAF-Haiti office while she was here. Gene and Jan Jones and their friend Terry are here helping with various IT projects and gathering follow-up stories about how earthquake relief funds have been spent. We continue to wait for God's perfect timing for approval from Haiti's civil aviation authority and His plan for the Caravan airplane that we are leasing from Samaritan's Purse. Although we do not know why plans have been delayed and approvals denied to this point, we are trusting that through all of our dealings with Director Pierre and those associated with this situation that God's love and grace would be evidenced, and that God will use this time to prepare us for the future.

Travels

Michael and Todd were able to change the engine on HH-FLY fairly quickly. HH-MAF and HH-LLS will have their engines changed a little later this year. I am traveling to FL at the end of May to watch my little sister Sarah graduate from dental school. :) Then, we are looking forward to visits from other friends and family this summer.

We are so blessed by those who pray for us, help with our monthly support, write to us or send little packages and encourage us in so many different ways. We are extremely blessed in so many ways and so thankful for His care for us through so many people.

New Years

2010-12-30T07:28:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year

It seems that at the ending of one year and the beginning of another, our hearts long for peace, for everything to be right with the world, for Immanuel, God with us, to "come to us, abide with us." The Christmas carols running through my head all seem to share that common theme. "Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." Christ came to free us from the darkness and fear of a selfish life and to bring hope. We are thankful for that each day.

Haiti has dealt with a LOT of heartache and loss this year (earthquake, storms, cholera, election riots....), but it has still been a time of blessing. It seems that with each disaster or negative God is able to bring something good. My favorite positive is the amazing way God uses people from all walks of life, people who have never known each other before, to work together. It is almost humorous at times. We did not get a white Christmas this year, but it has been chilly here during the past few weeks (dipping down into the high 60s and low 70s at night). In fact, the cooler, rainy weather gave a welcome reprieve to riots following the recent presidential elections here. Sometimes answers to pray come in the most unlikely forms and places.

MAF Haiti is now leasing a Caravan from Samaritan’s Purse, but we still have not been granted permission to fly commercially here in this country. In faith that it will one day happen, Todd went to Caravan maintenance training with John Munsell and Michael Broyles in early December. While he was gone election results were announced, and there were riots in the main streets. Our little street was quiet, but school was released for Christmas break a week and a half early. Todd returned just in time to celebrate the holidays with us.

Our nearly month-long “staycation” has forced us to get creative. During all of this time with no school, we have had lots of time to spend with friends. We had a game day, a day of making cookies with the neighbors, visited Ft. Jacques with other friends*, made gingerbread men*, had a cookie exchange, opened Christmas cards and packages brimming with treats from friends*, made cookies and pizza with the Spanish Bible study group*, bought and decorated a Haitian Christmas tree*, cooked many yummy treats*, did lots of crafts and reading, attended a Christmas Eve service and have had some nice times playing games and spending time as a family.

On Christmas Eve we received the bitter-sweet news that Todd’s grandmother passed away at the age of 94. She was such a special lady to so many people….a wonderful substitute grandma for me since we have been married and so sweet and patient with all kids. Todd will be in Idaho for about a week for the memorial service.

Thanks so much to all who have shared with us in times of joy and sorrow, peace and turmoil, those who have encouraged us and prayed for us to grow to become stronger and more Christ-like. Thanks to all those who helped with our transition to the States and during those months of time apart as a family this spring. We also really appreciate all who have so faithfully prayed for and supported MAF's ministry here and have helped us to be part of that. We are so grateful for the 93 friends who faithfully give either monthly or annually and many others who give from time to time when they can. We cannot count them nearly as easily, but we are also very thankful for those who pray for us....some faithfully and regularly and others just when Haiti comes to mind. I pray that the coming new year would be a time of challenge and renewal for you and your family as you face the adventures that lie ahead, that you would know God's great love for you even in the tough times, and seek for His strength and wisdom for each decision.

Today.......and Tomorrow

2010-11-07T17:18:00.000-08:00

The song going through my head tonight is, "Because He Lives." Thursday we were "staring down the barrel" at what was expected to be Hurricane Thomas. While we received a lot of rain and some of southern Haiti had flooding and wind damage, it was not nearly as destructive as predicted.
Yesterday (Saturday) was a quiet day as we wished my dad and neighbor kid, Zach, a happy birthday.
Today has been a rollercoaster, full of highs and lows. My good friend and neighbor Julie had a birthday today. :) A friend of Megan's found out she had lice as they were leaving for Sunday School. :( The singing at church was amazing today. When we got home, we got an email about a fellow MAF pilot in another country that we had met during eval/training who was killed in a surfing accident (HUGE blow). Please pray for his sweet wife and little son as they "face tomorrow". They celebrated their 5th anniversary about a month ago, so I know this is going to be tough. Yet, I know He holds the future, and "this child can face uncertain days because He lives." I am thankful for Immanuel, God with us, in both the especially joyous times as well as those when we feel we cannot go another step.

Columbus Day Poem--The Things That Haven't Been Done Before

2010-10-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

I found this poem when preparing some Columbus Day activities for my art classes. What an inspiring and convicting little rhyme!!

The Things That Haven't Been Done Before
by Edgar A. Guest

It is said that if you hold a stick in front of the foremost sheep in a flock that files down a trail in the mountains, he will jump it - and that every sheep thereafter will jump when he reaches the spot, even if the stick be removed. So are many people mere unthinking imitators, blind to facts and opportunities about them. The air was not part of the domain of humanity till the Wright brothers made themselves birdmen.

The things that haven't been done before,
Those are the things to try;
Columbus dreamed of an unknown shore
At the rim of the far-flung sky,
And his heart was bold and his faith was strong
As he ventured in dangers new,
And he paid no heed to the jeering throng
Or the fears of the doubting crew.
The many will follow the beaten track
With guideposts on the way,
They live and have lived for ages back
With a chart for every day.
Someone has told them it's safe to go
On the road he has traveled o'er,
And all that they ever strive to know
Are the things that were known before.
A few strike out, without map or chart,
Where never a man has been,
From the beaten paths they draw apart
To see what no man has seen.
There are deeds they hunger alone to do;
Though battered and bruised and sore,
They blaze the path for the many, who
Do nothing not done before.
The things that haven't been done before
Are the tasks worth while to-day;
Are you one of the flock that follows, or
Are you one that shall lead the way?
Are you one of the timid souls that quail
At the jeers of a doubting crew,
Or dare you, whether you win or fail,
Strike out for a goal that's new?

Edgerton Family Update

2010-10-02T19:44:00.000-07:00

Each day here is so full……full of God’s mercy and goodness.

We thank Him for safety and especially for His presence each moment…..

whether we have felt alone or fulfilled,

whether we are dealing with loss and sadness

or celebrating…...

Routine

This summer the kids and I enjoyed reuniting with friends and neighbors; getting settled back into Haiti, Port au Prince and our little neighborhood; Kyle and Megan attended a day camp in the mountains one week; and made the final preparations for attending school. Now both Kyle in fourth grade and Megan in second grade are having a wonderful year at QCS. We praise the Lord for His faithfulness. After school on Mondays they play soccer, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays they are learning Taekwondo.

I am teaching elementary art and helping in a few classrooms in the afternoons at Kyle and Megan’s school (QCS) this year. A couple mornings a week I am working with a kindergarten class at a Haitian school on our street. Those kids are just precious, and their teacher is sweet as can be. The Spanish Bible study began meeting around the time school started, and since the quake our times together have been sweeter than ever.

Spokane Training Center

Todd just returned from two weeks of PT6 turbine engine training in Spokane, WA. MAF Haiti has always had piston engine planes (Cessna 206, 207), but we are now leasing a Cessna Caravan (turbine engine) from Samaritan’s Purse. The first week of training was spent learning about the systems of the engine, and the second week included some more hands-on maintenance training. They got to visit the Moody Aviation Spokane campus (pictured here: hangar with the flags representing countries where former students are serving), and right before coming back to Haiti he and the guys toured Quest Aircraft’s factory in Sandpoint, ID and saw the new Kodiaks in production. Pretty birds. Todd is pictured here with the very first Kodiak that is airworthy (serial #1), and then #45 was on the production line.

Week 2

During the first week of Todd’s absence, everything went fine….nothing broke. We enjoyed a wonderful day at the beach on Saturday with several families from our neighborhood and school. The next morning when we got up to leave for church, one of my tires was completely flat. Our neighbor came and changed that. Before Monday, my watch and one earring broke, the other front tire went flat, and several other things broke and went wrong. It was almost as if trouble just all waited until that second week to break loose. A different neighbor pumped that tire up since I did not have another spare.

Both of the front tires were completely used up, so as soon as the kids were off to school Monday, I went up the street to the tire place. They were out of the size I needed….as were the next FIVE places I tried before it was time to go to the neighborhood school. Thursday, it seemed that things began to turn around a bit. Instead of the Spanish Bible study, I went searching for tires…..and found some!!! As I waited for the guys to put them on, a couple of young men sewed my sandal that was coming apart, and another guy got me fixed up with brand new wipers!! I was certainly glad to have them the next day during a sudden wind/rain storm.

Microburst

Since Megan’s birthday was Saturday, I took cake and icecream to school for her class on Friday afternoon. We sang, blew out candles, ate, took pictures, prayed for Megan to be blessed in the coming year and left for the weekend.

The sky looked a little dark as we packed everything into the car and got everybody together. Megan’s neighbor friend Abby went to ask her mom if she could come to our house, and in that short time a strong wind began to blow. She reached our car right as the first big drops hit the car.

We crept along the “back road” toward home but quickly decided to turn around and try the main way when the branches of a tall tree cracked off and fell right in our path. It was also littered with branches and dirt/rocks. The merchants from the market at the end of our street ran for cover or stood stunned as umbrellas and tarps shredded.

Thankfully the storm was short-lived, and the only damage we sustained was the damaged rack of solar panels on the roof hitting our water tank and cracking one panel. Our neighbors and co-workers, the Williams, lost their car when a huge branch crushed it. Of course there were leaves and branches everywhere, but it was NOTHING compared to the five who lost their lives and the damage sustained by some in the tent cities who literally lost everything…..again. Yet, when we drove to the airport to pick up Todd the very next day most of the tents we saw already had their tarps or other covering lashed back on snugly.

******************************

Please continue to pray for the many who are STILL trying to survive in little tents or tarps.

Our friends in Pignon (where we studied Creole), JeanJean & Kristie Mompremier wrote a couple weeks ago asking for prayer as they shared the gospel with several local witch doctors. The meeting went well, and the main one they were meeting with is now coming to their informal Sunday meetings. Pray that he would soon make Christ lord of his life and allow peace and joy to replace fear and emptiness.

New Hospital Announced Near Haiti’s Capital

2010-09-13T13:51:00.000-07:00

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A U.S. humanitarian group and Haitian health officials have announced plans for a $15 million teaching hospital north of the earthquake battered capital.

The Boston-based organization Partners in Health says the 320-bed facility to be built in the town of Mirebalais is intended to take pressure off the overburdened and underfinanced general hospital in Port-au-Prince. Few Haitians now have regular access to health care.

Partners in Health said Friday that the teaching hospital will serve an estimated 450 to 550 patients a day. It will include six operating rooms, have digital X-ray and be powered in part by solar panels.

Idaho Press-Tribune – Saturday, September 11, 2010

Windows Down

2010-07-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

Normally if we are in our car here in Haiti, our windows are up and our air conditioning is on as high as it can go. It is so hot most of the time, and since much of our driving time is spent sitting in traffic the exhaust from all of the other vehicles can be overwhelming.

Today, though, I was up in the cool mountains

near the place where Kyle and Megan are in day-camp. My window happened to be down as I started out, so I just left it….even opened the passenger window.

Driving with my windows down allowed me to experience a different dimension of life here.

The sights, smells and sounds that I normally pass without notice became so close when that single pane of glass was removed.

Timid smiles and waves, whiffs of pates frying in oil,

the rhythmic tap of the hammer as stones became gravel,

groups of children laughing as they walked home from school in their uniforms and ribbons (girls),

warm air and then cool air wafting in, two men involved in animated conversation, another man racing to keep up with his donkeys, the grass, the trees…… One old guy even stopped me to tell me how he had fixed a big pothole in the road that had been washed away in the rain. (I think) Anyway, the opportunities for interaction, even if just a quick smile, are limitless. Now as I sit here waiting for Kyle and Megan to finish for the day, I wish I had my camera. One man smoothes out fresh cement on a sidewalk with his trowel, another sits and watches while his friend clips grass with a hedge clipper (my attempt at a hidden camera), a guy who was previously mixing cement by hand now lounges against a wall....

I will probably continue to have my windows up when I drive in the city because of the reasons mentioned above plus the added security risks lowered windows can bring. But I think in the future I will look for more chances to enjoy life with the windows down!!

*Included are some pictures I took the next day.

Haiti Through the Eyes of a Local Doctor

2010-07-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

Judith D'Amico is a medical doctor who has lived in Haiti for the past 15 years. Her field is public health and community development. The following is information she compiled for a letter she recently sent out.

