Uncle John's Cider Mill

On Saturday we spent the day at a place called Uncle John's cider mill. We had so much fun. We got a dozen donuts, a gallon of Cider and polished it off right there on the spot!! :) What a day.
Its about a two hour drive from where we live but we have so much fun there.

The kids love to watch them make cider. They can spend hours just watching this. Maybe I should get one for my house!! LOL

My Brother's business!!

My Brother owns his own heating and cooling company. If you live in West Michigan or in the surrounding area check out his new webpage www.highpointheatingandcooling.com

He does a great job and is very reasonable!!

Caleb's song

Caleb, my 7 year old, has been working on a song for a long time. He did not want me to see it until he was finished with it. He was so excited when I typed it up for him.

The Vapors by Caleb Yonker

We got the soul
And we got the light
He is the Lord your God
He is the Lord oh yea
I love the Lord Jesus
For my God is the Lord.
You don’t need to do this
You save, I go with you,
I am a Christian man with faith,
You’re my Savior. I got a Lord
That saved our sins, and my life.
I won’t go away. I promise I won’t
Be bad. I want to be the best kid.
Thank you, Jesus!!

Prayer for a friend

Could you all keep a friend of mine and her family in your prayers. Because of certain things I told her that I would not use her name publicly but God knows who she is! She was just diagnosed with Lung cancer a few days ago. She has an awesome faith in her Lord and one of the best things she sent to me in an email yesterday was this:

"I have cancer, but cancer does not have me!! God is in control" Awesome!! She has the best attitude!!

Thank you so much!!!

Haiti church in Grand Rapids

God has us meet the coolest people in the some of the oddest places!LOL

Twice now he has brought us together with some good friends now that we have met in restaurants.

He led us to an awesome friend named Kaitlyn at an applebees over a year ago now and she is such a dear friend!!

Recently he led us to another young lady named Lynda. Actually I should say my in-laws met her first at an old country buffet and the we joined them one evening and the rest is history.

Lynda was born in Haiti - yes you can already see the connection! :)

Lynda told us about a church in Grand Rapids that was Haitian. Imagine our excitement!!

Yesterday a few of us went to this church. Diane and her family and my friend Tiffany joined Nate and I and the kids for their 11:00am service. It was incredible. It was just like being in Haiti!! They were soooooooooooo friendly and just truly welcomed us with open arms. Talk about being the body. They get it and shared it with us!

The Pastor had Nate come up 3 times to pray or talk (Nate just cannot seem to ever sit still in a Haitian church!!) The music was incredible. It definitely had that Island feel. It was hard to believe that after the service we were getting in our cars and not on a airplane.

After the service was was done in English and Creole they invited us to have refreshments with them. The refreshments turned out to be Creole chicken and rice and beans!!!!!!!!! Yum!!! Two of my favorite foods.

By the way on a side note, Cheri, the rice and beans you bought us was AWESOME!!!! Very good!! Thank you so much!!!!!

It truly was a blessed day and we have made some good new friends. We plan on going back with a bigger group so if you are interested let us know!!! We also found out they would love to join us on our mission trips so that will be great as well!!!

We also have decided that we will be flying to Haiti in late January/early February. This trip will be just Nate and I. It will be a discerning trip and a time to figure out what our next team trips will look like. Please pray for us as we discern our future!!!!

Update

We are home from the doctor and things look good!! Yeah! Praise God no bones broken, no little fractures. He does have a good sprain going and his foot is wrapped up but he should be able to go to school tomorrow! I am one relieved momma!!!

Thank you all for the prayers!!!!

Caleb

If you could say a little prayer for Caleb this morning that would be great!!!

I need to take him in to get X-rays on his ankle and foot. He was playing on a neighbors tramp last night and another child in the neighborhood came down on his foot wrong and he heard something pop. It is not black and blue at all thank goodness but he cannot walk on it.

Thank you so much.

