Baby Brayden

Gosh, it has been 2 1/2 weeks already since Brayden has been born. I have to apologize for not updating sooner, but here is an update about him and, of course, Sharles. 

Brayden Mangrum Dyer was born on Thursday, July 24 at 3:03pm. He weighed 8 lbs 7 oz and was 19 in long. He and mama were both healthy and still remain healthy! I will spare you all the birth details, but he is already up to 9 lbs 4 oz and has grown 2 inches in 2 weeks! Whoa! He's a big boy! He already sleeps good at night and rarely ever fusses. We have definately been blessed with 2 great children! 

There is no significance with his first name, but his middle name is my (Brittany) original last name. I was adopted by my grandparents and changed my name, so I wanted to use my original last name, so it could be carried on in some way! 

Sharles is a great big sister! She loves to give her brother kisses, and she loves for him to lay next to her while we read her story at nap and bedtime. She also loves to hold her brother's hand when we pray. She has adjusted quite well to having a sibling! We are so proud of her! 

We are so in love with our sweet little boy and wanted to share our joy with you. Here are several pictures that have been taken over the last 2 weeks too! 

From our family pictures we had made. 

Auntie K has been a huge help to us as we have adjusted going from 1 child to 2! 

She loves to hold him, and, I promise, he usually loves it too! 

Meme and Honey came to visit. 

Morning snuggles. 

Hanging out while sister swims. 

Doing push-ups with daddy. 

2 weeks old! 

A visit from his cousins. 

A smile! 

Even when she swims she loves to play with her brother! 

Ready to cheer on the vols this year! 

I know you can't see Brayden, but this was our trip to church with a friend! 

Settling In

I have been in the states for a little over a week now. I have enjoyed my time so far of seeing family and friends. I have enjoyed my time to rest too. 

I have been at peace with our decision to leave Haiti. I struggled before leaving about leaving without fulfilling all of our goals while we were there. I feel like God has really worked on my heart to let go of those things and forgive myself for not doing more. 

It has been difficult adjusting back into the culture and "home" has been hard to define, but I know God is in control of this decision. I miss my husband and think "home" will be easier to define once he is here! Prayer has definately helped with the adjustment, and I am so thankful for each of you who have been praying for us through this transition. Please continue to pray for us. You can specifically pray for Sharles who has been overwhelmed with so many new things since being back. Please continue to pray for Josh and the ministry he is continuing to do in Haiti, and his return back to the states next week. 

How Many Times Will You Forgive?

I have been reading in Matthew about forgiveness, so I wanted to share some thoughts about it. 

While reading in Matthew and doing a little bit of research, I read that in biblical times in Judaism, it was sufficient to forgive someone 3 times. So when Peter approached Jesus in Matthew 18 and asked him how many times should he forgive his brother, replying with 7 times seemed to have been extremely generous number. I mean, that's more than double what Judaism saw as sufficient, right? 

Jesus' reply of seventy times seven must have been completely shocking to Peter! That's a lot of forgiveness! The point Jesus is trying to make, is that we shouldn't keep count of how many times we forgive people. What? Does this mean we should just let people walk all over us and continue to forgive them every time they hurt us? In my opinion, I believe you should set barriers to keep people from continuing to hurt you and putting yourself in a position to continually having to forgive them, but when they hurt you, you should forgive them. That's what the Bible says! 

I admit, I am not the best at forgiveness. I often hold grudges. I am competitive and like to win and sometimes view forgiveness as losing, but these verses are a good reminder for me to always forgive and not hold on to those bitter feelings. They only hurt me anyway. 

The story here continues with a parable. Jesus tells a story of a servant who owed his king 10,000 talents. When reading about how much money this really was, it would have taken the servant about 20 years to pay off his debt. The king was going to sell the servant to have his debt paid, but the servant pleaded with him to let him continue to work to pay for his debt. And just like that the king forgave his debt. Wow! 