Haïti continues pretty much as it has been the last few months. The camps are even fuller than before, as people are either returning to PAP or choosing the camps over their homes because of some perceived benefits they might receive. Here are a few details...

Tent camps
There are presently 1.6 million displaced persons scattered in 1,342 camp sites in the earthquake affected areas of Haïti. In Port-au-Prince, there are about 1,000 of the sites. Fifty-four of the 1,342 sites have more than 1,000 households and these account for 29% of the displaced people. Two of those are in Pétion Ville, the town nearest to me. The commune (like a county) of Delmas, which is very close to the heart of downtown, has the highest concentration of displaced persons. There are 200 camps, 11 of which accommodate more than 1,000 families; and with a total of 315,500 homeless persons (19% of all displaced persons) in the camps. The map below gives you an idea of the immensity of the problem. The darkest red is the commune of Delmas near the downtown:

Water and hygiene facilities
The WASH teams have been working overtime to help meet these needs; and despite less than required levels of water and hygiene facilities in the camps, no waterborne infections have been reported--truly God’s grace and a testimony to how carefully the Haitian people work at managing these scarce resources. But the teams believe that they should be able to add enough latrines to provide 1 for every 100 persons by October, a very decent figure. Nonetheless, the teams caution that although the WASH surveillance may be able to be suspended in a few months in the rural areas, It will need to continue for another year or two within PAP, because of the scarcity of resources.

Insecurity and personal safety
One of the most unpleasant parts of the camps has been the insecurity. A couple weeks ago, the National Police teamed up with the UN troops (called MINUSTAH here) in an early morning raid on one of the large camps in the commune of Delmas. About 30 persons believed to be thieves were apprehended, some were escaped prisoners from the national penitentiary whose walls were damaged in the earthquake.

Another part of the insecurity relates to teens and young women who are being forced into sexual relationships. With many family members either dead or dispersed, these young people are particularly vulnerable. Security has increased in the camps, but it is still a concern.

Pregnancy and STIs
Along with the concern about personal safety is a very sharp rise in the number of pregnancies. This has not yet been measured to my knowledge, but we have all noticed the large number of young women walking about in the earlier stages of pregnancy. Of course, if one is vulnerable to pregnancy, there is also a significant risk for sexually transmitted infection, like HIV. In fact, health providers in some of the camps have noted a higher than national average prevalence among the camp dwellers--though it is uncertain whether this is a cluster effect (a higher number of infected persons who just happen to be living in the same camp) or a real increase in prevalence.

Population growth
Along with these concerns, the US Census Bureau released its population projections for Haïti this week. It estimates that the Haitian population is currently 9.6 million (last census in 2003 showed 7.9 million)—and that’s taking into account the loss of about 230,000 persons to the earthquake. The Bureau predicts that the persons killed in the earthquake will be replaced within 2 years; and that the population will continue to grow at a rate of 1% per year, reaching 13.4 million by 2050. Yikes! It’s hard to feed everyone as it is!

Temporary homes
Some of the tents and tarps have been damaged by the large and frequent rains we’ve been having and will need to be replaced. As I mentioned in the last update, people are starting to add more permanent fixtures to their very temporary shelters, like tin doors, wood framing, and the like. Roughly about 2,500 temporary homes (more like a regular home and built to last at least 3 years) have been constructed; but these are mostly in the more rural areas. The picture below shows the situation at hand:

Debris

The Shelter Cluster estimates that all in all there are about 19 million m3 of debris to remove—a m3 is basically the size of a pallet--so that much debris would fill 19,000 warehouses like ours, and we have one of the largest in Haïti! All in all, about 125,000 temporary homes are expected to have been constructed by this time next year, the huge majority of them in the metropolitan PAP area.

Home Structural Assessments
Houses are still being evaluated in order to help persons resettle in their own homes. About 130,000 of the estimated 188,000 damaged homes have been assessed and a good portion are ‘green’, meaning that they can be lived in without first undergoing repairs. Roughly half of the homes that have been assessed as ‘green’ are being inhabited.

The engineers have been reminding families that the homes evaluated as yellow will need some relatively minor repairs to be able to be inhabited; AND that not all those that have been assessed as ‘red’ will have to be torn down! A good number may still be able to be salvaged with the right kind of earthquake resistant technology applied. Now that’s good news! As of right now, 46% have been assessed as ‘green’, another 30% as ‘yellow’, and the rest as ‘red’. The engineers estimate that about 500,000 persons will be able to return to properly repaired homes.

Food
Although food rations are no longer being distributed, there is good news on the horizon! The spring harvest looks like it will be rather productive, which will both increase the availability of food staples as well as decrease the price. The maps below give an idea of the projections concerning the availability of food for the next few months (yes, green is good!). This is very heartening because prices continue to be well above pre-earthquake level—roughly 25% more.

MAY 2010 AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010

Jobs
Another brighter star on the horizon. The food for work programs are not only helping to clear the rubble, clean out canals to avoid lowland flooding, and repair rural roads; these 100,000+ people are receiving a reasonable wage with which to help support their families. The need for this kind of work will be there for quite some time in the future, along with labor for reconstruction; and this should significantly help to re-establish families.

But the financial losses have been great here. One thing that helps Haitian people to get by on such limited income is that they do not need to pay great sums for living quarters. But modest sized homes that used to cost perhaps $2,500 per year to rent are now going for $500/month; that is more than the average middle class Haitian person earns in a month! Housing relief, and not just the temporary shelters, must be made a major priority in order to be able to stabilize the country.

Non-profit organizations
Again a reminder: the Government of Haïti is asking all 1,000+ NGOs operating within the country to register. The registration must be renewed every 6 months. If you would like more information on any Government-related business in Haïti, I’d encourage you to either become a member of the NGO Coordination Support at www.oneresponse.info or contact them directly for at ngocoordinationsupport@gmail.com

Some more subjects of prayer:
For everyone’s personal safety, especially for the young and the vulnerable
That food and housing will indeed begin to be affordable, and at levels to meet everyone’s need
That reconstruction can proceed well:
Settling of the land ownership issues
No longer be hindered by such high prices—some materials are up about 50% over pre-earthquake prices, even though there is no shortage
Driving:
That the rains and floods will not do any more damage to roads
That the road damage will be promptly repaired so that it does not take forever, and at risk of life and limb, to travel to and from normal activities. Video games have nothing on the ‘real deal,’ take-your-life-in-your-hands events that regularly occur on the roads here!
That the Lord will give us grace to deal with those few but significant numbers of persons who do not believe that laws were meant for the well-being of everyone. It adds greatly to the stress to share narrow, broken down roads with others who ignore the danger they put themselves, as well as the rest of us, in.

Thanks…and blessings on you!

Judith d'Amico

May/June Family Update

2010-07-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

Home Again!!!

Thursday morning (June 17) we hit the road at the crack of dawn. We drove from Orlando, FL where we had spent the past week with my brother and family down to Fort Lauderdale to catch our flight to Haiti. In spite of a delayed start and multiple things we needed to do along the way we arrived at the airport with an hour to spare. After a short hour-and-a-half flight we arrived in Port au Prince with all of our luggage….YAY!!!

The Same but Different

Dieseus, one of MAF’s newest employees, helped us get our luggage and brought a car for us to take home. Our eyes were glued to the windows as we drove toward home through the streets that we had not seen for five months. Memories came flooding back. Much has been cleared away and either repaired or rebuilt. A few tell-tale buildings still lean or lay in a heap, but a surprising amount of rubble is gone. What were once big open plazas and yards are now covered with tarp shanties and tents. We were so glad to get home and see our neighbors and find out about a few more people that we had not heard about. Natasha, my veggie lady, is alive and well, and the other day at the grocery store I met a guy who was one of the managers at our old grocery store….the one that collapsed.

It was kind of strange to come back and find our same car, our same house, our same neighbors…..so many things the same but with subtle changes. There are still ants and dust everywhere. Water, electricity, communications and fuel are still things that need to be carefully monitored and managed. Haiti mangoes are still amazing!!....and plentiful. Sugar is still sticky and cereal still soggy because of the humidity. Yet my plants are all healthy and big. The kids’ turtle has about doubled in size since we left in January and loves to swim. The MAF guys have found new routes to and from work. Our little church has gotten some new benches, and it is still one of my favorite places to go in this city. God is so faithful. He is constant but always relevant, even in the middle of big changes.

Then and Now

Besides the blessing of being back home, some of the highlights during the past couple months were the birth of my little nephew Paul David Kahle Jr., the kids finishing the school year with good grades, visiting Todd’s cousin and Yellowstone on the way out to ID with my parents, spending a week in Nampa, ID with friends and family, and then taking the kids to Disney before coming back here (got to see my sis Sarah and her daughter while in FL, too!!). We really appreciate all of the love and encouragement we felt when we were both in TN and ID (and from other friends around the country).

Now Todd is back to work at the hangar, and the kids and I are busy getting reacquainted with friends again before school begins in the fall. It has been encouraging to see T-shirts and billboards with optimistic statements about rebuilding. Please pray for continued motivation toward that end as time passes.

*Pictures--#1 our road

#2-4 buildings and stores around town

#5 fun at the ID cabin with both sets of grandparents (my parents' first visit to ID)

#6 Todd with his new nephew

#7 Lorelei, Megan, Audrey and Kyle at Epcot

#8 sister in law Rose and me at a soccer tournament :)

To Fetch a Pail of Water

2010-07-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

In the US I am a "drink water from the tap" kind of a girl, but in other countries I have always used filtered water in order to avoid unnecessary sickness. When we were in Pignon (Piyon) doing language school it was complicated to buy water, so we began using a clay filter which has always done great. Here in Port, our house water comes from rain water which is collected on our house's flat concrete roof (picture of our neighbor's roof which collects water). While Todd was in the States this last time, the drain got plugged with leaves and debris, so water pooled on the roof and began growing organic things. It smelled funny when it came out of the faucet, so we added chlorine. The clay filter is ineffective if the water to filter is chlorinated, so we began using another ceramic filter (pictured). Todd is planning to clean out the cistern today, but since we have a guest staying with us and I did not entirely trust the integrity of the water I decided to buy a couple 5 gallon jugs of water from the grocery store last night.
The store is just a few blocks away, but I had forgotten the process of buying water and why I love our filter so much. First of all, you have to take your own jugs. Unfortunately, ours were still in the kitchen. I thought I would save time by going inside the store to buy the few groceries I needed and at the same time purchase 2 water tickets that you hand to the guy outside dispensing the water jugs. The cashier said that was not possible if I did not have my jugs. So I paid for my things, drove home, got my jugs, and went back. I handed my jugs to the water dispenser guy, but unfortunately I had the wrong kind of jug.....Culligan instead of five other kinds that they had. Never knew anyone cared about that.... Fortunately I asked him where they sell Culligan, and he directed me to a pharmacy right across the street. I got their last two bottles!! :) Ahhhhh!!!

GOOOOLLLLLL!!!!! The universal word for joy :)

2010-06-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

World Cup has arrived!!! so streets, buildings and even people’s clothes are decorated with their favorite country’s team flag or at least colors. In front of the place where our street pops out onto the main drag, the divider in the middle of the road is even painted green and yellow for Brazil, one of the favorite soccer teams here in Haiti. Further down Delmas (that same main street) someone has strung hundreds of yellow and green soda bottles across the road as a canopy and added Brazil, Argentina and Haiti flags. Sunday afternoon we met with a couple of happy crowds celebrating Brazil’s victory. A couple guys on a motorcycle with Argentina jerseys even were joining in the joy.

During World Cup we have heard that we should get lots of city power….meaning about 15 hrs per day!! We have still been trying to conserve power and survive on energy generated by our solar panels, but we were really thankful to have city power (EDH) for washing our clothes from the trip and all of the kids’ clothes that had gotten so filthy during our months away.

Wednesday morning I saw four guys messing with our neighbor’s power pole. This made me a little nervous since last fall someone from the power company came and just took our power meter even though I showed them the receipt saying that we had paid our bill. Maybe they had run out of meters and someone else more important wanted one??? Yet these guys seemed to be installing a meter, and one of them had a hard hat and looked official, so I did not ask any questions. Since our power went out right about that time, I suspected that those guys really had done something after all, but it was much more serious than cut wires. No sooner had they driven off in their EDH truck than George (Crismen’s husband who sweeps leaves for us) came and told Julie (our across the street neighbor) that a big truck had pulled the high voltage electricity wires, and that the road was blocked. The pole fell, but that was soon cleared out of the way. Now as we wait for power to be restored we are thankful for solar power which allows us to run fans and keep our refrigerator and MAF internet running.

(Just saw the guys working on several power poles!!!! Hopefully electricity will be back soon.)

