Mud Puddle!

We went up the mountain to a friend's house today for a playdate and it rained for a little while we were eating lunch.... so our children spent the afternoon running around in the puddles.  For these four little ones it was a dream come true!


Everyone sitting in the puddle



Priceless!



As Maia says it "putting my hair in a muddle"

 

Taking a break from the puddles



And they are clean again!



Check it out!

Yup, it's proof, the seeds are germinating!

Haïtî, Couleur, Creole

The Special Education classes put on a special program last week Thursday.  It was the first edition of 'Haïtî, Couleur, Creole'.  A program dedicated to recognizing the achievements of the special education class as well as the dedication and help of their parents.  The whole school was invited to participate in the festivities and afterwards there were special treats and display tables of the students artwork. 

Wislande, Grade 1 teacher, was our MC for the afternoon.  She made volunteers come up and explain what the word Haiti meant to them, the special education classes sang us a couple of songs, parents of the students were given beautiful corsages, thank yous were said to the teachers and their assisants, special awards were handed out to parents of students who had outstanding achievements and thankfulness was shown for each unique individual.

I'm not sure I realize the full extent of what it means to have a child in Haiti with special needs.  These parents and families face HUGE obstacles.  There are no wheelchair ramps, handicapped buses, special community programs for these children.  A lot of them are rejected by society and become outcasts.  I recently interviewed a mother of one our students and she explained the difficulty of trying to get her son into a school and the huge weight that was lifted from her when she found out that Adoration had a program that her son could be a part of.  

Please keep our staff Ketia, Magdalyne, Annelle, and Ylda in your prayers.  Pray that they may continue to pour out love on these children, that they may have patience and wisdom in teaching them and pray that Adoration can continue to provide a loving, safe environment for our special young brothers and sisters.

First Edition of 'Haïti, Couleur, Creole'

Randy explaining what the word Haiti means to him

The parents receiving their corsages

Outstanding Achievement awarded to three different individuals. 
These mothers received the award for their child.

Pastor Octavius hanging out with some of the students after the program

Cherry Pickers

We have 3 luscious cherry trees in our yard and Maia and Levi LOVE picking cherries.  Unfortunately the ladder is a human ladder so we can only pick when Daddy is around but nonetheless we spend countless hours every day looking at the cherries, planning to pick them, picking them, and making cherry cheesecake.  Love our cherry trees!

 

Fete de l`Agriculture

Today is Agriculture day, which means yesterday we did a fun activity with the students to teach them a little about Agriculture.  Randy got this great idea off of Pinterest (what did people do before Pinterest?!?!?!)

Each student was asked to bring in a used plastic bottle.  They, or their teachers, cut a square in the top of it and Cornelius drilled some holes in the side, for the string, and some holes in the bottom for water drainage.  Then Randy gathered the class around the wheelbarrow and got students to shovel in the dirt, remove the rocks and garbage, mix it with the fertilizer (some lovely cow manure from next door) and scoop it into their bottles.  Then they made little holes in the dirt and we planted the seeds - melons, peppers, tomotoes, flowers, radishes, onions, so many different varieties! The students loved it and it will be fun to see the little plants come to life.

After their bottles were made Cornelius, Cadeau and Beuger hung them on the wall for the school so when the little seedlings grow we will have a beatiful display of plants, so excited!!

  



Guess who this one belongs to....



Barbie Party

Regular Routines

Things at the school are flowing right along.  April is reading month at Adoration so the students have been doing different activities with reading.  At the end of the month the older students hope to participate in a Geography challenge and plans are being made for Flag day in the middle of May as well as Agricultural day at the beginning of May

At Adoration Christian Centre secondary students continue to come for their daily cleaning duties as well as to attend Friday afternoon Bible study.  The second controle of the year was just recently completed and report cards were given out by their schools and given to us to track their progress.  It's encouraging to see the students grow and progress academically.

On the church side their continues to be faithful preaching of the Word, Women's Bible study is praying and singing and worshipping together weekly, Men's Bible Study is digging into the word weekly, Visiting and encouragement is happening as the evangelization team is heading out every Monday into the community and Friday afternoon Bible study is working it's way through the 10 commandments.

And on the Disaster Relief side we are gearing up to start a housing project.  The building committee has been hard at work the last couple of months collecting information and locations on families connected to Adoration.  Just recently the project was approved so now the building commitee is in high gear as they prepare a list of 50 people who are in need, figure out construction crews and contracts and all the stuff that the project entails.  Tét chage!  (Loaded Head!)

lot's going on at Adoration, lot's to pray for, lot's to be thankful for.

Mési Jezi!

Republica Dominicana

Over Easter we took a little vacation in the Dominican Republic.  It was worth the 8 hour drive to enjoy the beautiful beach, shopping at Ikea, fast food restaurants galore, paved roads, stoplights, the zoo, PriceSmart, and some quality time with our good friends, Tim and Paola deYoung and their girls Ana Leah and Rachel.  We stayed at the Tia's house (Paola's Aunt's place)  which was right in the middle of the city.  We had a park across the road, a nice grocery story next door and a dominoes around the corner... so yup we were pretty much spoiled the whole time we were there. 

Beach Day!

Levi and Ana Leah were best buddis and worst enemies!

We went to a dinosaur exhibition...
this is us on our way in... just a little scared

Maia trying to convice herself she wasn't scared

classic Levi shot

Kiddy Zoo!

Maia loved the flamingos

Rachel's dedication on Easter Sunday morning

Best buddies!

Border crossing on the way home... lot's to look at.

That's the end.  Was a great vacation and now it's time to get back to work!

La Citadelle

My sister Nicole and cousin Sherri just spent 10 days with us in Haiti.  We loved having them here and spent a lot of our time together pinteresting (I'll post pics later of our wonderful creations).  But besides pinteresting we took a day and flew up to Cap Haitian to see the citadel.  It was definatley worth it.  The citadel is HUGE and well constructed and a very important part of Haiti's history.  Some quick facts on the history of the citadel

• It was built by Henri Christophe, a key leader during the Haitian slave rebellion, after Haiti gained independence from France at the beginning of the 19th century
• The massive stone structure was built by up to 20,000 workers between 1805 and 1820
• The Citadel was built several miles inland, and atop the 3,000 ft (910 m) Bonnet a L’Eveque mountain, to deter attacks and to provide a lookout into the nearby valleys.
• The Haitians outfitted the fortress with 365 cannons of varying size
• Since its construction, the fortress has withstood numerous earthquakes, though a French attack never came
• If you would like more info on the citadel follow this link

Woohoo for flying with MAF



Heading up the mountain on a moto



The citadel

Tarek showing off his strength...

lot's of this going on .... photo, photo, photo

Group Picture - Sherri, Randy, Karen, Nicole, David (MAF pilot), Tarek

Potty Traning 101

Always take the potty along!

Utilize

Definition of Utilize : To make use of

There are a lot of projects the team did while they were here and all of them are great but these are my two favourites and they are definately being utilized.

The spacy Grade 6 classroom with the nice red floor

The playground

Bible Trivia Challenge

To end Bible Month with our secondary students Cornelius and Pastor Octavius organized a bible trivia challenge on Friday afternoon.  It was a pretty intense challenge with 4 teams in the finals who were very evenly matched.  It was exciting to see their excitement for the bible challenge but especially their bible knowledge.  Some of them suprised us with how much trivia they knew!  

Congratulations Santanette, Amson, Seliane, Jeanaline, Farah, Nelson and Claudy for your exceptional bible knowledge!



team work

Celebrating the right answer

More celebrations

Pastor Octavius and Cornelius deciding
which question to challenge the teens with

The winning team!