Not much new

Not much new going on. I was able to have lunch with a wonderful friend of mine today! Thanks Cheri I needed that today!!! We also had a wonderful day yesterday with our awesome home group!! I found this poem today and I really liked it so I am sharing it with all of you!!!

Save me

Save me from myself,

Lord;

Save me from my need

To always run my life,

Lord,To control my every deed.
Save me from my pride, Lord,

My focus on just me;

Help me learn to serve, Lord;

Show me how to be.
Save me from the world, Lord,

When tempting things entice;

Remind me of eternityWith You, in paradise.
I give my life to you, Lord

My every need you fill;

I’m resting in my faith, Lord

;You saved me, and you always will.
By Joanna Fuchs

30 hour famine

Thank you to everyone that purchased magazines from Nik's sale. He is so excited. He now gets to go to a big party at school!!

Nikolas will be participating in another fundraiser for church. It is called 30 hour famine.

You can read more at www.30hourfamine.org

In October they will have a weekend where they will fast for 30 hours and they go out in the community and collect food for a local ministry.

If anyone is interested in donating money towards this email me at telltheworld5@gmail.com

It is tax deductable and Nik will be happy to send you a receipt!

Thank you so much!!!

Unreached people of the day

I added a new side bar that I saw on my friend Jen's blog. What a great reminder that there are over 300 billion people on the earth that are not saved or have heard of what Jesus christ has done for them!!!! Thanks Jen!!!

You Alone - Hillsong

This song was the theme song for our conference!!! Our praise team learned it for the conference and they did an AWESOME job!!!!

Haiti Video

I just found this on youtube.

Haiti

My heart just hurts for Haiti right now. I want so bad to just be able to pick up and fly down there. I know I would most likely be in the way but some of the places that were hit hard were places where are teams have gone and driven by or know people in those areas.

It makes it even tougher.

This link will bring you to a blog called the Real Hope for Haiti. There is a place where if you feel called to donate they would be so grateful. they have an awesome mission and the work they do is tough, tough, tough. They take on the tough medical cases and run an orphanage.

Please keep praying that these people will feel Jesus. That they will accept Jesus and know that even though they are in the middle of a tough time Jesus in holding them close and that they would know that they have an eternity with Jesus waiting for them someday. Pray that they feel hope in the midst of this devestating trial.

Magazine sale

Ah my favorite part of school. Not.....

The fundraising begins. I usually do not send these out but Nikolas was so excited this year about his magazine sale and he asked me to put it on my blog. How could I resist that excitement. So here it:

BALDWIN STREET MS is currently running a fundraiser and needs your support! It’s fast, convenient and easy for you to help our group. When you buy, renew or extend your favorite magazine subscriptions or purchase music or book items from our online store, 40% of each purchase goes back to my organization!

Just click here and you will be able to view my group's web page, offering: - Over 650 popular magazine titles at savings of up to 90% off of newsstand prices- Hundreds of CDs and books - Online shopping available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Thanks, for your support.
Nikolas Yonker
BALDWIN STREET MS

The Isaiah project

Hard to believe its Monday. Troy is on his way home and sitting in Miami. He should be on his way to Port in about 20 minutes. It was awesome having him here again. Thank you Troy for everything. Shopping with you was a blast last night!!! I am still picturing you walking through the airports with you big tension curtain rod!! :) Thank you Tara for letting him come. It was a HUGE God filled weekend!!! I just wish you could have been here with us.


The Isaiah project itself was AWESOME!!! I cannot even begin to describe how wonderful it was. It was also very heartbreaking. The hardest part has been to see the glazed look in people's eye and the apathy we see in our own churches. When we have the Holy Spirit in us how in the world can we ignore that 300 billion people still have never heard of Christ
and NOT EVEN CARE. I just do not get it. I am not great with words but a very good friend of mine is so I am going to send you to her blog to read it. Please do it has a message we all need to hear if we call ourselves Christians.