Creole Service in Nashville

2010-04-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago I found out that a Haitian congregation meets at Nashville First CON. It was just amazing to discover that although we are a thousand miles from home, brothers and sisters of the same "lang" (language) are meeting just an hour away. After several attempts to find out details about when and where services were being held, I spoke with a very nice church secretary a couple weeks ago who told me they have services on Sunday mornings at 9AM and Sunday evenings at 5PM.
By around 8:00 yesterday (Sunday) morning, the kids and I were on the road to Nashville. Knowing that in both Latin and Haitian churches (and probably many others) it is customary for guests to say a word to the congregation, the kids and I began thinking of maybe a chorus to sing in Creole. Memorized songs can actually be easier than impromptu greetings because you have all of the correct words memorized. :)
Sunday school actually started at 9:00, so the three of us joined the ladies' class....although since Kyle and Megan discovered that most of the kids speak English they might be tempted to the children's class next time. Of course it took a minute to remember some of the proper greetings.....Bon jou. Ki jan ou ye? Bondye bene ou..... The ladies were very kind, and pretty soon we found our Creole tongues again. :) The lesson was on Acts 1:1-14 and focused on our "Jerusalem"....ministering to the people who are around us...being content to wait in our Jerusalem even when the situation is difficult.
We moved on to church and ended up sitting next to one of the tambourine players. :) Of course the singing is one thing I miss most about our church in Haiti. This congregation projects the words of the songs they sing onto the wall, so we could sing along even though we did not have our Chants D' Esperance song book. The most meaningful thing was when four teen girls sang "Because He Lives" in English and Creole. That brought back memories of a sound byte Todd's cousin "accidentally" captured of displaced quake victims singing the same hymn on the Nazarene campus one night in February.
http://www.nazarenemedialibrary.org/MediaView.aspx?mediaId=3479e093-7de7-41af-af1c-6ea27362bcc9
The message was from John 5 about the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda, especially focusing on Jesus' question, "Do you want to get well?"
What a special time of fellowship we had after the service, too. It was fun to see people sticking around to visit. Although the kids still do not know enough Creole to understand the whole service, people did take time to use a little English and talk to them about the things they do know.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with Todd's younger brother and family. We never seem to have pictures of those cousins playing together, and yesterday I figured out the reason!! They do not stand still long enough for us to get anything more than a blur. :) Megan has a great time dressing up with the youngest, Sally. Kyle, Brent and Zach are usually building forts out of blankets, chasing each other with plastic swords or chasing the squealy girls. Dale and Rose (the parents) are our all-time favorite game-playing friends (although the Whites in Haiti were becoming close rivals for that position before we left), and we can usually twist Samantha's arm to play with us. She is such a sweetie.....even though she officially became a teenager last year. Yikes! We are thankful for all of the family God has placed around us and allowed us to spend more time with recently.

Singing

2010-04-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning, my heart bursting with praise. Old hymns like "Such Love," "Constantly Abiding" and "He Lives" and choruses like, "God Will Make a Way" just came from nowhere! Does every day start so joyfully and optimistically? Not necessarily. But I am discovering that joy and contentment are more of a choice than I ever before realized. The hope and grace God offers us with each new day is amazing. I do feel sad for those, both Christians and not, who cannot see past rules and the failures of others to experience these blessings. What if our kids were like that....not able to see our great love for them because we do not let them play in the street or eat only chocolate for breakfast? Anyway, I'm thankful for His grace and strength when we are weary.
There are moments of weariness along the road Todd, the kids and I are traveling these days, but there are also times of needed renewal. I know that is true for everyone, regardless of whether you are being faithful at the daily grind or find yourself strangely displaced from "normal." This difficult separation from Todd has allowed us to spend more time with my family and has probably made us appreciate each other and time together even more than before. It has certainly given me a new level of respect for all of the wives and kids left behind when their husbands deploy for a year at a time with the military!

Thanks to everyone who continues to pray for the MAF guys in Haiti and of course all of those still left with scars from the earthquake (jobs, houses and/or loved ones lost, emotional and physical injuries, little or no shelter as the rains begin.....). The overall picture in Haiti seems to have improved significantly since the quake hit, but there are still many hurdles facing those involved in the rebuilding process. It seems that a longer-term plan is being created, stores and markets have re-opened, limited electricity has returned to much of the city, debris has been cleared in many areas... However, just yesterday there were long lines at the gas pumps due to rumors of expected fuel shortages for up to several weeks. It seems that for ever two steps forward there is a step backward. Please pray that government officials and others seeking quick wealth and power would not prohibit the relief efforts but that everyone would be able to find a way to help their neighbor rebuild the country. It will be a slow process, but we are grateful to so many who have given time or money to send relief supplies down. Continue to pray for God to use this bad situation for good.

Korean/American Easter

2010-04-16T11:25:00.000-07:00

When our neighbor had a sleepover for the kids in her Korean Sunday School class, she invited Kyle and Megan, too. They had a great time staying up nearly all night, meeting new friends. When we were all leaving the next morning, someone invited Kyle and Megan to participate in their Easter party/egg hunt in a few weeks.
We went but got lost on the way and missed the actual egg hunt. When we finally arrived some of the other kids shared what they had collected, and all was well. Lunch was a combination of American roasted hotdogs and hamburgers and a yummy Korean rice dish. Boy, can those ladies cook!! After lunch everyone roasted marshmallows on the grill. It was fun to hear how-to explanations for the first-timers in both languages. :) All of the kids played a very cooperative game of soccer with the young and old alike, and when we were leaving they invited us to a birthday party the next week. :) Very sweet group....
Todd was with us for a gorgeous Easter Sunday and then flew back to Haiti the next day. We are looking forward to seeing him again in two more weeks!!

Nashville Cousins, Creeks & Bikes

2010-04-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

One weekend Todd was here, he and the kids visited his brother Dale and family in Nashville while I worked on homework. They went to a park to ride bikes, and although Kyle had practically no experience riding without training wheels he quickly found his balance and had a great time. Bridges apparently made him nervous, and one time he and the bike tumbled into a shallow creek, but he was soon on his feet and back to riding. His cousin Zach let him bring the bike back here to Clarksville to practice. Kyle is now super-speedy and can even do some little tricks now. Due to her brother's encouragement and some healthy competition, Megan has learned to ride, too!!

Time Out

2010-04-16T09:56:00.000-07:00

The Monday morning after our big family weekend, we took the kids to school and then Todd and I headed to Gatlinburg for a couple nights. Mom and dad were AWESOME!! They negotiated schedules to accommodate school bus pick-ups and drop-offs, helped with homework, and took very good care of the grandkids. :) That was a great time for Todd and me just to talk and spend some time together. There was so much that I found out about Todd and the MAF/Haiti situation and so many things that I had forgotten to mention to him, too. We also had time to talk about deeper concerns, joys, expectations, anticipations, plans.... all of the things that get pushed aside as you deal with daily life.
Tuesday we woke up late and drove through the mountains and trees on the winding Blue Ridge Parkway on back roads that I am almost certain we took one time on Todd's motorcycle when we lived in East TN. We hiked a while on some beautiful trails, saw waterfalls....
Wed. we woke up EARLY and drove to our former home in Elizabethton, something we had not planned to do until we saw that it was only about another hr. and a half from where we were. Of course we wished that we would have had more time, but we did see both of our former land-ladies and several other friends in the few hrs we were there and made it back before the kids' bedtime that night. :)

Family

2010-04-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

The past three months here have really flown! As I have mentioned before, family and friends have really come beside us and filled in the gaps. We are so thankful. Todd's last visit was very special. He flew from Haiti to ID and was able to spend a couple days with his parents and grandparents and even got to attend our home church before driving our van (which Todd's parents have taken care of while we have been gone) to TN for us to use here. He made the trip in a day and a half, with only one 5-hr snooze at a rest area. Gotta love books on CD!! He got here late Tues night during the kids' week-long spring break.
That weekend my sister Sarah and family came up for a conference her husband Craig had to attend in Nashville. It was great to have all of my siblings and the cousins on my side together. We celebrated Dorothy's birthday and the kids had a big sleepover one night, although we did manage to get a few hrs of sleep. :) Lots of great extended family time!!!

MAF in Haiti

2010-02-27T18:36:00.001-08:00

As Todd arrived back in Haiti he found the chaos a little more structured as MAF’s role in the relief work shifts as the population’s needs shift. As regular commercial flights have begun to operate, the need to handle large numbers of international passengers (in cooperation with Missionary Flights International) is diminishing. As more aid is able to arrive via the seaports, less needs to be airlifted in. We are still making many flights each day to take food out to remote areas that are trying to support large groups of displaced people. Currently the MAF program has been loaned two turbo prop airplanes, both brand new Quest Kodiaks. They have allowed MAF-Haiti to haul a much greater quantity of food and people. One of the Kodiaks is an MAF aircraft ultimately destined for Papua, Indonesia. The other Kodiak belongs to Samaritan’s Purse and will be operating in Haiti through the end of March (thanks, Franklin). Todd got his first taste of turbine maintenance today as he learned how to do compressor washes.

Thanks for keeping our family and our ministry in your prayers. God’s hand on us has been especially tangible over these last weeks.

Carnaval Canceled

2010-02-27T18:35:00.001-08:00

One amazing thing that we heard from friends was that the Carnaval celebration which is usually HUGE was practically cancelled as the entire nation was called by the president to pray for three days. Churches were packed, and the prayer and praise overflowed into the streets. Oh, how I pray for a change and rebuilding that will come from the inside, that will leave behind the past bondage to fear and allow the country of Haiti to rise from the rubble stronger than ever. I know that God can bring peace in the midst of the storm, a sense of untity and solidarity instead of blaming and division, honesty and integrity instead of an opportunity to exploit other's generosity.... What a chance for Christians to offer hope and help! Pray for Haiti's children and youth, especially.

Adjusting…but Remembering

2010-02-27T17:36:00.000-08:00

We continue to adjust to life here, and our routine seems to become more “normal” each day. However, there is always a little tinge of sadness that gnaws at my heart in spite of our great blessings here. I know that the rainy season is creeping closer and closer each day, also bringing the possibilities of hurricanes and tropical storms. Right now the little tents made of sheets are keeping some people out of the rains that have begun, but we all know that they will not be sufficient..... News media seems to have moved on to new stories, but it does make me happy to still see signs of people here, so many miles away, still remembering. The kids' school is having a contest to raise money for Haiti relief this week. Our church is still collecting items for "Crisis Care Kits" (contains things like soap, toothpaste/brush, washcloth, shampoo...). The tremors continue, and recently there have been some strong ones that have caused new damage to buildings that withstood the original quake.

Todd’s Visit

2010-02-27T17:35:00.001-08:00

Todd left for FL Monday, and by Tues. afternoon he was back in Haiti. We enjoyed almost three weeks with him here in Clarksville!! He was here for three of the kids' snow days, so they enjoyed some nice snowball fights. He had individual "dates" with Megan, Kyle and me, and then some time when we were all together. He was also here for important days like my mom's 65th birthday, Valentines Day and the SUPER BOWL!!! It was just the right amount of time for him to catch up on rest and enjoy some time with his brother and family in Nashville and my family here in Clarksville. Of course the ideal would be for us to all be together, but we know that this temporary arrangement is best for all.

Spring

2010-02-27T05:39:00.000-08:00

The first signs of spring are visible here in Clarksville, TN, in spite of a few white patches of stubborn snow that refuse to melt. Although I do not expect real warm weather for another couple months, the temperature is slowly rising and the annual "bulbs" are starting to push through the frozen ground. Change, change, change......
The kids are doing well in school and are making friends. The public library is just across the street from their school, so we have gotten a membership and have been reading in the car, at home... Last night we started on Little House in the Big Woods, a Laura Ingalls Wilder book (the first in the Little House on the Prarie series) that I remember reading as a kid. :) Just behind their school is a learning center, which I visited for the first time this morning. It is packed full of all kinds of learning games and resources. So as we use our community resources to the max, I am hoping that learning will become even more fun for them.
Along with all of this learning, the kids are enjoying exploration in my parents' woods, playing with their Clarksville and Nashville cousins, and all of the special attention from their uncles, aunts and grandparents. Two of my brothers are expecting babies in the next few months, so soon there will be new little friends around!!

MAF-Haiti Disaster Response

2010-02-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

I (Todd) have been back in the states for a few days, now. It has been so wonderful to see Jennifer and the kids. I didn’t realize how tired I was, but discovered that most of the nights spent here don’t seem to be long enough. I think I am beginning to catch up on my sleep now.

MAF’s involvement in the relief efforts in Haiti has been multi-faceted. Our initial response was more that of survivors. In the first days after the earthquake we were not sure how soon we would have access to things like groceries, fuel for vehicles & generators, water, propane for cooking, and school for our kids. The exterior security walls around the properties of two of our families’ houses had fallen. Each MAF family had various amounts of the staples needed to survive. It was decided that the wise decision would be to move most of the staff and families back to their home areas before we reached a crisis point. We kept enough personnel to fly our three aircraft out of the country if we felt they were endangered. I also stayed on in an I.T. role to handle any communication problems we might have with our internet satellite link, which was our only link to the U.S. in the first hours after the quake.

