Reminder to pray and Beach Day

Update for those praying with us about adoption.  
I just really wanted to remind people to continue to pray.  We have talked to a few people this week and without miracles taking place it looks like it will still be a long time for the children in our home and across this campus to be joined with their adoptive families.  Pray for the children, pray for the families, and pray for miracles to take place in the offices and governments involved!

I also wanted to share some photos from our Grace House beach day.  We took all of the aunts that work in our home and all of the children to the beach last week.  We have been wanting to do this for quite a while and finally worked it out so we could all go.  We loaded up in the van, which is a rarity for most of the children, and headed out.

It was a fairly quiet ride to the beach.  The children were busy watching out the windows and enjoying the scenery.  The aunts chatted quite a bit, and we all laughed at Paco's "wow!" when Dan took us a little fast over a speed bump.  

When we arrived at the beach the aunts went straight for the water.  They ran and laughed and put sand on each other and raced with the Willis kids and just had a great time.  The children were not as sure.  We played in the sand for a little while, and then tried to coax them into the water.  Fritzlin, Loudena, and Jacob were all afraid and held on very tightly to whoever was holding them.  They never really grew to like the water, but tolerated it a few times when we took them in.  Paco and Ezechiel loved sitting on the shore with someone and letting the waves wash over their feet.  They even smiled when the tide came in a little and the water came to their chest a few times.  

Everyone played in the sand together and a few of us took a walk to the hammocks.  We ate lunch together and the aunts were very grateful and thanked us several times.  The children ate great and I don't think there was a morsel left on the table when we finished.  

One of my favorite memories of the day was the ride home.  Dan suggested we do our evening worship on the way so we began singing and continued for the entire ride.  Such a privelege to worship alongside these ladies!  

Notice in the shot above....Fritzlin and Loudena couldn't smile for me because they were too concerned about the waves coming!

 Children of the Promise has given permission for the posting of the photos on this site.  Photos taken of  the children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

A Post from Jadyn: Sweeter than Honey

Psalm 19:10

More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey,

and drippings of the honeycomb

A few weeks ago, my dad called the "bee man" (we can never remember his real name because we always call him the bee man) to come take the bee boxes and do whatever he wanted to do with them. The bees were supposedly gone, so what good was a bunch of empty bee boxes? Anyway, the bee guy came, walked out to the boxes and came back to tell my dad that we had "anpil siwo" (alot of honey)!

So my dad gave him a large pan to collect the honey into. "Non, non, bezwen anko vesso" (No, no, i need another container) So he went out to collect the sweet honey, returning with at least a gallon of honey! We all gathered around the big containers of honey to watch as they squeezed the honeycomb to get all of the thick, sweet honey out. We ended up with alot of honey, and everyone got some honeycomb to chew on! Here are a few pictures! 

Sweet and sticky!

                                         

                                                            Proverbs 16:24
      Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

We all got a turn to help

The "Bee man"

One of the large bowls of honeycomb

Proverbs 27:7
One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.

Will You Pray With Me?

My heart has been burdened lately.  

We think often about the children in the Grace House and their future.  It is always on our minds.  We have prayed for it so many times.  We had a volunteer group that came recently paint Jeremiah 29:11 on the wall of Fritzlin and Loudena's bedroom.  "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."  We pray for the other children at COTP that are waiting on their adoptive families also: the children of the Joy House, the special needs children, and the other children in the baby house that will not be returning to their biological families.  Many of you know that the first goal here is to keep families together.  That is not always possible and then the children begin their wait.  The wait always seems too long.

I long for the children that I have grown to love and even the ones I hardly know to be placed in their families.  Their parents should be experiencing the giggles, the new words, the singing, the jumping, and even the mischief.  Their siblings should be running and playing and fighting and laughing with them.  We know and we believe that God has a plan for these children.  He knows what their future holds.  We trust him.

What I would like to propose is a month of prayer.  31 days of intentional prayer for these children to be matched with their families.  For the adoption process to move quickly in Haiti.  For the people who are in charge of the process both in the North America and in Haiti.  For paperwork to process without difficulty.  For people to feel God's tug on their heart to adopt.  For peace for the children while they wait and also for those of us who wait with them.  

