Two Weeks In

by Jimmy

And now for today's post...

Becky has not been feeling well last week. Though Monday she started feeling much better. It is so nice to have my wife back. I have a picture of her not feeling well, but will refrain from posting that. She wasn't thrilled that I took it in the first place, but told her I had to since her dad told me to be taking lots of pictures.
Since she was feeling better, and having seen just Port-Au-Prince, which was accurately described to us as the "concrete jungle", we decided to take the opportunity to visit the beach with new friends. We were very excited the morning of.
Our property is very beautiful, surrounded by trees, and we even have grass in our front yard. Outside the front gate however, the trash trucks dump trash on our sidewalk, it is noisy, dirty, crowded, and sometimes quite smelly. Most people tell us not to judge Haiti by the capital.
So off we head to our Caribbean island getaway.
As you can probably tell from the pictures, it was a rough day. $35 each for a day at the beach including a buffet. The water was crystal clear, literally smooth as glass when we got there. Perfect temperature. All I could say was "Wow" and shake my head in amazement, all day long. I have always dreamed of sitting under a palm tree on a tropical beach, and here I was. Dream come true.
Incredible opportunity to take a day away before starting school this coming Monday.
We had to go, and Becky had me take a few more pictures.
So I did. And turned around to find her...
...sipping quickly on my melting chocolate shake. I am sure she just did not want it wasted.

Tonight we decided to go out for the first time in Haiti. There is a fast food, by Haitian standards, restaurant just down the road, and getting a little tired of either cooking or heating leftovers, we decided to go on a date. Motorcycle date of course. I recommended we dress up for the date as we both had on shorts and T-shirts. We, as Americans, are quite underdressed whenever we go out anywhere, even to church. Just about everybody on the street is immaculately dressed. We dressed up, meaning we changed shorts for pants, and felt a little better, though we really were the most underdressed people in the restaurant.


Can't say the food was the best, but it was out, and we had a good time, and good conversation waiting for our not-so-fast food.

Things are coming along with the school. We are all really excited about starting. More to come on that later, I am sure.

First day in our new apartment (late by Jimmy)

by Jimmy (I wrote this post the day after our first night in our apartment, and did not post it. So here it is...)

Friday, Aug. 19, 2011

We are in Haiti! And we spent our first night at our apartment. The first two nights spent in Haiti we stayed in the Heartline Guesthouse, graciously served by new Guesthouse managers Ryan and Melissa. Though the stay there was quite enjoyable, both Becky and I were ready to move into our apartment. The property, and our front yard in particular, is beautiful. I am writing this on our patio, as a light breeze blows through the early morning mango tree filtered sunshine.

We were only able to move in yesterday due to Aaron and Troy's hard work. We had to run new electrical wire to our apartment from the main breaker box, since our batteries were not being charged by EDH. (Glossary term EDH: Haiti's national, not-so-reliable, but much appreciated when it is on, power company.) It was also a night of learning. EDH turned off about 9:00, so I was watching it fairly closely every time I woke up, which just happened to be just about every hour. The battery percentage slowly descended through the night from 100% to 50% where I was awakened by an F08 error at 3:00 AM. Not knowing what an F08 error was, I hit the reset button, and the power stayed on. Knowing not to let the batteries get too low (20% by Aaron and/or Troy's advice) because they are bad for the batteries, I turned off our apparently energy hungry fan which lowered our usage by half, and I figured we would be good well into the day, where hopefully EDH would return to recharge. Well, promptly at 5:00, as the sun was coming up, the inverter peeped loudly again with an F10 error, I checked the percentage, and it was suddenly at 10%, I hit the reset button, which shut the whole thing down. With light we could get up, and I could check the owner's manual. Apparently F08 is the warning that the batteries are too low, and should be shut down. And here I was letting them continue too far.

(Sidenote: My mango tree filtered sunlight, just turned to mango tree filtered smoke as the neighbors apparently are burning trash.)

I also made the mistake of not setting up the mosquito netting yesterday. We figured we would just keep the doors closed, and have the three fans blowing directly on us. We sweated heavily throughout the night even with very good air movement. When we opened the doors outside, it felt almost cold. So for tonight I set up the mosquito netting and open at least the windows, and with the fans is should be so much cooler. Haiti lessons are coming on fast.

And here is the completed castle... Another lesson learned is that you actually have to tuck the sides in between the mattresses, or the mosquitoes will still find a way in.

Every day is a new lesson.

Jesus We Need You

At church this Sunday, while praying, the pastor said something similar to this....
"JESUS WE NEED YOU. WE NEED YOU, AND WE NEED YOU SOME MORE. AND AFTER THAT WE NEED YOU JESUS. AND WHEN WE'RE DONE NEEDING YOU, WE NEED YOU. OH HOW WE NEED YOU JESUS."

It seems like back in the states it was often easy to forget in the day to day how desperately we need Jesus. Because we somehow get in our groove and have this false sense of having everything under control, being able to handle it all on our own...

That is not the case in Haiti. This prayer of need has been my prayer all week. Of course, I feel silly for the things that make me feel needy when I am surrounded by a country of people who are needy because they have no job, no food, no place to live or a tent that gets flooded by the storms, no justice, are dying of cholera... you get the idea...