Our families flew out on Missionary Flights International’s (MFI) turbine DC-3. This flight kind of marked our transition from earthquake survivors to relief workers as that same plane brought in an initial wave of supplies and people responding to the earthquake. In partnership with MFI, we were soon coordinating flights, cargo, and people on the Haiti side of relief operations. Various businesses such as Hendrick’s Motorsports donated their aircraft to fly people in and out of Haiti. Airplanes ranging in size from Cessna Caravans to C-130’s brought thousands of pounds of cargo. By the time I left we had handled roughly 2500 passengers and 500,000 lbs of cargo

. With the start-up of the NASCAR racing season, we no longer have the use of the Hendrick’s and Joe Gibbs Racing aircraft, but the stream of cargo and passengers continues.

It was several days after the earthquake before avgas for our little MAF airplanes was available. The fact that some of the cargo aircraft that were coming in to Haiti are four-engine avgas burners (DC-3’s, DC-4, & DC-6) meant that the local supply of avgas was soon exhausted. We had been able to store some avgas in drums and flew a few drums in (very expensive), but this has meant limited operations for our Cessna 206 and 207’s. We have been able to respond to many requests for food, transportation of the injured, and movement of medical personal. Most of our flying for regular passengers has been very limited. Fortunately, MAF was able to loan us one of the new Quest Kodiaks that are just being integrated into the worldwide MAF fleet. This aircraft uses Jetfuel which is much more readily available. It also can haul significantly more cargo and people. From the day it arrived it has been invaluable for helping meet the demand for flights within the country of Haiti. Currently I am scheduled to rotate back to Haiti on February 22. The plan is that I will be working to support our in-country operations (Cessna and Kodiak flights).

I want to extend a huge thank you for the tremendous outpouring of concern and prayer, and the many other ways you have supported us over these last few weeks. We continue to see God’s hand at work.

Working Together

2010-01-25T11:43:00.000-08:00

I LOVE to see the networking that takes place between different groups and individuals to accomplish the most good. Here is a story about a flight that Will White (pilot pictured here) and Mark Williams took a few days ago.

This morning MAF had been scheduled to take a team of doctors to Pignon. The night before, someone called and cancelled the flight, so we were not expecting to do it and did not go in early. The doctors showed up about 9am and I told them they would have to wait until after a flight that was previously scheduled. We had arranged for a film crew to fly to the island of La Gonave. We were dropping off food supplies and picking up a team that was inspecting the Wesleyan hospital for damage from the earthquake.

When we arrived at La Gonave, Dan Irvine, the director of the mission, said he had a 9-year-old girl whose feet had BOTH been crushed in the earthquake. The hospital on the island had done all they could and they needed to find an orthopedic doctor in Port au Prince (PAP) for surgery. According to Dan her feet looked like "ground beef" and if infection set in would be fatal quickly. I agreed to wait for her to show up at the plane.

On the flight back, Dan was sitting next to me. Knowing the huge strain on the field hospitals in PAP, I was not hopeful of the girl finding an ortho unit to perform surgery. I asked Dan about it and he said he thought he had a contact that might help.

As I was flying back I started to think about the doctors that were waiting for me in PAP. I seemed sure they had said they were orthopedic surgeons. When we arrived in PAP, I taxied to my parking place and ALL of the doctors were standing right next to the plane with all their supplies. I told Dan I thought that they were an ortho team and introduced them to each other. In no time the team was examining the girl and making plans to take her directly to the Pignon hospital. We removed the girl from the plane to fuel it, and they were able to start an IV and examine her more thoroughly.

After loading the plane I was able to fly 3 doctors, the girl and her mother to Pignon. I asked the doctors to let me know how the surgery went and to follow up about her. It was so exciting to see how God worked the events of the day to bring these two groups together. I was humbled to be a part of it.

Will White; MAF Pilot, Haiti
January 22, 2010

Details.....Then and Now

2010-01-22T21:44:00.000-08:00

When the earthquake hit....
.....Megan was in the neighbor’s front yard playing with their daughter Abby. Kyle was out sliding on the slippery cement around the pool. Jennifer was in the kitchen. I was up an extension ladder at a power pole installing split-bolts to improve our Program Manager’s electrical connection to his house. A neighbor grabbed Abby and Megan and hugged them tightly. Kyle started into the house but met Jennifer as she exited. I swayed like an inverted pendulum along with the transformer next to me. Fortunately I had a good, strong hand-hold before the shake started, and with Mark and Amber Williams holding the ladder I was able to climb down without falling (although I was afraid Mark was going to rip me off the ladder when I got down within his reach J).

The Damage.......and the Decision
The aftershocks were frequent and strong. Most people slept in the street or their yards for the next several nights. Damage to our house was minimal. A structural engineer is supposed to come and look at the MAF houses tonight. Damage to the contents of our house was also quite minimal. Books fell off shelves and stuff fell off counters. Our TV fell to the ground but seems to be functioning. Water sloshed out of all the toilet tanks. The only glass to clean up turned out to be a poor ceramic snowman in Megan’s room who hadn’t been put away from the holidays yet. The kids were troopers, very helpful, very flexible, and very well behaved as we sorted out the situation and tried to form a plan of action. The MAF staff took stock of our situation, the food on hand, water in cisterns, fuel in the vehicles, fuel for generators, propane gas for cooking. Unsure of how long it might take to open a supply line, and how quickly the stability of the general population could deteriorate, the decision was made Wednesday evening to “drawn down” our staff to just enough to fly out our aircraft if need be. I also was selected to stay behind to help make sure our communications system stayed open. Our satellite internet link remained online throughout the crisis, which was initially our only form to communicate with the outside world. It was so comforting to know that family had been notified quickly that everyone was okay.

Leaving Port
We reserved space with Missionary Flights International for 23 people to leave Port-au-Prince on Thursday afternoon. Because of the massive amount of air traffic that had begun to arrive, there was very limited space to park airplanes and the MFI aircraft was not permitted to finish its flight into Haiti. Those coming in on the aircraft spent the night in Turks and Caicos. MFI was given a new “slot” for Thursday morning. By the time we arrived at the airport, their slot had again been denied and they landed in the northern Haiti city of Cap Hatien. After talking our situation over with the tower, they agree to let us park in the general aviation area.

Open Doors
This began what has been a pretty good system for getting MFI relief flights (workers and cargo) in and US Citizens out. Hendrick Motorsports (NASCAR) has been a phenomenal help as they have partnered with MFI to bring relief workers in and so many people out. Today they will complete their 12th and 13th flights into Haiti with their 45 passenger aircraft. Besides MFI’s own DC-3’s, we have unloaded a DC-6, a DC-4, and a C-130. Lots of supplies are coming in. It is gratifying to see our staging area pretty much empty at the end of the day as partner organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse and Operation Blessing keep the distribution going. With MFI’s consent we have held back a small amount of food and water which we distribute to the many people inside the airport who have approached us for food to eat. We also have been able to provide MRE’s (the military’s Meals Ready to Eat) to some of the police and security around the airport. Hopefully this has allowed them to do their jobs better, especially since these were the first meals some had been able to find following the earthquake.

Todd's Role
My initial role in the operations has been as the MAF liaison with the Air Force personnel in the tower. As our system has become more finely tuned, that role is no longer very time consuming. I have today off so that I can start up with MAF aircraft maintenance tomorrow. We’ve not done as much MAF flying as we might normally, since our staff has been pulled in a lot of different directions coordinating all of the relief flights coming in. We are trying to ramp that up, however. Avgas, the type of fuel that our airplanes use is in short supply, so our flying may continue to be limited. We are hoping to fly in some barrels of avgas with MFI. We are also expecting the arrival today of one of the new MAF Kodiak airplanes, which uses the plentiful Jet Fuel. As I type, they have arrived at MFI in Fort Pierce.

As someone “on the ground” in Haiti, I’ve been able to be the eyes and ears for several people trying to contact others here in Haiti. A friend from my years living in Ecuador works with HCJB Global, which offers consultation and technical assistance to Christian radio stations around the world. They had an engineer here helping out with Radio Luminere’s Stereo92, and had limited contact with him. My friend was able to give me the location of this engineer and the two people from Taylor University who were also working with him. I met up with them and was able to leave them some water and a bit of food in case they ran out. They eventually got back up the mountain to stay with their host family. Over the next few days they were able to coordinate the departure of their engineer on one of the MFI flights, thanks to the help of Baptist Haiti Mission and a medical team from HCJB Global. Taylor University also recommended that their two people (a professor who had previously lived in Haiti and a student who had come with him) exit as soon as they could safely and practically do so. When they were able to get back down to the radio station, MAF connected up with them and gave them a ride down to catch an MFI-coordinated (Hendrick) flight out.

God's Timing
The other people that I’ve been in contact with are a couple who are with the Navy, living in Italy. They’ve been in the process of adopting two Haitian siblings for a long time. The adoption was finalized but they had not yet received the passports. I met the family back in November when they were visiting the children, after Jennifer sat next to the sister of one of the adoptive parents on the airplane while flying up for Hannah’s wedding (Jennifer’s sister). Two days ago Julie, the adopting mother, was able to get into the country and I saw her at the airport. The last I’d heard around noon yesterday she still had been unable to actually connect up with the children. Keep praying for her as she finds/comforts the children and tries to get the necessary permission to take the kids back to the U.S. She mentioned to me that it has been exciting to see God work out the details for her to even get to Haiti. She was proceeding with boldness, knowing that God is in control.

*Picture captions:
1 A home ripped apart--not ours!!!
2 The four of us together as we were waiting to leave on MFI's flight that did not come in....nice to have a little more time together
3 The 23 MAF staff/families who came back to the US for a time, standing in front of the Hobe Sound Bible College bus after going through customs in FL
4 A Hendrick Motorsports flight crew gets ready to depart Port-au-Prince
5 MFI chartered a DC-6 to bring supplies in for Samaritan’s Purse
6 Will White taxis for departure to La Gonave carrying food
7 Food for an orphanage is loaded onto a pickup. We met the gentleman in the foreground while on deputation in Alum Bank, PA

Todd's Earthquake Notes--First Impressions

2010-01-22T18:50:00.000-08:00

As the shaking and the roar of the earthquake subsides, the cries of thousands of people rise. At the end of our street two houses down is a ravine with hundreds of houses built in a maze. I expect to see many of them flattened as I run over to look. In fact, none seem to have been significantly damaged. "That must not have been as strong as I thought,” I decide. Before long the dull roar of people excitedly chattering is drowned out by wailing and screaming, coming from all sides. We survey the damage to a neighbor’s house. Several of the perimeter walls around his house have fallen. His cistern is still quite full, but his fears will come true as over the next few hours fissures will drain it completely. We look up the mountain and see great clouds of dust. Down the mountain are more. Word begins arriving. “Caribbean Market has collapsed!” No, surely not. That’s where we do our main shopping. At 5 pm it would be packed with people. The story must be exaggerated. Then come aftershocks. The yells and screams crescendo. Soon, the sound of hymns being sung can be heard. Members of a nearby church have gathered and are singing praise to God. They probably sing their praises for a variety of reasons. I am sure they are just happy to be alive. Some probably sing because it brings a tiny bit of calm to their spirit. Most sing because of hope. They have faith that God is in control. They have faith that even if they were to perish, their eternity with Jesus is secure. Faith with expectations is hope. Jesus is our Hope.

The reality for the bulk of the suffering people is that they do not have hope in Jesus. Some just hope for food this day. Many hope that their missing family and friends might miraculously turn up. Others hope that government can begin to function and control can be established. These hopes might be fulfilled but they will ultimately be empty. Please pray for the millions in Haiti, both Haitians and foreigners, that somehow through this tragedy they might find Hope.

*Pictured here is our former grocery store, Caribbean Market, quite flattened.

2010-01-20T20:38:00.000-08:00

Each of the MAF guys who are down in Haiti right now has a different job they have been assigned to help coordinate. Todd has been working with the guys in the "tower" to get MFI aircraft into Haiti. Not much of a tower, just a table in the grass. Today Todd delivered a couple packs of donuts to keep them happy. :)
Here are some pictures taken by Will White showing him working with the military guys who are in charge of all of the air traffic at this point. These are pictures of Todd, but I know Will, Mark, Michael, and John & David are all doing a great job coordinating the logistics of the flights into Port and then the MAF flights into different areas of the country.
Please keep praying for their strength, wisdom and peace and they function on reduced amounts of sleep and increased amounts of stress. I talked to Todd this morning and he still seems very positive and upbeat and mentioned that the other guys seemed to be doing well, too.

Recognize this first little guy????

2010-01-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

Here is a video about MFI's first 72 hrs of disaster response, mostly showing the MAF families leaving Haiti. Since then they have been coordinating with different groups to get supplies down and evacuate other families.

http://www.missionaryflights.org/field-reports/146-mfi-haiti-relief-the-first-72-hours-on-video

How to Help

2010-01-20T11:23:00.000-08:00

Thanks so much to all who have called and written in the past few days. Our hearts are heavy for the people left to pick up the pieces after everything was shaken and so much was destroyed in moments last Tuesday.

A few easy places to help with earthquake relief in Haiti.....