This is what Diane wrote about the conference

As Christian we really need to open our eyes to EVERY person around us and wonder is that person saved? We cannot save them but Jesus can and its just up to us to tell them!! We HAVE to stop worrying about who we might offend when the awesome news we have will bring them into eternity....

These may be some tough posts to read but the truth is NEVER easy to hear.....

Update

I am very sorry I have not updated better. I really was not sure what was going on. At this point Troy is finally on his way to Chicago. However it doesn't look like he will be on his way to GR tonight. Looks like he will be arriving in the morning sometime early. The best part is that he will NOT miss any of the conference. He will not make the radio show but Nate will still be there.

Update

I just got a call from Nate. Troy just called him and he is sitting on the plane ready to take off!! Yeah!!!! Troy will call him when he reaches Ft. Lauderdale!!

Thanks for the prayers everyone!!

Troy's flight

So far I just checked AA for Troy's flight and so far its showing on time. While I know he doesn't actually leave Haiti until noon our time just that fact that is showing on-time makes me happy for the moment!! :)

Also for those of you who are interested you should be able to hear Troy and Nate on WJQ tomorrow morning. Not sure what time yet but I believe they thought it would be around 8:00am EST.

Here is the link to hear it online:
http://www.jq99.com

I will update on Troy's flight as things progress so check back later. Probably around 12:00 and after!

Prayers needed!!

Please keep Troy in your prayers. He is supposed to fly into Michigan Thursday late. However with 1 hurricane hitting Haiti and one more on its way the airport is already closed for tomorrow. What that means is when flights are cancelled it makes the port-au-prince airport a nightmare. Pray that the airport opens and flights fly out on time tomorrow and Thursday. Also pray that Florida is NOT hit as well as that is Troy's first stop!!!

Thanks for all your prayers!! I knew I could count on you all my blogging friends!!!

Also pray for Tara and the kids back in Haiti. I know this is not easy on her with Troy coming here until Monday.

Camping and other things

We went to a place called Pentwater this weekend. It is a state park on a beautiful beach!
The weather was perfect and we had a great time. These pictures below are not mine. I brought my camera but I never got it out. I know the rest of my family took tons of pictures so will post some of those when I get them.


This is going to be a big week. Our Isaiah project is this weekend so please pray for good weather and that everyone is blessed. We have Troy who will be flying in from Haiti so please pray that he has very on time flights. That is not very normal for Haiti but God does do miracles!! :) We also have our speaker from Gospeal for Asia flying in on Friday so pray for on time connections there as well.

Troy and Nate are going to be on our local Christian radio station on Friday morning sometime between 7-9. for those of you in the area it will be on WJQ 99.3
For those of you not in the area and you want to listen you can click on the highlighted portion above and click on listen live at the top of the page. For those of you from Lighthouse Sango and Mama neuman will be on today same time and Dan smith from Paradise bound will be on the air on Wednesday same time. Remember Friday morning sometime between 7 and 9 am!!

Graduation pictures

People have been having so much fun putting yearbook pictures that they had made up that I thought I would add a couple.

This is the one that I made up!

Here is my actual graduation picture:

Its crazy how close the hair style is! LOL

this is actually to go with the other post today on Nate and I. This was our engagement picture:

Getting to know us!

Nate and I in Haiti! Thanks Tammy! I saw this on my friend Mari's blog and thought it would be fun.

1.Who is your man? My husbands name is Nate. He works for Godwin plumbing and has been there almost 15 years. It has been truly awesome to watch is faith grow in the last 4 years and to watch him stand up for truth even though its not an easy path!

2. How long have you been together? We will be celebrating our 18Th anniversary at the end of October but we have been together for 21 years!!

