Contrast - Weeks 5-7

It has been a few weeks again and we want to let you all know what has been going on around the MH property.

Tim – He has been working steadily on plans for the block company.  Right now this involves sitting down with various people and making sure the land is dealt with properly.  The piece of land has needed to be surveyed, boundaries staked, neighbors talked to and former owners notified of any plantain trees that they might want to remove before construction begins.  The next steps will involve finalizing construction plans, which sometimes move quickly here and at other times not so much.  Otherwise Tim stays busy with keeping track of all financial aspects of the ministry, helping with various ministry decisions and co-lead teacher of our girls’ homeschool education.

Sara – I have been spending time figuring out ways to keep our homeschooling experience interesting.  I have come to love the flexibility it gives us but it takes diligence to keep from just trying to finish pages or concepts.  We need to make sure we are not just crossing off our lists, but also teaching for understanding and knowledge to sink in.  Before we moved, it was my concern that Aubrey needed to begin reading this year and I am thankful to say she is making great strides at it.  Otherwise, I have been keeping up with daily life stuff… laundry day is still a day I need to mentally prepare for here, but very satisfying when finished.  I have also been helping get pictures taken for the school sponsorship program.  This involves accompanying Paul and Pam to the schools MH assists… I always sleep well at night on the days I hike with them.

Logan, Aubrey & Regan – The girls are adjusting well.  It is good to see people continuing to embrace them. 

    Logan has been reading a couple books per week.  She is our daughter who keeps to herself the most which has been the case even in America.  She does well and is happy playing by herself and continues to have a big imagination.  Logan got to accompany Pam and Bethany to AWANA class Saturday morning as well as take part in a recorder lesson… so now we have a recorder in our house 

: )

   Aubrey would prefer to be around people and we have to kindly remind her to not hover or overwhelm others! Haha.  Most of the time Aubrey is found carrying around her latest precious stone or piece of wood that she has turned into some pretend object.  The other day, she saw me through out a stone I found inside our house, and immediately she was reduced to tears cause that was her ‘most special one.’  Big news for Aubrey is that she has lost her two front teeth!  We told her the ‘tooth fairy’ (she knows the truth about the tooth fairy… sorry, we are realists) would buy her something at the airport on our return trip.

   Regan… well, she is the same ‘full of life,’ Regan!  Her knees are perpetually skinned because of her inability to move at any speed other than full speed.  It has been fun listening to some of her thoughts and/or reasoning about things, we can tell she is able to understand and process more than she could even 6 months ago.  Amazed at how fast she is growing up. 

Last blog entry I said I would do my best to explain the state of our hearts at some point too… so here it goes.

During my years as an art teacher I often taught and spoke to my students about contrast as an element of art.  Visually speaking, contrast is the difference between a light value and a dark value.  When referring to contrast with my students, a lot of times it was something added to a piece of artwork to really make the art come to life; something that visually intensified a project.  In the past 6 weeks in Haiti, contrast has been on my mind again, but for very different reasons.

In our first few weeks here I am sure our family was perceived as having a ‘deer in the headlights’ look about us.  The environment we were placed in had a lot of contrasts, everything from obvious things like language to not so obvious things like what you do at night if it is raining and you have to use the bathroom (our bathroom is about 20 steps from our house and has no roof!)  As I have stated before though, our family has been embraced and cared for well.

Now for a bit of a confession… Before we moved, Tim and I spent a lot of time talking about how this wasn’t in OUR plan for our life, and yet we were confident of what we put in front of us.  And God affirmed, in many ways, this call.   So the word surrender became a very real part of our life.  But until we lived here a couple weeks did we really understand what surrender meant.  In America, we said we were surrendering and yet deceived ourselves at the amount of control we still tried to hold

After being here now for about a month and a half, it is clearer to us that we have NO control of our life (we never really have, we just thought we did), it is not up to us to know what will happen from moment-to-moment. This fact breaks all language or geographical barriers.  All that is asked is obedience and trust.

Tim and I are often amazed and humbled by the team members God has placed around us as part of Mission Haiti.  They are an example of truly living by faith alone, not worrying about what the day has brought, or what tomorrow will bring.

I was emailing a friend the other night and describing to her about a couple events that had taken place that day.  I commented that if these things had happened in the first few weeks of us being here, our family would have had a tough time processing or dealing with these situations.  I understand 7 weeks is not that long to be living in this country, but we are so grateful for God’s gift of grace and mercy when it comes to us being able to see Him, even in the events that don’t always make sense.  I am not sure I am making sense right now!  I will wrap it up.

(As I am writing this our Director, Pam, walked by and I told her there is so much in my head that I could write but I don’t want to write 3 pages of stuff that is not written down well! I wish words were my gift!)

Almost daily, we find ourselves, in one way or another, saying thank you to God for His mighty presence amongst all the contrast right now in our life.  Just as in art, this contrast has brought to life things God has planned to reveal in a very specific way for us and for those He puts in front of us.  Keep praying our eyes see what He wants us to see, hear what He wants us to hear, and say only what will bring Him glory. 

Love to you all from the Mulders.

Alright… first off, apologies for this being a very belated entry.  It is amazing where the days go and how much we take for granted in America the fact we are connected to wi-fi almost everywhere we go.  I had typed this entry 3 days ago, and when I was finished with it and ready to post, our wireless on the property was not running well and my computer froze.  We also try not over stay our welcome at our teammates house where the wireless is, and so our time to use the internet is often rushed a bit.  Lastly, the wireless here is touch and go.  Sometimes it depends on what day it is, what time of day it is, if it is windy, if it is cloudy or a number other of factors.  So there are my excuses, sorry to begin the entry this way, but do know that I will do my best to update more regularly.

