November 17, 2007

Nicole, Sherri, and Andrew

We love our guests so much that they are the title to this post. We were so thankful to have Nicole deJonge and Andrew and Sherri deJager join us for 2 weeks! They were great company and brought with them so many gifts and donations from Canada. They also got a lot of work done in the two weeks that they were here.

Here they are painting the school name on the gate.
Andrew and Sherri with their weapons.
I recieved a snorkel set for my birthday and was so excited to try it out. Here I am with Cadeau, swimming in the ocean at Kaliko, trying to teach him to breath through the snorkel.








Andrew and Samuel building a door for the outside washroom.A picture of the school building. We have finished scraping the walls and they need to be painted now. During the last two weeks we were able to paint the name of the school on the top, and also install the baskeball nets, and put up the flagpole. So things will look a little different now from this angle. The Kindergarten classes, sporting new pictures and bulletin letters sent by John Calvin Christian School, Smithville.




Some children at Adoration.


Sherri and Nicole working on the sponsorship program for the students. They did an excellent job taking pictures despite the fact that Sherri still hasn't learned how to spell her name :)



Walking to church Sunday morning.



Andrew, building screens for the ti-kay, with help by many of the students.


My wife, at her desk at the school, hard at work.



We recieved many donations from people and groups in Canada. John Calvin Christian School in Smithville raised money and donated many school supplies. They also sent a letter and some pictures of their school. So we translated it into Creole and hung it up on the wall. The students and teachers love looking at the pictures. A Big thank-you to all who donated supplies and tools. We are very grateful for them all!


Here we have Sherri and Nicole, who are expert wood craftspersons, building tables for the students. The guys gave them a little help on the side too.















Here is Nicole painting the ti-kay (little house).




Sherri, stunning us with her Settlers playing abilities. Always have time for a game.



November 01, 2007

Student life


haning out at recreation

Kindergarden student "studying" after school

Some of the sponsor students painting the tikay (little house)


The Boys in Grade 5

Kindergarden student enjoying her lunch

Poor girl slept on my chair all morning!

Yolgens (Maman Manise's son) in Bible class (CRECH is supported by WWCS)

The Grade 3 class getting ready to eat lunch

October 05, 2007

Some Before, During and After Photos....


The after photo


Jn Eddy and Evenz working hard on the "ti kay"

Randy and Walne building shelve for our books and supplies

The during photo

The before photo


Maman Manise getting the food ready for lunch

Samuel with his grade 1 class

Sponsor students cleaning up A LOT of garbage!

Sponsor students in their spiffy new uniforms


Alyn with his grade 3 class

Mackenson teaching his grade 5 Bible class



The first day of school!

Singing of the national anthem (3rd day of school)

Adoration Christian School

We have decided to call the school, Ecole Chretienne Adoration! (Adoration Christian School). (there are a few accents in there, but i don't know how to do that.) And now you should be asking, Why did you chose this name? Well that is a good question, and i am glad that you asked it.

We chose this name for the school because it reflects our desire to give all glory, honor and praise to God alone. We, as an organization, desire to glorify the LORD in all of our work, and in all of our life. We are so thankful, and in awe of what God has done for us in His love and mercy, in His grace and goodness, and all we have to give is Adoration! How great is our God! How great is the love that He lavishes on us! We adore and love Him, imperfectly, nonetheless, we desire to worship Him more and more in our lives, and we want others to do the same. We desire that all the work that is being done will result in Praise to our God, for His abounding love, for His great faithfulness. Sola Gloria Deo - For God's glory alone.

Adoration - worship and praise. May the Name of the LORD be magnified among all the nations!

New Beginnings

Well, A lot has happened since our last post, so i will try to give you a little run-down of our life since August.

