The things keeping us busy lately … in no particular order:1) Until yesterday, our basement looked like a garage sale threw up down there.  Eventually, we cut a few paths through the mess.  Last night entire swaths of open floor re-appeared.  It’s been truly horrible and has seemed a daunting, nearly impossible task – sorting through piles of items, some bound for Haiti, some left over from Melissa’s classroom clean out, some needing to go into long term storage, lots of toys, and plenty of odds and ends with no clear purpose or destination.  I would share a picture but Melissa would die of embarrassment. It is unconscionable…

First, Warfordsburg.  I’m having trouble finding a word to sum up our time with Troy and Dina.  I want to use words like fun, encouragement, hospitality and support.  If forced to pick one word, I guess it would be “fellowship”. These two invited us, put us up in their house, sent out letters to friends, hosted multiple open houses, and served up a never-ending stream of meals and refreshments.  And then filled spare moments with ping pong games and late night chats.  We met some great folks from their church throughout the weekend and had multiple opportunities to chat about the…

A few weeks ago, Melissa made it official and resigned from her position at Southside Elementary.  She had been teaching Kindergarten there for the last seven years.  We had hoped she might be able to take some sort of year long “leave of absence” to hold onto the job even as we serve at Cowman School in Vaudreuil, Haiti next year.  Turns out it wasn’t even a remote possibility – such leaves are granted only for furthering one’s education and the year’s leave is predicated on a promise of serving at least two more years in the district following the…

[I’ve been working on this topic for a couple of days off and on and finally came to the realization that it will be much too long for a single post, so I need to break it up.  The danger for me always is: will I come back to it and finish my thoughts?  I believe I will – because God has taught me so much through this whole process.] Once again our house is empty and “up for grabs” – ready to sell or rent … or rent to own.Over two years have passed since we first put our house on…

This afternoon I reserved 6 spots on the August 13th MFI flight to Cap Haitien, Haiti out of Ft. Pierce, Florida.  That’s eleven weeks from today.  It felt both joyful and overwhelming.  I am already guessing that when the time comes, “ready or not” will be leaning decidedly in the “not” direction – as far as the physical preparations go.  We are excited to have August 13th as our date because it means we will be flying in with our friends Bud and Jane, missionaries who (among other things) are connected to the orphanage for which Caleb has been raising money.  They…

Caleb has been at it again.  He got permission from his school’s principal to do a week long fundraiser for the orphans of The Potter’s House in Vaudreuil, Haiti.  It’s been sort of a “spirit week” where kids could participate in special themes each day for a 50 cent donation. The themes spelled out H-A-I-T-I.  Monday was Hair day.  Tuesday was Accessories day.  Wednesday – Intelligence day.  Today was Tie-dye day and tomorrow is Imitate someone famous day.  Caleb was even able to address the entire student body on Tuesday over the various lunch hours – that’s about a thousand…

Praise God.  We’re introducing the latest students to enroll for fall classes at Cowman International School in Vaudreuil, Haiti: Sarah (6 – entering 1st grade), Samuel (9 – entering 5th grade), Hannah (11 – entering 6th grade), and Caleb (12 – entering 7th grade)! Don’t they look adorable in their Haitian school uniforms? It will take all the self-control I can muster to not overuse my exclamation points for this particular post.After some prayer, pleading, Skyping and emailing on our part and some accommodations and number crunching on the parts of the field and OMS headquarters, we have a Green Light for an August departure…

Dats (now age 12!) received a letter of acceptance in the mail today.  He is so doggone cute when he gets excited.  He is going to STEM Camp (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) – what I am calling NERD Camp.  It will be held on the campus of IU in June for nearly two weeks.  The best part (in this frugal father’s opinion) is that it is all FREE.  Potential campers all apply with an essay and teacher recommendations and grade requirements and, if selected, attend camp at no charge. We are so grateful for Dats’ teacher who introduced us to this opportunity…

Weeks ago I wrote about how God has blessed us with a couple of missionaries that our family supports on a regular basis.  I wrote here just a bit about one of our missionaries, a beautiful young lady named Beka, who left for the Philippines back in January to work alongside local churches to be a resource in preventing human trafficking there.  (By the way, she is making great strides in settling in and learning the language and plugging in to the churches and I am sure she would covet your continuing prayers.)I had always meant to circle back around and tell you a bit…