3. How long did you date before you got married? We dated for almost 3 1/2 years.

4. How old is your man? He turned 39 in June

5. Who eats more? You wouldn't know it to look at us, but he does. I have no idea where he puts it

6. Who said "I love you" first? Probably me! :) However I cannot remember.

7. Who is taller? He is. He is 6'1" and I am 5'1 1/2". He is about a foot taller than I am.

8. Who sings better? Definitely Nate!!

9. 9. Who is smarter? Nate

10. Whose temper is worse? My temper is worse. However its a quick one. I do not hold grudges

11. Who does the laundry? I do

12. Who takes out the garbage? He usually puts it out on trash day. As far as emptying the wastebaskets and bringing it out, it's either one of us.

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Nate

14. Who pays the bills? Nate

15. Who is better with the computer? I am but Nate is catching on fast

16. Who mows the lawn? He does - I do it when he is too busy.

17. Who cooks dinner? I do - unless I ask him to grill something.

18. Who drives when you are together? Nate

19. Who pays when you go out? Nate

20. Who is the most stubborn? I believe it is both of us equally

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Me - Like I said I can only stay upset for so long.

22. Whose parents do you see most? I think its pretty equal.

23. Who kissed who first? He kissed me first.

24. Who asked who out? Neither one of us did. It just kind of happened as we were good friends before we dated.

25. Who proposed? He did

26. Who is most sensitive? Me - sometimes I'm upset about something and he doesn't have a clue!

27. Who has the most friends? We are each other's best friends, and the people I'm friends with, he is too. I think we have the same amount of friends.

28. Who has more siblings? I have 1 brother, he has 2 sisters and 1 brothers.

29. Who wears the pants in the family? Nate does. Thank goodness! :)

30. How did you meet? We met at a friend's graduation party. I was just going into 10Th grade and he was just graduating!

Hope you had fun reading this. I'd love to see you do it too!

Thoughts

I have had so many thoughts since we came home from Haiti a few weeks ago. Can it really be about 3 weeks since we came home? Wow, amazing.

I know there are quite a few people out there that just do NOT get my love for Haiti. It is truly a love that has come from the Lord. He put this place on my heart as it is somewhere I never in a million years wanted to go. I grew up thinking of this awful, evil place.

It is NOT like that at all. It is a place where I truly feel and rely on God. I have a hard time doing that in the US. I LOVE my savior with all my heart but there I feel so free. I feel such a passion. People here just do not seem to need God. We seem to have it all. This is truly a blessed Nation and people still do not get it. It breaks my heart. We are blessed so we can be a blessing to others. I am so tired of the need for stuff and more stuff. The people in Haiti do not have stuff and they do not miss it. They are happy without it. I want to be that way.

I have had several people tell me lately that I must be so happy to be home. I have to be honest and say I really am not. I miss Haiti something awful fierce. I know I have a few team members that totally understand that. When I flew into Haiti this past trip I actually had tears knowing I was coming to a place where I loved and I feel God completely.

I am happy that God has called lots of you to different places and different things. I pray that you will follow God in everything you do and I pray that a passion fills all of your hearts to spread the name of Jesus everywhere you go.

There are some exciting things coming in the near future. It is still on God's time frame but we can see doors opening to a start of a new mission project that will be modeled after Gospel for Asia. Troy L, One of the people we will be working closely with will be here in a few weeks to speak at The Isaiah project. I hope and pray that those of you in the area have really prayed about whether to attend or not. It is truly going to be a time of giving Glory to God. It is NOT just about mission but is is our Response to our Father in Heaven, Our Abba, our Papa! that is what mission work is. Giving back to our awesome savior!!!

Troy will be spending the weekend with us and on Sunday afternoon we will be sitting down and figuring out exactly what this mission will look like and what we need to to do to get it off the ground. Please keep us in your prayers that we stay aligned with what God is showing us. What He has shown us so far is AWESOME!!!

Now do not get me wrong. I love my home, my family, my friends. You ALL mean the world to me in ways I cannot ever express fully.

It truly amazes me to this day how God has brought all of you into my life for a time such as this. This network of friends He has given to us just brings me to tears when I fully think about it.