How much more gracious is God at forgiving us! How long have you been sinning? God has been forgiving our debt since the day we were born into this sinful world! We, like the servant, have more debt than can ever be repaid. We can never repay Jesus for dying for our sins on the cross! And God doesn't punish us. He doesn't even threaten to punish us (unless we are not one of His children). We deserve punishment for our sin; we deserve justice, but just as the king simply forgave the servant's debt, so did Jesus. He forgave us by dying on the cross. He forgave us with an immeasurable gift. A gift of eternal forgiveness. 

Therefore, we must show mercy to others and forgive them because we have God living within us. If we are not merciful and forgiving to others, one day we will have to answer for that and there will be consequences. 

Further in the story, the servant approaches a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii. This amount would have been equivalent to about 20 weeks work by the fellow servant. The servant refused to forgive the fellow servant's debt and had him placed in jail. The servant's heart was not transformed by God. Do we truly want to live with a transformed heart or continue to go around with unforgiven bitterness in our heart? 

The fellow servant being handed over to the jailer also further shows how much we deserve punishment. Isn't that what is just? Sending someone to jail because they cannot pay us for what we deserve! 

But God calls us to live a transformed life, a changed life. We should forgive because we understand God's forgiveness for us. We forgive not because it is just, but because we know we should be punished and we are not. 

A changed life by God means we live this way with our reason and thoughts, our emotions and our will and soul. So which will you choose? Will you choose to truly live a transformed life or will you continue to hold on to the things people do to you? If you choose to hold onto them, know you do not truly understand the magnitude of Jesus' purpose on this earth. I am choosing from this day forward to always remember to forgive, even when it is hard. And I hope you will keep me accountable to do so if you see me holding onto something that needs to be forgiven. 

I hope this sparks some of you to go out and do your own research to know how you can change your heart in the matters of forgiveness. I know it was definitely something I needed to study. Honestly, I have read and studied it several times before posting this because it is hard to come to grips with how intense God wants us to be with our forgiveness. I would love to have thoughts and feedback and what you have learned about forgiveness. 

Brittany

Where He Leads We Will Follow

Well, we have some big news to share with you all. Many of you already know our news, but we are officially making it public. Josh and I will be heading back to the states to have baby #2, but we will not be returning to Haiti after the baby is born. Much sadness and many tears have gone into this decision, but we know this is the direction God is leading our marriage and our family. It has not been fun telling our organization, our staff and the kids that we love so much and have developed a bond with over the last year. But God has also put a peace in our heart to show us this is where he is leading us. 

When we first felt called to come to Haiti, we sold all our stuff, packed up what was left and moved our family for the long haul. Or so we thought. We moved knowing we would not leave until God told us to go home or somewhere else. That time has come much sooner than we thought. We grieve leaving this country, but also rejoice in God's sovereignty. It has been very difficult for josh and I living here for many reasons, and most of them are even too hard to explain. 

Please continue to pray for us as we continue to say the difficult goodbyes that lie ahead. Please pray for us as we pack up all our belongings and move back to the states. Please pray for as we transition back into the American culture that we have been removed from for a year. Please also pray for us and the new journey that lies ahead of us. 

We do not feel like our time on the mission field is done at this point either. We prayed about coming home, and God answered by opening the door with another opportunity. So early next year, we will be joining our church and moving to Bangkok, Thailand. 

We want each of you to know that these two events are in no way connected, except through God's divine plan. We had been presented with the opportunity to move to Bangkok previously,  but felt our time in Haiti was not finished. When we began to pray about moving home from Haiti, God kept answering us with Bangkok. Ultimately, we are moving home from Haiti because it is the best thing for our family and because we feel this is what God is telling us to do. 

Just as we felt like we were crazy for moving to a 3rd world country with our 7 month old daughter and leaving all our family, friends and things behind, we feel equally as crazy to be leaving one mission field for another with another 7ish month old and 2 year old and moving half way across the world from our family as friends. 

Needless to say, your prayers will be greatly appreciated throughout the many transitions our family will encounter in the next year. We love you all so much and are so thankful for all your support. 

