Teacher Training Seminars. Done.

The Teacher Training Seminars have come to an end. Once again all the teachers did a fabulous job and all walked away from the week having learned a lot and having been encouraged by their fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Thank you Al, Theresa and Julie (and your spouses for letting you come!) You guys did a fabulous job and we are thankful for your wisdom and creativitiy that you shared with us. And thank you Adoration staff for coming, participating and encouraging the Canadian teachers in the gifts and talents that they shared with us.And you would never guess but Julie turned....70 while she was with us! Happy Birthday Julie! Thanks for letting us celebrate it with you. We pray for the Lord's continued blessings over you this coming year.

At the closing ceremonies all teachers, Canadian and Haitian, were presented with certificates. After the certificates were given out the Adoration staff presented a smallish gift to the Canadian teachers thanking them for their hard work and making sure they never forget them.

Group Shot!

Thanks for keeping the seminars in your prayers. They were truly a blessing and it's great to start the school year off with some great memories, time spent in the Word, and being encouraged in the work of Adoration Christian School.

Vacation Bible School

Well the teacher seminars are going on upstairs there is a lot of laughing, singing and hollering coming from downstairs from the Vacation Bible School being organized by the church. The kids were having a great time yesterday singing and laughing and playing games. It's so encouraging to see different members of the church using their talents to serve the children in the community. And to see so many of the children from the community having fun together and learning about Jesus. What a special time!

Madame Delfils is organizing the VBS but I think she is also having the most fun!

Maia and I sitting in on some of the activitiesLunch Time!

Teacher Seminars

This week is Teacher Seminars. Julie, Theresa and Al have joined us from Canada to lead our teachers in a week long teacher training seminar. Yesterday was the first day of seminars and both teachers did a fabulous job. Pastor Octavius is helping bring out the concepts and ideas by translating for the teachers so that there is some mutual understanding:)
Our prayer for this week is that it may be filled with much learning, encouraging, bonding, laughing, praying and singing.
Pasté Octavius translating for Theresa during her lessonAl and Julie with Pasté OctaviusAbner sharing his self-portraitEvenz strategizing his bingo gameMaia taking advantage of the seminars

Football

Cadeau, Samuel, and Yder, with a little help from Randy and Cornelius, are running a three week soccer/football (depends which country you are from!) tournament for the community. One things Haitians are serious about is their football. There are 12 teams in the tournament and four times a week there are three 40 minute games with lots of fans from the community to cheer them on. Enjoy the pictures!
Match de football

The fans

The team with the white guys

The jerseys... Thank you to the St. Catherine's Jets for your very generous donation!

Watching football with Daddy

Bienveni!

At the end of July we had to say farewell to Kim as she felt the Lord leading her back to Toronto. But because Kim did a ton of work for the organization we needed to hire two replacements for her...hee, hee. All joking aside, Cornelius and Mindy Broersma and their beautiful daughter Chloe have joined us at Adoration Christian Centre. We are excited for the many gifts and talents that Cornelius and Mindy bring to the table and how the Lord will use them at Adoration Christian Centre as we, as an organization, continually seek to support the local Haitian church in alleviating poverty by enriching the community through quality Christian education. Cornelius and Mindy and Chloe have been with us for two weeks and Maia and Chloe are already best friends and worst enemies :) Maia goes to bed talking about Chloe and wakes up in the morning asking for Chloe.
Corn and Mind it's great to have you here and we pray for a blessing over your family as you have entered into a time of lots of unknowns, lots of firsts, a steep learning curve, and a beautiful culture with some amazing people. May your love for the Lord grow as you serve him here in Port au Prince. Looking forward to working with yous and seeing the ways in which the Lord uses you through Adoration.

Canada

On Vacation...
We had a very relaxing time, spending most of it with our families. We stayed in Ontario for half of it and for the other half we relaxed on the beautiful West Coast with Ryan and Ruth and their two boys. Both places were relaxing and refreshing. It was good to see brothers, brother-in-laws, sisters, sister-in-laws, nieces, nephews, and cousins. Maia especially enjoyed time spent with all her crazy cousins. We also enjoyed the beauty of creation and the beauty of having a park just around the corner with a splash pad and an Aunt Cole who took Maia there whenever her little heart desired. And Levi, well he was just along for the ride, anywhere we took him he was happy :)
Here are some of our favourite pictures...
Catching a midafternoon snooze with cousin Matthew Tea Party

Watching Diego with Cousin Caleb

Story time with Aunt Cole

Wagon ride at Uncle Greg and Aunt Jolene's

Strolling the streets with cousin Alyssa

Hanging out with Leah and Caleb

Bath Time!