This is the video that we showed on Sunday night at our Haiti testimony time. Thank you to all those that were around that were there to support us! It means more than you know!!! :)

what kind of blogger am I?

I will be hopefully posting soon. Have not had a ton to say. Or I should say I have but not sure its blog worthy yet.

I saw this on Diane's blog today so thought I would give it a try.

You Are a Life Blogger!

Your blog is the story of your life - a living diary. If it happens, you blog it. And make it as entertaining as possible.

http://www.blogthings.com/whatkindofbloggerareyouquiz/">What Kind of Blogger Are You?

more birthday party pics!

Katie and Heather 10th birthday party

Katie was born in June and Heather was born in November!
The kicker is they were both born in 1998! So this past Saturday
We did a 10 year old birthday party for the both of them.
We did this at a local hotel and they had pizza, birthday cake and were able to
Swim for almost 3 hours!!! They seemed to all have a lot of fun!!!
A huge thank you to Nate and my friend Tammy for sticking around to help me
out!!!

More Cottage fun

Reposting these pictures!

Cottage fun

A few weekends ago we went to some friends cottage for the day. The kids had so much fun. We actually did as well!!!

This is Susan

This is her husband Jim.

Caleb playing with their son James. Caleb for some reason just love hanging
with the older kids!! :)

Your love oh Lord!

This song will forever remind me of Haiti now. We sang it once up at the rock during prayer/devotions and then we sang it again at the Port-au-prince fellowship church where Troy and Tara go. I thought of the words when I was up at the prayer rock looking at the mountains on one side and the ocean on the other and it was breathtaking!!

Pray for our Guatemala team

I just got a call that the Guatemala team is stuck in Detroit. Their is a hurricane that hit Texas today and is affecting the Houston airport. Planes are still flying in but the flight the team was supposed to take they couldn't get on because for some reason it was full even though they were booked on it. Hotels are getting booked and flights are starting to back up in Houston but please pray that the team can at least get on a flight to Houston today yet even if they have to spend the night in the airport. Pray for a calm and a peace and an understand to why this is happening to the team and God's has in store for them.

Pastor Rony's house

Pastor Rony is awesome!!! He has 7 kids now. They live in a 2 room house with 9 people. You will NEVER hear this man complain!!
He truly shows the love of Christ! A few of us were fortunate to be able to help paint his house and Amy had a great idea of putting hand prints on the door and we all signed our handprint!! It was so neat. Tiffany is writing We love you in Kreyol!

Coast Guard Festival

For over 80 years Grand Haven, Michigan has hosted their annual coast guard festival. It is two weeks long and there are carnival rides, awesome food, awesome fireworks on the last night and you can even tour some of the coast guard ships. It was such a gorgeous day on Saturday that at 1:00pm we decided to head out to Grand Haven to check it out. There were thousands of people!! However we love to people watch so we had a blast with the kids. The board walk is about 2 miles long I think and we would walk out to the pier. It is so beautiful and right on the shores of Lake Michigan.

We spent time touring the ships, which the kids, loved. The best part of it was that it was free!

We had lunch at a neat hot dog place and then found a great seat to sit and watch the fireworks. They were fabulous!

Of course I forgot my camera. We had a few pictures on our phone but we need to get a card to get them off. Someday I will remember to bring it with me!!

Cool pictures

Nathan took these pictures one morning. Two of them are of a humming bird.
I am not sure what kind of bug the other one is but it was really pretty.

Wahoo bay

We like to be able to recharge a little when we are halfway through our mission trips. Wahoo bay is a beautiful beach.
This time there were quite a few Jelly fish around so we did have to be a little careful. Nate and Zach did end up getting stung. They both said it hurt but that it was not terrible. A few of the team members went snorkeling. We usually only spend a few hours at the beach and then we have a nice dinner at the resort and afterwards we are ready to get back to business.

Noah!

