I am thankful to say that I no longer have my standard excuse for my infrequent blog updates. At long last we have a viable, dependable internet signal at home. (Maybe someday at school, too.) A lot of men spent a lot of hours and burned a lot of calories burying internet cables around the mission grounds and … voilà … we are reconnected to the outside world! So I need to do a quick update (in pictures) to get us current. Let’s go back to Melissa’s birthday at the end of October. We celebrated with lots of family time, breakfast in bed and some honest-to-goodness cheesecake.
Halloween around our house was just the way I like it – virtually non-existent. A friend brought us some candy corn and that’s all I needed to celebrate the end of October. Then, the first Thursday in November, Melissa and Hannah left home for a trip to the Dominican Republic, accompanied by our friend and co-worker, Cassie. The goal – to get working on a solution for Hannah’s chronic jaw pain. Cassie knew of a good orthodontist in Santiago and helped Melissa make an appointment for assessment on Thursday afternoon. Long story short, their three day trip turned into a six day absence due to delays in getting a follow up visit with the doctor. In the end, though, Melissa was happy with the orthodontist and he was able to set up Hannah with braces both above and below.The ladies made the most out of their extra time, getting their hair styled and nails done and visiting restaurants you can’t find in Haiti, like Burger King and TGIFriday’s. Melissa also did some grocery shopping and picked up a few household items at a store that was remarkably similar to a Sam’s Club. She was in shopper’s heaven.
While the two of them were living the high life in the DR, we were blissfully unaware of coming floods back home. On that Saturday noon, many Cowman teachers gathered for the funeral of our first grade teacher’s mother. Ben’s mom had died quite unexpectedly at a young 56 years of age after a short illness. We were heart-broken for him.It was a beautiful ceremony at a local church and there had to be easily 4 or 5 hundred people in attendance. She was obviously a well loved woman.The boys and I had to get a picture with us all dressed in our best.
At the tail end of the funeral, a light rain began to fall. As we drove home, it continued and gained strength.It had been raining a bit now and then over previous days and at first it was simply a welcome break from the Haitian heat.At school one day I had scrambled to grab my camera when I saw the teachers of the 4-year-olds pass by my open door, guarding their students like a couple of mother hens.
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