A Million Thank You's

We wanted to take some time to say thank you to our supporters. Your giving makes our lives in Haiti so much easier! Your provision not only provides our necessities, but our sanity as well. Because of you, we were able to go on a much needed get away, especially before baby Dyer #2 arrives and life gets even more crazy! Our family needed a time of rest and relaxation as we all do at times, so we wanted to say thank you for providing that for us. 

Last week, we were able to stay at a hotel on the beach for several nights! We all got some much needed rest and family time together. Sharles had a blast playing in the pool and enjoyed running up and down the beach too! She had some much needed freedom that she had been missing out on. They also had some playground equipment, which she enjoyed once she figured out how to use it. There aren't many opportunties here for her to play like she was able to when we were there, so we wanted to say thank you for allowing us to be together as a family for a few nights! 

Here are a few pictures we would love to share with you! 

We also don't want to forget those of you who pray for us. Your prayers mean just as much as those who give financially. We are so thankful to each of you who lift us up in prayer. We feel your prayers and are so very grateful for them. 

Thank you also to our family. We know it is hard for each of you for us to be so far away, but you have supported us every step of the way and we are thankful for that. 

We are blessed by each of you and just wanted to take a moment to say how much each of you mean to us, so thank you for everything from the bottom of our hearts! We love you! 

I Confess!

Caution: Confession Post! 

I want to be honest. Being a missionary is hard! Being a missionary wife is hard. Being a missionary raising a family is hard! News flash, right? I think people tend to think because you are living in a different country and because God called you there, you are automatically closer to God. Well, in all honesty, that's not true! I think satan attacks people who are doing God's will and that includes missionaries! 

I have struggled living on the mission field over the last several months. Many factors play into that struggle, but as I have struggled. I have drifted further away from God. It's my own fault because I didn't take the steps necessary to keep my relationship with God where it needed to be, and I made excuses for not taking those steps too! As I continue to pick up the pieces and build up my relationship with God, I can see it. I can see it now, when I couldn't see it then. My faith was weak because I was not taking the appropriate steps to build it up. My faith wasn't working properly because I wasn't seeking God properly. 

Don't misunderstand, I was still praying and still had a connection to God, it just wasn't deep. There were even times when all I knew what to pray was, "God, I need help. I don't know what that looks like, but I know I need help." I am just thankful I could still pray to God and that He did know what I needed. Prayer is our lifeline to God, and even when we don't know what else to do, we can still go to God with prayer and ask for help because He knows what we need even before we know we need it. 

Thankfully, I had friends during this time that I reached out to. To be honest, I didn't want to reach out to them. I didn't want to face the truth about me drifting away from God, much less tell anyone else about it. But after many sleepless nights of God pushing me to reach out, I did. I didn't just reach out to anyone though. I reached out to the women I knew would be prayer warriors for me. I reached out to women, who would understand my struggles. And their prayers worked! I began to feel better! I began to come out of the darkness I felt! I am so thankful I reached out to them! 

I say all of this to say, if you are struggling, make sure to reach out. Reach out to God. Don't give up on him because He will never give up on you. He will relentlessly pursue you (hence the many sleepless nights). Reach out to friends or family, who you know will pray for you. I know sometimes it is painful to let others in the deep, dark of our innermost being, but ultimately God created us for community. God created us to be there for one another in prayer. God gave us the Holy Spirit as a way to communicate with Him and communicate on the behalf of others, even when it is too hard for them to communicate with Him themselves. So please reach out to God and to others, even before you don't know what else to do. 

I'm even going to take it a step further. I'm going to tell you to reach out in the opposite direction. I'm going to tell you to reach out to the missionaries in your life. Missionaries often feel isolated and even forgotten about because let's face it, life goes on when we aren't there. So this often makes it hard for us to reach out to others. Satan lies to us and tells us things like, "They won't understand." or "They already have too much going on." Pray for the missionaries you know. Don't just pray for them, but ask them how you can specifically pray for them. It will help them so much. It will help them confront the lies satan tries to tell them too! So, maybe even selfishly, I ask you to reach out for the missionaries God has placed in your lives. 