This is Amy, Hope and myself. Yes our chairs did get tipped over a few times in case
you are wondering!!! :)

The Isaiah project

I know that I have written about the Isaiah project before but we are now about 1 month from the conference and I wanted to direct you the link at the right of this post. It is not your typical mission conference but it is about our worship and response to such an awesome God!!

It is based on the Isaiah 6:

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"
And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"

9 He said, "Go and tell this people:
" 'Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'


The conference it not expensive and lunch and dinner are included. If you are not from the area there is a good hotel that is close by that I can direct you too.

I think of all my wonderful blogging friends that I have never met and how wonderful would it be if we could all gather in one place and worship our wonderful savior!!

If you have any questions please feel free to email me.

telltheworld5@gmail.com

Click on the link at the right and you can read all about the wonderful speakers that will be here! You can print the form right off the website.

For Dennis and Kimberly

This is a sweet little girl that we were able to meet on this trip to Haiti and on past trips. I tried emailing this to a friend but it kept bouncing back to me. Most likely because it was too big of a file.

Barbencourt kids

Some of my pictures uploaded to my computer and some didn't. However I did get my video to work of the Barbencourt kids. This is my favorite group of kids. They put their heart and soul into their singing and I enjoy them so much. I took this video on Thursday. Son (you pronounce it with a long o sound. It is short for his real name which I believe is Luxson) does such a wonderful job with the kids and getting them to really sing.

This is Son and his cousin Renauld (son is in the red hat) We teased them a lot about looking like gangstas but they were very nice, Christian men.

Here is the video of the kids singing.

Home!!!

We are finally home. After an awesome week of being in Haiti and working with the Livesays it is hard to be believe this trip is done. My thoughts are all jumbled and I really need to sit and process what went on.

I will be getting my pictures uploaded tomorrow and then will try to piece together what we did on the trip. It will take me a few days though so bear with me....

We were supposed to arrive home Sunday night at 10:30 pm.

God had different plans for us. In the morning a few of us got up very early and went with Troy to Port. Troy had to go in early as it was his turn to lead the praise and worship at the church they attend. We spent the morning at a bakery and just hung out and ate croissants in the air conditioning! Ah that was good!!!!!!!

The rest of the team followed later with Tara. We all met up at The mission church in Port au prince. Wow!!!!!!!! We were only there for about 40 minutes but the praise and worship time was AWESOME!! Most of us walked out in tears it was sooooooooo good and praising the Lord with the Americans and the Haitians together was just wonderful and so uplifting. It was a good thing to because about halfway through we had to leave to make it to the airport. It was so crazy at the airport and what normally takes us 20 minutes or so took us 2 1/2 hours to get through. What happened was that a flight was cancelled from the day before so all those people were now trying to get on a flight that day. There were 4 planes sitting on the runway all waiting go take off. I have never seen this before. It was crazy. The flight we were supposed to take was 45 minutes late arriving into Port and then the other people ended up boarding their flight first. Which meant we spent another hour on top of it all in the waiting room with A LOT of people trying to get out. We were supposed to take off at 12:30 and we didn't take off until after 3:30. Our flight from Miami was supposed to take off at 5:30 and we pretty much knew there was NO way we would make it. We flew into Miami 1/2 hour after our next flight had already left. Ah it was bringing back memories to a few people who set up a tent last February in the airport. I will say American Airlines was awesome to us!!! They got us booked up as fast as they could for as early as possible the next day and they even got us 5 free hotel rooms as a beautiful hotel, and vouchers for breakfast and dinner for everyone. They did not have to do that as the reason the plane was late was due to a security concern (piece of luggage left on plane but not sure where the passenger was, come to find out they had just moved the person to first class or something like that) but AA went out of their way and made us VERY comfortable.

We arrived home today at 2:00pm and thank you to all of you who came out to welcome us home!! It was wonderful to see you all!! Thanks too for those that called me this afternoon. I hope to be able to share some of my thoughts of our trip. God has really confirmed some awesome plans that are now in the works.

