Beautiful British Columbia

We made a suprise trip out to B.C. to witness my brother Ryan become a minister of the Word. It was a real blessing to be able to go and surprise them and spend some time with them as well as my parents. Although we would have loved to be in Ontario at the same time for the big Lodder thing B.C's weather sounded better... NO snow!

Here are a few pics from our trip

The cranberry festival in Langley

Flying over Vancouver with Stan in the little plane, definately a HIGH

Maia taking a warm bath in Uncle Ryan and Aunt Ruth's sinkAnd now we are back... While we were gone Kim was left in charge at the school. She, as usual, did a fantastic job. Here are some of our boys from the younger grades, I think a good way to describe them would be full of life :)

And since returning from our two week vacation we've been trying to fix the things that were broken before we left or broke down while we were gone... invertor, generator, car, motorcycle, water pressure tank... basically anything that is major and useful. But we are on the way to being functional again, praise the Lord!

Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

First day of School!

School year 2009-2010 has started at the ACC (Adoration Christian Center). The teachers put a lot of time and energy into preparing for this year and the children were excited to get back into the swing of things. It was fun to see old students again and to meet the new ones.

We pray that God will bless all that we, as an organization, are doing, that He may continue to guide our steps as we embark on this new year.

Maia's first day of school!

Air Conditioner for Sale

One week old air conditioner for sale...

We are very thankful because by the mercies of God we were spared and not hurt by a fire in our bedroom. Our newly installed air conditioner caught fire Saturday night with Maia sleeping in the bedroom. When we caught it, the room was beginning to be full of smoke, and we had a hard time disconnecting the power because the breakers did not stop the power, or the other switches, and we had to disconnect the power from the line. The thing went up in flames just as we finally got the main line disconnected and we were able to douse it with water. But, we are so thankful because the situation could have been a lot worse. If it had been a wood house it would have been up in flames as all the 240 wires running throughout the house melted and burned. Also the bed, which was right under that air-conditioner could have caught fire. Anyway, Praise be to God for His hand of protection!

On the lighter side, Here's little Miss Joy enjoying life in Haiti

New School Year

The last month has been a crazy busy month. August is always busy trying to get everything done in time for school to start. Sponsor students need all of their books and their uniforms and their entry fees paid, we start teacher meetings with Adoration's teachers to start planning for the year, Adoration students need uniforms and books, Inscriptions need to be done for Adoration, work teams were in preparing the buidling as well as training the teachers, and on top of all of that it's about 40 degress at 8:30 in the morning so you really don't feel like doing anything. But thankfully, by God' grace, we have been able, with the help of many people both Canadian and Haitian, to get most of these things accomplished so that our sponsor students can start school this week.
Adoration won't be starting school until September 21st. This gives us a bit more time to prepare with the teachers. But the biggest reason for starting later is that we have Kim Gringhuis coming to work with us. We are very excited about working alongside Kim as she has worked and lived in Haiti before and has so much to offer to the organization. She has a heart for the Lord and a real passion for teaching and training which is the next step for Adoration Christian School. Kim will be joining us in Haiti tomorrow, si Dieu vle.
Below are a few pics of some finished products and of the princess...

The finished new classrooms where we also now hold church. It's a lot roomier and fresh inside but still brutally hot!
The sign for the church looking down Delmas 31. It has all the church info on it as well as advertising for the seminary that they will be starting in September. Randy meeting with all of our sponsored secondary students outlining for them their expectations for the year. CDIA has about 50 students that they sponsor to go to High School and we sponsor about 10 students who have different disabilities to go to school as well.

And, always got to end with a picture for the grandparents. Maia enjoying her bath.

Maia Joy's Baptism

"The Lord has done great things for us and we are filled with joy"
The Lord has indeed done great things for us... yesterday we were blessed to present our little daughter before the Lord for baptism. What an amazing thing to be a part of God's family and to hear his promises to her. We pray that the Lord may give us strength and wisdom as we are responsible for her here on this earth. As friends of ours wrote on a card for her ..."May the Lord guard and keep you in his love, dear one. May you always know the sweet presence of your Saviour who graciously calls you His own. May His Word dwell richly in your heart." That is truly our prayer for our daughter.
Although our family was greatly missed yesterday we were able to celebrate with our church family as well as close friends here in Haiti who have become like family to us.
Here are some pics: our little family, Pastor Ben Hopp, OPC missionary, baptizing Maia Joy, the back of the church (quite a few blans :), fellowshipping after the church service.
Enjoy!

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!!