Busy week. Fun week. Beautiful memories made.

We have had a lot of people coming and going over the last little bit and the thought of going from four core people, with four extra people here to help, to two core people, Karen and I, was a bit stressful but it has been a great week! We have had no major issues and have had lots of laughs. Keith and Joan had to leave on Sunday, and the team left early Monday morning. Karen and I started off the week with a plugged sink but nothing that we couldn’t handle.

Karen or Keith have always been the ones to drive when we go anywhere so with Keith gone it was difficult with only one driver. Last Sunday Karen wanted us to drive Luckner’s kids back home after church.  Karen only had a million things to do, so I volunteered to drive them home and mama said yes!! I must say it is a huge privilege and honor to get behind the wheel of that truck. Driving in Haiti is not a safe or easy feat either. You must watch out for tap taps, motos, large trucks, bicycles, goats, chickens, and vendors coming at you from all sides. You’ve got to know how to use that horn and blow it often, as blinkers and brake lights are used as a decoration more than anything around here. It felt so good to be able to drive, I took JJ along with me for security, and we headed off. We dropped the kids off with no incidences and made it back to the compound safely!

I have taken over the task of homeschooling Luc and we have had a successful first week. He is doing so well and has come so far. I enjoy spending my mornings with him and getting to play a small part in his education.

There has been the usual office work, daily chores, and little hiccups here and there. There were a few school sponsorship photos and letters that still needed to be completed so Karen and I headed over to the school and with Roselore’s help, rounded up most of the kids on my list. A few were out of school, or hadn’t come to school at all after they had registered. One little boy in preschool was not very happy with us; he wouldn’t talk to us, and absolutely would not smile! We kept trying to amuse him but all he would do was scrunch his nose up, it was too cute.

Creole lessons are going great! Actually English lessons with a little bit of Creole I should say! JJ has been a great helper with teaching me Creole and I have been able to help him with his English. It has been a lot of fun with a lot of laughs as we try to help each other out!

There’s always someone with a cut or bump, or headache, or fever, or some sort of ailment around here so I have been the designated nurse. Some of the kids get abbesses that need to be squeezed so they’ll come up after supper for me to fix them up with some cream, a band aid, and a kiss. Band aids fix everything around here I went through our pharmacy this week to take inventory of what we have, we’ve got just about every kind of med to cure just about anything! When we run low on something we add it to the list of supplies we would like visitors to bring.

Christmas decorating is happening!!! The kids are so excited! Moise and JJ hauled the Christmas tree down from the depot (it was still decorated from last year, just wrapped in plastic) and brought it in the main house. (Karen wants Sandra and Shondi to know that it worked. You ladies helped wrap it and put it up there. Too bad you were not here to help take it back down and help bring it in again this Christmas. Karen is glad she had it put away that way last year. )We brought down the bin of Christmas lights and checked to see if they still worked. We ran around scrounging up every extension cord we could possibly find on the compound. Lights are up on the girl’s home, the boy’s home, and a few on the main house. Hoping to have the rest of them up early next week! The kids have been making Christmas decorations for weeks now and will decorate the inside of their houses. We have a few more boxes of decorations to unpack and then we will be all set!

The back depots got cleaned through this week! We have an order of school food set to arrive soon and we needed to clean out a place in the right depot to put it all . We had an abundance of donations in the left depot that needed to be gone through and sorted out, some for the HATS children and some the children in the community. We did some rearranging in the left  depot and moved the drum set over there. Pallets were laid down in the right depot and some bags of rice moved out into another room.

The rice had to be gone through so the next day Magalie laid it out on a tarp in the sun. Then later that day the kids helped put it in sacks to haul it inside while she sifted through it. It was a lot of work, but everybody pulls together and does it. The rice was put into a shallow basket and thrown in the air to get rid of the dust and to get any tiny rocks or bugs that might have gotten into the bags. The kids helped put it back into sacks after it had been sifted, and back into storage it went.

Wednesday night Karen, I, and the older kids brought some mattresses up to the roof and star gazed for a few hours. We had some great conversations and enjoyed the beautiful evening. It was chilly though! Next time we need to bring blankets up with us too!

Every weekday morning, we go to staff devotions but Thursday morning, Karen, Luc and I went over to the school to observe school devotions and the raising of the flag. I love watching the kids sing and take part in worship, they’re joyful and loud and it is awesome! Close to 500 students attend that school and it is making such an impact in the kids lives, I love to see the work that is happening in that school!

Friday night we decided instead of just star gazing, we would sleep under the stars. We hauled tents and mattresses and sheets and blankets upstairs and got it all set up. The moon was bright, and the stars were shining. We saw several shooting stars and even though it was cold, it was a lot of fun. We didn’t go for our usual Saturday morning walk, we ended up just relaxing in bed and talking until 8:30 this morning, staying in bed that late never happens around here!!

It’s been a great week here, we’ve made lots of memories!

Jocelyn