Some of my prayers of need...
Jesus I need you because I have a bad attitude about our electricity being out.
Jesus I need you because I feel really nauseous, but need to eat something.
Jesus I need you because I feel isolated and alone.
Jesus I need you because my mouth is full of cold sores and they hurt like heck.
Jesus I need your help to kill this scary looking tarantula.
Jesus I need you to not let us die on the motorcycle today.
Jesus I need you because I've lost my joy.
Jesus I need you because the smell of burning trash and our stopped up toilet makes me want to vomit.
Jesus I need you because my throat hurts so bad I can't sleep.
Jesus I need you because I am so hot and sweaty I can't sleep.
Jesus I need you because I am just really tired.
Jesus I need you because I have a bad attitude about these never ending dishes and this tiny sink.
Jesus I need you to help me stop being so selfish and love the people around me.
Jesus I need you because having my stuff in piles everywhere is really annoying me.
Jesus I need you to help me pray.
Jesus I need you because everything here is so different.
Jesus I just need you to hold me and uphold me.

And more than anything with all of these comes the prayer that my heart would be thankful for the many blessings we have, and not frustrated with the small inconveniences it is so easy to focus on.

My husband has been awesome. He is working so hard to get us set up here.

I wanted to post some pictures, but am having trouble getting that to work, so, pictures to come later.

Bonjou Ayiti (Good Morning Haiti)

We are home....we have arrived safely in Haiti.

It seems like we have been here much longer than 3 days.

We have been busy trying to get the basic things we will need to live here.

Working electricity, clean water, mosquito netting put up, phones, groceries, etc.

Thank you for all of your prayers - our travels here went very smoothly. There was one rocky part where the customs official didn't like that we didn't know our address in Haiti and made Jimmy leave me and our passports in a little room with some airport guards and leave the airport on his own to go and try to find whoever was meeting us and get the address. As I sat there I just prayed and tried to figure out what I would do if Jimmy never came back. Thankfully I didn't have to have a solution because he returned after a while with an address (not even for Heartline) and they let us through. Lesson learned - just make up an address. All of our bags made it safely too and we found them pretty easily- surprisingly nothing was really even broken.

We aquired a motorcycle from the Hendricks - Jimmy's new transportation.

He is an amazing navigator and after just a few days can find his way all around here. (Not an easy task in Port-Au-Prince....the streets are crazy and very few are marked). But the task that is actually much trickier than navigating is surviving roads full of loose gravel, mud, and more pot holes than flat road, not to mention avoid unyielding vehicles of every sort from every direction following no particular traffic rules. He's great at it.

We like our new home at the Heartline property. The property is very green and full of plants and trees and shade. Jimmy is very excited about gardening there and has already begun his compost pile and gotten seeds from one of the Haitian workers who is a kindred spirit. They have had different people out at the property helping and are getting a lot of work done quickly on the school.

I am really trying to pick up Creole as quickly as possible. Knowing the language and culture are so important to me. Crazily enough it looks like if I want to be Haitian I may have to start dressing nicer... (Can you imagine Becky without t-shirts and soccer shorts?) All of the Haitian ladies are always dressed up- they might not have much to wear, but they take pride in their appearance and they keep their clothes as clean as possible and always look their best. I think that to them t-shirts and shorts are jut sloppy. Anyways, I haven't made the switch yet, but sadly I think it is coming soon.

We have gotten a chance to meet most of Heartline's full time employees (although there are many many people connected with the ministry) and have been able to see a glimpse of most of the different projects they have going right now. We are blessed and grateful to be part of such a reputable and Christ-like ministry.

Hey, at least a part of Texas got RAIN!!! ...

by Jimmy

So... we are leaving for Haiti in 3 days. Becky and I left Bryan Friday afternoon, and headed north to Plano to spend time with her family before Haiti. After a long day of packing, transferring that packing from truck to truck, we got into Plano about 11:00 and were entirely too tired to unpack. So we wait for morning and are greeted by...



Yes, north Texas finally got rain, and we didn't even think to check the forecast. We knew we would have to repack a little, but our primary bags were packed and ready. Now we have to repack everything.

After everything is dried out we will start again. We couldn't help but laugh. Apparently everything about Haiti is hard and unexpected, even when in the States.

Becky's journals were not packed for Haiti, as they were going into storage, so that, in my mind at least, was the biggest setback. They were not soaked, but a little water damaged.

I have been very excited this past week. Just yesterday and today as we left Bryan am I getting a little nervous. It is however such an assurance knowing that God is in this move. I cannot help but look over at Becky several times per day and tell her how blessed we are. It is such a blessing to have such incredible friends, family, and sending church. Thank you all for your prayers and support.

A New Life

In 12 days we will begin a new life.
In 12 days we will leave everyone and everything familiar and American.
In 12 days we will be living in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti.
Only 12 days... Lots to do. Lots of goodbyes. Lots of thoughts and questions and wondering if we are really ready for this. Lots of thankfulness for God's provision already and the many blessings we have awaiting us in Haiti.

Our New Country


Our New People


Our New Home


Our New School


Our New Children




That's a lot of new things. A lot of good things, but a lot of new things.

So thankful that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

Also thankful to be doing this together.

Please pray for us these next 12 days.

If you'd like to know more about the Heartline ministry that we will be supporting through teaching missionary children, visit:
http://www. heartlineministries.org
http://wwww. johnmchoul.wordpress.com

To know more about the families we will be teaching you can visit their blogs:
http://www.allthingshendrick.blogspot.com/
http://www.livesayhaiti.blogspot.com/