MAF has established a satellite communications center at the Port-au-Prince airport, allowing relief agencies to effectively communicate with those in and outside of Haiti. The MAF hangar has become a logistics point for aid organizations bringing food, water, medicines, and other relief supplies into this devastated country. MAF relief flights transport teams of medical and relief workers to remote areas. You can donate toward the MAF Haiti Disaster and Recovery Fund and see on-location pictures at http://www.maf.org/news/earthquake-haiti-2010.

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Needed supplies can be ordered at this Amazon Store http://astore.amazon.com/olivknolparec-20 and sent to Nazarene Compassionate Ministries at the following address: Nazarene Compassionate Ministries “Church of the Nazarene – Haiti Earthquake Relief.” Obed Santiesteban 310 E. 5th St. Miami, FL 33010

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Mission Flights International (MFI) who brings our mail to us in Haiti each week is using their huge hangar as a clearinghouse for all of the donations that are being routed through them. For those in the Florida area (especially around Fort Pierce) check out MFI's supply list and where drop offs are located: http://www.missionaryflights.org

Medical Assistance--Community Coalition for Haiti

2010-01-20T11:02:00.001-08:00

MAF Assists the Community Coalition for Haiti in Bringing Medical Care to the Injured

From Karen H. Carr, Director, Community Coalition for Haiti
Via John Woodberry
January 19, 2010

With the help of MAF, CCH's (Community Coalition for Haiti) trauma team and medical supplies are in Jacmel helping heal the injured, hurt and hopeless … MAF has been a constant source of hope for all of the relief organizations trying to get supplies and medical personnel into Haiti. For the Haitians who are suffering and those bringing help, hearing the MAF flights overhead gives us more reason to believe that things will recover here and that more help is on the way.

On the ground, gas is running low, but available. There are few medical supplies here except the ones we brought in by MAF. There are several medical teams here, but they are facing treating over 2,000 patients at the hospital and clinic. In the rural areas, thousands more need assistance. Aftershocks were felt this morning and at 3AM. People are still sleeping outside.

Without MAF, our ministry here to those in need in Jesus' name would not be possible. For the lives that have been saved, we owe MAF an eternal debt of gratitude. For those who will hear and see Jesus touching them through our medical volunteers and MAF's efforts, our appreciation on their behalf is infinite.

MAF Communication Team-Disaster Response

2010-01-20T10:43:00.000-08:00

I will be posting more information about the earthquake and response to that. This is a little report from the MAF Communications Team in Haiti, written yesterday, January 19, 2010.
Todd is fine. He is working with four of the other MAF Haiti guys and then a couple others from Nampa Headquarters to coordinate flights into Haiti and then around the country to distribute relief supplies.

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Today, David Hoffman and I removed the GATR system from the World Concern building and brought it back to the airport. The World Concern folks still as yet do not have an infrastructure in place to keep the VSAT system inflated for the night. With the price of gas reaching $10 a gallon in the city and even that is watered down, they don't have the finances to keep the generator going. Each time the GATR system deflates, it must be reinflated and recalibrated which is up to an hour process.

But more importantly, there are more pressing needs of the VSAT system elsewhere. We positioned the system today in the midst of the Search and Rescue groups and are working with Instedd (www.instedd.org). Some of their information about what they are doing is on their webpage. But in a nutshell, they are receiving information in from the Haitians via SMS messages or literally by workers who are roaming the streets and typing in messages. These messages are then encoded onto electronic maps for the UN Disaster Assistance and Coordination (UNDAC) group who then sends out the necessary relief or
Search and Rescue (SAR) teams to the neighborhoods.

Miraculously, two more people were pulled from the rubble today. However, even as I write this, the majority of SAR teams are packing it up tonight and heading back to their respective countries. In the morning, Dave and I will move the VSAT system over to the UNDAC area as they have an urgent need with their Map Action group. Hi resolution satellite images have been collected of the area that they need to download to help plan for the transition from rescue over to relief. We plan on being stationed in the UN compound for the next few days until their own systems can be flown in. We hope that at that time, we can then move back to the World Concern office to assist with the "internet cafe" for other NGOs.

Christmas Letter-2009

2010-01-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Joyeux Noel! Kontan Nwèl!

Wow!!! What a year of newness 2009 has been for our family!! I love new beginnings with all of the joys and challenges they bring. We thank God for His mercy and faithfulness each step of the way. Last year at this time we were out in the province learning Haitian language and culture. We met many wonderful friends and were able to experience village life first-hand. Part of me now misses the freedom the kids had to run all over the camp discovering creatures, the night sounds and sky full of stars, hot and fresh bread when we could get it, driving the little Rhino (about like a golf cart) to town, the boys playing soccer each afternoon, picking grapefruits right off the tree, living simply with about 5 totes worth of stuff in 3 rooms..... Lots of wonderful memories. Now I am thankful for things like a washing machine, a big cistern, floors and a bathroom that I feel like we can scrub clean, SCREENS!!!, a church home, wonderful neighbors, stores, and a car that runs!!! All of the challenges have served to make us appreciate our many blessings.

At the end of February, we returned to Port au Prince to begin city life. Since we were gone to language school for three months, we had left everything in boxes until we returned and were able to paint. With the help of my parents and sister Hannah we were able to complete the task and finally unpack!!! The kids finished out the school year at Quisqueya School, and Todd began work in MAF's hangar at Haiti's national airport. There he stays busy with inspections, parts ordering, and giving the airplanes the TLC they need. Whenever he is home, though, he has a very long list of projects to keep him out of trouble. :)

This summer our whole family visited the States, just at two separate times. The Church of the Nazarene's General Assembly (every 4 yrs.) was in Orlando this year, so the kids and I got to attend. We saw LOTS of family and friends there!! :) Just after we got back, Todd and Michael Broyles ferried a plane across the ocean where they rendezvoused with Frank Gibbs (retired MAF mechanic) in FL to do an engine change on

HH-PTL. Most of the American families with kids around here spent the summer in the States. We missed them but enjoyed the down time to make Haiti our home. Kyle and Megan spent most days in the water, playing together or with other neighbor kids. It was very healing and relaxing for them to wake up "at home" each morning. This fall they were ready to begin classes again, and I was more ready to get involved in the life of the school.

Kyle and Megan have been such little blessings and so much fun to interact with at each stage of their lives, but I feel like we somehow enjoy them more each day. Kyle is still a kind yet adventurous explorer who loves animals and all things related to the study of science. During this past year he has made marked progress in reading and several sports, especially swimming and soccer. Megan enjoys all of the creatures around our house, but she also loves girly things like princess dress-up, dancing, playing dolls, painting her nails and squealing with her friends. :) At the moment, Kyle and Megan have two pets: a turtle named Sunshine and a Beta fish named Fire Prince.

Todd and I practice our Creole every chance we get, so it is rewarding to look back and see how much we have learned this year. You can survive with English here, but our goal is to be able to speak in the “heart language.” I attend both an English and a Spanish Bible study most weeks. It is fun to meet with some ladies who have been following the Lord for a long time and others who are just beginning their journey with Him. We all have something to learn and something to teach. Speaking of learning, I will begin taking online Master's classes in the spring as I work toward becoming certified to teach Spanish. I took the GRE when I was back in the US for my sister Hannah's wedding last month. I got to meet her husband Willian and had a good visit with my family.

We enjoy both our English and Creole churches each Sunday and are thankful for the sermons that our Nampa church posts on-line. More than just filling our week with church services and Bible studies, though, our desire is to grow closer to the Lord each day as we wrestle with how to best show Christ's love to those around us.

We are so thankful for the different churches and Sunday School classes and families who pray for us often and want to send a very special thank-you to all who have taken the time and effort to keep in contact this year whether via email, facebook, letters, care packages, chatting/Skype, or best of all a personal visit. :) Of course we are very aware that without the support of so many back home we would not be able to minister here, so another huge thank-you to all of you who have given to MAF on our behalf. God has been faithful, and we continue to seek Him for direction and guidance in the New Year.

Love from our home to yours.

The Edgertons

Happy New Year!!!

2010-01-01T08:58:00.000-08:00

I have not written anything for a while, so I have some back pedaling to do, but I did want to mention some of the highlights from our Christmas break so far. Of course we LOVE the Christmas break, because it is great to have some time to spend as a family without all of the normal tugs of work and school. Kyle and Megan got three weeks off for their break, and Todd has taken 2 weeks, too. We have done projects around the house, taken time to play games and spend some time as a family; we went to the beach with our neighbors for a night; the kids had a sleepover with friends, and they have enjoyed lots of time playing with the neighbor kids.

We ordered a Christmas tree (fake, "prelit", low-maintenance, PERFECT!!!), and we put it up the day it arrived back in November. K&M were very excited about opening presents weeks before Christmas day (typical). But we decided to do things a little differently than normal this year since the kids are getting bigger. Usually we read Luke 1 & 2, have a short devotional and open presents on Christmas Eve night. However this year I went against my nature (wanting to open each package even before it is under the tree), and we actually waited on presents until Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve night we went up onto our roof and read the Christmas story. Kyle and Megan acted it out under the stars in the quiet night with only our flashlights. There was no rush or anticipation of the next thing. We were able to reflect and really focus on the reason we celebrate. When our heads hit the pillow that night we were thinking of all of the prophecies fulfilled, the Redeemer, the Messiah come to earth...for us. It was refreshing. I think we will do that again.

Todd has taken advantage of the vacation time to build racks for our solar panels so we can harness some of that free energy our sun produces instead of dealing with the headache of our local electric company which provides power 4-8 hrs per night, most of the time, and charges two arms and a leg. :) Yesterday (Dec. 31) he worked on that and I painted on our back walls. Crismen came and made the traditional Haitian pumpkin soup for us (basically a vegetable soup), soup joumou. Around 6 last night we went to some neighbors' house to play games and visit. About 20 of us played Outburst!! Fun!!

At 9 I went with Crismen to a New Years service at her church. I took a camera, but of course it was out of battery power when I wanted to video tape. They sure did rock the house with their singing!! Loved it. Besides the singing, people told things that God had done in their lives through out the year and we had a time of prayer. We finished right after midnight, so it was exciting to experience all of the sights and smells and sounds of the neighborhood in party mode as we walked home. :) I am SOOO thankful for our car for safety and convenience reasons, but we miss a lot when we are in our sterile bubble of glass and metal floating down the street.

When we got home, Todd had just put the kids in bed, so we all got to wish each other Happy New Year. We thank the Lord for all of the joys and challenges, the peace and the lessons learned in 2009. We anticipate that 2010 will have more twists in the road that we do not necessarily anticipate. But through everything, it is good to know that He can change sorrow to joy, curses to blessings....

$23.65

2009-10-05T11:21:00.000-07:00

Normally we do not mention financial ministry support on this blog, mostly because that is not our focus. We have put that in the Lord's hands and know that He continually brings just the right people to partner with us. However, without that steady support we would not be able to continue working here in Haiti. The month we sent out our last printed newsletter our support had dropped significantly. However, I just looked at the report for September, and our support monies for last month exceeded the necessary level by $23.65!! That is thanks to several people who recently began supporting us on a monthly basis, one family who sent in an annual gift, and others who have increased what they have been giving. It is amazing to see how each gift-- great or small, monthly or one-time--works together to fulfill the final goal.
My heart is just overwhelmed with thanks at this moment....both to God and so many friends. Thank you!!

Megan's 7th birthday

2009-10-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Our little Megan turned 7 last Friday. :) Thursday night we had a little family celebration, and then on Saturday we had a little party for the kids in her class and a few other friends. This was really our first kid's birthday party here, so we had no idea who would show up or what to expect. It was very interesting... The invitations we sent stated that the party time was from 2PM-4:30PM. The American kids that came were on time or early. Notice this picture with only 4 kids around 2:45. :) Those from Latin or Haitian homes were at least 45 min. late, and the last kid left at 6:30!!! Apparently the "hora Chapina" (Guatemalan time--30 min. late) does not even apply here. :) Fortunately we had very loosely planned activities, so people just kind of jumped in and participated whenever they arrived. Love the flexibility of the Caribbean!!
After the cake/icecream and presents, the kids all went swimming. It was just amazing to see some kids just really struggle to get their faces wet when we first went to swim, but by the end of the afternoon they were splashing around like fish!! Water in any form is always good kid entertainment, and it was a nice time to casually meet the parents of some of the kids in Megan's class.
Megan enjoyed both celebrations, and now we anticipate more great times with our favorite girl in the coming year!!

Kreyol pale, Kreyol konprann....