I am going to really miss being with this team on a daily basis. They were wonderful to work with and I am forever blessed to call them friends. More later!!!

last day in haiti

hard to believe that tomorrow we head home. I apologize for not updating more and with pictures. We have had very little time to blog and when i did it was hard to put things into words.
This was probably one of the best trips i have been on yet. i will be writing more after we get home. Thank you all for the prayers. Amy, i know your knees must hurt by now! your prayers were VERY much felt and we have so much to tell you!!! Thank you for the emails too that you sent us and the cautions. It is so wonderful to have friends that listen to God's voice and are willing to warn at any costs!! VERY much appreciated!!!

Thank you michelle for picking us up! We appreciate that so much. We are heading to port in two waves. 6 of us head out with Troy in the morning and we are headed to a cafe in port while Troy has praise team practice. The rest of the group will leave here at 8 with Tara. We have two many people for one vehicle with the luggage. i get to head out with the first team. it will be a day of tears as we leave good friends that we have made.

We had a huge thunderstorm go through a while ago and now we are going to walk up to the cross to see the lighting that is over the Caribbean.

love to you all!!

pictures?!

Bible school was awesome today!! We had the Barbencourt kids. They are incredible. Their singing is unbelievable.
The pictures above were from Sunday at the church in La Digue. It has been tough for me to get pictures up but I will keep working on it.

Thursday

I am trying to post a few pictures. Yesterday was a beautiful at the beach. A few people were stung by jellyfish. They were everywhere. They were so pretty too look at but they do hurt. Such a strange sea creature. We had a very nice dinner at the resort and I had chicken creole. Yum! It is a spicy sauce like you would have on spicy chicken wings. Which you all know my favorite food is chicken wings! :)

Today we are doing VBS for the Barbencourt kids. It is amazing at how well it is going. The one on the mountain was a ton of fun but I felt so out of it. Someone told me that was due to the high altitude. I never even would have thought of that. The ride down the mountain was one of the scariest things I have ever done. Picture a truck going down a donkey trail with no barricades on the sides of the road and you can look right over the edge and see down the mountain. wow! Talk about trusting God. Amy and I said bible verses a lot of the way down. The view's were so beautiful but quite scary!!!

Pictures are not loading properly. I am sorry but will try again later.

Thanks for the prayers that you all have been saying for us!!!

Hi from Haiti

yesterday was a tough day and an amazing day. Tammy had a great post so for those of you who have not seen it can understand the day. The truck ride up and down was probably one of the scariest things i have ever done. picture a mountain path not really meant for a truck. We were very close to the side quite a few times. it was beautiful though!

here is what Tammy wrote:

Hello everyone! We are having a wonderful time in Haiti. The VBS has gone very well so far, and we are managing to handle the heat.Today was a really hot, exhausting, emotional, awesome day! Some of us rode in the truck, while others from the team hiked up to Petit Bwa. What an experience! The road was REALLY rough! In the cage of the truck it was Brenda, Diane and I; along with Robensen, Pastor Rony, and Patrick. It was very cramped as we were in the little truck and had all of the VBS supplies with us as well. I am very afraid of heights - especially riding in the back of a truck on the edge of a mountain with no guard rails. The road was all rocks with some huge holes. At one point, we almost tipped over. We were thankful that God placed two Haitians right at that spot. It took them, along with Adam, Robensen, Patrick and Pastor Rony, to hold the cage of the truck up so we didn't all tip over. As the guys were holding up the truck, Troy gunned it and made it up. We found out later that the wheel of the truck on one side was completely up in the air. Needless to say, we were doing a LOT of praying!After we reached the top of the mountain, we started VBS. It went so well. This was such a great group of kids. After VBS, we handed out candy and Bible story books to the kids, and Bibles to the adults. We took a short break to drink a coke. (Somebody up there just happened to have a case of it). Unfortunately, there was a mix up with our lunch. Adam (the other missionary) was supposed to bring lunch up for us in the truck, but he forgot it. Oops!! We were a little hungry, but we pooled our snacks from our backpacks and we managed just fine. After our break, some of us went into the village to pray with some people at their homes. This has definitely been the highlight of the trip so far. We prayed with several people and gave them Bibles. The village witch doctor saw us praying and was curious. He asked if someone could come pray with him. We went to his house and Pastor Rony and the village pastor talked to him for quite awhile. At that moment I was thinking that we should be praying for the blood of Jesus to cover the house and rid it of evil. All of a sudden the pastors started singing and we realized that they were singing "Power in the Blood", so we all joined in (in English of course). After the song ended, the man dropped to his knees to pray. In Haiti it is the custom that everyone just prays all at the same time, so we all prayed for him, and he accepted Jesus as his Savior. It was absolutely amazing and had most of us in tears. You could just feel the power of God there! We decided that if this was the only thing we did on this trip, it would be worth it.I did hike back down the mountain. It was very, very hot, but the hike down was beautiful!

