Well as always the expression “time flies when you’re having fun” holds true.  Since we have been back in Haiti, though, things have not always been fun and rosy, but overall it certainly is fun.

We are about a week away from coming back for a few week Christmas break to hang out with our families and to go to a wedding.  In some ways, we can tell that we have been here for 6 weeks, but in other ways it feels like we just got here.  We definitely had to pack a lot of different things into a short period of time, because things will be slightly different when we get back; and for both us, this means being a little bit busier.  We have had lots of fun experiences which I will try to expound upon more when we are back in the states and I have a little bit more stable internet as well as a lot more free time.

For now, though, we are super busy because Christmas time is the most busy time of year here.  There are parties all the time for both the missionaries and all the assistants, as well as parties for all of the teachers and their classrooms.  And, oh yeah, there is a huge Christmas program that is on Tuesday night, and every kid in our school with their different classes have been working on their part in it for the last couple of weeks.  The Christmas program is a huge deal for everybody involved as well as for the whole community.  I do not know from experience, but from what I have heard it is the biggest thing Sonlight does all year.

Tonight, actually, we started off the week of parties with an all staff party.  This included all the missionaries, all the church staff, all the school maids, all the teachers aids, all the construction workers, and all the personal maids.  Each of the missionaries were expected to bring a plate of cookies or desserts to be given away, and so that is exactly what we did.  Interestingly enough, the way by which the food was raffled off was through a series of games: a giant game of musical chairs and a giant cake walk.  From what I saw everyone had a ball.  I do not usually get excited about games like this, but I will admit that it was like watching ESPN football as the scene narrowed down to 10 people.  In the end, everyone had fun and were able to get pictures with each other and see each other in a non-work environment.  Oh yeah … I did when a giant peanut butter cake, but it was way too much for Lorraine and I to eat and so we gave it to our maid Mme. Fritz.

The festivities continue tomorrow with a huge preschool party and program, which I am sure will be a lot of fun.  That will be followed by a short day on Tuesday, because of the huge program on Tuesday night.  Then on Wednesday there is a short day of class, which is mostly just a party for each of the grades.  After the parties are over on Wednesday, we need to close up our house and prepare for a day of traveling on Thursday.  Oh yeah … I forgot we actually have to find some time to pack in all this partying.  Partying is a good thing, however, it is not as fun when you have to do all the planning and cooking for them.  Nevertheless, we are blessed to be able to do all this that we do for our students and for everyone else.

Well there will be plenty more to come in an appendix (not the kind that came out of my body) section of our blog in the future.  Just a teaser … Ice Cream in Haiti!  That’s right!  Please keep up with us and continue to pray for us.  Blessings!

Kyle and Lorraine

Well it’s a very strange phenomenon to celebrate an American holiday in a foreign country.  Even though Haitians don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, Sonlight Academy took off 3 days to remember and celebrate in the Thanksgiving holiday.  It was actually quite nice, though, because it allowed Lorraine and I to catch up on some of our work for school and some of our work on our home.

The biggest things planned for Thanksgiving Day at Sonlight were a traditional early morning hike and a large Thanksgiving afternoon dinner.  All in all it was a great day in Haiti and we had a lot of fun with our friends down here in Haiti.  Above is a picture from the hike.  There will be much more to come.  Blessings!

november-newsletter4

Hey everyone!  I hope that you have enjoyed the last several pictures that I have posted of Micah.  We wanted to make sure that all of you got to see him as we do everyday, as a sweet and happy little boy.

Well like the title for this post suggests it is now officially the rainy season here in Port-de-Paix.  Lorraine and I know this for sure, because it has rained more here in the last two weeks than it did the entire four months we were here last spring.  Pretty much every day or night it rains at least a little bit.  The good thing about this is that it keeps the temperature down nice and cool and brings in a cool and refreshing breeze, but the bad thing is that everything is muddy and sopping wet.  I must admit, though, it is kind of nice to be experiencing this consistent rain.  As I said previously, last spring we didn’t get much rain here in Haiti, and then over our furlow time in Arizona we certainly didn’t get much rain either.  The rain now kind of breaks up the monotony of beautiful sunshining days.

As many of you know, this was our first official week back teaching.  Right, smack dab in the middle, of our week, though, we had a day off, because it was a Haitian Holiday.  On Tuesday, the Haitians celebrated the Battle of Vertieres.  This was the last major battle, which eventually led to Haiti claiming its’ independence from France.  When I asked all of my High School students what this Holiday was and what it was about, the only thing that they could really tell me was that it was “fighting day.”  I told them that this was a little too ambiguous, but that was all I could really get out of them.  I had to do a little digging myself to find out what Haitian Holiday happened every year on November 18th.

For our first week, I must say that everything went very well.  All of the students were happy to have us back, and we got adjusted into our classes and the new subjects extremely well.  My (Kyle) load is going to be pretty heavy as I suspected, but very workable; and in many ways, much more workable than I originally thought.  Lorraine’s classes went well too.  She decided to go ahead and get her feet into the Second Grade class, and she seems to really enjoy it.  It is big difference from High School literature and grammar, but the little kids are in many ways and in different ways easier to deal with.  My Bible College students have been so happy to see me back and to have classes with me, which certainly makes me feel good, and helps affirm that we are, at least for now, where God wants us to be.

The only issues that we are still dealing with are house issues.  We have mosquito and ant problems, which mostly everybody else here also has, but we also have some pretty serious bathroom issues.  The other main issue we have is what is going to happen in the next couple of weeks with a maid.  The maid we have right now is not ours to keep after this coming week, and so the search for a good one will be on after this week.  Plus, we are trying to figure out our schedules to see how logistically we are going to work things out with teaching and with Micah.  The next maid we hire may also have skills as being a nanny, and so that may be a viable option, or we may be able to give Micah to Emily whom watches two of the other little ones during the last periods of school.  I just ask that you pray for us and all of these above things.  These are issues that need to figured out and figured out effectively, and so we want to seek God for his guidance.

Well thats it for now!  Next week we will have several days off for Thanksgiving, and so we will look forward to using the time to get some other logistical things taken care of.  Blessings to you all!