For those of you who do pray for us, we are so very thankful for you. We feel your prayers. Thank you to each of you who pray for us. Thank you to each of you who read and share our blog. Know that we pray for each of you here. I, myself am trying to be more intentional in asking the people in my life how I can pray for them more specifically. To me, everyone is on the mission field, so we can all be more intentional in asking those who God has placed in our lives how we can specifically pray for them. 

We love each of you! 

Happy Easter!

Hey guys,

I hope all of you guys had a great Easter. We went to church this morning and had a great time of worshipping God. We were also greatful that the church only went two hours. Haitian churches are known to go five or six hours when they get excited about something. With Sharles that can be difficult. 

This week was good for us as our Pastor, Pat Hood, and executive Pastor, Kyle Goen, came to visit us along with Kent Jones who runs an organization that serves orphans and vulnerable children, called the 25 Project. It's was a great visit as they all three gave us good advise about living on the international mission field. They gave us some things to pray about. We are very thankful for their wise counsel. Check out Kent's website to see the amazing things he is doing at www.25project.org

On Saturday Brittany, Sharles and I took a family day to Karibe Hotel pool. We really enjoyed it and Sharles really loves the pool. 

This upcoming week we will be doing our ministry at the children's home along with our discipleship classes. We also have two heart patients staying with us this week. Yanick is preparing approximately 20-30 children to have heart surgery in May. 

Easter is an amazing day.  Jesus dying for us to take our punishment for our sins is truly amazing, but him rising from the dead really adds to it.  When he defeated death, he gave us the ability to defeat it also. He gaves us the chance to have everlasting life. Truly an amazing gift. We should be praising God everyday for that gift he gave us. Thank you Jesus. 

Making Disciples

Hey guys,

I hope all of you are doing well. Hopefully the warm weather is coming for you guys and you can get out and enjoy God's creation. It has been really nice here even though it has been raining a lot. Rain makes the driving very interesting with the conditions of the roads and the lack of a drainage system. I also got pulled over for not wearing my seatbelt this week which is hilarious since I see people riding on the top of dump trucks all the time and the fact their is no car seat law.  I argued for a while since every car that passed didn't have their seat belt on but he was getting mad and he had a AK47 so I let him win. The government here is very amusing to me. 

Well everything else is going well. The children's home is going well. They are starting to learn some work ethic. Our efforts are starting to pay off. The discipleship program is going great now. We have ten Bible classes going now with many of them being led by Haitians who we have discipled. God is good. 

Over the last month, I have been teaching a discipleship class on the book of Acts. I just finished it yesterday. The great thing about this study is that not only did we study the whole book of Acts, but we spent three hours yesterday talking about how we make disciples. We know that is what Jesus asked us to do, but what does that phrase mean?  We say it all the time, but what does it mean? So I want to make a few points about that phrase in this blog.

How do we make disciples? Well the Bible shows us a few things that we must consider. First of all, lets look at the word disciple. A disciple in Jesus' time meant a student. Discipleship must have teaching involved: teaching the Bible, teaching about life and modeling what a disciple should look like. The disciple must be teachable.  To be able to teach someone you must be with them.  Jesus was with his disciples and Paul spent plenty of time with his too. 

Discipleship must be done within a relationship. Discipleship is friendship with a purpose. The couple men who disciple me know that is the purpose of our relationship. They know they are discipling me, and I know I am being discipled. 

Discipleship must be done over a long period of time with lots of patience. It took Jesus three years, and He was Jesus.  We need to be patient. 

I would encourage all of you to think about who you want to disciple. Talk with them about your intentions and spend time with them on a regular basis. This was Jesus' plan to reach the world. He could have done it without us, but He gives us the opportunity to serve Him. GET IN THE GAME.  Understand the amazing opportunity we have to work for God. 

