June 2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Summer everyone.  We, as a family, enjoyed the month of May.  As a Mother’s Day gift to me, Jean sent me to see my mother.   My sons have planned surprises for me all the time so I learned from them and surprised my mom with my visit, with my sister, LuVonne’s, help.  I bought flowers and balloons and had my sister drop me off around the corner from mom’s house.  LuVonne went to our parent’s door as expected, and then I showed up at the door hiding behind the balloons.  Both of my parents assumed I was a florist delivery person and did not realize it was me until they heard my voice say, “Surprise!”  I spent a week dividing my time between my sister’s home in the Willamette valley and my parent’s home on the northern Oregon coast.  It seems I brought the sunshine with me and we had great weather for lots of walks.

I then flew to Atlanta where I met up with Jean. Our son, Lémec, joined us and we could drive together to Nashville, TN, where we attended our foster daughter, Manise’s graduation from dental school.  Her birthday is this month and she is in her mid 30’s.  She was born in Fond-des-Blancs and was 11 when we moved here and she became a part of our family.  After 6th grade we sent her to Port au Prince for her secondary education.  We did not pay for her under or post graduate studies, but  we helped her get to the US on a student visa and then another family helped her with her continuing financial needs.  We are proud of her because she took every opportunity presented to her and worked hard to take full advantage of each one, and now she is Dr. Manise Labady, DDS.

Even before her graduation ceremony was over we had to leave to drive to Berea, KY, to attend Jacques’ college graduation the next day.  We were able to attend both his baccalaureate and graduation ceremonies.  He was very excited to be graduating and had everything very well planned out for us such as where to park, where to walk, where to meet him and when.  He is completing one more class and then will join us for a few weeks this summer before reporting into the Marine Corps in Virginia.

A couple of days after the graduations we flew back to Haiti.  Josiah flew with us to spend most of the summer at home, and at the airport in Port-au-Prince, we met up with two young women from Kansas who came to spend a week with us.  It felt good to be back in Haiti, but still shocking to drive through the devastation.   There always seems to be more tent cities, but we did also see some signs of clean-up work taking place.  We gave the girls a true Haitian traveling experience by having two flat tires on the way home and had to make a slight detour into one of the smaller towns on the way home to get one of the tires repaired.  We did not get back to Fond-des-Blancs until late that evening, but they remained good sports about the ordeal and continued to be flexible and of good cheer throughout the week.  They helped clean out Jean’s office at the old house so we can make into a guest room for visiting speakers to the Caleb Project.  It was also the room where we had our bookshelves that leaned across the door during the earthquake.  Fortunately, the room had a second door through the bathroom.  They helped carry out all those books which will eventually find a home at one of the schools.

I asked for prayer for Ralf who broke several bones in one leg and lost the other leg as a result of injuries from the earthquake.   He has now received an artificial leg and is learning how to walk with it.  We have many students who came to us after the earthquake.  Many of them are staying, but some had to return to their initial schools because that is where they were signed up to take their final government exams.  The exams for our 6th graders will be June 30 and July 1.   This is only a two week delay from the original date planned for the exams.  For L’Exode students this will not be a problem as we were only closed for two weeks.  I hope that those who didn’t get back to school until April will be able get a lot done in the next few weeks.  Please continue to pray for the students of L’Exode and the rest of the students of Haiti.

We have many items that have been purchased to help us with our ministry here that need to be shipped to us.  The last time we did a lot of shipping we lost several items.  We are changing our methods which should help, but would still appreciate prayer that everything arrives well and in a timely fashion.  We have two farming tractors, a container of supplies and a 6000 French books library  needing to come.
We have already begun a farming cooperative.  We are seeing both success and failure.  We are successfully growing many vegetables that have not yet been grown in this area before, and hopefully we continue to learn from the failures.

Unfortunately, our new pastor was recently in a motorcycle accident and he was not wearing a helmet.  He was severely injured but seems to be recovering well, but we are taking him to a neurologist to make sure he does not have head injuries that cannot be seen, but can still affect him.  Please pray for him also.
We have many volunteer visitors coming this summer.  We always look forward to visitors coming.  Pray for safe travels for all of them.  I will try to begin writing more often again to keep you updated on how things are going for everyone and everything.  Perhaps if I write more often the letters can be a bit shorter.

Yours in Christ,

Joy