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