Teacher Training Seminars

Last week we were extremely blessed to have three teachers from Canada come down and share their knowledge and expertise with us. The teachers at Adoration thoroughly enjoyed the seminars and we really appreciated the time and effort that Keith Verburg, Ruth Meerveld and Al Stares put into the seminars to make them such a success. Feel free to come down again and see how the teachers are putting into practice the things that you taught them. Enjoy the pics!

Keith doing some phys ed training with the teachers. He did an excellent job teaching us some new games and different techniques to developing skills

The teachers proudly displaying their artwork.

Ruth enjoying a meal with the teachers

Al and his translater, Samuel Masseus, teaching us how to teach BibleRandy leading us in morning devotions on John 4

Ruth, Maia and I with some of the young ladies from church

The directrice... what'd you say?

Family Picture :)

...and before we get the next team in tomorrow (3 Canadian teachers for teacher training seminars) I thought I'd put up some pics of the little princess. She's cooing at us lots and smiling and growing and this morning she rolled over!
Maia's favorite toy! the second you lay her down in front of it she's grinning from ear to earFirst time sightseeing in Haiti, she did great... slept through all of it!

Au Revwa!

The team has been and gone for a number of days already. They did A LOT of work while they were with us. Thank you VERY much Joel, Natalie, Rachel, Jim & Curtis for giving of your time and talents to Adoration. We thoroughly enjoyed having you and you were a real blessing to the school.

Group shot up at Fort Jacques

We had UN protection one day as some UN soldiers from Peru were outside our gate

Priming the inside of the tikayThe tikay, finished on the outside, still needs a bit of work on the inside, but it's coming along

And, this is what the classrooms are looking like. The guys worked hard at parging on the outside yesterday as you can see and after I took this picture Randy got the roof on, it's looking REALLY good!

Visitors!

Our team has arrived and has been here for a number of days already. Working hard with us we have Jim Kamstra, Joel Helder, Curtis Bowman, Natalie Plantinga, and Rachel Ysinga. They've had some good times already... nights of no electricity and the invertor dying, being able to enjoy the neighbours music till 5 in the morning, sweating at 6:30 in the morning b/c they are brushing their teeth... all the fun things about Haiti :)

But... they've also been working hard. They are working on building a tikay (little house) on the roof of the school for the four young men that live at the school, as well as building tables, staining, counting books etc, etc. While they are working on that a bunch of our sponsor students, some of our employees and some hired help are working on the concrete for the new classrooms where the old tikay used to be. Here are some pics to show you the progression of these projects.

The original tikay

The demolition of the original tikay
The New Classrooms
Jim and Curtis working hard on the roof of the new tikay
Joel and Guerdeson working on the foundation of the new tikay

Natalie building us some new tables for the Special Needs Class Rachel Paint'n it up

The Project Supervisors...

The New TikayBig Picture View - New tikay on roof
And that's it for now... but don't worry we are all still working and sweating, and sweating and working!

N'ap boule

Well two words to describe life here in Haiti would be Hot and Busy! Since we've been back there has definately been no lack of work and the weather is definately HOT! Thankfully we've had some cooler nights to give our bodies a bit of a break but when those don't come we survive off of constant showers.

We are busy preparing to have a team of five come down later this week. There is a big job list for them to do and so Randy has already started some of the jobs with Cadea, Samuel, Wisly and Guerdeson so that the team has a head start. Here is a pic of them working on the foundation for the tikay (little house) that we are going to build for them on the roof. This will give them a bit more space and will be a lot cooler then where they are currently sleeping.

Things are busy with the Adoration school as well as the sponsor students as we are playing a bit of catch up from the months that we were gone as well as getting ready for the next year. We are very thankful for the work that the teachers and the rest of our employees put in while we were gone, they did a fabulous job running the school and looking after the property. What a blessing they are and continue to be.

Maia has been doing well adjusting to life in Haiti. She's really living up to her middle name as she brings us much joy in our days. She is constantly screeching and cooing at us and she loves to kick her little legs, espcially when we give her the freedom of no diaper! She is definately not lacking in the attention department although they are certain people that she especially misses.... Grandma and Oma, nobodies attention is quite like theres! Here she is with a good friend of ours Lesley and her fiancee Diego as well as with Cadeau.

Maia's First Plane Ride!

Well, Maia had a great plane ride today, well actually 2. Everything went smoothly, only waited 2 hours on the runway in Miami in a hot plane, only lost one bag, only had to wait an hour and half for our luggage on this end. Well, we are back at home... We are so thankful for a blessed day, and thankful to be back again. Maia did so well today.

Thanks for everything to everyone, the prayers, the encouragement, the visits, the good belly laughs, it was very good to see you all these past fews months. We feel refreshed to take on the work again and are looking forward to seeing how God will work in this next year. Enjoy the cool weather in Canada, we were already sweating at 8:30 this morning!!

3 Years!

Happy Anniversary to us! We celebrated 3 years yesterday (today we celebrated 3 years and 1 day).
The LORD's mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness! We give thanks and praise to our Father in heaven for the many gifts He has given to us in the past 3 years. He has blessed us immensely and carried us through the waters, and His grace is sufficient by far. In Christ alone...our hope is found. His Joy is our strength.





3 Years and a princess!

Some pics of the princess...

Praise the LORD for He is good - His love endures forever!
Here are some pics of our precious gift, Maia Joy. Enjoy.

Introducing....Maia Joy!!!

Introducing a Princess!

Born yesterday, May 11, at 3:35 pm, in Hamilton, at St.Josephs Hospital, and wieghing in at 7lbs 9 ounces - Maia Joy Lodder!

Both Mother and child are healthy and doing well. They stayed over at the hospital last night, but then came home this morning. Maia (pronounced My-a) loves to spend her time sleeping, feeding, making me fetch more diapers, and giving me BIG hugs! She was pretty alert all day yesterday, but today is fairly tired. I was hoping to take her outside and start teaching her how to play hockey but she has been sleeping all day today.

WE are hugely thankful to the LORD for her - what an incredible gift!

Work Team - February

Well, after the medical team came and left, we had about 1 week before the next team came to visit us and help at the school. This time we had an all guy team, a team of 5, who came and did a tonne of work at the school. They did a lot of building and fixing up - building shelves, cupboards, a counter top, fixing doors, benches and tables, installing grates for the ditches, screens for the kitchen and food depot, installing hooks, painting, and on and on.
Here are some pics of the guys working hard...

The team: (from left to right) Rick, Henry, Case, Peter, myself (Randy) (TopRow): Karen, Jaron


Jaron working on where the generator will be set-up, getting it all ready for it.


We put a hole in the wall in the kindergarten class, and installed another door, to make a better entrance for the school. This is Cadeau chipping the wall a little further to fit the door.

Henry doing some needed electrical work...

Rick building some cabinets and a counter-top....

Building the library shelves...

Karen and Cherri Kay organizing all the medical supplies. Cherri Kay helped in the medical clinic 3 days a week.

We went and visited Marie's house and her fathers shop in Cite Soliel. Marie is a student that Adoration sponsors. This is her dad's hardware store.

Building a table for a kindergarten class.

Putting together the counter-top...

Installing a blackboard in the kindergarten class...

Putting in hooks for the school bags...

Thank-you very much work team for all the work you did, your heart of service, and for taking time out of your busy schedules to come done and help out at Adoration. The work you did is a huge blessing for us, and the school and programs will benefit greatly from it. You were a joy to have with us, a real encouragement and lots of fun. Thank-you also to all those behind the scenes who donated supplies and helped out financially!