More Baptisms and stuff …

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Well I have some more exciting news: another student was baptized this Friday afternoon. It feels like we have had a baptism almost every week that we have been here, which has been a very cool thing to be a part of. Unfortunately, though, neither Lorraine nor I really know these kids getting baptized, but we still are so excited to see them join the faith and the family of God; and I hope you guys are excited as well.

On that note … Lorraine and I are both building relationships with as many of the kids and adults as we can. The tough part about this, especially with the kids, is that we have to establish ourselves as their teachers first, so they will respect us and the rules of our classrooms. For the most part, by now, this groundwork has been laid and we have been somewhat able to build meaningful relationships with the kids. On the other side, I have also been able to build relationships with some of my bible college students. Now, this in a lot of ways has been tough too; the bible college students do not speak English very well, and all of them are quite a bit older than me. This has been an adjustment for both me and them (I’m sure), but it is finally starting to pay off. I have been able to share some stories with both my high schoolers and my bible college students that I can tell has made a difference in, not only the way they view me, but also in the way they see faith. Ultimately, connecting true faith to the hearts and minds of the people here in Haiti is our goal, and we are slowly working to bring this to fruition.

This last week was a very good week. I felt a little sick for the first part of the week, but thankfully we had a group in visiting that was very helpful. We had a church group in from Kansas City, and they are the supporting church for one of our missionary families (hint, hint for those from CCCG).  They were an absolutely fabulous group, and they were able to especially help me out.  One of the pastors from this church was really looking to get involved with the kids and teach Bible if he could.  I got him plugged in right away and he taught all of my bible classes for the high school M,T, and W; this was a huge load off my shoulders, because I picked up the final Bible college classes this same week.  The kids really enjoyed him (and no doubt a break from me) and I got a chance to catch up on some things I was behind on; so essentially it was a win win for everybody.  I think the biggest win, though, was for Steve (the pastor) because he seemed to get so much life out of teaching these Haitian kids, and I do not think it is an overstatement to say that this week stirred up something deep within his being.  Now, with this said I long for you all to know that this is a common occurrence with our visitors, so all of you should consider coming to Haiti to serve and be changed.

Now, like I said prior we are on Spring Break, and it is this week when we move from our guest room into one of the missionary apartments.  We have been looking very forward to this, and I sit typing this post inside our new place.  We are still trying to get it situated, but so far so good.  In our new place we have a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room, oh and some closets.  The closets are nice because we have been hanging our clothes on curtain rods and towel holders – in other words, not idea places.  Anyways, we will let you know how things progress at our new place, but I am pretty sure that it is going to be awesome.

Well, having the group in last week really reminded Lorraine and I of all of our friends, family, and our Church family and made us really miss close proximity with everyone.  A lot of the people for the Kansas City group reminded us of CCCG people and it was a very good thing.  To that I must say how thankful we are to have such committed family, friends, and a home church, whom we know are constantly praying for us, and are willing to give us other support in every possible way.  We make it our goal to reciprocate this love in the only way we can at this stage in our lives: to pray for all of you.  Once again, we cannot express it enough, but thank you every one for taking the time to invest in us.  With endearing love and kinship.  Blessings!!!

Kyle and Lorraine