Quote

"Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter"-Spurgeon

God bless,

Josh

Discipleship in the Making

Hello friends. I hope all is well with you guys. We have seen that the weather has been crazy in Tennessee lately. Hopefully warm weather will come soon for you. It has been in the low to mid 90's everyday here with nightly lows in the low 70's.  It is sad but we get cold at night and wear huddies sometimes. Haha. 

Well we have not written in awhile because I was sick for about a week. I'm better now. Our ministries have been going well. At the children's home we have been teaching them work ethic through a chores system. Each week they can make money by doing chores. It's a way to show them that hard work can make you money and if you don't do your work you do not get paid. We are working towards our vision at the children's home. We are currently raising money to rent a new, bigger building. We have found the building we want. It is big enough to grow the children's home and to have a free school in the future. It also has a play area and a garden. We are very excited about the possibilities there. We hope to be telling you all soon some exciting news about the children's home. 

On the discipleship side of things, everything is moving forward. We now have a Haitian teaching our Wed/Fri class, which is a step in the right direction. Our goal with our classes is to build up a Haitian leader, so we can start new classes and reach more people. Our Mon/Thur class is going well also. On Saturdays we bring 12 people to our house to disciple them. It's a year long program that we hope results in 12 new Bible study leaders. We are in the 3rd book of the program. I am leading the group through this book. The title of the book is "The Book of Acts and Church Planting". The first week, I covered what church planting is and what Haiti needs in that regard. Haiti does not need more churches, they need more strong leaders. Next, I will go through the book of Acts and discuss what the book teaches us. Then, I will finish with a section on each evangelism and discipleship. I am enjoying the study because it is all about discipleship which is what we are all about. I'm getting a little taste of what it's like to be a Pastor. A week of preparing, then being almost hoarse and exhausted on Saturdays has been interesting for me. Teaching the Bible is very difficult, but the greatest experience I have ever had. It is very fulfilling to teach others who God is and what he has done. 

This week and next is more of the same. I do feel we are becoming very focused in on the two things God wants us doing here, orphan care and discipleship. We are very appreciative for all your support and prayers. I know I have been praying for many of you individually. God has us all in different places facing different things, but He is an amazing God that will walk with us wherever we go. Thank you Jesus. 

I want to start ending my (Josh) blogs with a quote. Hopefully I'll remember each time. 

"The Bible is not about you and what you can and can't do but it is about who God is and what he has done."-I don't remember. Haha.

Please read the Bible as a way to learn who God is and the amazing things he has done for us. The Bible is not to be read as a rule book. A good warning for all of us. 

Be His hands and feet.

Josh

Blessings Surround Us

Our valentines day has been extended throughout the past week, and we are very thankful for that! We praise God for the time we have had to rest and relax over the past week. 

We had a valentines date night last Friday without sharles thanks to our wonderful neighbors, who gave up their valentines night to watch Sharles. Josh and I went to a pizza place ran by some local missionaries here. We love their pizza, and it was nice to spend time just the 2 of us. When we got back to our friends house to pick up Sharles, they had made brownies and ice cream they shared with us! And she and Sharles had made us a valentine! It was such a great night! 

On Wednesday of last week, we were able to take our staff to our beach property for a day of relaxation! We wanted to say thank you for all the hard work they always do! It is also always nice to see and catch up with Matt and Sarah, who run our orphan retreat center! They have gotten a new house for teams and we were able to go see it too! The view is absolutely beautiful! They are working to get moved in by mid March, so please be praying for them and all the things they are working on there at our beach property. Sharles also had a blast playing at the beach! She loved the water! 

Over the weekend, our amazing friends bought us a night at a very nice hotel here in Haiti to go and rest for the night! We are so thankful for the time we got to spend together as a family and to relax! We had delicious food, a great nights sleep (we were asleep by 9pm) and fun playing in the pool. Sharles is a little fish and didn't want to get out of the water! We even got rain while we were there, which we haven't gotten in months! 

