{"id":5061,"date":"2011-07-30T02:59:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T02:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:35:57","slug":"last-night-in-the-house-and-haitian-vbs-part-1-pics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5061","title":{"rendered":"Last Night in the House and Haitian VBS (Part 1) Pics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Quick re-cap:\u00a0 Melissa and I and the kids are hoping to be heading to Haiti in about a year.\u00a0 We have applied to and interviewed with One Mission Society, an agency which maintains a multi-faceted ministry in Cap Haitien.\u00a0 We should have an official acceptance within a week or two and then we’ll be going through their orientation before beginning to raise support.\u00a0 In an effort to pay down our debt, we have decided to rent out our house.\u00a0 Melissa’s mother, Trudy,\u00a0has graciously agreed to house us for the next year so that the money that used to go to mortgage can be redirected to other bills.\u00a0 Our neighbors recently had a house fire, so they are the ones who will be renting the house.\u00a0 Tomorrow (Saturday, July 30) we’ll have another moving sale, then clean the house up good and … God willing … turn the keys over to Rob and Jessica Monday morning. Our kids are being such troopers about all these changes.\u00a0 Melissa and I are so caught up in packing and pricing that the reality that this might be our last night in this house hasn’t really sunk in yet.\u00a0Maybe the kids aren’t grasping the reality either…\u00a0 A lot to process these days. I want to share some pictures from our first three weekdays in Haiti.\u00a0 A bit of background:\u00a0 Our family was tagging along for VBS in Godin.\u00a0 A 4-person mission team from Spokane was there to support the Godin church financially for both the VBS and a construction project\u00a0 designed to both ease an erosion problem and provide the church and the connected school with some play area for children’s use.\u00a0 The Godin church is only 11 years old, but when they put the call out for VBS, they had to limit the participants to 150!\u00a0 An important part of the VBS is providing lunch to all the kids.\u00a0 Lunches cost $2 a kid, so three days and 150 kids costs nearly $1,000!\u00a0 Many kids came even though they couldn’t get a lunch. Here are the pics:<\/p>\n\n\n

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On the truck, ready to head to Godin.\u00a0 It was probably only 5 to 7 miles, but the trip took a half hour!\u00a0 Dave Graffenberger, the interim director of the OMS ministry, drove us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Princess was worn out before we got half way!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The truck would only take us so far and the final quarter mile or so was on foot.\u00a0 What a beautiful setting, huh?\u00a0 On the first day, Dave got the truck hung up in a deep rut and spent most of his morning working it back out!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Justin, the leader of the Spokane group, drinks some water as Pastor Awoud (spelling??) greets us from his porch.\u00a0 Dave is on the right with his back to the camera.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Over 150 kids inside the church – all impressively attentive and so willing to sing and to learn.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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On the second day of VBS, The Princess stayed back on the compound with Jane.\u00a0 Thanks, Jane!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Picking up kids on the way to VBS for Day 2.\u00a0 Melissa is looking happy!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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We told the creation story with the flannelgraph and then the Pastor took it over and quizzed the kids on various aspects of the story.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Dave is undoubtedly sharing some wisdom as we wait on the Pastor's front porch for lunch.\u00a0 They offered us some incredible food each day!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Spokaners, Hannah, Jeremy, Logan and Justin, surround Renee, an intern who had spent the previous two months working alongside Jane at the compound.\u00a0 This was her last day in Haiti before heading home to Indiana.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The kids got hot and thirsty and … at times … a bit cranky.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Some of the kids line up for their lunches.\u00a0 In the background is the "Starfish" School that the church operates.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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On our way back home, we gave a ride to some women who had harvested some plantains and were taking them to market.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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The Drama Queen rode up front to provide some company for Dave as he drove.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n
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Quick re-cap:\u00a0 Melissa and I and the kids are hoping to be heading to Haiti in about a year.\u00a0 We have applied to and interviewed with One Mission Society, an agency which maintains a multi-faceted ministry in Cap Haitien.\u00a0 We should have an official acceptance within a week or two and then we’ll be going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5068,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions\/5068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}