OUR FINAL POST

Our last week in Haiti was a full one.  We drove to Gonaives (a city about a 3 hour drive north from Port Au Prince) twice, once on Saturday for a meeting that never happened due to a miscommunication about when we'd be there, and then again on Monday to spend the night and return to Port Au Prince Tuesday to pack for home.  We also did interviews with the Pastor of the church in Williamson and the kids played and hung out with friends for one last time.

We also had a treat on Friday night.... American Pizza!  There is a missionary family that started making pizzas in their home for mission teams that come in.  It was absolutely delicious!  We have been eating more authentic Haitian meals than on trips in the past, so a taste from home was a treat!  The family there has six children and a trampoline that the kids were invited to jump on.  A heavy rain came through and soaked them all, but that didn't stop them!

We returned home late on Wednesday night to friends at the airport and a plate of delicious cookies (thank you Lea!).  Katelyn had to leave for Young Life camp at 6:45 am the next morning, so I spent most of the night doing her laundry and was excited to crawl into my bed at about 4:00 am.  We got up on Thursday and packed our bags again to celebrate DJ Morgan & Demi Boe's wedding up in Bellingham.  I got to coordinate the wedding, so I had tons of fun being in charge of things after such a long break!

So that brings me to today, prepping for church in the morning, looking through photos to share at church and editing video.  I get to relive the trip again and spend time reflecting on all we got to see and do.

We are incredibly thankful to have spent such an extended time in the country we love and to have been able to do it as a family.  There is so much we will miss about being there, and yet we are incredibly happy to be home.  As a family we have a much deeper appreciation for simple things and have been caught off guard by some of the things that we missed... like carpet!  Both Kate and I were shocked at how it felt on our feet after spending a month on tile and dirt.

Thank you to everyone for your prayers and your support while we were gone.  God has richly blessed us with friends and family to come home to and people to miss while we were gone.

The Pastor & his wife and daugther in Williamson.  They have six children, one of whom was VERY good to Brooklyn.  In fact the Pastor's wife told us that Brooklyn was a regular topic of conversation around the house.  On several occasions we were served delicious watermelon when we were there.  We'll miss that!

Brooklyn and her friend Edna... and Edna's friend... we can't remember her name.  

She was mostly there to appear in the photo!

LIMEONADE!!!

One last Coke with my friend Ahmad.

Trampoline time.

Men, what do you think of this directional sign?

Any guesses as to what these words are?  I love this phase of development.  You become a super sleuth  to figure out what's being written.  (I'll post the answers at the bottom of the page in case you want to try to guess.)

Our meeting in Gonaives with Pastor Joshua, Pastor Michel, and Claire.  We interviewed them and can't wait for Brookview to hear their hearts for Haiti when we share tomorrow.

Brooklyn playing in the children's home in Gonaives.

It was HOT!!!!  Brooklyn was the designated face mister.

Her first Hatian Coke!  What a treat.

This was one exhausted family on the drive home.

Our car and driver for the trip up North. 

 Can you believe we had eight people and luggage in the vehicle?  

A small taste of the driving.  Yes, that's a Mack truck flying at us at about 60 mph.  Yes there is a car on the right side of us, making it a challenge to get out of the way.  Yes, we did weave our way into the middle of the road and came out the other side just fine!  It's like the ultimate game of frogger.

The answer to Brooklyn's phonetic spelling.... 1) Pizza, 2) July - the j is backwards. We're working on that.

A LOT HAS BEEN HAPPENING

It's been a while since I've updated on the Huguenin happenings!

On July 3rd we got to spend the day at Wahoo Bay playing with friends.  There was a woman from Tennessee here with her two boys for a week.  The boys are 11 and 13 and Kate and (especially) Cam had a blast hanging out with them.  On July 1st the couple who runs the guest house came back after a visit to the states and they have an almost 5 year old, so Brooklyn has a friend too!

Brooklyn & Lena

Body surfin'!

