Happy Birthday Evi!

It's been a LONG time since we've posted... I have good intentions of doing some posts about what HAS happened, we'll see if those intentions turn into actual blog posts...

but today is a special day...

Happy 2nd Birthday Levi!
Leviticus/Leviathan/evi,
you are one very special little man that has brought a lot of love and laughter into this household.  Your little mannerisms, spunk and character keep us on our toes and keep us laughing.  Praying that the Lord continues to bless you, and us through you.  Excited to see how the Lord will work in your little life!
Love you Little Man!

A House Becomes A Home

The Philippe family was one of seven families who received a new home during Phase 1 of Adoration’s Home Building Project.  Hendy and Dendy, twin teenage boys, are in Adoration’s sponsorship program in Grade 7, and attend the Reformed Presbyterian Church at Adoration. Their home, a typical 2 bedroom model home, is located outside of Port-au-Prince. The Philippe family will be required to pay back a percentage of the cost over the next 5 years, which in turn will be used to provide housing for more families who are need.

Enjoy some pictures of Hendy and Dendy with their mom in front of their new house and join us in thanking the Lord for providing safe and secure housing for the Philippe family as well as 6 other families in Phase 1.

Photo Fanmi Nou

Kati recently took some family photos for us and posted them on her blog.  I, very legally, have copied them onto our blog.  Thanks Kati for taking our photos and for letting me steal them!  Here are a few of the favourites

Kati = sanity

I don't think I've mentioned much about Kati on our blog these past seven months but Kati is a very importatant person to our family and has blessed us immensely these past 7 months.  Kati hails from Grand Rapids but came to serve in Haiti last November.  She had a busy schedule while she was here teaching at a few schools in the neighbourhood, helping out with youth group at Quisqueya chapel and helping lead a youth Bible study AND on top of all of that she willingly volunteered to come and play with Maia and Levi two times a week... yes you heard that right TWO times a week she came for a couple of hours so I could get out of the house and get some work done for Adoration Christian Centre.  It was heavenly!  Kati has left Haiti and headed back to the USA but we wanted to make sure that we told you all how much we love Kati. 

Kati, we love you and we miss you and we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being such a wonderful babysitter and friend.  You have spent countless hours playing play-doh and Barbies and colouring it should last you for the next 5 years.  We miss having you around but we pray for the Lord's blessing on you as continue to serve Him lòt bò.  Your welcome to come visit anytime, the door is quadruple locked but we'll open it for you!  Blessings and Love, Randy & Karen, Maia, Levi

Flamingo Lake

We headed out to Flamingo lake last weekend with some friends.  Unfortunately the flamingos were out of town but we still had a fun little excursion.  Check out Kati's blog for pictures!

Teacher Appreciation

On May 17th, the day we celebrated flag day, we also celebrated our teachers for Teacher Appreciation Day.  In my, humble, opinion Adoration Christian School is a great school.  You don't have a great school unless you have a strong, committed, energetic, educated, capable team behind the school.  We, at Adoration, have all of those things.  We have a great teaching staff who wants to make an impact on their students and on their community.

Thank you Rachelle, Node, Ketia, Annelle, Wislande, Carline, Roodvens, Reminais, Abner, Evenz, Magdalyne, Ketie, and Alix for all of your work that you do for Adoration Christian School.  We know that your job is challenging and frustrating but we thank you for all the time, energy, prayers, sweat and tears that you invest into your students each and every day again.  Thank you for being a blessing to Adoration. 

Alix, school director, giving a short appreciation speech

Some of the ladies enjoying their lunch and cake
Node, Magdalyne, Carline, Rachelle



Flag Day Parade

As promised here are the videos of Adoration's Flag Day parade.  Enjoy!

NB  Thank you Kait for being our videographer/photographer for the parade!

Saturday Swinging

Maia Swinging high in the sky!

Photo courtesy of Maia... the fact that she had my camera makes me just a little nervous
but check out how centred and clear this picture is! 
I think she's got talent... just don't want her practicing that talent with my camera....

Fête du Drapeau

Tomorrow, May 18th, is Flag Day.  Flag Day is a national holiday here in Haiti.  Below are some quick facts on the Haitian flag.