  • So the LORD provided a new property for the school, which we are very thankful for. The property needs a great deal of TLC, but besides that it has a lot of potential.
  • We have been busy building, repairing, moving rubble, laying block, painting, making tables and benches, digging, etc, trying to get the property up and running. A lot of people have been pitching in and lending a hand.
  • The sponsored students have all started school, and have obtained all their books and uniforms. They look pretty dashing when they are decked out in their uniforms! It is great to see. They were pretty excited to start school again.
  • We opened the school this week! Praise the LORD! The school opened on Wednesday Oct. 3, 2007. We have a lot more work to do on the school but it is operational. All the children were super excited, along with all the parents, teachers, and us.
  • Cadeau, Samuel and Wesley are living on the school property, taking care of the place. We are still working on their ti-kay (little house) trying to make it suitable for living. Currantly they are sleeping in the school building. They are thankful because they just got electricity - whenever we get it.
  • We have moved into our new house this past week as well. It needs a lot of cleaning, and we have a lot of residents (cockroaches and such) we have to ask to leave. But is a beautiful house, way to nice for us, but it has come semi-furnished, which we needed, b/c we don't have time right now to spend trying to get everything in order. We are very thankful for it. God is good.
  • Anyway, that is a quick run down on what is happening here. I hope to post some pictures soon, because it will give you a better idea of what is happening.

Shalom, Randy

August 20, 2007

Cyclone

We just enjoyed a beautiful 25 degree day! Wow, it was amazing, I felt so cool that I enjoyed a cup of warm tea in the morning and in the afternoon I wished I had my slippers and jogging pants with me cuz I was getting goose bumps! Today again the weather is beautiful, the temperature is starting to rise again but their is a beautiful breeze blowing in my face.

The beautiful temperatures were a result of Hurricane Dean passing us by. Thankfully in Port-au-Prince we didn't have much storm activity. The wind was blowing hard through the night and it rained all day Sunday but that was about it. The South of the island got hit a bit harder with some flooding. Through it all we just see the hand of God and his grace. Haiti is so poor and there is no infastructure here so if Dean had hit Haiti it would have been a disaster. Our Haitian friends were telling us that they knew it wouldn't hit Haiti hard because God knew that Haiti couldn't handle it. What awesome faith and trust they have in God!

Some pics... Samuel and Cadeau, Me and Manise, Caroline with Paulo, Jacob and Manu, Randy and I giving "advice" to Marg, Randy picking citwon in our backyard, and a beautiful view of the mountains on the way up to the Baptist Mission. Enjoy!



August 16, 2007

hello and good-bye



Well once again we've had to say hello and good-bye. Ronn VanAndel, Anita VanRootselaar, Caroline VanGrootheest and Marg Spithoff just spent nine days with us. We had a blast with them! There main purpose here was to lead teacher training seminars for the teachers of Coram Deo, they did a fabulous job with that. Our teachers really enjoyed it and learned a lot from it and strong relationships were formed between Canadian teachers and Haitian teachers. For Randy and I it was a really encouraging

week just to get us thinking about the school year and to see the teachers work throught the material that they were given. We learned a lot about each one of the teachers. The other main task of the teachers was to TRY and beat us in Settlers, I put try in their because unfortunately for them that mission was unsuccessful. I know when they read this that they will have all of their reasonings but just remember that almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades! Besides the seminars and the settlers games we did also find some time for sight-seeing,

souvenir shopping, visiting Dorothy's, playing soccer with the kids, basketball with the guys, and we went up to the Baptist Mission and Fort Jacques to see some amazing views of Port au Prince. While touring around there we met some UN from Jordan, if anybody wants to visit Jordan Anita's got some contact information for you for where you can stay when you are there :) Unfortunatly on Monday morning we had to say our good-byes :( Thank you guys for an amazing week, lots of good laughs and memories and for encouraging us in our walk with the Lord, we love you guys!


Randy and I have changed location... we still don't have our own house but for the next two months we do have a three bedroom, three bathroom home as well as four lovely dogs! So if anybody is getting the itch to come down to Haiti just let us know there is more than enough room for you. We also have three citwon pye bwa in our back yard so my new part time job is making freshly squeezed lemonade, it's so yummy!


A verse that I've heard so many times over and over again hit home for me this morning during my devotion. "Be still and know that I am God" The word that struck me was KNOW and a little exert from Pastor Doug's sermon that I thought was really cool "Know that God is your shepherd who made you. Know that He is your fortress you can run to. Know that He is your strength when you are weak. Know that He is an ever-present help in trouble. Know that He is with you and will never let you go. Know that he will be exalted over nations. Know that He will be exalted over all the earth. Know that God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing He cannot do for you! It's so good for me to be reminded of how awesome My God is!