Brooklyn was DEVASTATED that she couldn't bring this home with her.  She loves making animal friends.  I wonder if she'll be a veterinarian.

The boys playing with Robertson.  I think he had as much fun as they did, playing king of the dock.

On the 4th of July we had some friends from our church when we were in Bellingham come to explore Haiti with us.  We had lots of meetings and had a great time reconnecting with them.  At night we sat our on the deck at the house we are staying at and watched a few fireworks light up the sky.  Mostly, we watched God's fireworks (lightening) and waited to get power so that we could go to bed with fans.  It has been HOT!

On July 5th we hung out in the Luly and had meetings with some community leaders in Williamson.  In true Jen form, I played an ice breaker to open our time together and the men were looking at me and each other like I was crazy, but by the end they were having a blast.  One of the men commented how he had learned a lot about it being okay to have fun.  DEFINITELY a highlight for me!  While in Luly we found that the church had been torn down and they are in the process of rebuilding!

On July 6th we met with a school administrator who is doing great things.  One of my favorite lines in response to the way that most schools are focused on teaching to the government test and rote learning.... "We cannot be slaves to the book!"  It was amazing to walk onto campus and see his students studying for their test and laughing while interacting with each other and their teacher.  We were blown away by his computer lab... Brookview, I think we might be able to do something about updating this!

In the afternoon we got to go to a heartbreakingly beautiful place, a home for children with special needs.  While we were walking through there Cameron said, "Wow, this place is nice!"  It brought my heart great joy to know that there is a nice place in Haiti for children who deserve a little bit of nice in their lives.  I think it's the first time that Brooklyn has seen anyone with special needs and to watch her tenderly stroke a little boys hand while his head bobbed back and forth in his wheelchair was incredibly touching.  While we were leaving some of the little ones were having a dance party and a few of them were fighting over the chance to dance with Brook.

On July 7th, we had a light day and drove up to the Baptist Mission up in the beautiful hillside of Haiti. On our way there, we saw an awesome ad for ProActive!  At the Baptist Mission we enjoyed a sort of American lunch and .... wait for it..... a zoo!  The zoo had rabbits, a monkey, a peacock, and goats.  Word on the street is that there used to be an alligator and snake, but they were just empty cages.

On July 9th & 10th, we travelled to Gonaives, about two hours away to visit a Children's Home where our friends from Bellingham have invested time, money, and love.  They are trying to adopt 5 children out of this home, though the process has been long and difficult and there is no guarantee that the adoption will go through.    We stayed the night in a "hotel" that to date has probably been one of the funniest experiences of our trip, though when going through it, it wasn't that funny.  Make sure you ask us about it!  On Monday we met with a Pastor/ministry leader in Gonaives and it was like a breath of fresh air.  It was cool to talk about what he dreams of for Haiti and dream together with him.

Steve and Aumony Dahl along with the three children (siblings) they are in the process of adopting.  They also have 4 biological children.

Chuck & Naomi Jenkins with the two siblings they are in the process of adopting.  They have 4 biological children as well.

So that brings us almost up to date.  Tuesday was a regrouping day after our friends left.  We had some family time and caught up on emails and work stuff.  Today we visited a shop that makes sandals out of used tires.  We got to talk with the women who were employed there about their ideas of family and resources/access to information they would love to have.

We are in our final week here!  The time has gone by so quickly.  We are praying for a productive last week and are thankful for the good health we have enjoyed.  God has been good to us!

BRACELETS & A WEDDING

On Friday we got to visit a SUPER cool place and I got to see where Tara Thorn works.  For Brookview's December team members, she was our translator in the deaf community.  She is now working for a group called Rebuild Globally.  You should check out their website, www.rebuildglobally.org.  They make flip flops out of recycled tires!   Their programs gives meaningful employment to quite a few women and some super cool stuff is happening there.  

