Dear friends!!!

WOW, bet you can't believe that I am finally getting back to all of you! I've missed you and writing the journal pages, but have been so busy. I think that what it really is, is that I'm kind of overwhelmed! duh!

Life has gone absolutely nuts. I have been wanting to do this since the team left a week ago, but just can't seem to order my thoughts enough to write them down. I have so much that I want to tell all of you and when I think about it all, it is overwhelming! So, I figured, okay, just start and it will work. So, if this is jumbled, I'm sorry! Seems like I have a lot to say, so I hope that it will be understandable and not confusing!

First I want to tell you about the wedding. It was beautiful. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures on my computer. Rhodel, my son-in-law, gave me a CD with pictures on it that people had taken, got it here and I can't get my computer to read the CD, so I have nothing. Robin says that they will get pictures in the next week or so, so guess the picture of the wedding will have to be delayed! Sorry! Robin was of course, beautiful. Only a few things went wrong, but then something always has to, doesn't it? It was all fixable and the ceremony was beautiful. They managed to meld Catholic traditions from both the Philippines and the US together to make it a special wedding. All of the men in the family and wedding party wore Barongs, Filipino shirts that are worn outside of the pants, long sleeves, with beautiful embroidery on them. They were an Ivory color that complimented Robin's dress. Rhodel's mom, his Sponsor (his Aunt) and I wore Ivory Filipino dresses. They were beautiful as well, I loved mine. The reception had great food, fun dancing and a great time was had by all. They went to Kaui for their honeymoon and spent 10 relaxing days there, doing crazy stuff like "zip lines" as well as snorkeling and swimming and just enjoying each other. It was good for both of them.

We had a good visit with Steve's mom, who lives on the Oregon Coast. We spent 4 days with her and had a great time. We didn't actually spend too much time in Idaho. In fact, we both commented that we were hardly there. We did have time to visit friends and eat a lot of wonderful meals with them, attend our home church for two Sundays and enjoyed being with our brother's and sister's there. While we were home, our good friends, Scott & Tracy Trotter, did a wonderful and awesome fundraiser for us and NLH. Scott plays the acoustical guitar and he organized a concert, where he played original songs, most of them by himself, but others with our Praise and Worship team from church and several duets with friends. It was wonderful and they raised over $2,500.00 at the event! We are so thankful to them for all of the time, effort and courage to step way, way out of the box to help us! Scott, you are awesome! I had the chance to go to 1 day of a Women's retreat that our church had, it was wonderful to share a day with the Sister's from our church. We had time to go to several doctor appointments too while we were home, all of which is always necessary. It was nice to be there, but way, way too short. We will be going back again in December for Christmas. I have missed the last 3 Christmas's and it's time to be back home! It won't be a long visit, just a month, but hopefully we'll have more time to relax. We won't be going back home then until probably the next October....so it will be a long time before we go back.

Kay Bo Rivye......it's getting there! I at least have a picture I can show you of how far along the house is! Some of you were able to attend the New Life For Haiti Gala last Saturday night in Plainfield. I have heard that it was wonderful, inspiring and a ton of fun! There were pictures of the house that were shown and several people have commented on how great it is. We are currently working on the grillage (metal security bars) that has to go on every window and opening in the house, no small feat. You'll understand when you look at the picture. It has to go around the entire porch and on the outside windows. Most of it is done, still 1 large panel to build on the dorm side, 1 back bedroom window and 2 bathroom windows, then the large front panel that includes 2 side panels and 2 3-ft. opening doors. Still sounds like a lot, but it is almost done when you see everything that's been built already. Each panel then needs to be painted with anti-corrosive paint, then pegs drilled into the walls and the panels then are welded to the pegs. Whew. Like everything else here quite an intensive process. Let's see 3 teams have actually worked on this as well as Steve and myself! Once they are done, then all that has to be finished is a little more of the floors and walls. The rest will just have to be done little by little as we go along...we just want to be in Marfranc! There will still be tons of work to do by visiting teams, tile, screens (for all the many, many windows that let air in!!!), cabinets (do we have any cabinet makers that want to come?????), racks for the dorm rooms, tons of stuff.

