Hangin #2

Here is part two of yesterdays video, and yes to those of you wondering it was not a good idea to give them skittles and other candies before bed.

We made it home

We made it home last night around midnight PST, after a long day of travel. We woke up in Fort Lauderdale at 3:30 am EST to assemble our things and take the taxi to the airport for our 7:00 flight. We arrived in Salt Lake at 10:30 where Charitys Dad picked us up and then let Charity and I crash for a couple hours while he took the kids on a treasure hunt. We then had the opportunity to meet for an early dinner with Sarah, Miriam & Scott, Deborah & Vinny, and kids it was short but so nice to catch up with family. Our flight was delayed about an hour leaving SLC, but Jonathan and Ashley were there at SeaTac waiting patiently for us.

I wanted to share this last week but I could not get it to load. This is just some pre bedtime video of the Grace Case Bunch.

Thank you all for your support and prayers over the last two weeks, keep checking in with us as we will continue to post some more videos, pictures and plans. Thanks Tadd

Heading out tomorrow

It is with saddness and joy that we leave tomorrow morning. We leave Port-au-Prince at 11:00 local time. (Currently in the central time zone, as Haiti decided a couple years ago to not change their clocks, so yes it is the same time here as in Detroit!?!?!?) It was with much regret that we left the Ebenhacks, who were so so hospitable it would make you forget that you were in a third world country.

Our flight from Cap Haitien was okay except that we were actually "fish tailing", a first for me in a airplane. Tomorros we spend the night in Fort Lauderdale then off to home. See ya soon!

To market

Ok, for those of you who Tadd totally freaked out with the spider picturesyesterday. Just wanted to let you know that we researched them on the internet and found that contrary to popular rumors, they say a bee sting is actually more dangerous than if our kids would have been bitten by the spider. The bite would only numb the spot where you were bitten and after a couple of hours feeling would come back with no long term effects. Now that we have that out of the way.

Tadd went to the open market area in town with Jerod and took some random pictures. This is the area that all the merchants come and spread out thier food on a blanket (i.e. fruit, vegetables, bread etc.) Then because you are American Haitians expect you to buy something from each vender at the market. So If you need 10 limes and 6 mangos with 2 loafs of bread. You buy 3 limes from the first vender, 2 mangos from the next vender, 1 loaf of bread from the next vender and so on until your grocery list is complete. Almost every vender has the same things so you don't really have a lot of choices either. This is a nicer market as they have umbrellas to shade them. The one I went to with Jenn (and forgot the camera) had about 10 acres of venders covered above by a maze of intertwined ropes tied to shredded tarps or old clothes or blankets sewn together.

After that they went up to the huge Cathedral up on the hill here in Cap Haitien. It is so sad that this beautiful building is towering over starvation and people who bathe themselves in sewer water. Catholacism is very big here in Haiti. Which you would think gives you a little hope for the country. Tragically the catholic leaders are preists by day and witch doctors by night. Almost every religion here in Haiti is mixed with Voodoo ( the native religion brought over with the slaves from Africa).

Statistics say that 35% of Haitians confess to being Evangelical Christians, only 5% of that 35% do not practice voodoo along with their "chirstianity". In Haiti people usually say they are christian because they know that is what the Christian missionaries want to hear that and it will get them something if they profess to beleive. It is a lot like the people in the Old Testament too. They worshiped God at times, but then worshiped Idols also, just to make sure they were covered all their bases. Making sure whatever could work for them would. Since the african slaves that were brought here in captivity, aquired the Island of Haiti and their freedom, by dedicating the Island to Satan, they have realized that Satan worship or voodoo has worked for them, So don't want to totally give it up totally, therefore they just do both.

Anyway, probably more that you ever wanted to know, but it is hopefully helpful in understand the great need for mission work here. Lots of missionaries here are very helpful short term to bring in temporary help and money to the Haitian people, but have a hard time teaching them that they can change their living situation and poverty by making themselves self sufficiant. Like taking the money they get and buying seeds for a garden or investing their money to expand their buisness. Instead they spend what they have right away and spend it on food for today and a cell phone instead of saving it to have food for the whole week. This makes them rely so much on the help from the missionaries, then when the missionaries leave the people go right back into their starvation and poverty. We would like to work more on living in Haiti and living as an example of how you can take the support as you start out as a missionary and then use it to put self sustaining systems in place so you can eventually become self supporting. And in turn teach the Haitians that they to can do the same.

We are going to be sad to leave in the next couple of days, but excited to be home and share what the Lord has been doing in our hearts. Tomorrow, (Tuesday) we fly back to Port au Prince from Cap Haitian, spend the night, fly back to Fort Lauderdale, spend the night, then on Thurday we fly into Utah for a 7 hour lay over with Charity's family and then fly home to seattle that evening. Please pray for smooth travels and calm kids, as they are warn out and ready for some normalness back in their lives. We will see you all soon and we want to thank you so much for your prayer covering while we were here.

Yesterdays excitement

A couple of days ago Kenya, Elijah and I went out looking for taranchulas and found several like this one.

Yesterday the kids went out with out me and found this guy!!!! After some enitial fear we caught it andthen they were pretty proud that they found it all by themselves.

Everybody needs a little time away

Our gracious hosts the Ebenhacks took us to a wonderful beach on the otherside side of the mountian. It was nice to see a glimpse of the more beautiful side of Haiti.

A view looking back at Cap Haitien

Getting ready to go fishing.

A little taste of Haiti

Wednesday we went to visit the director of Kids Alive here in Cap Haitian they are living on some newly purchased property, where they are in the process of building thier home. The next step will be to build multiple homes for all of the families that do "foster care " for the kids that go to the kids alive schools. Everything you build here in Haiti is built from cinder blocks and cement. Any cement you have to free pour you have to make your own rebar forms for with very limited tools so the process is very long. This is the upstairs of thier home that is not yet finished. When finished it will be to house mission teams that come.

This is a truck we came upon on the road, it is very common to have vehicles broken down in the middle of the road. As you can see Haitians are very hard on thier vehicles and the roads certainly don't help as these guys got stuck in a pothole.


Enjoying the effects of 6 day old sunburn.

Our friend Jarod returning home on his preferred mode of transportation.

The girls in one of the childrens homes working on puzzles.While hanging out at the directors house we decided to partake in the mangos that were falling off of a tree in their yard and could not understand why all the people who lived and worked there had not had any but they were delicious anyway.

There are 2 types of mangoes, One of them is really stringy and can stick in your teeth, Justin said he didn't have any of the problems Charity was experiencing.