We survived (and enjoyed!) a busy and GOOD weekend at Cowman School and it was all about the parents. Friday night (Valentine’s Day) brought a “Parents’ Night Out” – a special meal and program for couples.  The evening itself, of course, was the culmination of hours of work behind the scenes.  And that work started several days in advance.  A visiting mission team from Erie, Pennsylvania, joyfully put in a lot of hours prepping lasagna, garlic bread, salad and cupcakes.  Melissa served in organizing the whole process and, of course, in the cooking as well. Did I mention how “joyfully” the visiting team served? Being Cowman parents ourselves,…

Our good friend, Jane, was involved in organizing a 5K race which took place in downtown Cap Haitien last Saturday morning and I decided to join the race even though the heat and schedule here give me plenty of excuses to not run on a regular basis.  Mikenn and Johnny joined me for the morning.  The running part would have been much more enjoyable if I had been in shape – all the other aspects of the race were a blast.I’m not sure who all sponsored the run, but the United Nations was heavily involved as well as “Joy and Hope”, which was Jane’s connection.  I’ve been…

Thought I’d throw together some images from the last few weeks – the little joys and trials.  Buddy is both a joy AND a trial himself.  We have finally got him sleeping through the nights without so much as a whimper.  And the accidents are less frequent inside, too.  (Though with tile floors throughout the house, he still picks the area rugs  as his toilet when the urge strikes.)  We haven’t left him home throughout the day by himself yet.  If inside, we fear what chewing damage he could do in a day’s time.  If outside, we fear him wandering…

This past weekend, those two words got our whole family very excited because they came from Caleb’s beloved 6th grade teacher and they indicated that she and her husband had booked their flights to Haiti. Jill and Dan will be coming for a week in March to help out around the school (and to do whatever work we can find for them) and we couldn’t be happier to have them as our first house guests if they were members of our own family.Jill and Dan were some of the last folks we got to spend time with in Indiana before we left last August.  In the…

Sarah’s 7th birthday was a bittersweet day.  Fortunately, the bitter part came early.  Two days earlier, Hannah had noticed that one of the bunnies, Cookie Dough, was not acting himself.  His appetite slowly decreased until the morning of the birthday, it was non-existent.  I told Hannah we’d come home from school over lunch to check on him.  By 11:30, Hannah, Samuel and I were home and we found Cookie Dough lifeless in the bamboo hutch.  I dug a grave behind our house while Samuel and Hannah cried beside the hutch in disbelief.   After school, Melissa and I planned our big birthday…

A few months ago, I mentioned to my students that I thought studying all our science through an online curriculum was probably doing the subject a bit of disservice.  I said I would be very open to ideas on some “hands-on” activities to supplement our science-by-laptop.  I was thinking dissection or combining chemicals in flasks or feeding bugs to a tarantula.  What I got was bunnies.One of the 6th grade girls, Anabel, saw my invitation as the perfect opportunity to bring  her bunnies in to class for a day.  She explained that she didn’t get to see them much because she…

There’s a term for why I have been struggling to put our Christmas Eve/Day experiences into words here: cognitive dissonance.  Dictionary.com: “Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise incompatible attitudes, beliefs, or the like.”  Our Christmas had two very different sides.  I’ve already described our beautiful, luxurious Christmas Eve on Labadee Beach among the cruise ship passengers.  And that was followed by a very traditional Christmas morning for our family, with cinnamon rolls for breakfast … And a tree surrounded with presents wrapped in pretty paper… And stockings filled with candy and surprises … And practical gifts ……

I have not finished my “Christmas Inside Out – Part 2” yet, and it’s already a new year, so I will pause momentarily here to post some pictures from the tail end of 2013 and front end of 2014 as I and my family wish YOU a Happy New Year.  That’s “Bon Ane!” in Creole, and January 1st is a big holiday here.  Not only does it kick off a new year, it marks Haitian Independence Day.New Year’s Eve afternoon, Melissa and Angie got all the girls from both families together for hair styling and nail polishing time – the whole spa treatment!…

I have had trouble figuring out the correct approach to this blog post because I run the risk of sounding ungrateful about our Christmas Eve and holier-than-thou about our Christmas Day.  I would like to avoid both (if possible!) and focus on the way the tension between the two days has been putting a rather uncomfortable squeeze on my heart.I’ve got tons of pictures, so this will have to be a two-parter.  We’ll start with Christmas Eve, which was “Inside”.Inside the grounds of Labadee Beach.  This is the private playground of Royal Caribbean cruise lines.  We have seen if many times from…

For the uninitiated, WEMO is short for West Morris Street Free Methodist Church, a congregation where we were privileged to serve in the early 2000s and still one of the dearest churches we know.Last summer our family had the opportunity to speak to WEMO’s VBS about Haiti and the kids there took our four as their mission focus for the week.  They raised enough money to get our kids each a bike.  Melissa managed to pick one up for Caleb a few weeks ago on an excursion into Cap Haitien, but we were having trouble finding a time to take the whole…