As some of you know when we returned to Haiti on Sept. 29th...we arrived with a team of 6 men. Pastor Fran and men from LifeSpring (plus John, who is from Ohio) met us in Miami and what would have been an easy trip home to Jeremie. Instead it was a 3 day trip for some of them, we arrived together in Miami on Monday to leave on the 10:30 AM flight to Port, then on to the 3:00 PM flight to Jeremie. HA!!!!! The flight in Miami was eventually cancelled and rescheduled to leave at 3:00 PM...arriving in Port after 4:00 PM, so we missed our Jeremie flight. The small plane didn't have any seats for 3 days....so we arrived in Jeremie person by person. I arrived first with Todd (the photographer) on Tuesday (day after) in the morning....no one came that night. Steve and 2 others arrived on Wed. morning and the last 3 arrived Wed. night. Amazing huh? So 3 of these poor guys missed 2 days of their trip waiting for a plane in Port. However, they more than made up for it! 5 of the guys spent Thursday night in Marfranc, camping out in the house and 2 sleeping on the roof! They had a great adventure and got a lot more work done because they could work later and start earlier since they didn't have to drive to the house. They got so much done. Installed the toilet and sink in the bathroom, put the water tank on the roof and hooked it up to everything and made it ready to put water from the pump to the tank, Andrew got the entire house wired, and all of the plates and switches to the finished part of the house done, installed the wire underground from the house to the depot where the generator will be housed, welded, painted, cut grillage....I'm sure I left something out. They were all working machines! We enjoyed our time with them...tried to convince them all to give up their day jobs and stay longer....didn't work, ha! They were great!

Okay, enough for one time to digest...you know me, could talk to you all forever and ever. I'll write more next week, thanks for letting me tell you about a few things. There is so much to do and I haven't even started on all of the ministry things going on right now!!!! SO much is happening and God's Hand is being seen everywhere!

Love to you all, blessings from Haiti

Joline

Hello friends,

Where did the week go? Or has it been longer since I have written. We are doing so much and are so busy each day, I can't even keep up with everything and we are running out of time. Yep, have to be moved, totally and rental cleaned by Sat.....so we are on a count down! On Wednesday, our friend Dave (a missionary here in Jeremie) is going to help us move the big stuff with his Toyota truck and trailer! So we will be spending Wed. night in our new place, yeah!!!!! Tomorrow (Monday) I have a huge list of things to do in town, so I won't be going out with Steve to Marfranc. Need to talk to our landlord and pay for this months rent, pay some utilities, go to the money changer and then the bank and pay for the satellite system that we are hopefully getting installed this next week! (another yeah!) Plus, find the vet tech to see if he can fix Touton before we move, and see if I can find some drugs for the dog, he sounds like he has a cold! See, tons to do, then there is always packing...my goodness!

Our house here in Jeremie, is starting to look more empty than lived in. We have been taking boxes and barrels out each time we go...tomorrow a bunch more will go. On Tuesday, we will take a lot of stuff that can go inside, that means tomorrow Steve will have to have the front gates up on the porch, or at least wired shut, so that no one steals anything on Tuesday night before we get there on Wednesday! Steve got the brakes done on the Isuzu and got it started, so it will at least make 1 trip out to Marfranc.....we hope. 4-wheeler still isn't running, but Steve didn't have time to work on it today! Took the pictures off the wall today, now it looks really bare! Did a last load of wash.....so see, I'm getting things done.

The house is really moving along. Steve said on Saturday that the walls in the grand room are done, the little bathroom by the back door and of course the kitchen, and our bedroom/bathroom. Now, all that needs to be done to move in are the floors from the backdoor to the front door...ha! They will start those tomorrow....but they may or may not be done and dry by Wednesday! Not much we can do about it, it will be close, so we may be all crammed into a very, very small space for a day or two, but at least we will be there. I'm including a picture or two of the guys working on the ceiling and also the grillage on the porch.

We have water in the house! I mean, not a leak, but water in the pipes in the house, ha! We were able to borrow a 250 gallon plastic tank that fits in the back of the truck from our friends at HHF and we filled it up from our cistern in the backyard here in Jeremie and Steve took it out on Saturday and they pumped it up to the tank on the roof of Kay Bo Rivye. We now have water to the toilet, sink and shower in the bathroom! Now I can move in, ha! Just thought you'd like to see what it takes to have water in our house. Until we can find someone willing to drill a well for us, without it costing $10,000 US......we will be filling up either this large tank or 5-6 55 gal. drums weekly or more often at the local spring to get our water, then pump it up to the roof. Just think of us when you turn on your water and it never runs out! But, at least we have a way of getting water, we are very thankful for the use of this drum...it will help a lot until we get some barrels!

I will be talking to the new ladies that will be working in our house. Some of you will get to meet them when you come to visit us. If it all works out, the cook will be a woman named Mme. Asson. She goes to the Marfranc Baptist church and is Widley's mother. Some of you might know Widley, he is a very happy personable child that is in the 2nd grade this year. Last year in September when the first work team came to work on the school in Marfranc, Jeff Gates fell in love with Widley and vice versa. Widley was not going to school because he is the youngest of 4 boys. Jeff immediately wanted to sponsor him for school and gave me enough money to pay for Widley's school and to help him buy his uniform. Talk about a smile a mile wide! Both Widley and Jeff were happy. Anyway, I have gotten to know his mother and she is a wonderful, Christian woman. I'm praying that she will work out really well.....I am excited about having her come to work with us. Pastor Plaisir said that there is a young woman in his church that would be great for cleaning and doing the wash. I don’t know exactly how old she is, but her name is Benit. She is very active in the church, she teaches Sunday School for the little kids and also helps during the service by doing the offering and other things. She has completed secondary school and went for 1 year to teachers college, but then could not afford the other 2 years. She apparently doesn't have anyone to take care of her and can use the work. So, we will see how this all works out. I'll be keeping you posted and will send you pictures of them once we get settled. Since neither of them have worked for American's before, it will take some training, but I like them both, so I think it will be fun!

I do have a prayer request, beside all of the chaos in our lives, Steve has been sick. His doctor added 1 medicine when we were home in Sept. and also changed another one. About a week ago, he started feeling funny and last Thursday started feeling really bad. Something is making him very dizzy and causing his head to feel funny. Sometimes it isn't too bad and sometimes he almost passes out. We talked to our missionary doctor friend, Jim Wilkins (who is near Port) and he had a few suggestions, which Steve is trying. Please pray for Steve that he recovers quickly, he has so much to do and is doing it anyway, even if he feels bad! Thank you for your prayers.

Okay, enough for one week. I know there is so much more than I want to share with you, but it would get to be too long! Thank you one and all for your prayers......especially this week as we have so very much to do and Steve is feeling so bad! Thank you for being a part of our lives.

God Bless

Ke Bon Dieu beni ou.

Joline

We are sleeping in Marfranc

Hi Everyone!!!!

Just a really quick note to tell you that the internet guy came this morning and set up the new system....so here we are talking to you from Marfranc and spending our first night in the house! It is quite an experience so far.

Sejan was excited to get into the truck...in fact we couldn't have kept him out of the truck. The cats had been cooped up in a room all day, we not happy being put in cat boxes to make the trip from Jeremie to Marfranc, so they talked the whole way and Sejan smiled! However, Touton was really unhappy and proceeded to pee and poop all inside of his box, which because I'm really dense, we put him in upside down, so that there were holes on the bottom instead of the top and yeah, you guessed it....KC's box was on the floor below Touton's box and KC's box was totally wire on the top, that means whatever Touton did...fell on KC as well. So we had a mess, total mess. The only way I could clean them up before they could go in the house was to give them a bath, yeah, I know cats hate water.....however, no choice. I started with KC, she was really miserable, put about 2" of water in a tub and got her by the back of her neck and put her in. She didn't like it, but she sat really still, it amazed both of us. I had some rags, so I totally wiped her down with water and stuff like Pinesol, but a flower smell. Then I wrapped her in a towel and dried her off, put her in our bedroom. But of course there aren't any doors in our bedroom, so she didn't stay put, which was fine. Next came Touton...who by the way got castrated on Tuesday afternoon. He is totally recovered from that, however, he was totally covered in the mess that he made, really disgusting. I emptied out the first pan of water and filled it up with 4" this time, knew I would practically have to dunk him and he is bigger and I knew he would really fight me. Got him out of the stinky cage....and put him in the water.....he did NOT like it! However, I had him in a neck lock.....he had no choice. Pretty much covered him in the flower smelling water....made sure all body parts were clean, pulled him out of the water and dried him off...he purred! It was so funny.

Now you have to keep in mind, that I'm behind our house...but Bos Tom and 3 of the guys are helping Steve unload the truck, they were all laughing hysterically at what I was doing...shaking their heads and laughing! I must have looked pretty stupid to them, washing my cats! Plus the cats hated it! Anyway, I entertained everyone. The backyard is all mud, it has been raining every night all week long. The river is chocolate color and very, very high...covering the part where we can walk to the river...it's all water! The back part of the property is all made up of this red, red clay like dirt.....so we have a red mud back yard, not very easy to keep clean or to walk on. Not sure what I'm going to do with the dog when we have to take him out for walks.

The cats have been running all over the house, in and out of the grillage and think this is a great jungle gym. KC loves to sit in window, so she is very, very happy. However, all of the windows are very high, so they won't jump out (yet, that is, KC will eventually, I'm sure) So, I'm hoping if I keep the backdoor shut for a couple of days until they know we live here and how to get in and out, all will be fine. I'd just hate to lose them!

Sejan is happy because we are in the same place he is....he just wants to be where we are! So live is good.

I wont' write much more tonight, I'm really tired....just happy that we have internet now and can talk to everyone, and that most of the stuff is moved.

We probably have 2 more loads to do. Steve will go in tomorrow and get one more large load and also get some more water to drink and propane tanks filled and gasoline! I probably won't go and will stay with the animals to make sure they are okay as well as try to find my kitchen stuff! Then on Saturday, we will go and clean the old house and bring the last of the stuff!

We are just thankful to be in the house.....and have most of the stuff moved. Now we have so much to do here, but at least we won't have to make a daily trip on that 12 miles of road that is very bumpy...every single day!!!! (After Sat! ha!)

We love you all...and thank you for prayers, please keep them coming our way...we aren't done yet!

Blessings to you all......

Joline & Steve