These children are so precious!  Will you pray with me?

One Year

One year in Haiti.  Some days it feels like we have been here for much longer, and then others it feels like the time just flew.  The Lord has taught us so many things and we still have so much to learn.




We have had so many new experiences here!  Our life is so full.  It is difficult to sum up our year because we have had so many thoughts and emotions.  We will try to give a quick summary.

Our family has adjusted to Haiti in many different ways.  Some of us have been quite sick at times, and others did not experience much sickness at all.  The heat has been hard to deal with for all of us.  The past few months have been cooler at night so that has been a huge blessing.  To feel a cool breeze is a wonderful thing.  We know that many of you have experienced a very cold and snowy winter and long for warm weather, but we often long for a little cold and snow.    When we see pictures of snow, sometimes we just want to dive in it!  It is difficult to be away from precious family and friends.  We miss so many people and are very homesick at times.

We have, of course, grown to love the children we care for in our home.   We have a very difficult time thinking about saying goodbye to them so for now we are focusing on loving and caring for them and later we will prepare for those moments.  We care deeply for so many of the other children on campus in the Joy House, the baby house, and the other international staff children.   We have experienced death and so many children returning to their Haitian families or going to their adoptive families.  These goodbyes are often bittersweet and not without tears.   It has been such a blessing to us as parents to see our biological children really loving the Haitian children in our home and forming strong bonds with them.  It is not always easy to live with nine other children, but they are all doing quite well, even in the trials.  Some of them claim to want to stay in Haiti forever and some of them would like to go to visit America tomorrow.  We process these feelings often, and continue to pray for God to make things clear for our future.

We also have grown to love so many others.  The women that work in our home are so dear to us.  They put up with us day in and day out.  I have said here before that some days I long to be in my own kitchen by myself or to not worry about cooking for anyone else but my family, but I love these women and they have become like family to us.  They care for us deeply, and we for them.  So many other dear friends here, both Haitian and international.  It is hard to imagine that we didn't even know most of these people one year ago.  They have become so precious to us!

We have experienced a huge range of emotions here in Haiti.  Some days we just wanted to "go home".  We are overwhelmed and exhausted and irritable and frustrated.  Then there are the moments like this morning.  I walked Zion Hope, Fritzlin, and Loudena to preschool and we all held hands and sang all the way to their class. To see these precious children singing and loving one another makes me smile.  Or the times when we return to the home after being gone a few minutes or a whole day and have children pouring off the porch with arms open wide yelling "mama....papa"!   We have laughed often....how can you not when you live with six toddlers?

We have cried over the probable death of one of the women who worked in our home whom we loved, and also over so many other things that grieve our hearts.  Friends who might not eat some days, people without homes, death in families both young and old, sickness.  And there are days when we don't see the hope.  We have cried because we long to be in our comfort zone once again in Michigan.  There are days we are so glad we have come.  The relationships we have been so blessed to have, the people we have met, the ways we have seen God work in our children and in us.

There are many people that know The Lord and walk in truth here in Haiti.  There is also spiritual darkness and voodoo.  Our desire is to speak the gospel whenever possible and to be willing and ready to speak truth to anyone.  We love that many of you have made it possible for us to hand out Bibles to many of our Haitian friends and acquaintances.

We would love your prayers!  That God would direct our steps in the coming year and that we would know His will.  That our children would be at peace with living here for now, and an uncertain future.  That we would have wisdom and discernment in each situation that we are faced with each day.  That our Haitian children would be matched with their adoptive parents soon and that those adoptions would process quickly.  That their hearts and our hearts would be prepared for those transitions.  Most importantly, please pray that gospel penetrates hearts and that many people will come to faith in Christ.  Thank you!

Refreshed

As many of you know, we took a break this past week.  We were feeling tired, overwhelmed with the responsibility of the ten children in our care, and needing some time to enjoy our immediate family.  We had some difficulty deciding on where to go due to some problems with traveling in certain parts of Haiti right now, so we ended up staying fairly close to our home in Lagossette.  We have been to the beach several times, but have never stayed the night.  It was beautiful, quiet, and a huge blessing to our family.