We are so blessed by each one of you and want to say thank you so much to each of you. We are not only blessed by your gifts, we are blessed by your prayers, and we feel them. My heart is so full as I write this! Thank you again to each of you for loving us! 

Busy, Busy, Busy

Hey guys,

Thank you for reading our blog and keeping up with our ministry.  We are not great about contacting each of you on facetime or skype so we appreciate you keeping up with us.

We had another eventful week.  I (Josh) have spent a large amount of time this week working to get two heart patients ready to go to Santiago for heart surgeries which start this upcoming week.  It is very difficult to get passports and visas in this country.  It seems like the process changes every month and then it is hit or miss if the people have birth certificates to even get the passports.  Then there is the issue of trying to contact them over phone which is never easy and then trying to get them into Port au Prince to apply for the documents.  Needless to say, we were very busy this week.  I was very thankful for the help of our translator Josue and another Haitian man who knows how to get passports and visas.  The process is not complete yet so please pray for us.  Tomorrow morning we are going to the Dominican Consolate to get the Visas.  We hope there will no surprises.  Once we get these kids across to have life saving heart surgery it will be more than worth it.  I would do it all over again next week if it meant it would save a child's life.  We enjoy meeting these children and there families.  We have two of them downstairs as I type.  Chadasha's heart program is a great ministry.  We get to talk with not only the patients about Jesus but also the doctors who come from all over the world. 

This is allenson. He is one of our heart patients going to Santiago. 

This is Ashley and her mom. Ashley is going to Santiago to have heart surgery too. Sharles loved holding her hand in the car! 

Also this week, Wilgens at our children's home got an infection.  He informed us that he cut his hand on a piece of rusted metal about a month ago.  I was not happy and we had a good life lesson talk about it.  He is a former heart patient that needs to be careful with his health.  As you can imagine, the infection was not pretty.  He is healing now but the wound is going to take some time to heal.

The longer I live here in Haiti, the more I learn about how to serve poverty stricken people.  You would think it would be as easy as providing for their needs, but it is not.  I am very thankful that God is teaching me and giving me a great experience.  The poverty here is overwhelming at times.  I feel very helpless sometimes.  The natural thing to do is to try to help every situation.  I am learning that the best method to helping in a poverty stricken place like this is to focus on a few people and truly try to help them.  I've also learned that sometimes saying no is the best way to love a person.  That person might really need to be forced into providing for themselves.  If we always bail them out, then that never gives them a chance to provide for themselves.  It is very difficul,t but creating dependency is not loving them.

This upcoming week we will hopefully be sending the heart patients to Santiago tomorrow.  We will also be visiting a lady we have been trying to setup her own business, so she can provide for herself.  Please pray that she will understand that she can do it.  I truly believe people in poverty lose hope and therefore stop trying.  We want her to understand with hard work she can provide for herself.  We will help her get started, but she will be the one to make it work.  Please pray for her to have hope and determination.

We also are continuing to try to disciple and care for our children and the children's home.  We feel responsible to teach them life lessons and to teach them who God is.  It is a big responsiblity that we are blessed to have other people to help us.  As most of you know, discipling and mentoring these children is what Brittany and I feel like God brought us here for.  Please pray for Brittany and I as we take on this challenge. 

We continue to work to raise funds and support to move the children's home into a new building.  Please pray that if it is God's Will then He will provide for us.

Brittany and Sharles are doing great along with the baby in the oven.  Brittany is feeling pretty good, but is having trouble eating rice, which is not good here.  Sharles is speaking more and more (both English and Creole).

UnGodly Expectations

I was reading in Matthew chapter 11 the other day, and it was talking about being open to God's plan, even when it doesn't meet your expectations. I began to think about what expectations I place on God. It hurt me to think I even have the audacity to place expectations on God. I know we all do it, but by no means does that make it right. It caused me to take a look inside myself and let go of some of those expectations I have placed on Him. 

