Hello to all of you who come to this blog, and have found nothing for a long time. My last couple of months have been taken up with preparations for moving back to Haiti, and then moving down August 13. I have been very busy since moving down, living in a very nice little house that is not finished yet. I don’t have good internet up on the mountain, so posting is a problem. I am in town now though, for the weekend, so here I am to catch you up on things.
Our house is in Grand Fond, or the Big Valley. Actually, it is like the back of a very sway backed horse, or in the middle of the humps of a two hump camel. On opposing sides the mountains go up, and on the other two sides the mountain falls away. It isn’t super steep, and it isn’t really a mountaintop, or a valley, or a hillside. I hope my descriptions give you an idea of what it is like. I will try to include some pictures if I have them with me.
This is what a normal day looks like for me. I get up at 6:30, make breakfast and my coffee, then Michael and I eat and have our devotions. The Haitian men he hires to work show up at 8. I try to have Michael start the generator and charge the pressure tank with water before they come, so I can start laundry. During the rainy season, which is now, I can only do two loads of laundry max in a day. If I do more, it won’t dry before the afternoon rains. I don’t need to do laundry every day, but if we have been out of the mountains for a week, or if it rains for a couple of days, the dirty wash piles up. Then there are dishes to wash in my makeshift kitchen, and juice to squeeze for lunch. (Haitian workers don’t expect variety, but it is customary to give them some kind of rice, some kind of sauce, and some kind of juice for lunch.) Then the laundry needs hung out. At 11, it is time to get the rice on, and the sauce made. I don’t make typical Haitian sauce, but what I make has been well accepted. At noon Michael comes in and we take the workers their food. After lunch I do the dishes, then work on cleaning the house and windows, organizing, helping Michael if he needs me, baking, etc and maybe a half hour or so to rest and email. Time flies till it is time to make supper. We don’t eat till right after 6 because that is when the workers go home. After supper, Michael finishes up his work for the day while I do the dishes, and then we shower with a bucket of water. It is 8:30 or 9 by then, and we are ready to go to bed. On Wednesdays, we try to keep the time to listen to a sermon in the evening. It is a busy life, but so far has been good. It was an adjustment for both of us to live in our own house with just each other to talk to and work with. But by God’s grace we got the kinks worked out and now we are really enjoying being in our own home.
As of right now, we only have electric if the generator is running, and we only have running water in the bathroom sinks and toilet and the washer. I am not complaining, it is kind of fun to see how good I can be at living without everything I was used to in the States. I am glad for running water, for the first two weeks I had to have buckets of water carried in. I will be glad for a shower which we will probably put in sometime in Oct. or Nov. We have the cabinets for the kitchen, and Lord willing, my dad will come down in Oct. to install them, as well as set up the solar electric system. Then I will have running water in the kitchen, and electric all the time! So that is an overview of my life currently. Things will change as we get the house further finished. There will be more time, and I plan to start working on perfecting my Creole.
This past week we spent in Fond Doux. My dad, Caleb Trent, and Larry Sherraden came down for a week of Pastor’s Conference. I held another girl’s seminar, and Deb Vital and Brenda Clugston translated for me. Deb was such a blessing to work with once again, and it was a pleasure getting to know and work with Brenda. The girl’s class went fairly well. Some of the girls were very attentive, and some didn’t pay much attention at all. But I believe God was working in some of their hearts.
Deb Vital translating
Me teaching
Brenda Clugston translating
How well do you wash your hands? “Glo Germ is fun”
Brenda taught them a game so she could learn their names better. They all were laughing so hard by the time it was done!
These next couple of weeks we will be working on getting things together and ready for the apartment to be built. In two weeks a couple young men from our home church and my older brother are coming down to frame and roof the apartment. Michael hopes to be married mid January, so the apartment must be ready to live in when he goes home for his wedding. He and Breanna will live in the apartment so they have their own space. I will live on the ground floor where a lot of the daily life things will happen. I am enjoying setting up house keeping, it scratches an itch I’ve had for a while. 🙂
Well, I will add some pictures here if they will upload. (They did!)
My kitchen for the time being. It already looks a bit different, and will continue to change over time.
My room. We will have bed frames after a while. (Thank you, Papa, for the nice shelves!)
The tree was making a huge mess on the roof and putting junk in the rain water we catch. So we topped it. Wilmon did the chopping, and Michael directed the fall so it wouldn’t smash the fence or any windows.
This corn is from our garden. There is a lot more! We are roasting it, and will have it ground for cornmeal. Roasting it kills the bugs so we can store it, and gives it wonderful flavor! Anyone want cornmeal pancakes?
Pouring the slab on the roof to make the apartment floor level. The roof was sloped to collect rain water, thus the need to level it.
The rest of the crew
Thank you to all the ‘blan’s who gave us their time and energy!
Our cousin, Don, who helped Michael do the hard part – finishing. It is a huge blessing to have him and his family close by!
We stopped on the trail so Michael could help a moto driver fix his broken chain. The sun was setting, and the windshield of the Bobcat caught the rays like this. with the drops of rain, I couldn’t resist getting out my camera!
Thank you for your continued interest and prayers! We need the grace of God to continue with the work here.
God bless you!