And now I will answer your question of how did you get Pastor Doug's sermon in Haiti... Ronn brought it with him and he passed it along to Randy and Randy shared it with me. What an excellent sermong on Psalm 46. Thanks Pastor Doug!


Well those are the latest happenings on the island.


May you take the time this day to be still and know That God is God!

July 25, 2007

pics...


















Nou bezwen etudie creole anpil!

Well our visitors are gone, we really enjoyed our time with them. It's crazy how quickly you can become good friends with people. We found that we had a lot of connections with them, we played dutch bingo over and over again, the connections were crazy!!! Before they left though they were able to help Randy with fixing up the weeping tile at Coram Deo, on Sunday we attended Quisqueya with them, the singing that Sunday was really powerful... I don't remember all of the songs but I do remember singing "Worthy is the lamb who was slain" what a beautiful line! Sunday afternoon we went out to a village with Karen the contrast between city and village is unreal. And after we got back Rand and I did our first geocache with our guests. One of the guys is really into it and does it all the time back home and he found out that their was one in Port-au-Prince so we checked it out, it's kind of a neat thing.... maybe Rand and I will have to start planting them everywhere... hee, hee. Monday we spent the day with the Hopps up at their place near Kaliko. We had a really enjoyable day with their family, what a blessing to have been able to spend the day with them. Tuesday morning the visitors packed up their bags and headed back to beautiful British Colombia. Since then I've been spending a lot of time with my bed with some kind of bug which is upsetting my stomach, today was a lot better than yesterday but still not all the way better, hopefully a good nights rest tonight will do the trick. We started our language training this morning. We are going to start doing two hours every morning, we each have our own tutor, boy it's intense! Our brains feel fried after two hours, it's A LOT of thinking. Mwen pa konne si mwen kab fe li! And this aft there was a group at Coram Deo leading a Bible story for the kids, I wasn't their but Randy said the kids enjoyed it. They learned about the Samaritan women at the well and they got to do some coloring.

Well God is and continues to be good to us, life is not always easy but we are continually learning and being reminded to rely on the Lord for our needs, no easy task! I read this poem today that I thought was really neat so I'm going to share it. The things that sound easy usually aren't very easy at all....



TEACH ME TO LOVE

There was a time when in my daily prayer

I asked for all the things I deemed most fair,

And necessary to my life -- success,

Riches, of course, and ease, and happiness;

A host of friends, a home without alloy;

A primrose path of luxury and joy,

Social distinction, and enough of fame

To leave behind a well-remembered name.

Ambition ruled my life. I longed to do

Great things, that all my little world might view

And whisper, "Wonderful!"

Ah, patient God,

How blind we are, until Thy shepard's rod

Of tender chastening gently leads us on

To better things!

Today I have but one

Petition, Lord -- Teach me to love.

indeed, it is my greatest and my only need --

teach me to love, not those who first love me,

But all the world, with that rare purity

Of broad, outreaching thought which bears no trace

Of earthly taint, but holds in its embrace

Humanity, and only seems to see

The good in all, reflected, Lord, from Thee.

And teach me, Father, how to love the most

Those who most stand in need of love -- that host

Of people who are sick and poor and bad,

Whose tired faces show their lives are sad,

Who toil along the road with footsteps slow,

And hearts more heavy than the world can know --

People whom others pass discreetly by,

Or fail to hear the pleading of that cry

For help, amid the tumult of the crowd;

Whose very anguish makes them cold and proud,

Resentful, stubborn, bitter in their grief --

I want to bring them comfort and relief,

To put my hand in theirs, and at their side

Walk softly on, a faithful, fearless guide.

O Saviour, thou the Christ, Truth, ever near,

Help me to feel these sad ones doubly dear

Because they need so much! Help me to seek

And find that which they thought was lost; to speak

Such words of cheer that as we pass along

The wilderness shall blossom into song.

Ah, Love divine, how empty was that prayer

Of other days! That which was once so fair --

Those flimsy baubles which the world calls joys

Are nothing to me now but broken toys,

Outlived, outgrown. I thank Thee that I know

Those much-desired dreams of long ago,

Like butterflies, have had their summer's day

Of brief enchantment and have gone. I pray

For better things

Thou knowest, God above,

My one desire now -- Teach me to love.
By Louise Knight Wheatley