• First Haitian Flag was adopted on May 18, 1803
• Revolutionary leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines created the flag by ripping out the white in a French flag

• The blue represents vigilance, loyalty, perseverance and justice, and the union of black Haitians and mulatto Haitians
• The red symbolizes hardiness, bravery, strength and valour
• The coat of arms in the middle of the flag consists of a trophy of weapons ready to defend freedom
• The coat of arms also has a royal palm that symbolizes independence.  The palm is topped by the Cap of Liberty
• On the white scroll on the flag is the nations motto; it reads L'Union Fait La Force ("Unity Makes Strength")

At school today we celebrated flag day with the students.  The older classes started of the morning with some trivia about the flag.  Grade 3 & 4 were very evenly matched!  There was lot's of cheering and yelling going on down there as the classes displayed their intelligence.

And around 10 we started our parade!  This is the first year we have done a parade in the community and judging by how much the students enjoyed it, I don't think it will be our last.  Roodvens (Grade 3 teacher) has been preparing the students for the parade for a couple of weeks.  Throughout the last couple of weeks during recreation as well as Phys ed you could hear and see the students learning the chants,  songs and routines that go along with the flag day celebrations.  This morning the school headed around the block and down the hill waving their haitian flags and proudly singing about their flag, their independence, their country.  Hopefully we'll have a short video for you next week showing you their fine performance but for now pictures will have to do.

Practicing before we left the school yard

Marching out into the community

Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Right

Roodvens, proudly leading the parade

L'Union Fait La Force!

Birthday Puddle Party

To celebrate Maia's third birthday we had a birthday BBQ bash on Saturday with some dear friends.  We were hoping for a nice evening in which we could hang out outside playing bocce ball and ladder golf and the kids could run around the yard... while instead the rain came pouring down and the kids ended up entertaining themselves by jumping in the puddles.  It was great fun!

Enjoying the outdoors before the rain...

  

"Happy Birthday dear Maia.."

Yummy!



Had some serious puddle jumping going on!

Maia handpainted the goodie bags for all of her friends

Three

Three, 3, trois, twa, twee, une,deux, trois, triez,

Oh the many wonderful things about the Number 3 : For instance:

3

3 is a prime number.

A triad, triplet, trio, tern or hat-trick...

Tri- means three. So triangles have three sides, tripods have three legs and the dinosaur triceratops had three horns. The French flag is a tricolore because it has three colours. Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics based on measuring triangles.

Three-dimensional means that something has length, width and depth.

There are (usually) three school terms in a year.

Oaths are traditionally repeated three times.

A three-legged race is run by two people each with a leg tied to their partner's.

The letters A F H K N Y Z are all made up of three lines.

There are three barleycorns in an inch, three feet in a yard, and three miles in a league. Barleycorns and leagues are some old imperial units of length which are no longer used today.

Once upon a time there were three little pigs ... three billy goats gruff ...

So, you can see what all the excitement is about the number 3!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
And 3 is a big number in our house today as it is Maia's 3rd Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Sweet girl, so thankful for the three years that we have had with you and excited to see what the Lord has in store for you in the coming year.

Love you!

Home Building Project



A few weeks ago on the Adoration blog we posted about the Building Committee going out into the community and assessing families for a Building Project that we were hoping to start.  Well the project has been started!  We have received funding to build 50 homes for people in the Adoration community.  This project is exciting, stressful, and needed.

The building committee, which consists of Abner, Reminais, Evenz, Asselhomme, Alix, Cadeau, Pastor Octavius, Cornelius and Randy, has been working for weeks already finalizing the list of beneficiaries, making the budget, looking at land titles, finding foreman, signing contracts, preparing the supplies list, and the list could go on and on. 

But today was the first day of being out on the field with the beneficiaries digging in the dirt to start the foundation.

This project is a rehabilitation project to build houses for people currently living in tent cities or other unsustainable interim housing because their houses were destroyed by the 2010 earthquake.  Each beneficiary of the project will be required to participate in a repayment plan where they will pay back a small percentage of the house in the next 5 years.  They are also responsible for working alongside the construction crews with the building of their house, putting their own sweat and tears into their new home.

And the outcome of this project will be families will have safe, dry and warm housing.  Families are included in the project and will have a sense of ownership over their house as they help with the building process, as well as, financially contribute to it.  They will be loved and shown value through the project.  And the committee will bring the families and their new homes before the Lord in prayer, asking that He would be the Rock on which the home is built.

Please join us in lifting up this project before the Lord.  There are a lot of obstacles standing in front of the committee and a lot of things that still need to be figured out.  Pray for wisdom, strength and perseverance for those hot sweaty days when the block truck loses his breaks and can’t make it to the house, those days when the shovels go missing because the little children around the corner stole them, those days when the supplies can’t get to the job site because there is no phone service and they can’t find the supervisor, those days when you just don’t know if the headache is worth it.  Please pray.