Happy New Year!!!

As I look back at 2015, I cannot believe the work that God has done and the changes we have seen. At the beginning of the year, we were going about life as usual in Indiana with the hope to move to Haiti at some point. Then, we felt the Lord calling us to go sooner than we thought, so we prepared to go for several months. This summer, there was a change in plans and the door was no longer open for us to serve here, so we tried to get back to “normal.” Then, we were asked to rejoin the team and come to Haiti as soon as possible. After much prayer and debate, we made the decision to come and were amazed to see God pave the way for us in just one month!

December has been a fun month of steady progress. We have worked hard with Nicolas and the older kids at the orphanage on care of the aquaponics system. We have new fish that are huge and the kids love to feed. The plants have grown by leaps and bounds and we had our first harvest, including lettuce, pak choi, kohlrabi, swiss chard, lima beans, and a zucchini. It is such a blessing to give this food to the women who cook for the Children’s Village… even if there is some confusion about what exactly a zucchini is and how to use pak choi!

Our incredible growth over the month of December

The kids feeding the fish

Weighing the harvest

We have also been working really hard on language learning with our tutor, Daham, and in everyday conversation. Some days are better than others, but we are getting better at speaking and understanding Creole. This is a great way we can build relationships with people here in La Gonave. We have seen friendships growing with the people around us and were honored to attend one of the Children’s Village staff member’s wedding as well as a Christmas Gala in town.

Us with Daham

One of the girls from the Children's Village at the wedding

We have reached a certain level of comfort and routine here in Haiti, but of course we are now stepping into a time of further transition and new challenges. Craig and Renee have almost completely moved into their new house, so we are working to make this our home and learning to run our own Haitian household. We are slowly and wisely giving Nicolas and the older children more independence with the aquaponics system, which means more of a supervisory role for us. I, Allison, will be starting a few new roles in the upcoming weeks. I will be assisting in skills lab for the Haitian Wesleyan School of Nursing a few days a week. This involves teaching and practicing hands on nursing skills, like vital signs, patient transfers, wound care, and medication administration to Haitian nursing students. I will also be working as a clinical instructor in the hospital with Indiana Wesleyan University nursing students who are spending a semester abroad here.

These changes are very exciting, but present us with new challenges. Please pray for wisdom as we serve, that we will truly be a light for the Lord in this place, and that we will have His wisdom in the next steps. Thank you for all of your love and support and may God bless you richly in the year ahead!