Dear Friends!

Okay, so it's been a very long time since I've done one of these. No excuses.....okay maybe a bunch of excuses, but not none that I can really use. It's hot! And when it is this hot, with no air conditioning in sight....it makes me sticky and grumpy and not want to do anything but sit....not think, just sweat. That isn't very much fun, I know, but it's all I really want to manage on some days!!!! Maybe we should just go for a ride in the truck and put on the air....now that's a good way to use diesel fuel, huh? All joking aside, I have no good reason for not doing my weekly journals! We have been really busy and we have had some emergency stuff......and it is HOT (have I mentioned that???). Now that I've whined a bit, I'll tell you some of the new things that are going on. It will probably take me several weeks of journals to get y'all (that is from our last team from Texas!!!! Did I spell it right????) up to date.

First I want to introduce Laurie Trent. If any of you are on facebook, you probably already know that Laurie is spending 3 months with us this summer. She came with a team at the beginning of July and will be going back with us to Chicago (her home) at the beginning of October when we go back for the 5th Annual NLH Gala. Laurie is 28 and has visited us in Haiti twice before doing team trips. She fell in love with Haiti on her short term trips and talked to God a lot about coming back on a more permanent basis. She thought that visiting for more than a month was a good idea to really see how well she would do away from family and friends and life in the States! She is doing great and she has been a great blessing to us. I have enjoyed having another woman around to talk to and laugh with. She gets along great with Steve and has helped him out in the shop as well as under the truck several times. It's nice to have someone that likes to work with Steve, they work well together. Laurie has helped me with the Child Sponsorship Program, which has a lot to do at the beginning of the school year. We cut, folded and packaged almost 100 uniforms for the kids to have for the beginning of school, then spent 3 days handing out the material, money and school supplies! It's nice to work along side someone to get things done. Laurie decided the second week she was here, to buy a goat...his name is Bebe....and we were going to eat him next year, but we may save him and just stud him out.....and wait for the babies to get big to have a feast!!! He may be saved after all. Laurie can talk "goat" with him...quite interesting! We are enjoying Laurie and it's nice to have her here with us.

Speaking of the Child Sponsorship Program (CSP), we are very excited that children are still being sponsored. Last year we had 90 children in the program and 84 of those were sponsored by August of this year. We added 22 first graders to the system....making it a total of 106 kids in the program. We have already had 1 or 2 of the ones left from last year sponsored and also several first graders. If you have not had a chance to look at these beautiful faces, check out the sponsorship pages on this website!!!! They are soooo cute. We are excited about adding a few new things to the program this year. We were able to buy uniform material in bulk and we put together packages of material for each of the students along with a card (kind of like a credit card) that enabled the parents to give to card to one of 5 people who sew uniforms to get the uniforms made. The CSP will then pay for those uniform tickets when the tailors bring them to us. The parents were very excited about this and thought it was a great idea. I am trying to figure out how to add a tutoring component to the program. We had several children that did not pass last year, it is very common here that some of them cannot pass. So I am hoping that we can have a tutor come on Saturdays and do a Saturday school in the morning for those children who are struggling and hopefully we can keep those "failed grade" numbers down! It is hard for children to study at home when often the parents are illiterate themselves and cannot not do the homework with their kids. Plus class sizes are so large that sometimes it's hard to hear the lesson or understand it. We are hoping this will help these kids succeed. Vilex has been a vital part of this program this year. As an employee for NLH he is helping a lot with CSP. He has been instrumental in organizing the parents and explaining things to them, as well as taking roll to make sure the kids are attending and refining the program so that it works better. He did all of the translating for the letters this year, a huge job! I would be lost without his help!

Teams, did I mention teams! We have had 4 teams this year. I won't have room to tell you about all 4 of them, so I'll take time to do one today, then next time hit the rest! Our first group was to take pictures for the CSP and I shared their story in the last journal entry. Next came a group of 4 from Mattoon, Illinois. Pastor Brian Miller came with 3 other people from his church, Randy, Erik and Maria. The guys worked on doing doors for the school, making them from scratch and local "breadfruit" wood. Quite a challenge as it all had to be planed, the planer broke, we borrowed one, it broke and so they only got several doors done, but it was a great start to the project. They also visited our mountain church in Plik for the day and brought school supplies as well as books for the teachers, candy and goodies for the kids at the school and also had the children make some bookmarks to take back to a school in their neighborhood. It was a great day, wonderful hike and lots of fun and games with the kids. Thanks you guys for all the work that you did and for making new friends in Plik.

Okay, one more closing picture, it says it all....probably no words are necessary......Bouki thinks it's really hot too....his answer to this heat is to just roll over and let everything hang out!!! What do you think? Good idea?

We love you all, thanks for your support, your love and your prayers. We cant' be here and do this without you. Thank you for loving us!!!!

Ke Bon Dieu Beni ou!

Joline