December is now a blur, but I didn’t want to let slip the opportunity to post some pictures from last month. So here are a few, with limited commentary!Caleb has been working on his guitar skills and has played at several Friday morning chapels now at Cowman.

This was our fourth Christmas in Haiti. Haitian friends often assume that we will return to the States for Christmas. That WOULD be great – we would all enjoy seeing family and Melissa and the kids would enjoy seeing snow (No, not me) – but our family budget simply won’t allow for it. For the next best thing, these last two years we have pooled funds (thanks, Grandmas!) that would otherwise be spent on physical presents and put them towards a few days away in the Dominican Republic. We all enjoy the sand, the buffets, the endless caramel cappuccinos and having…

Producing a timely Christmas letter this year has been quite the test of patience and sanity. At the very beginning of the process, it was difficult to find a day in November that was sunny enough for a family picture. Then, when we decided the letter itself needed some photos, our home color printer gave up the ghost. (Honestly, it lasted three and a half years in a climate notorious for destroying electronics, so we can’t complain too much – except over the timing!) So I thought, “This gives us a great opportunity to support a local business. We’ll take…

Last night was the fourth Cowman Christmas program my family and I have been a part of and it struck me as the best so far. The junior and senior high students (with a sprinkling of younger classmates) put together a fantastic drama for the night and all the students joined in on singing some special songs. Kudos to our principal Angie Bundy who pulled it all together.As a school, we’ve gotten too big now for any of the local auditoriums, so this year we went a half hour down the road to Pilatre Christian Centre in Sacanville. Apart from…

Sure, NOW we’ve had several sunny days in a row with only (relatively) moderate rains at night, but for the first three weeks of November, it was non-stop rains and the resulting floods around the Cap Haitien area.Here’s what the rains did to the potholes on our road to school: Our friends from Grundy Center, Iowa joined us for what turned out to be the final week of the soggy weather. Pastor Phil and Connie Dicks brought along 11 eager, fun-loving, hard-working, challenge-meeting team members for their church’s second annual Thanksgiving week mission trip. Phil had obviously done some extra…

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…

Hurricane Matthew has passed by with little negative effect on our region of Haiti. We won’t be resuming school until Thursday. Tomorrow  (Wednesday) we will gather at Cowman to give thanks that the Lord spared us from this storm and to pray for all those in Haiti and elsewhere who were harmed by Matthew. I hope to also use part of the day tomorrow to get my new room in order. Here are a few pictures from the move yesterday…Loading up the truck with desks, shelves and boxes: Caleb and Samuel and many others helped out, making quick work of it. Since…

This post was originally entitled “TWO WEEKS TO GO”, but thanks to a week-long struggle with our lousy internet connection (bless its heart) and then a jump ahead on our timetable, our junior and senior high classes are moved back to the Cowman campus as of this morning.I remember the days of dial up internet. THAT was FAST and RELIABLE compared to what we’ve had here since our return in August. When it takes two and a half hours to upload three photos, I have no patience or time left for writing. So most of these pictures were taken just over…

And what a week it was!It’s Sunday evening and our Internet is being less than cooperative with my laptop, so I’m trying to blog on my phone. I have little patience for thumb typing, so I’ll keep the commentary short!In all the activity of preparing to teach, I didn’t forget that this was a new school year for the kids as well. Caleb is now a sophomore, Hannah a freshman, Samuel an 8th grader and Sarah is in 4th! These folks have been crazy busy since arriving in Haiti last month and we are so very happy to have Jeff…

But here it comes anyway. The first day of school. TOMORROW!And it’s going to be another historic year. For Melissa, the biggest change is that she won’t be tied to one particular classroom, but will be supervising and guiding the teachers from preschool through 6th while continuing to develop the school’s curriculum. For me, the biggest change is that we actually have a junior and senior high now (through 10th grade, anyway) and I get to focus on Bible and English for them all because we have new folks in place to teach social studies, math and science for these…