2009-09-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

This is a Creole proverb that literally means, "Speak Creole, understand Creole." Crisman says it to me when I pronounce a Creole word differently than she does, but she can still understand what I am saying. I may be totally off on this, but I think she is just saying, "You are speaking Creole, so I can understand you." (maybe using context clues)
My new word Sunday was "maringuen" which means mosquito. Sunday afternoon when we returned from church, there were mosquitos chasing us all over the living room. We moved from one place to another trying to get away from them, but there were too many! Finally I went in search of a "mosquito zapper," a device shaped like a tennis racket which gives mosquitos an electric zap with the push of a button.
Stores here are only open for a few hours on Sundays, so I raced up to Eagle Market, which is less than a mile away. They were still open but did not have what I was looking for, however the guy that helped me told me the word I need to use....raket. I headed on to the gas station we typically use because there are ALWAYS guys out there trying to sell you these things. There was only one helpful guy selling steering wheel covers. :) Back up Delmas (the main road we travel) on the way to Caribbean Market where we also shop, I found a little guy on the side of the road with all kinds of gadgets. Right in the middle of his wares was a raket!! It was the last one, so the plastic packaging was torn and dirty, and the zapper itself was a little bent. The machann (merchant) and his friend assured me most absolutely that could still kill the "moustik" (the word I had always used) or "maringwen." I repeated that new word over and over, asked him to repeat it. He inserted two batteries which he just happened to have there for testing purposes, and the light came on. That was promising, but I was still not certain that there would be current flowing from the handle to the racket part of the zapper. I ended up getting it, mostly so that I would not go home empty-handed, but also trusting that Todd could fix it if something was wrong.
Once back home, Todd opened the thing up and reattached a dangling wire, so it now works like a charm!!
I have not known the word "kill" in Creole until this morning. I have always worked around it using the words "fini" (finish) or "mouri" (dead/die). I was trying to tell Crismen that I was trying to kill another pesky bug. She told me the word for kill and then used the maringwen name for mosquito. That is when she used the proverb, "Kreyol pale, Kreyol konprann." Now I can clearly say that I killed the mosquito! ....I think. :) (M' te tiye maringwen an.) Love it!!

Cute Homework

2009-09-21T16:40:00.000-07:00

School is now well underway for Kyle and Megan this year. It was wonderful for them to start this year with the classmates they met at the end of last year. I just started helping out in their classrooms last week, so I feel much more connected to what each of them is doing and learning. Megan's first grade teacher is Mrs. Jean-Charles, which Megan insists on pronouncing with a French accent. :) Kyle's teacher is Ms. Kuhnle, who is young and energetic and very encouraging.
My favorite part of home-schooling when we were in Pignon was reading the kids' creative writing. Some days it was like pulling teeth to get them to write, but the end result made the effort worthwhile. :)
I would like to share a couple of very short but cute things they have done recently.

My name is Megan E. Edgerton
I like to play Barbs (Barbies).
I like to eat cheas and rice (cheese and rice).

Name: Kyle Edgerton
Age: 8
Favorite things to do: swim, play x-box, play outside, exercise, play with my sister and talk
When I write a book about my life, the first scene will be being an MK in Guatemala.
Someone who has inspired me is Mr. McMann (PE teacher/coach who is going to start a soccer program on Mondays after school) because I like to exercise.
When I recognize someone I know, I say hi and talk. If they are my relative I hug them.
A very important custom in my family is before I go to bed my mom and dad pray with us.
It is important because We pray so we can talk to God.

Engines, Turtles & the End of Summer Fun

2009-08-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Since we are now mostly settled in, there are not so many "firsts" to report. We still have them, but they are much more gradual and do not make such an impression.

God has recently provided several opportunities both to share our material possessions and our faith with others. We are so blessed. Thanks to all those who pray for wisdom for us on a daily basis. It is STILL needed.

A major part of the month of August centered around Todd's trip to Florida to change out the engine on HH-PTL. Michael Broyles who serves with us here in Haiti and Frank Gibbs, a former MAFer who is very experienced at this sort of thing, along with Todd formed the crew that inspected, repaired and changed the engine. An engine change sounds quick and easy, and indeed it can be, but while they were in the engine compartment, they took advantage of the accessibility of parts that are normally hidden to review and repair items that would have cost thousands of dollars to replace. MFI, the group that houses our FL address, shops for us when necessary and delivers our mail each week, housed Todd, Michael and Frank, allowed them to use their hangar, and some of the staff even had them to dinner!! I LOVE seeing groups work together and assist each other for the common good. Thanks to Skype, the kids and I were able to talk to Todd most nights. We were so happy to get him back last Monday, though. Since his return he has been fixing things like crazy!!...both things that broke during his absence and house repairs that have been needed for years.

I was able to really enjoy Kyle and Megan this summer, making it one of the very best ever. Most of the kids' missionary/expat friends were gone during June, July and August, so I got to spend a lot of time reading adventure books with them and reviewing their skills for school, swimming, laughing, getting "cool" haircuts, doing little projects around the house and going places with them. They played more with the kids here in the neighborhood and, of course, learned some more Creole words. We still cannot just rattle off long sentences, but it is fun to hear our vocabulary expanding.

We continue to enjoy our church in the mountains (Marlique Church), and this Sunday I understood most of the message!!! The songs seem to be easier to understand (even those in French), and with more practice we will soon be rattling away. What a beautiful process it is to learn a new language....one word at a time that becomes easier to recall and let slip off your tongue each time you use it.

A happy addition to our family has been a couple of turtles named Sunshine and Rhino. Our frogs were not eating their food once they left tadpole stage, so we released the skinny things into the wild. A few days later my friend Mairelis asked us to watch her turtles while their family went home to the Dominican Republic for a week. Kyle and Megan did such a good job caring for them each day. When she returned she brought two baby turtles for our kids. :) We have made a chart, so each day one kid changes the water and the other one feeds the turtles. Yesterday afternoon Megan and her friends spent a couple hours in our front dirt area playing with them and making habitats for them.

The summer flew by, and I now have two kids in school all day. They love their teachers and their classes so far. Kyle exits school with a smile each afternoon, and Megan is growing up to be quite the thoughtful, cheerful young lady. What precious little blessings. Please continue to pray that they would influence others for good and that they would be good learners, both of academic and life lessons. We are all anticipating the doors God will open for us to both learn and teach and the new things in store for us in the days ahead.

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the desert
and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19

Latest Newsletter

2009-07-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to our latest MAF newsletter (July 2009) which includes pictures and tiny snippets about each of the airplanes and three of the guys that Todd works with at the hangar.
Todd left today with Michael Broyles for HH-PTL's engine change in FL. They should be back in about three weeks, just in time for Kyle and Megan to start school!!! :)
www.maf.org/edgerton

Miscellaneous Notes...

2009-07-18T05:41:00.000-07:00

The Spanish Bible Study is officially suspended for the summer since most everyone is gone. However Liz (the leader of the group) has continued meeting each week with Monica (a new lady) and going through the book Purpose Driven Life. Thursday, the kids and I went too. Monica is a studier. She has studied one of the ancient Aztec languages spoken in Mexico (Naguat???) and just devours books, especially about history. Very interesting... She reads in English and French...and Spanish, of course. Her husband knows some of the difficult languages like Russian and Chinese. It was neat to hear all she gleaned from the book. I think we all learned. She invited me to come back another time so that she could teach me more about the Naguat people/language.

The pool here at our house has been leaking a lot of water, so Sunday night Todd added a chemical which is supposed to find and stop leaks. There were warnings on the bottle about not ingesting it and even about touching the stuff so we decided to close the pool, just to be safe. Of course it has been SO hot this week. :) The sun just beats down on our concrete roof and heats up the upstairs. Fortunately we have a few trees to give a little shade and FANS!!!! But the kids have been sweating like crazy and getting heat rash....especially Kyle.
Last night we finally filtered out the chemical, so the kids were in the pool as soon as they had breakfast this morning....Todd too!!! :)

There is a large hole/drop off at the end of our road where it adjoins a more main road. Yesterday the kids and I filled it in with rocks and gravel. Kyle and Megan are such good little helpers. It was fun to hear advice about what we needed to do and how it should be done from several people hanging out down there. :) I know it will be back the way it was in just a few days, but it was a fun little project.

Winds.....and other obstacles

2009-07-10T08:20:00.000-07:00

Monday afternoon we noticed that the sky looked like there was a chance of rain. Suddenly winds picked up. The kids and I went outside when we heard some noise, probably when two of the neighbor's trees fell.
The MAF Haiti offices at the airport receive their internet signal from an antenna on our house. Tuesday morning, Todd called from the airport to see if I could reset the modem which controls MAF-Haiti internet because they were offline. I tried all of the normal tricks, but nothing worked. Finally I went up to the roof to make sure everything was OK. The antenna had toppled over in the strong winds, and several of the guy wires had snapped. Fortunately it had fallen on a rack of solar panels, so that saved the antennas, but the pole was bent and one of the middle solar panels was cracked.
Todd raced home to try to sort things out so the office could get back on line as quickly as possible. Because Jason Krul had a day off, he was at home nearby. He brought his wife Willhelmina and another guy Arnon to help us lift and guide the heavy pole back into place. George was at our house sweeping at the time, so he also helped Todd and the rest of us lift and steady. Soon the antennae was transmitting again.
Yesterday morning when Todd got up he found that the server was down and would not respond to the typical quick fixes. Around noon he had things back up and running. As he started out for the airport in the MAF truck, he realized that the clutch had gone out. He fixed that by bleeding the hydraulic clutch, but by that time it was not worth it to go clear to the airport just to turn around and come back. Instead he restrang some of the guy wires on our antenna pole. That of course made me nervous since the ladder he climbed was leaning against the pole that was mostly ripped out of the concrete when it fell, just hanging on by a little piece. Apparently it was enough.
By that time Mark returned from the airport with the ticketing office's computer which has been plagued by viruses that leave it virtually unusable. We ate supper, had a little family time until the kids went to bed, and then Todd started in with trouble-shooting the office computer problems again until way past time for us to go to bed.......
There will always be those delays, the unexpected, ....sometimes to hinder our progress, but other times to keep us from something which could cause more damage. Please pray for us to have the correct response in the face of obstacles like these, to always seek God's wisdom and not just settle for second best in the urgency of the moment.

Ants!!!

2009-07-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Live ants carrying oatmeal and almond crumbsDead ants, after my can of Raid and I found them

Summer = ants in Haiti, apparently. :) Just last night I found hundreds of the little creatures munching on almonds and oatmeal up in our baking cupboard. They had walked right past all of the sugars! A friend says they are health nuts. :)

This is something Todd wrote for the blog back when the kids and I were in the States. Just today I took our sheets out of the washer and noticed tiny holes all over the brand new sheets mom had gotten us for our anniversary just about a month ago!!! (Supposedly 12th anniversary is linen.) Those little guys were eating our sheets, not just invading our bed!!!!

Today is Sunday, a day of rest. Somebody forgot to tell the ants. I wake up not quite as early as a normal work weekday, but it’s early for a Sunday. I read John 16, where Jesus encourages his disciples just hours before that last night in the Garden of Gethsemane. Oswald Chambers challenges me in My Utmost for His Highest. I eat a leisurely breakfast. It is very quite around here since Jennifer and the kids are in Florida for a week, attending a bit of the Nazarene church’s General Assembly. I head upstairs to get ready for church.

As I start to make the bed, I notice quite a few ants are on the bottom sheet on my side of the bed. I lift the blanket (Jennifer uses it to shield herself from my fan at night) and see thousands of ants who have decided to move in. I lift the top sheet and see even more. I start to squish them but, yeow, these ones bite. Rats! It’s the kind of bite that continues to itch much longer than most mosquito bites.

I wrap them up in the sheet and decide to do some laundry. I grab the whites as I go downstairs, and throw everything in the wash. The sheets are colored, but maybe a little bit of bleach won’t do them harm. I hope it will harm the ants, and Jennifer isn’t around to dissuade me. City electricity is still on which means our water pump will supply enough water to do a good rinse. I set the machine for an extra rinse, just for good measure.

I’m home from church now, and I open the washer. What? Still there? It looks like at least some of them made it. Into the dryer they go. I turn our gas dryer up to high heat. I am afraid to set it on MAX for fear I will damage some article of clothing that I maybe should have sorted out but didn’t. This will be the first test of our new inverter that I installed yesterday. Even though our dryer’s heat comes from propane gas, it still draws quite a bit of current to turn the drum and ignite the gas. No problem for the new workhorse inverter.

Fifty minutes pass. Are my little visitors toasted or have I just treated them to a relaxing spin at the sauna? Dead ants around the door and in the lint trap. This is good. One fella seems quite active, but a quick squash takes care of him. I spread out the sheets and clothes, looking for more extreme survivors. If there are more, they are good at hiding. Just in case, I leave the clothes spread out for a while.

Hmm, seems like there are some clothes to be folded around here someplace.

Backtracking--June Birthdays/Celebrations

2009-07-07T17:13:00.000-07:00

For about a week, from the end of May to the beginning of June our family has much to celebrate!!! This year the kids were done with school May 27. In an attempt to spread out the parties, Todd and I celebrated our May 31 anniversary by going out to eat at a cute little gardenish restaurant while other MAF friends the Munsells had the kids on Todd's birthday, June 5. Although we love to be together as a family, it was fun to have a date night. :)
The following Saturday we took a trip to the beach to celebrate school's finish and Kyle's & Todd's birthdays (June 4th & 5th). Our neighbors Zach and Hans went with us, and we got to try out our new-to-us car on some real roads. :)
Hans has become quite a little fish in our pool, but it was fun to watch him experience salt water for the first time. YUCK!!!! The kids all swam fairly near the shore and played in the sand most of the morning...finding cool animals, burying each other, jumping off of a floating platform, swimming with masks....
After lunch, everyone except Todd took a ride in a small boat to some of the nearby beaches. The guy rowing us sang and talked to us in about five different languages!! Then Todd took Zach and Kyle off to a shallow reef to snorkel while Hans, Megan and I continued playing on the beach. The big guys came back with tales of cool fish and plants.
We headed back to Port around 4 and got home in less than 2 hrs.....even before nightfall. What a fun, relaxing day we all enjoyed! It was nice that the boys let all of us in on their birthday celebration. :)

Florida, Family and General Assembly

2009-07-07T16:11:00.000-07:00

This year the Church of the Nazarene's General Assembly which happens every four years was in Orlando, FL. Since we are so close to the FL coast Kyle, Megan and I (Jennifer) made the trip. What a busy but fun time we had connecting with family and friends!!!

We arrived Tuesday afternoon at the Fort Lauderdale airport, picked up our rental car (which they upgraded at no charge from a little tiny car to this sporty machine), picked up a GPS that Todd's dad had sent to some friends, and drove the 5 hours up to Jacksonville to stay the night with my aunt and her family. They waited up for us until we arrived at 11 and actually visited with us until the early morning. :) Wednesday we woke up early and picked blueberries and then spent the rest of the day at the zoo. We rode the train around, played in the mist to cool off, and of course saw lots and lots of animals. What a special day with family!!

Kyle really wanted to see the sting rays, but they were charging to just look at them. We decided to skip it since we had done some other extras. Wouldn't you know, when we arrived at the registration for General Assembly in Orlando, there were some reps from Sea World with an aquarium of four small.....you guessed it.....STING RAYS!!! The kids got to touch them and enjoy them while we got registered.
That night (still Wed.) we had dinner with their daughter, my cousin Lisa and her son whom I have not seen very much in years. We enjoyed catching up a bit, and then we went to church. They had a really neat prayer service. The pastor read a passage of Scripture and then gave his sermon or devotional points one at a time. Between points, he gave time for personal reflection and finally time for individuals to pray aloud as they felt led. We closed with corporate prayer and communion at the altar.
Thursday morning the kids and I traveled from Jacksonville to Orlando where we spent a couple hours walking through the exhibit hall at General Assembly. We saw many friends from Trevecca, Idaho, Tennessee, Guatemala and the MAC Region, Ecuador, Oklahoma.... That night we traveled to Port Orange (Daytona) and spent the night with my friend from college, Peggy, and her family. The kids had SUCH a great time together.
Friday morning we went to General Assembly together. Fortunately there were quite a few things to entertain the kids....since there were five of them and just Peggy and me. :) We saw the sting rays while we were registering Peggy and her kids. The kids got their faces painted. The MAC region gave out balloons. They played on the little indoor playground. Toward the end when all of the little legs were getting tired we sat in the tent where they were showing the Jesus film. That was pretty neat.
When we left GA, we headed toward my sister Sarah's house near Lakeland. Right now she is in dental school in Gainsville and comes home on weekends to spend time with her husband Craig and daughter Dorothy. She arrived at her house with my mom, sister Hannah and brother Carl who had driven down from TN about 10 minutes after we did! :) The cousins (Kyle, Megan and Dorothy) had a great time together!
Saturday I spent the day with my mom and siblings, mostly at the Ikea store. Of course shipping their wonderful furniture down to Haiti with us would not be so practical, but I did get a few plastic bins and things for the kids' room. Mostly we just had fun being together. :) Kyle and Megan stayed home with Uncle Craig and cousin "D" (Dorothy).
Sunday morning, my mom and the kids and I set out for the service at General Assembly. According to the GPS we were supposed to arrive 20 minutes early, but by the time we spent about 40 minutes stuck in the line of traffic waiting to get into the convention center, we ended up getting there about 30 minutes late...just as they were singing the last song before the message. Fortunately Dad and Mom's neighbor Lynn saved us seats, and we were able to join the other 23,000 people there in listening to the message and then participating in communion.
We enjoyed that service so much, but then they announced that a Haitian choir would be singing in the afternoon service, so we had to stay to hear that!!! :) We all walked to Olive Garden for lunch. Delicious!!! I am so glad we decided to stay for the second service. People prayed, read the Bible passage and sang in several different languages. Then after the message, people representing the 155 world areas (mostly countries) where there are Nazarene Churches walked in carrying their flags in the order in which the church entered. Quite interesting. Pastor Wallier, the one who showed us the Haitian church where we now attend was the one carrying the Haitian flag. We got to visit with him for a few minutes. :)
We went back to Sarah's house to stay one more night and left Monday morning. It was just so nice to be with part of the fam, even for such a short time!! :) Monday afternoon we spent some time with Todd's cousin Lee and family. The cousins (Kyle, Megan, Jordan and Katelyn) hit the pool together and had a great time while Lee and Anne and I visited a bit. That night God provided a wonderful place for us to stay. We were planning to just get a hotel in the area, but Lynn and her sister allowed us to spend both Mon. and Tues. in their condo since they went home a couple days early. What a fun blessing!
Tuesday we finally hit the WalMart and Target and got a few things to bring back which are SO much more expensive or hard to find here in Haiti. It was fun just looking. :) We spent that afternoon with my friend Peggy and her family. This time they were vacationing in Orlando and were staying in a hotel that had a pirate ship pool!!! They let our kids swim with them, and then we ate dinner together, too. Kyle and Megan had a blast going down the twisty pirate's plunge slide and just swimming around. It was so nice that they have gotten so much swimming practice here. They are now little fish!
That night each of us took baths in the jaccuzzi there in our room (separately, of course) with water as hot as we could stand it!! That was special! :)
Wednesday morning we struck out bright and early in order to make it back to Fort Lauderdale in time to turn in the rental car, get the GPS sent back to Todd's parents and catch our flight. I do not think we would have made it if it was not for Joe and Virginia Roberts who live right there in Fort Lauderdale....the ones who had let us pick up the GPS at their house in the first place. They agreed to send the GPS back to ID, weighed our suitcases (all 3 of which turned out to be 49 lbs.), told us how to get to the airport, and even had a goody bag of treats made up for us!!
To make a long story short, I got lost several times on the way to the airport due to different names for the same roads!!!! Each time I called Joe, and each time he knew exactly where I was and told me where to go. I think that guy has a GPS in his head!!! We made it to the airport and to our gate even before they began boarding (by about 5 minutes!!!). The flight to Port au Prince was beautiful, and we arrived a few minutes early. Todd met us at the gate, and now....it is just good to be HOME!!!!

Chapmans Visit

2009-06-08T06:01:00.001-07:00

Steve and Annie Chapman have been ministering to families for over 25 years. I remember their "Turn Your Hearts Toward Home" song on Dr. Dobson's video series, listening to their music on TAPES :) and then going to their concerts in my hometown Clarksville, TN. They now do marriage seminars and write books, but they still write songs and sing. In fact, Steve recently wrote a song for MAF called "On These Wings," which was the motivation for them to make a trip to Haiti at the end of May to film a music video. They were almost not able to come due to illness, but they cut their time from a week to four days, tried to rest as much as possible, and God gave the necessary strength and healing.
We were so thrilled that they got to stay with us during their time here. Since they make their home in the same part of TN where my family lives, we know some of the same people and places. We enjoyed their fellowship, songs, stories and example of a fun marriage. :) Friday night, Abby White from across the street spent the night with Megan. Before bed, Annie told them a story of a pink polka dotted bird, incorporating the girls into the details. It was cute...apparently a story she tells to her granddaughter Lilly. The girls are pictured here being silly. :) Then Saturday morning the girls were backup singers as the Chapmans rehearsed songs they would perform for the teens at church later in the afternoon.
Sunday morning before they left, Steve got up early and placed clues which he had written as poems all over the house for the kids to find. They were squealing with delight each time they figured one out. I think they enjoyed finding the clues as much as the treasure at the end of the hunt.
Now we continue enjoying memories their visit as well as CDs and books that they left for us and the other MAF families. Chapmans' website: http://www.steveandanniechapman.com/

My Shop-From-Home Vegetable Market

2009-05-31T18:07:00.000-07:00

Each Friday morning around 9 AM I listen for the sound of Natasha outside our gate, banging on her "mamit." A mamit is a large tin can used as a unit of measure in the market. I quickly grab my pen & paper, some grocery sacks and 500 goudes...usually the amount I spend....and race down the stairs to let her into our garage area. Since she carries about 30-40 lbs. of veggies on her head, I do not like to make her wait long. We chit-chat a bit as we go back and forth about which vegetables I will choose, how much of each and what the price will be. I write down all I am getting as she keeps track of everything in her head. Usually I buy 1/2 (demi) mamit of potatoes (pómdeté), some onions (zonyon), carrots (kawót), tomaotes (tomat) if they are pretty, sometimes a cabbage (chou--pronounced shoe), lettuce (leti), a couple green peppers (piman dous), green onions (pwawo), parsley (pesil), and a fragrant little herb called te. I do NOT buy eggplant, beets or spinach even though she offers them to me each time. Sometimes I buy broccoli if it does not have worm holes. :) She usually also has small limes, hot peppers and other leafy things. It is amazing to see all she packs into her baskets!! What a strong neck and back it would take to walk up and down the hills to our house!!!
Our neighbor Sharon King has been purchasing vegetables from Natasha for a while, so she introduced me to her a couple months ago. Most of my shopping is done at a regular grocery store, but now I buy nearly all of my fresh produce from her. A few times Natasha has brought her niece??? Stefany when there is a holiday at school....very sweet girl. I know God has brought these ladies into my life for a reason.....

Spanish Bible Study

2009-05-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday has come to be one of my favorite days of the week. When we arrived in Port I attended a Spanish Bible study with a missionary visiting from Ecuador. Now I am hooked!!! Each Thursday between 6-12 of us meet in different ladies' homes and study a chapter of the Bible. When we started we were studying Exodus, and now we have moved on to Psalms. There are 3 or 4 who have been walking with the Lord for a while, a few others who have recently accepted Christ and now have a relationship with Him, and several others who come for fellowship and are now exploring all that it means to live for Christ. It is quite exciting to hear the testimonies each week, to see people just growing and learning and then bringing their friends.
Just two weeks ago one girl was sharing about the way her dad's mom (grandmother) mistreats her mom. Her dad and mom have moved to be close to the grandmother and help take care of her, but that has only brought more grief to the mom. She, in turn, responds in love, but it is difficult to continue. Recently the grandmother screamed at her and she has not wanted to be around her since.
We prayed, and God worked!!! The next week she reported that her grandmother had attended a special service at their church where her dad was appointed as an elder. The grandmother was teary, and her mom reached out to comfort her and even had a civil conversation with her. There was kind of a healing for both ladies that took place there. I know things in that relationship are not perfect yet, but it is neat to see God at work when things look humanly impossible.
Please remember to pray for the other ladies from all over Central and South America who are away from their families, in different situations here and in different stages in their walk with the Lord.

Todd's World

2009-05-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

Usually I write about our life here and things going on with the kids or our family in general. I thought it might be interesting to know what a typical day for Todd is like now that he is working at the hangar each day.
He carpools each morning with Will White, Jason Krul, Mark Williams, and other office workers that they pick up along the way.
Last week he worked with John Munsell on an inspection for HH-MAF. Normally MAF aircraft need a major inspection every 1000 hours of flight time, which means that the airplane is out of commission for a long time. MAF Haiti (and a lot of the MAF programs) does a progressive inspection on the planes, so each 50 hours something on the airplane is closely examined. Every 100 hours (or every other 50 hr. inspection) the engine is examined. This time they were inspecting the cabin and fuselage.
As part of the inspection Thursday he changed a seat track and riveted. The landing strip in Hinche is very rocky, so often the belly of the plane has gashes from rocks that fly up. The hole that John was patching was quite large...about an inch long. Friday he painted the plane's interior panels and fixed a small broken antenna.
Along with aircraft maintenance and inspections, Todd has been able to work on MAF computers and cars.

Answered Prayers...

2009-05-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

It has been neat to see the Lord at work just since I posted the last prayer requests.
We felt like we were supposed to help with Hans's glasses, so Friday when I gave Crismen what I felt the Lord wanted us to give, she said it was over half of what they needed to have by Wednesday!! She said that she has not been worrying about it because her pastor's wife once told her to take problems to the Lord and then let them "kouche"--rest or lie. Situations like this always build my faith in the fact that God KNOWS our needs even before anyone else and He cares about them and answers in miraculous ways when it is His will/time.
Then this morning I got a note from Flori. She sounded upbeat, but please continue to pray for her to feel peace and fulfillment in the place God has her now.
Thanks again for praying for us and all those God puts in our path.