petit bwa

it is 6:21 am and half of the team is departing for the 2 hour walk in the mountains. I have much glee that it is not me!!! :) Nathan is leading this trip up and pray for them that they stay cool, and that they will not be too exhausted. The rest of us will be riding with Troy and Adam in the truck. We hear this is not such an easy ride so please pray for all of us as well! :)

We will be doing a 3 hour bible school and then will be going out into the villiage to pray for people and to hand out bibles. We will probabably be back around 5:00pm. This is a new place for me and i am excited to meet these new people and share Christ with them.

last night was hot sleeping so a lot of us did not get the sleep we needed so pray that we all stay calm and cool. The team has been getting along well together and there has been no problems.

Amy K. We have been praying for you at the prayer walk! We thank you for your worn out knees!!

Tomorrow is the resort and i believe after today it will be much needed!!! I am not sure what it is about this place but i just LOVE it here. it is so peaceful and its sooooo beautiful. Even with the heat.

I do not have any pictures loaded up yet but as soon as i can on Tiffany's computer i will work on getting them loaded. one of my friend's kathy told me that she is surprised that there is internet here. yes, it surprises me too. it is a satelite service and this week is working very well. it always amazes me that the villagers have no food but they have cell phones.

until later.........

yesterday

Sunday was a nice quiet day. I hope to add my own pictures soon. however for now you can go to this blog and read about some things that happened during the day. We had an awesome storm go through last night and the lightning was just beautiful.

Go here: http://missionlifeline.blogspot.com/2008/07/july-20-2008.html

We are in the same house as the new missionaries Adam and Amber. They are a very nice couple and we have been having a good time getting to know them better.

Thanks for all the prayers and keep them coming!!

nikolas, heather, katie, hannah and Caleb. miss you tons!!!!

Today we start our first day of Vbs. We will probabaly have between 150 and 200 kids so pray that the chaos will be limited! :)

Thanks!!

We have arrived!

At almost seems strange to be back in Haiti! When we stepped off the plane we had a beautiful breeze that could only have come from God!!

We had only one small delay in Chicago but it was only an hour and since we had a 2 hour layover in Miami it wasn't a big deal. Everyone on the team did really well! Our plane took off from Miami right on time and that was another blessing from God because this is probably the first time in months that that flight has left right when it was supposed too!!! Thank you, God!!

Everyone else is sleeping at the moment but the sun is coming up and it is beautiful. We start the day going to church on the mission grounds. Pastor Rony is the preacher there and Nate will give a short message. Looking forward to finally hearing him. The team is doing great!! Jen with her broken arm is doing really well for those wondering. She has tons of help!!!

Thank you for the prayers and keep them coming. Tommorrow is our first day of Vbs here in La Digue. We will probably have around 150 kids but possibly more!

Nikolas, katie, heather, hannah and Caleb. miss you like crazy!!