There is a lot to write about, but in this entry I will just attempt to give you a picture of how our days here are beginning to take shape.

• ·      Our day usually begins between  6:30 & 7:30 (Regan is the alarm clock)
• ·      Breakfast, getting dressed and doing hair takes about another half hour
• o   Breakfasts consist of a rotation of granola bars, pancakes, scrambled eggs, cereal or oatmeal throughout a week.
• o   During this time Tim is often retrieving our water for dishes, cooking, bathroom needs and drinking, from large barrels at the end of our property about 50 yards away.
• ·      then we do a variety of chores like sweeping, mopping, laundry, dishes, picking up fallen leaves, and straightening up the house
• ·      Homeschool is also often accomplished in the morning which takes anywhere from 1 ½  to 2 hours.
• o   Logan is a diligent worker when it comes to school.  She likes accomplishing pages in her workbooks and generally enjoys learning… it also helps she can read all the instructions to herself!
• o   Aubrey has flat out told us she would rather be outside helping whomever is in the yard.  This is a wonderful thing, but makes her attention span on schoolwork very hard when there is often a constant flow of busyness outside our door.
• o   Regan actually does pretty well staying focused… forgive me for sounding surprised.  The only thing we have all had to get used to is her CONSTANT chatter.  For real… it is CONSTANT! (Today we literally practiced holding still and being quiet. Honestly, I wrote that in my lesson plan book for her!)
• ·      Then it is about time to play a bit while we wait for our lunch to be prepared for us by our cook Kanel.  He is a wonderful cook who makes healthy, traditional Haitian meals for us and our 3 other teammates.  (Our girls have done very well trying all the new foods and like the majority of it.)
• ·      After lunch the girls try to nap or rest for a bit
• ·      About mid to late afternoon we are often greeted by a number of kids from the orphanage, located just behind our house, who are asking for the girls to come play.  (The girls have also done well getting used playing with the kids and I think it goes both ways, that it works best to be around each other in small doses.)
• ·      We try to then eat a small supper which is often something put together without turning on the stove, as by this time of day it is a cooker in our house.
• ·      At 6:00 each day we gather as a Mission Haiti staff to pray, sing, read scripture and talk about how our days have been.  This has been a learning and refreshing experience during our time here and something we look forward to in our day.
• ·      After prayer time we accomplish showers, which are in a shower stall with no ceiling.  This has been a high point so far for us all.  It is a very refreshing thing to dump a bucket of water over us and wash away the heat of the day.
• ·      About 7:30 the sun has set, and we either let the girls watch a part of a movie or we head to bed by 8:30 cause we are all usually exhausted.
•  

This is a very rough outline of what has generally happened here.  While we are going about our day, there is always a lot going around our property.  Tim has become busier with maintaining the financial side of the ministry, and is starting to get the ball rolling with the new block plant.  He also is hoping to develop a business education class to those who desire a bit more knowledge about managing money or developing a business plan. 

We all help out whenever and however we can.  Sometime for me that is just making sure the team members have eaten and drank enough for the day.  Other times it is simply being a good listener for people, and making sure they are able to do their job well… lots of behind the scenes work which has been good for me.  I also am helping out with an art class every Friday afternoon to create items for our youth to sell to short-term team members from America, as well as helping with the formula program for new moms, and assisting with a garden.  There is so much to do here, and we are doing our best to simply help lighten the load for others.

Here are a few other bits of information that might give a little perspective into our daily life:

·     

           Water – This is a basic and necessity of life anywhere in the world.  We have our water pumped for us most days into large barrels.  The water straight from our well can be used for bathing and washing dishes, but otherwise we need to run it through a water purification system to be used for drinking and cooking.  Most of the time, Tim is the one running to get our water which includes a jug for drinking, a couple buckets for dishes, a couple buckets for flushing our toilet and a couple for showers each night.  So as you can see, water is a big part of our day.

·                 Electricity – There is very little that we can call predictable when it comes to the government giving us power.  For a while we thought we recognized a routine, but now we have simply stopped trying to figure it out.  I think the longest we have gone without power is close to 4 days.  This means the inverter in our house kicks on which runs 4 fans, a couple outlets and 2 lights.  But after 4 days of no power, even our inverter needs charging so we have experienced a couple days of getting by with very little airflow, low computer batteries and lots of flashlights used.

·                 Privacy – There is simply very little.  I will leave it at that for now : )

·                 Health – We have had our bumps in the road already since being here; a few colds, a few fevers, one ear infection and plenty of upset stomachs.  But we have felt we have had what we needed to treat symptoms and keep comfortable through this all.

·                 Haitian People – We have loved getting to know the people we see on a day-to-day basis.  There are many people around our property that are regular visitors and we feel relationships are beginning to be built.  It is very interesting to learn about cultural differences here, what is ‘normal’ or what is traditionally done in any given situation.  We have also felt extremely cared for and watched out for by those who know us.  And the girls are given a lot of attention by a variety of people which they of course do not mind : )

I just re-read what I have written and I hope the picture I painted is not one of how different or difficult life is here.  We have truly felt supported, prayed for and loved during our time here.  I will write more, hopefully soon, about the condition of all of our hearts, as for now this entry is already quit long.  I hope to also include images on Facebook, it takes about 1/10 of the time to upload there than it does to upload to our blog.  Until I get something else figured out with this, I think this is the best option.

Keep praying, and check out our prayer journal for an update for specific things that we would appreciate covered.