Cheese!

Chillaxing on the beach with Alyssa and Robyn

Levi and Sammy watching the sunset

And now we are back at home in Haiti (we've been back for over two weeks already... a little slow on the blog update!) It feels good to be home again. We feel refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to see how the Lord is going to work in this next year within our hearts, our family, Adoration, and Haiti.

Nou Pral Sonje Ou

Before we left for vacation...
We were able to have a going away party for Kim. It was supposed to be a surprise but Kim pretty much figured it out that morning, it's hard to get anything past her :) But even though the surprise was spoiled the party was a great time to reflect on the past two years and how Kim has blessed each and every one of us with her different talents, gifts and great personality. Kim you are missed and loved. Thank you so much for all of your hard work, sweat, tears, and prayers that you have poured into Adoration. As you go from here we pray for the Lord's continued blessing on you as you head back to Toronto and all the different parts of your life there.
Alix welcoming Kim to her party Spending time in prayer - thankful for the blessings of the last two years and praying for a blessing over Kim in the year to come.

The teachers from Adoration presented Kim with a plaque. This way she will never forget us at Adoration.

Pretty self explanatory... We Love Kim

Enjoying a sweet time of fellowship

Nou Pral sonje ou Kim!

Graduation

While we were on vacation....
Adoration Christian School celebrated it's first ever graduation. Check out Kim's blog post for pictures. Click Here.
God is good!

Emily

I know we've got a lot of blogging to catch up on ... hopefully one day soon.
This morning we are asking for prayers for Haiti as tropical storm Emily is upon us and she is fierce and strong. She's expected to hit in full force later this morning/early afternoon. Pray for those in tents and temporary make shift shelters as the winds can rock them pretty hard. And pray that Emily passes quickly.
Thanks for praying with us!

School is out for the Summer!

Textbooks have been collected, uniforms worn for the last time, exams finished and waiting to be marked... school is out for the summer! Adoration Christian School is done it's classes and exams and the students were excited to be done today! Although the work isn't done for the teachers, they still have a week of marking, report cards and clean up, the students are finished today. There will be a graduation program at the end of next week to officially end the school year but students are done studying, done exams and done with homework. I shouldn't say all students though, the Grade 6 class has their government exam next week Tueday and Wednesday. These are big exams for the Grade 6 class and they have spent the majority of the year preparing and studying for this exam, we'll be keeping them in prayer! waiting for the final bell to ring...

The Grade 6 class preparing for the graduation ceremony. As long as their pass their government exam they will no longer be students of Adoration Christian School but Adoration will continue to sponsor them through High School as long as they meet the requirements.

Maia enjoyed the last day of school as well playing with some of her friends,

And finishing off all of her school work!

Class Trip

A little over a week ago Randy, Alix (School director) and Evenz (Grade 6 teacher) took the grade six students on a class trip. They went downtown to see That's the National History Museum downtown Port au Prince. The students got to have a tour of the Musuem and see different artifacts of Haitian History. After their tour of the museum the spent some time walking around the five parks downtown which are dedicated to the five heroes of their history.

Fun at Home!

*Special Post for Grandparents*
Here are some pictures of Maia and Levi from the last month having some fun at home! Both are doing really well. Maia's new favourite is puzzles, she loves to spend time with Mommy or Daddy on the mats working on her puzzles. She also loves to tell stories, her vocabulary is very limited but that doesn't hinder her from babbling and acting out her tales. Levi is sitting and doing the army crawl. He just recently started eating baby food and would probably eat the spoon if we let him he loves eating so much. Enjoy the Pictures!
Heading out for a walk... hee, hee

Cuddle time on the couch

Daddy and Levi

This one is for Aunt Cole!

Riding Polo around the house

Flag Day

May 18 is a holiday here in Haiti in which they celebrate flag day, the day the took the white out of the French flag and created the Haitian flag. The day before at the school staff and students celebrated with a fun program doing a little March arount the courtyard with their Haitian flags as well as other fun activities with the students body. Unfortunately we missed the festivities at the school but Levi had his own little celebration at home with his Haitian flag however we put on the Canadian bib so he wasn't confused as to what nationality he is!