Friday, November 25, 2011

You Might be Celebrating Thanksgiving in Haiti if...

by Jimmy

...you gorge yourself so much on Beth McHoul's feast that you don't eat dinner.

...visiting friends only a couple miles away takes 40 minutes to drive between them.

...Skype is how you celebrate with your family.

The Heartline Academy kids came up with a list of 30 of their own Thanksgiving in Haiti lines, and presented them to the masses that came to Beth's widely known and more widely coveted Thanksgiving meal. I started counting people and stopped at 50, as that was just when the food table opened up and everyone started to move around. Needless to say, many went uncounted. The kids performed wonderfully. I was a little surprised at how nervous I was for them, with that many people present.

(photo stolen from Heather, as our camera battery failed after 3 not-so-great pictures)

Also, to stay with Burton family tradition, for my holiday days off, I worked on the yard and my garden in particular. I spent Wednesday hauling dirt 100 yards in a wheelbarrow, shoveling that dirt into two 5 gallon buckets, and carrying them up a flight of stairs, then up to the roof on a stepladder, and concrete ledge to my waiting garden bed. After only about 32 buckets of dirt, the bed lies nearly full. I am so excited. I keep thinking that we will have fresh vegetables that I will actually eat in just 3 months time. We will see how that pans out, both in HAVING something and then EATING some of them. I will remain, however, an optimist.


As I was finishing that evening, the birds came to roost like usual in the tree just outside our door.


One of the birds became a bit ambitious and tried to roost higher in the tree than others.


It caught its leg in between two branches, so of course being the kind, considerate soul I am I laughed and called my wife to share this moment.


... and mounted a rescue.


Of course I had to stop and pose with the dumb bird before releasing it from its perch. As dumb as those birds are, I still so thoroughly enjoy having them around, feeding them, and watching them. Thank you Barney and Joanna for the opportunity to first raise them.


And there is my recycled garden bed, just waiting to be planted. I like it.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Changes....

Well here's one change - the baby inside me is growing so much! Blows my mind every time I think about the fact that God is growing - knitting together- a little person, our child, inside of me.... how awesome.


Another change - We're working on a garden. Jimmy's been growing little sprouts from seed in his recycled coke bottles for months. Now we're in the process of putting together a gardening bed on the top of our roof out of scraps of wood, recycled tin cans, and some left over cement blocks. We'll transplant the sprouts into the garden and hopefully get to see some things grow. Here are some in progress pictures, hopefully we can show you the finished project by the end of the week.(I know most of you live somewhere where it gets a little cold in the winter, and may be wondering what sort of crazy person would be planting a garden now... one that lived in Haiti of course. It feels like summer here year round, so it's perfect for growing.)






Changes at school - seems like there is always something to change and work on at school. Every few days, we step back and look at how things are how going and find another area in ourselves and the students that we need to address, to work on and improve. Whether its certain curriculum gaps some of them have, attitude and character issues, our organization systems, comprehension or writing... There is always something to evaluate, talk about, come up with new ideas, and prayerfully try to change for the better. It is nice to have the freedom to do this. And another fun change is there is a woman cooking school lunch for us now - yum!

Changes at church - there is a new Pastor and his wife that just moved to Haiti from Australia to lead the church that we are part of here. It's exciting to see how God will use them to bring, unity, growth, discipleship, depth. We went to Sunday school for the first time today. Jimmy's mens' class was big probably 30 men all Haitian except for him and the teacher. Mine was just 6 women, all Haitian except me and the teacher. I also found out a little bit about getting involved helping with the kids at church, so that will be fun. We've been trying to carry on our Living Hope practice of being sure to meet new people every week and we're beginning to get to know some people and it's begining to feel more like "our" church. We've also begun (seperate from church, but because we need the fellowship- church is further away and more of a once a week than involved in daily life sort of fellowship) a "community group" out where we live and are trying to connect with other families who are also looking for growth and relationship. This has been good.


I guess that leads me into the last change... the one I was thinking about when I began this post. It's a change inside of me. I first noticed it 2 weeks ago. Two weekends ago I found myself thinking that maybe one day it could/would feel like we belonged in Haiti - like this was our home. That maybe this could be more permanent than just a year. It's actually funny how much that thought caught me off guard. Before we moved here, although we were technically just coming for a year, it felt kind of like we were moving forever. We both quit jobs and got rid of everything and said goodbye to everyone, and I think deep down in us we both felt like it could be for a long time. But for me, that changed after we got here. In my head I still knew that we would see what God did this year and what he had for us after that and that a lot of things are unseen and could change. But everything felt so crazy, nothing felt permanent, it certainly didn't feel like we "fit" here, or like I could or would want to continue being here for a long time.
So all that to say that 2 weeks ago really was the first time I in any way felt that since we got here. And over the last 2 weeks it has only grown more daily. Realizing that I really do love this place, seeing God begin to involve us with different relationships, feeling really invested in school and our students, loving the ways God is using Heartline to minister to the people of Haiti and knowing that somehow indirectly we are part of that. Continuing to try to learn and use the language just a little bit. Getting more used to the routines and chores required for daily living and beginning developing things here at the property with the yard and goats and gardening.
About an hour ago, while dealing with the multiple annoyances of nasty dish water, cockroaches, fruit flies in our compost and our power going out, out of my mouth sprang the words "I love you Haiti". Not with frustration or sarcasm or anything like that- they were genuine. My husband had to ask me 3 times what I said, because I am pretty sure that is the first time I have said those words. I have just been laughing all week at God's timing in these changes inside of me. Last weekend we found out that we needed to begin making some decisions already about what we will do next year. Of course we've thought and talked about that since arriving,especially with a baby coming, but it's felt a long way off and honestly was something we didn't think we'd need to make any decisions on anytime soon. So I've been laughing at God all week as I see my heart changing more and more. Because 2 weeks ago if we'd had to start making those decisions it would have been easy for me to have a whole lot of reasons not to work towards staying here...and now... well...we'll just have to see what He has in store.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Cabrit yo

This weekend Jimmy went with a Haitian friend to buy some goats.
He'd been talking about getting a goat since we got it here.
However, he may have never actually done it without his mom's encouragement.
When she visited a couple weekends ago they talked goats and she told him he needed to get one and she wanted to buy it for him as her contribution to our "farm". So she had him talk to people about what it would take to get one and left money to buy a goat for us.
So since them Jimmy has been reading and talking and thinking goats.
The Haitian who is in charge out at the property we live at has apparently been wanting a goat too, so they went together and Jimmy bought both a male and female goat and the Haitian bought another female goat. The hope is that the goats will help "mow" Jimmy's lawn that he has been working so hard on, provide free fertilizer, milk and baby goats - not to mention lots of entertainment. Although I have heard horror stories about goats, so far they seem to be quiet and well tempered, somewhat ambivalent toward us, but atleast not obnoxious.
I'm sure Jimmy will want to tell more later, but for now, here they are.
"Cookies and Cream" - or Cece
"Milky Way"And "Snickers"

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Baby Burton Update


23 weeks today.
That means only 18 weeks to go (give or take a few).... crazy.
When the baby was measured this week at my pre-natal he was 22cm long- right on target.
He has reached the active stage where I feel him moving around and kicking throughout the day.
This is fun.
I am feeling very well - no more nasuea, able to take my vitamins and gaining good weight.
Supposedly I am at the "best" point in pregnancy and should enjoy it while I can before I get as huge as a house. :o)
We found out this week that there have been some changes and we won't be able to deliver the way we had hoped... so we are praying and discussing our current options for delivery. Please pray for wisdom for us and just the right birth for our little one.
A "baby belly" pic: