Hi Friends,

Hope you are having a great week, we are! We actually had a really great last week too and I can't wait to share it with you.

I had mentioned last week about the youth Mardi Gras camp. I didn't take any pictures, but wanted to tell you a little bit more about it. There were 67 youth that attended, ranging from ages 14 to 28, quite a span huh? It always amazes me that the older kids get along so well with the younger ones and they really do. I think it's because in this culture, they really don't get a lot of time to enjoy themselves together and do activities and they just love being together without adults! Vilex does a super job with music for them and they love to sing. We were given a gift of a DVD projector and screen several years ago and it has been a huge blessing. The first night the kids wanted to see an action film....so Vilex showed them The Poseidon Adventure.....the new version. What a hit, we could hear them yelling at our house! Then the next night he showed the Life of Moses and the next day the Jesus film. They loved watching them. Vilex had a friend from the Jeremie Baptist church come and talk to them on Tuesday. She is a dentist and she talked to them about her work, and also talked specifically to the girls to encourage them to continue to study and dream about what they want to do and what profession they want to follow. She asked them questions at the end of her talk and handed out toothbrushes! She also sings and has a beautiful voice, they asked her to sing for them and she did. Pastor Plaisir and the Doctor ate lunch at our house, it was great. They always end camp the last night with a service. It was great to be able to hear them sing....and sing they did! They prayed and sang so loud that I'm sure the entire neighborhood heard them. Vilex spent the night at our house during the camp and he didn't get in until almost midnight. The next morning I told him it sounded like they were having fun. He said at 11:00 PM, he had to tell them they had to quit and help clean up and put the speakers and music stuff away, they would have sang all night! So, I'm saying that camp was a success. It gave the Christian kids a place to be instead of going downtown and drinking and dancing all night. Thank you to those of you that helped make this possible. I'll be telling all of you more about this later as we get ready for the 4 day summer camp.....we'll need more donations for this next year and the events that are planned! I'll keep you posted.

Steve and I decided to start a new project in hopes that at some point NLH will want to pick it up and maybe expand it. I had been talking to Pastor Plaisir for quite awhile about a population of elderly women that I see at church, that just don't look like they have anything at all. They are all so tiny and old! It just looks like they need to be loved and fed! He said that several of them stop by after church each week and ask him for a little help. He said he is unable to give them much, but always manages to find something for them. They are in a group of elderly in Haiti that don't have anyone to take care of them or help them find food. Most of them have some kind of house to live in, but no means to buy food. Either they are widows without children, or their children have moved away and don't send enough money or have died, so they have no one. NLH will eventually try to find a sister church for each of the 6 churches in the district, but until we get that part of the program up and running, we felt like we needed to start to help. After talking to Pastor, we told him we could start to do something, if he had a list of names. He quickly gave me a list of 9 women, 4 of whom are widows, that desperately need the help with food. So we will give them food bags on the first and third Sunday of the month. I think they could probably use it every week, but this will just do for now! I'm including several pictures of this last weeks food bags! We have been fortunate to have Sue Chagnon, from one of the partner churches in Indiana make some cloth bags for us to use. So each woman will get her weekly food provisions in a cloth bag that they will return to us to get filled again.

The staple items will be: 12 cups of rice, 2 cups of beans, small can of tomato paste, bouillon cubes, oil, spaghetti and matches. I added toothbrushes and toothpaste to this weeks bag. I'll probably try to add something different in each bag to help them out a little. We can do this for about $100 US a month, not too bad! Thought you would enjoy seeing what the food looks like and what the bags look like. Thanks Sue for the bags!

I'll keep you posted on how it goes! We are very excited about being able to help like this.

It has been raining for 2 days, I mean really raining! Not sure why, it's not hurricane season! Our house is on a flat spot, with a hill behind us. When it rains the red dirt/mud comes down into our yard along with tons of water! Steve will be building a retaining wall along with a storage room behind the house, which will help. However, we have a large area on the side of the house that has a small river running through it when it rains like this. Steve needs to figure out how to re-route the water. I took a picture of it, thought you might enjoy it! I also went out into the rain and took a video of it because it was moving right along, but I can't get it uploaded to send it to anyone yet...still working on it. The rain has been great for the gardens....you can see our corn in the mud river picture! And I have planted a small garden with the intent of adding more (if it ever stops raining!). My sugar snap peas love all of this rain and 78 degree weather! I also have some carrots, beats, Swiss chard and leaf lettuce coming up! In our yard, we have a lot of corn planted, as well as black beans, Moyock, pwa Congo (another type of bean) a few eggplant plants, some beans that are kind of like green beans (I think?) and some yams. Interesting huh? Also found out yesterday that we have 2 coffee trees (yes, trees) in our yard. Dis (our yard guy) says that they are Foreign Coffee Trees (Kafe Etranjer) not sure exactly what that means. The are bigger trees than the bushes that Haitian coffee grows on. We picked some of the beans and Mme. Asson is going to make it into coffee, so will let you know if it's any good.

Also included a picture of a Cacao (Cocoa) tree. Yes, chocolate or Cocoa, comes from trees...pretty good sized trees actually. This property has a ton of them and it is grown a lot in this area. Cacao pods are broken apart and the beans are taken out, dried, then grilled, then pounded into powder, then oil is added to it and it is rolled into a ball and sold. They then grate the cocoa up into warm milk or water and add sugar and drink it! I haven't tasted it, but they like it, our construction crew used to drink it every morning for breakfast, along with bread. Anyway, thought you'd like to see the tree outside of our window, then several of the pods up close. They are very strange, the pods grow on the main branches...as you will see.

Okay, enough for this week! We pray you will have a great week....that your weather is starting to warm up and spring is just around the corner, right? We are just wanting some sunshine to dry things out! God Bless you all.......

Joline

Hello everyone!

Seems like my weeks just keep going faster and faster. I hadn't realized that I hadn't written a journal entry last week until just this weekend. Sorry, I usually try to get one done. It isn't that our week was so crammed with things that I didn't have time, it just seems to have gotten away from me. Seems like the older I get the more time does that! I'm sure my grandma told me that at one point!

Last week I started my annual 6th grade English class. This will be the first year that I have done it in Marfranc. The last 2 years I did the classes at the Jeremie Baptist church and had a great time. They weren't very happy that I wasn't coming into Jeremie to do it this year. I told them I didn't really want to commute. For the last 6 years I have done a mini-English class with the 6th graders where ever we have lived. When the students here start 7th grade, they start their English classes. What I have found is that the Haitian teachers don't speak very good English themselves, so the kids really don't learn how to speak good English. By the time they graduate, many of them can read English fairly well and can even write some of it and know some vocabulary, but they can't "speak" English or really understand it enough to even converse. So I started working with the 6th graders to have them learn basic words, the alphabet, colors, numbers, greetings etc.....but mostly I do it so that they get to know me.....a white person. Yeah, sounds kind of silly coming from the US doesn't it? But, most of them truly don't know any white people, unless they go to the church there and know us. They see Americans, or white people on the street and yell "blanc" at them....but really don't know us. So the other part of why I do the class is to let them get to know who I am...and tell them they no longer can yell "blanc" at me! We usually have a great time and it's fun to get to know the kids. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Last week, Steve was gone for 2 days traveling over the mountain to Cayes on the Southern coast of this arm of Haiti. It is a total of 64 miles and takes him about 6 plus hours to drive it. No picture of the road he drives would do it justice....it is a road that is mostly rock and uphill (both ways, ha!). It shakes you to pieces and you can tell by the miles vs time that he can't go very fast. Anyway, he went over to pick up items from the ACC container that was shipped in January. It was a great, great, wonderful bunch of stuff. NLH had bought some shelves for the kitchen and the storage hall next to the kitchen and Brian and Leslie Zurita (from LifeSpring church) packed them full of dog food, cat and dog treats, and misc. bolts, screws and anything else they could fit into the boxes, then they resealed the boxes. ACC goes by space not weight, so they super packed the boxes. It was great. I think in the 6 boxes of 3 ft. shelves they managed to get 100 lbs. of dog food repackaged into gallon Ziploc bags! Amazing. I'll include a picture of them packed. Thanks again to the Zurita's for everything they packed into those shelves.

I'll also include a picture of one of the 4' shelves up in the kitchen with stuff on it! I can't wait for all the shelves to be done and in the kitchen, I'll be sure and include a finished kitchen picture when it's done.

Steve and I also worked on the new doors for the dorm rooms. They are finally finished. We still need to do one for our room and then eventually one for the extra bathroom across from the kitchen. We used mats made out of bamboo for the doors and they turned out really nice! We think they only cost about $50 US to make (each), which is much better than $100 US each for a wooden door, plus I love the way they look, much lighter and more natural. I think you'll agree.

The food program that we started to do for the women at church has been wonderful. Several of them have come up and given me a hug and kiss and quietly said, thank you and God bless you! Makes me cry....such a simple, simple thing and truly not even very much and it is a blessing. We have so much and it's so easy to give so little with such a blessing. I'm glad that we can continue to do this for them, even though it doesn't seem like much, I know how much it helps!

Next week, I'll send pictures of the back yard.....today the new crew of workers started digging out the foundation for the retaining wall. It will be about 5 - 6 feet tall, made of rock and concrete to hold back the hill and keep it from sliding into the yard. The wall will go the entire length behind the house and then in the middle of the wall we will put a depot (storage room) for kitchen stuff. The cheapest and best way to buy rice, flour and sugar is by the sack (usually 25 - 50 lb. sacks). But, to buy it that way, you have to have a way to store it. I have some great heavy plastic bins, but no where to keep them. We will use the kitchen depot to store those bins as well as extra bulk food and cleaning supplies. I also have some hanging baskets and we can keep much of the fruit for juice and vegetables there when we have teams. The more food I can keep out of the house, the less bugs and crawly creatures I will have. I can't wait to have the depot done! Will get you pictures on the wall next week.

We pray that you will have a wonderful God-filled week. Pray that Brian will be able to find out where the part that we just got for the truck goes....even the US mechanics aren't sure where it is located, ha! We also have the Zurita's and Pastor Fran getting stuff to go on the next container. Our 3000 generator has died...so we are currently shopping for a diesel generator to replace it. So pray that it can be found and purchased to get it on this next container, we currently only have a 2000 to use and it's pretty small...and older than the 3000! We are praying that Steve will be able to fix the 3000, but aren't sure!

I know this will be a busy week....take some time and enjoy your families! I love talking to you.......have a blessed week.

Joline

Dear Friends!

I almost didn't write anything tonight because I was able to get our newsletter done and posted last Friday and thought maybe that would do for this week, ha! Then I realized that those of you that only read this journal wouldn't know to look at the newsletter link to read it, so I'll take some time and share with you. If you have an interest....our March Newsletter is posted on the NLH website as well....just go back to where you clicked to read this and there is another link to click on for our newsletter! Much of it has been written in some shape or form in the journals, but there is probably some information that is new. Enjoy.

My English classes have been postponed until after Easter. I will probably never understand the education system here in Haiti. I'm surprised the kids learn anything, they have so many reasons to NOT attend school. This year has been especially bad with boycotts at the State Schools because the teachers have not been paid this year at all...and when the State Schools boycott.....no one has school, so there was almost a month without school in February. Now the 6th grade had examinations for their classes last week, then this week they have some kind of classes with the state schools, then they will have almost 2 weeks off for Easter break. Not sure exactly when we will start up again. We only did 3 classes, so we didn't get very far! I was kind of disappointed, but am really looking forward to getting started again!

Steve and I have been really busy working on more things for the house. We got all of the screens on the dorm rooms and bathrooms finished. We are done with those until the team comes and they will be finishing off the screens for the house (the grand room) and then the screen doors for the house. Steve has been cruising the internet in search for a good mosquito killer. Most of them are run by propane...and we are thinking we will try something outside and see if we can get rid of the population we have around the house. Might look into some spray for the yard as well....they just love to get in the house and are everywhere.....of course, we are pretty open without the screens finished.

The guys are working really hard on the wall. The photo is of the wall that is almost finished...they just have 1 more end to finish with a couple of posts. They started digging out the foundation for the kitchen depot (storage room). There will be a concrete slab with a tin roof on the right side of the depot for the washing machine and clean up area. The stairs to go to the roof will also be on that side! I can't wait to get a place to keep my big bins of flour, sugar and rice, as well as the bottles of propane and water that are all over the kitchen! The small bathroom that will have a toilet and sink is now full of stuff that will go in the depot! We will also be able to hang fruit and vegetables in the depot! It will be a great storage area. I'll keep including photos as we go along.

The gardens are doing really well, it is fun to watch Dis (our yard guy) work the big gardens that we have. The corn is now getting tassels...they are bright reddish-pink and they are so pretty! The field of corn is really big, but it also includes several kinds of beans, yams, plantains, egg plant, okra and a few watermelon and squash plants. Of course nothing is in rows, nor are any of the items except the corn all in the same spot! It would look very unorganized to all of you! Then on the hill behind us and to the other side of the house, we have beans. Lots of beans, mostly black beans, but tons of beans. There are a few lima beans, and some that look like peas (but they call them beans), red beans, and did I say black beans! ha! Some of the beans grow really big on high bushes, so there are lots of things growing around us. We finally got some banana plants, so in about 7 months we will have bananas! Of course I had to try a garden. I think I put a picture of it on one week when things first came up! My peas are getting big....and starting to send out runners, these are sugar snap peas, which no one here has ever eaten, can't wait to see their faces when we eat the pod and all....nothing here gets eaten that way. My carrots are doing really good and so is the swiss chard. The lettuce just wouldn't come up well in that dirt...so there is some, but not a lot! The beets didn't like it either...I think it's the dirt, it doesn't have the right nutrients in it. I put some different dirt in a big, wide plastic bucket and planted more lettuce, it is coming up really good! So this will be by trial and error, I'm sure.

There are so many things here that I have finally decided just aren't worth hitting my head against the wall for! They obviously do not garden like we do and it is really hard to explain how to garden the way we do in the US. I bought some green beans, both pole and bush beans. I usually grow my bush beans in blocks...so doing that with Dis wasn't too bad! He helped me do the peas that way.....and he now sees that they come up great and it's fine. He wanted to plant the beans, so I gave him the bush beans and told him to do it like the peas, he said he would do it and that I could go back inside! ha!!!! So inside I went. I think they will be fine. However, he came in and wanted the pole beans. I told him they had to be planted by sticks because they would be very tall and needed sticks to climb on. I told him they needed to go in a row so that we could put string on the sticks to help them climb! He said okay. later I asked him where the tall beans were...he showed me....they are mostly in a block, just like the bush beans...he says he will put poles in them and they will be fine! Can you just see the tangled mess of green beans I'm going to have!!!! Then I asked him where the rest were....he pointed to about 10 places all over the yard, mixed in with the hillside of mixed beans! He swears he knows where they are and planted them by bushes and trees so they had something to climb on! So much for "my" garden! ha! This just isn't worth the argument or the effort...so I laughed and said..."okay!". We'll see if I can even find my green beans again! Will keep you posted!

I'm including a picture of the coleus that are growing in my front planter. In the US we mostly have Coleus plants in the house in pots. Here they grow really tall (like 4 ft.) and are always outside! Mme. Asson has been bringing different colors of Coleus and putting them in the front planter, it is very pretty and I thought you might enjoy it!

Our next week will be busy with working on the door to our bedroom as well as Steve working on the truck and trying to find a part he needs to replace! I want to tell Brian and Leslie Zurita and everyone at LifeSpring church thank you for everything that will be coming on a container in about 1 1/2 months. They spend a ton of time getting things collected and packed to come here on an ACC container that will hopefully leave later this week. We were also able to order a new generator to put on that same container! Thank you one and all for the donated items and all the work it took to pack the stuff and get it to Bluffton, Indiana! THANKS!

I pray you will have a great week. May God continue to bless you all and keep you safe!

Love, Joline