A Few Prayer Requests

2009-05-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

We are so grateful for those who have committed to pray for us as we are here in Haiti. Some of the things we pray for on an ongoing basis are for our family to stay close and strong together, that our relationship with the Lord would continue to deepen each day, and that we would reflect His love and grace in all of our dealings with others.
Here in Haiti we are continually surrounded by great need, both physical and spiritual. There are many complications with just always giving handouts. That can create a dependency on us and take away a person's dignity and incentive to work and provide for themselves. The need is so great at times that it can be overwhelming, but we are SO blessed and know that God wants us to pass those blessings along. Please pray for us to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Also, the son of the people who work for us (Hans) has been having trouble with his eyes. They have been red and irritated in the afternoons especially. They took him to the doctor and think he may need glasses. Please pray that this will soon be corrected.
Flori, our wonderful friend who watched Kyle and Megan in Guatemala, seems to have suffered some loss and difficulty lately. Please pray that the Lord would encourage her heart and send people to help and comfort her. We do not know the entire situation, but we know that God has a special plan for her life.
Thank you so much for your prayers and encouragement.

Mangos

2009-05-05T08:49:00.000-07:00

We have heard that Haiti grows anywhere from 100-200 varieties of mangos which are harvested nearly year round, from January to September. Mangoes are one of Haiti's leading exports and one of our favorite fruits. Right now, you can find mangos being sold just about EVERYWHERE!!! They are so sweet and juicy, usually ripened right on the tree. They sell for about 10 goudes each (less if you buy in quantity), or 25 cents US. What a nice treat on a hot day!

Frogs

2009-05-05T08:26:00.000-07:00

Every time it rains I feel like we are in Egypt back in Moses's time during the second plague. :) The neighbor frogs start croaking and come swimming in the pool---thankfully not in our house!!! Back in ID for Kyle's birthday he had gotten a frog habitat container, and we had mail ordered a couple of tadpoles, but they died before we moved here. We brought the container along just in case...
One night right after the pool had been filled, we found hundreds, maybe thousands of tiny frog eggs all over the bottom of the pool. Todd scooped up about 20 eggs that were on the steps and we have been watching them ever since. Now they are much bigger tadpoles. Still have not seen legs peeking out, but when they start hopping, I think we will release them. :) Pictured above are a few of the tadpoles and this is a pic of a couple of the croaking swimmers we caught with a net.

History Class

2009-05-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

Here in Haiti apparently seventh grade history can be pretty exciting! Our neighbors at the end of our street, the Van Dams, were out catapulting rocks when we got home from picking Todd up at the airport last Sunday night. Natasha VanDam's teacher Glee Williams, who happens to live in the house between ours, had given the class an assignment to build a replica of a catapult or a variety of other things. The neighbors were out watching as they tested this massive thing with rocks and then with water balloons!!! :) In the picture they have the long arm pulled back and ready for release. We took advantage of the fact that we were together and got a picture of the neighbor boys (Zach, Micah, Hans (hiding), William, & Kyle) who many times play together and the ladies (Julie, Jennifer, Glee & Ruth).
The next day after school they did a few more throws with water balloons, and one shot clear across the soccer field! It was reported that this was by far the biggest and best working model in the class.

Baptist Mission

2009-05-05T06:08:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Todd was able to ride along with another non-MAF pilot as he ferried a plane to FL. Along with the very unique experience of flying over the ocean, this provided him with the opportunity to maintain his license currency and gave him several hours of flight time. Being a maintenance specialist (mechanic), he will not have many opportunities like this!!
While he was gone, the kids and I went with the Kings (missionaries with CWRC) and Kruls (family we did language school with in Piyon) to the Baptist Mission up in the mountains. I am sure there is much more to it than this because the campus looked quite extensive, but we visited a gift shop, a small museum, a bakery, a mini-zoo, played on the playground, and ate lunch at their little open-air, caffeteria-style restaurant that overlooks the valley. I know they also have a clinic, a chapel (where some people were singing), a greenhouse, and some kind of mechanic shop.
The kids had such a great time seeing all of the animals and playing on the playground. They were not quite so excited as I was about time spent in the gift shop. :) In the "zoo" they have lots of rabbits, a crocodile, a monkey, peacocks, guinnea fowl, goats, a small coy fish pond, and a big snake that used to live in our house!!!! The snake supposedly belonged to the Ryles who lived here before us. Crismen still gets the heeby jeebies when she talks about it. :) At the playground they found a snail and a couple friends from school.
I discovered that several Creole books we bought before coming to Haiti were written by the Turnbulls who worked at the Baptist mission for years. In the gift shop, I bought a Haitian cookbook by Betty Turnbull, the Creole hymnal Chants D'Esperance, a few post cards, some hot & fluffy cinnamon raisin bread, dinner rolls and a plant from their greenhouse. I was SO happy to have my little hymnal when we went to church Sunday!
*This last picture shows a pile of sticks which will most likely be firewood, but possibly building material. The cute, little lady was resting on her bucket, so I did not want to disturb her.

Quisqueya Chapel- Middle School Swim

2009-05-04T22:10:00.001-07:00

Saturday from 11:00-noon the pool was filled with the happy sound of about 30 middle schoolers from Quisqueya Chapel (where we have been worshipping) who were finishing an overnight retreat. I got some fun pictures and video.

Firsts....

2009-05-04T20:16:00.001-07:00

Last month, Mary Forrester was our first overnight guest (besides my parents and sis, who were here in early March). We still did not have a proper bed for her, but she was very gracious about the air mattress and makeshift accommodations as she got in late (after a day of waiting for American Airlines to make their flight from FL to Port) and left early in the morning for the first MAF flight out to the village of Piyon where she worked with a medical group for a few days. We now have a real bed, by the way. :)
Abby White, Megan's friend across the street, spent the night for the first time on Friday night. The girls had chocolate chip snowman pancakes and went swimming in the morning.
Last weekend we went with the Kings and Kruls to the famous (in Haiti) Baptist mission for the first time, a fun and relaxing place for kids and adults.
Sunday we went with Haiti's Compassionate Ministries Coordinator, Pastor Wallier, to three different Nazarene churches in different parts of Port au Prince. It was neat to see the variety. One church of about 4,000 members was just bursting at the seams. Another church downtown has probably 1,000 people who attend. Then lastly, we went to a little country church up in the mountains where about 100 people were worshipping. We arrived at the end of that service in time to hear a lady concluding her talk about the family and participate in communion. Special...

Crismen

2009-04-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

George and Crismen live right across the street from us, behind the Whites...another MAF family. They have two boys, Hans (7) and Zach (12). When the boys were little, the Whites were hoping they would teach their kids, William (9) and Abby (6), to speak Creole. The reverse happened. Zach and Hans speak perfect English!!!
George and Crismen have worked for the various residents of this house for probably 10-15 years, so they kind of came with the house. George comes on Tues., Thurs., and Sat. to sweep leaves outside. He also has been SO helpful with things like getting the water trucks to fill the pool, helping answer questions when people have come to work on our house, hauling off boxes and scrap wood that will not be hauled by the normal trash collectors....just all of these little details.
Crismen comes Mon., Wed. and Fri. for about three hours at a time to sweep and mop, dust, do some general cleaning, and on Wednesdays she cooks Haitian food for us. She is a great cook! We have enjoyed everything she has made so far. She also knows a lot about the house and has been helpful with practicing Creole and teaching me new words.
She brought some Easter food over Friday afternoon, and then came to get her containers back and see the pool-filling progress after a Friday night service at her church. She looked so pretty in her dress and with earrings so I got her picture.

Our Backyard

2009-04-17T05:43:00.000-07:00

Over the years our house has become known as the "pool house." It has served as a refuge for many during the hot summers of Haiti when there is nowhere to escape the heat. Our entire back yard is a swimming pool with just enough sidewalk to walk around it. For about a year it has been out of commission due to leaks and other problems. Before we came the owner of our house supposedly had it repaired and painted. The paint is a beautiful aqua blue that looks refreshing all by itself. Even at Christmas we noticed that the paint was already chipping (probably not properly cleaned and prepared before painting), but we decided to fill it and use it as long as possible. After researching pool maintenance and ordering the proper chemicals we finally began the filling process last Friday. The kids had a blast splashing around as the water trucks came one by one, each making the pool deeper and deeper. It is already getting HOT, so this is our air conditioning system. :)
I have some video of the process, but I will need to make it smaller before posting. Pictures will have to do for now. Altogether we had seven water trucks plus quite a bit of water Todd was able to siphon from our cistern. Everyone went for a dip after our Easter celebration Saturday....at least 25 people. We are all ready to cool off! Since then we have noticed quite a significant drop in the water level (probably a truck's worth), so we probably still have a leak. But we are going to enjoy all of this beautiful cool water as long as it lasts!!! :)

Cool Megan

2009-04-13T04:13:00.000-07:00

For a long time Megan has wanted her hair cut like Ally Noble, a friend in ID. She also wanted her hair to grow to her knees, so we have been letting it grow a bit. A couple weeks ago a little girl in Megan's kindergarten class had the cutest hair cut (sort of like Ally's), and I found out that her mom had cut it! She is a professional hair dresser.
It has been getting hotter each day, it seems, so last Monday we asked Shelley if she would be able and willing to cut Megan's hair. She did, and it looks so nice and cool!!!

Kites

2009-04-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

Apparently we are in kite season around here. A few weeks ago we began to see kites, usually made of thin plastic or tissue paper, being sold on the streets and flown across the ravine near our house. The kids found a few in trees and restored them, but Julie White our neighbor finally made a trip to buy all of the kids their own kites (about 50 cents each). These kites can fly with almost no wind at all!! Electricity and telephone wires are a problem in our neighborhood, but the kids had a great time. Saturday we took them all to the church yard where there is some wide, open space.

Happy Resurrection Sunday!!

2009-04-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

Today is our first Easter Sunday in Haiti. Friday night we attended a communion service where they read parts of the story of the Passion Week in between hymns about Christ's death and resurrection. With each reading a candle was blown out until we were left in total darkness. Supposedly in some villages here everyone spends Friday in silence.
Saturday at 2:00 some neighbor kids came over. They told the Easter story using the Resurrection Eggs. Then we dyed eggs and later hunted for candy and treats that Todd had hidden. Other moms brought extra snacks and treats. It was a fun little party.
This morning, I made some cinnamon rolls, and the kids delivered them to neighbors...the ones we did not eat, that is. :) At the church a cross was decorated with beautiful flowers of every color. As each person entered the church, they were given a flower to add. We sang some of my favorite hymns, "Hallelujah, What a Saviour," "Victory in Jesus"... It was a beautiful celebration of our life in Christ. On the way home from church, Todd bought me some flowers, so now they are sitting on our kitchen table and dining room table as a reminder of this special celebration of Christ's resurrection.

Open Hands

2009-04-05T19:38:00.000-07:00

"Open hands should characterize the soul's attitude toward God
-open to recieve what He wants to give,
open to give back what He wants to take"

--Elizabeth Elliot

"Home" in Port au Prince

2009-03-30T19:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-25T11:50:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2009-03-24T08:26:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-22T19:05:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-21T20:26:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-21T11:43:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-20T21:25:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-05T19:35:00.000-08:00

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

Cute Kids

2009-03-05T19:19:00.001-08:00

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

2009-03-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

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.

Home in Piyon

2009-02-25T19:46:00.000-08:00

While we were in Piyon, we stayed at Can de la Grace, a camp used by all kinds of groups, usually church-related. Our family occupied the top floor of the building shown here.
There were two bedrooms and a bathroom and a little balcony in the front where we hung out our clothes. The kids' room also served as their school room. Todd and I studied in the wide hallway.

Dorcas Ladies

2009-02-25T19:15:00.000-08:00

While in Pignon, Willhelmina and I attended a meeting for a non-denominational group of women who meet each Sunday afternoon. This group called “Dorcas” has an amazing ministry meeting practical needs in the community like Dorcas did in the book of Acts. My favorite part is that they are national women who see needs and feel compelled to meet them. Several of them go to the local hospital nearly every day to pray with patients. They distribute food and clothes as they become available. They do a monthly meal for those in the community and surrounding area who are needy.
My favorite part of the meeting was the singing and the ladies reciting in unison about four or five chapters or long passages from the Bible. It was beautiful.

Jaklin

2009-02-25T16:23:00.000-08:00

We are now finished with our official language and cultural training in Piyon. We can carry on basic conversations with neighbors and those we meet at the grocery store. There is still much to learn, but it is nice to have a foundation and quite a few of the important words like “thing,” “what,” “How do you say...,” numbers and basic greetings.

This is a picture of our teacher Jaklin, and on the table you can see our THICK Creole books, the source of our wealth of knowledge. :)

Starting our Blog

2009-02-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

We have been in Haiti for three months now. Due to the rural area we were living in and our limited access to the internet, we were unable to get a blog up and running until now. We would like to rewind time a bit and post neat stuff from all of our time here. It may be a bit random as different memories come to mind.

We are missionaries with Mission Aviation Fellowship working in Haiti. We spent about three months living in the Central Plateau town of Pignon to do some language study and learn a bit about Haitian culture. Todd will begin work as an aircraft mechanic in mid-March.