We decided at the beginning of our time that Dan and I would each spend at least one hour of "special time" with each of our children during the week.  It didn't seem like it would be difficult with four days to do it in, but that is ten hours outside of the family time, meals, naps, and sleeping and we got it in, but just in the very last minutes of our stay!  Even though we try to do some of this at home, it was really fun to do it  in this environment.  I played basketball, volleyball, swam, watched the sunrise, had coffee drinks or cokes, read, journaled, and hunted for crabs.  I loved hearing their hearts on things and being able to just look one child in the eye and not have to worry about anyone else at that time.

When we weren't spending time with one child we were hanging out with the others, laying on the beach, swimming, taking walks, reading, and eating two meals a day that we didn't have to prepare!  Dan played several games of baseball with the boys, which they all enjoyed.  We also met some people and were able to talk to people from several different countries.  I wanted to share some photos, and then I have a few more thoughts to share!

I wanted to share a few things that made me think about our time here in Haiti while we were on vacation.

First, on our first dinner there at least two of the children commented that they miss having dinner like that as a family.  We all eat "together" much of the time at the Grace House but as I am sure you can imagine, with ten children and six of them being toddlers, there isn't a lot of conversation being had around our table.  It usually entails a few "don't do thats" and "eat your food" and crying and spilling and requests for more and refusals to eat.  Not real conducive to a family chat.  I am glad that they miss it, because Dan and I do also.  We have resolved to attempt to have a family dinner more often and really sit and chat with each other.

The second thing I have thought about happened at dinner, also.  One of the children commented on how they missed one of our Haitian kids, and it was only the second day we were gone.  They all began to talk about all of the children and tell funny stories about them and guess as to what they were doing at that time.  Sometimes I get stressed about how many kids are in this house and that I don't spend enough time with any of them.  I think about what my kids might be missing out on because we don't do as many things with them as we would like to.  Never once have any of our children complained about us having to deal with so many needs with our Haitian kids.  They have never said that it would be easier without them.  I attribute that entirely to  God's grace.  They have parents who get stressed and overwhelmed, yet they have never blamed that on the other kids in the house.  They love them and spend time with them and miss them when we are away from them.  I know that it will be very difficult to say goodbye to each of these precious children, but I am so glad that ours have had the opportunity to love and care for them.

Now that I think about it, every one of the things I have been thinking about began with our eating together.  Jadyn commented that she felt a little awkward eating so much during dinner when she didn't know if the Haitian people serving it to us had anything to eat in their homes.  I had just been thinking the same thing.  It has led me to so many thoughts about our place in this country and how we help and how we cause others to want, and what God wants us to do about that.  I don't want to feel guilty when I enjoy good food, and I do not think we should.  I also do not want to take it for granted and I want to share and give when appropriate.  We struggle every day with this issue and people ask us for help for things that are worthy at least once per week.  How do we help?  What is helpful?  What help hinders? How do we offend when we don't understand the culture?  What about the women that work in our home?  What about our friends that live outside our gates?  What do they REALLY think of us?  I ultimately believe that it only matters what God thinks and what He wants us to do, but Dan and I have wrestled with that over and over and haven't come up with an answer that fits each situation, yet.  I have a feeling we never will during our time on earth.  Right now I am grateful that my daughter noticed this and thinks about it.  I don't have any pat answers to give her, but I am grateful for her exposure to these people and that she will begin to wrestle with this, also.

This is what we do know.  We are in Haiti because God called us here.  He made it clear that we should come.   Our responsibilities lie with our children and the Haitian children placed in our care.  Deuteronomy 6: 4-7.  "Hear, O Israel:The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your might.  And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."  We are also responsible to live out the gospel every day.  Display the fruit of the Spirit, talk about what Jesus did for us to those we meet, pray with and for our Haitian friends and for this country and our native land, also.  Micah 6:8  "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."