Thankful

I know that we are a few days late on this…. But, I wanted to take a minute to express how thankful we are to be here! We are so grateful to all of you who have helped to make coming to Haiti possible. Although the days here are not always easy and things have not always gone as we expected, Jason and I love life here. We are learning, growing, and being challenged in ways we have not been before.

Two of the biggest things I am learning are humility and dependence.

This is very evident in our learning Creole. We often have to ask people to repeat themselves and speak more slowly and have to be willing to learn language lessons from everyone. This is really a blessing, though, because it helps us to develop relationships with those around us and shows that we value the Haitians we do life with and their culture. We are very thankful for the great teachers we have, including our tutor, Daham, the Janofski family, and the friends we see at the orphanage and around town.

It is also humbling to be learning our aquaponics work from Glynn Barber, who is so good at what he does, and then teaching to people who are such eager learners and hard workers. We are amazed at the team God is developing here.

I am also growing closer with Jason as we learn to depend more and more on one another. There is less communication with friends and family in the States and we have more time together than we ever had before, so we are learning to communicate more clearly and support one another better.

Another lesson we are thankful to be learning is “dousman.” This is a Creole word for slow or gentle. It seems that everything moves more slowly here on La Gonave.  You can only expect to get a few things checked off of your list each day, and we are not nearly as busy as we were in the States. I have started to find great joy in this slower pace of life that allows us to choose to spend more time with the Lord, to just spend time with others and develop relationships in this very different culture, to help one another out, to play with the kids, to enjoy the beauty of creation around us, and to dream about the future.

Thank you all for your love, support and prayers!!!

Bon Travay! (Good Work!)

Jason and I have loved working on the aquaponics system at the orphanage and have gotten into a routine of going there each morning for the daily tasks of water checks, feeding fish, cleaning trays, adding more water, and watering the seeds.

One of our main roles during this time is to train employees and older kids to manage the system on their own. Our main helper is Nehemy Nicolas, a young man who lives in Anse a Galets. He has been a great worker, always gets to the greenhouse and is working when we arrive, is very willing to learn, and has even worked to teach us a little Creole! We enjoy working with Nicolas (we call him this, because he laughs at us when we try to pronounce his first name) and think he will be a great manager for the system.

We also sometimes enlist the help of the older kids at the orphanage when there is a big job to do. Here we are trying to get the renegade fish out of the plant troughs and back into the fish tanks.

As the plants get bigger and require more daily care and harvesting, we will definitely make use of their help more often. It is so fun to see their interest in and excitement about this project! Today one boy came down just to check things out and even helped feed the fish for me. We are very excited to be training others in this work and developing new relationships at the orphanage!