I had expectations about moving to Haiti. Maybe that is why it has been so hard because I have placed expectations on living in this place that weren't set by God. I need to examine my life more fully to make sure my expectations are lined up with his and are not simply my own. I need to be more like Jesus and less like myself. To be honest, I don't even like myself. I really only like who I am in Jesus! 

I don't want to reject Jesus or His call for my life because I place expectations on things that aren't going to happen because they are not in His plan. Yeah, yeah I know...many of you say, you are living out your call; you moved to Haiti! But God's call is much more than going. There are struggles here and everywhere we face. Satan tries to attack us and keep us from living out God's plan. So we all need to be careful and check what unrealistic and unGodly expectations we have set. 

I want to stop rejecting Jesus and turning the other way and let Him lead. It is so much easier when we do it that way anyway. Hoping to encourage some of you out there. Any feedback is welcome too!

Brittany

Our Vision

Hey guys,

We have had an eventful two weeks since we got back. We barely got settled back in and then we left to go to the Dominican Republic for a week to help over there. Chadasha has a children's home/day school there along with a hospital. We were there to help run the children's home while the main missionaries where in the states for a week. It was a great experience for us because as you know that is what we want to do here in Port au Prince. I will update you on that next. The week was a good learning experience for us. I have a lot of respect for John and Melissa Hanley as they do a great job. The other cool part of the week was that I got to watch an open heart surgery. During the week the ICHF along with Chadasha were doing open heart surgeries on children in our hospital. We had ten patients come in from another country ranging from 11 months old to around 18 years old. It is truly amazing that Chadasha has turned a goat field in a third world country into a hospital that we can do open heart surgeries on children in.  The ICHF team of doctors were amazing. Not only were they very good a their jobs but they were very fun to be around also. The surgery I watched was amazing. An open heart surgery is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We also were able to have two ultrasounds of the baby while we were there which is always fun. On Saturday we travelled back to Port au Prince. The border was an ordeal as always. 

Our trip to the river in the DR. 

One of the heart patients and docs post surgery! 

One of the docs playing with some of the kids at the children's home. 

A few of the heart patients from Guyana, who are now in Santiago to have their surgeries! 

Since finally getting to settle down in Port we have been doing the usual weekly ministries along with running around doing all the things that make it possible to live in this country. 

As most of you know we feel like God brought us here to Haiti to develop Chadasha's children home more. God has given us a vision of how to disciple the next generation for him. We have talked with most of you about this already but in case some of you don't know I will tell you. We feel God is leading us personally to do two main things here: Improve the children's home and to start a free day school. We want to improve the children's home by doing a few things. First of all, we want to live with them so we can impact their lives all day everyday. Secondly, we want to teach them the Bible on a daily basis. Thirdly, we want to develop them occupationally by teaching them work ethic through chores and by teaching the older kids a skill. And finally, we want to start to work with their families to try to empower them to be able to take back their children. We believe, if possible, the biological parents are the best people for the children to be with so we want to try to aid the family too. 

Concerning the day school, we want to start by providing 25 children free school that can't afford it. In Haiti, almost all education cost money. Their are very few free schools.  Because of this a lot of poverty stricken children cannot go to school. We want to provide them a free Christian education. We will also provide each of these children a free meal and healthcare. 

This is our dream for our service here. To make all this happen we first need a bigger building. Our current building is only three bedrooms with a kitchen and living room. We have found a building that will be perfect. It has enough rooms for all of us staff, about 20 kids, two classrooms and rooms to host short term mission teams. This property also has a garden and a play area. It will be the perfect place if we can get it.  We are currently trying to raise funds for the rent of this building. Please pray that if God wants this then he will provide the resources we need for it. So far the fund raising is going very well. We will keep you all updated on what God is doing for the future of our children's home. 

Please continue to pray for us. Living here can be a grind at times. Everything is more difficult. We would ask you to pray that we are strong spouses for each other and devoted parents to Sharles and our coming soon baby. Thank you for your support and prayers. We will be trying to Skype/FaceTime with each of you soon.