Some of you may know that last summer I had bracelets made in Haiti for a leadership camp that I'm a part of in the summer time.  The photo above is of Stanley.  He is a teenage boy who lives on the streets of Port Au Prince.  He is using the money he's earning from the bracelets he made to go to school.  I brought a bunch of supplies with me in December to have someone make the bracelets and Stanley scrapped my stuff and came up with his own design.  They are AMAZING!!!!!  I can't wait to bring them to camp with me.

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Saturday night we got to attend a Haitian wedding.  For those of you who were with us on the December trip for Women's Training, the groom was Mannue (sounds like Mono) who translated for us in the deaf community and at We Advance. What an experience! The wedding was supposed to start at 4:00 pm.  We didn't arrive until 5:15 pm and we were the first ones there.  While we were sweating our brains out, it had to have been over 100*'s in there, the wedding photographer came up to me and noticing my camera on the floor figured he could ask me some advice on why his camera didn't seem to be working.  It appeared that the flash wasn't working anymore, and before I knew it, I was dubbed the wedding photographer.  He would take video, I would take photos.  WHAT?!?!?!?!?  It was a blast!  I got a five minute lesson on how to take pictures that he liked, how to frame them correctly and then was left to fight my way through every wedding guest who had a camera with them.  It was CRAZY.  I think one of the highlights of the night was the kiss.  They took about five minutes to wipe all the sweat off of each other's faces and at that time a sizable crowd had gathered up front to capture the moment on video and/or photo.  The official wedding photographer gave me a stern look, like, "You've got this, right?"  And I had to elbow my way to the front, plant my feet wide so I wouldn't get knocked over and aggressively announce, "Eskise Mwen" (excuse me) and throw my elbows around to declare my space.  I did the best I could given my brief training and the fact that it was almost completely dark. The wedding officiant was reading things by cell phone light!  I only have two photos of the wedding and they are terrible, because I quickly took a picture to be able to put on the blog.  I was using the photographers memory card for the night and gave it to him when we left the reception.  I WISH I HAD MORE PHOTOS TO SHOW YOU!!!!  I think you would have love seeing everything.  

The 4:00 pm wedding actually started at 6:30!

Here is the beautiful wedding cake from the reception

The happy couple and their flower girl and wedding princess (not a position we have at our weddings). I know the grooms eyes are closed, but my camera battery went dead right after this photo!

BROOKVIEW ANNOUNCEMENTS

Good morning Brookview! We're praying for you today.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Well.... 15 years ago at this time of day I was doing something very different.  I was probably firing the D.J. at our wedding and trying to cram all of my wedding day expectations into the last hour of our reception.  Though, I definitely have A LONG WAY to go, when I think of the woman I was on June 28, 1997, I can see a huge difference between the expectation filled wife I was on day one and who I am today.  By God's grace he gave me a patient and understanding husband in Jason and I am thankful for and feel pretty underserving of the life I'm living today.  I never would have imagined then that we would celebrate our 15th anniversary sleeping in the same room as our children, glowing with sweat, having dinner with 8 twenty-somethings sitting with us at the table and celebrating with a rousing round of Happy Anniversary to You sung at the top of their lungs followed by $10 per gallon ice cream.  It was PERFECT!

Jason is feeling better than yesterday, but looking forward to being back to full health.  Thank you for continued prayers.

Today was a stay home day.  It was nice to do some laundry, go to the market, and run errands for the house.  I LOVE that sort of thing.  Right now it is pouring down rain and we are waiting for a break in the storm to go "home" for the night.  We are staying at the World Wide Village staff home which is a quick walk from the guest house.  Here are pictures of our anniversary morning room situation and anniversary celebration, as well as a photo of the Minnesota team that left today and Brooklyn finding a butterfly.  It had a broken wing, so being the practical girl that she is, she named it Broken.

The view from our romantic hide away.

Enjoying some movie time.

Broken... the butterfly friend

What is that you ask?  MANGO!!!! Jason's Haiti highlight.

Oh yeah... Starbucks Vanilla Frapuccino.

A GOOD START TO THE WEEK

We had a good start to the week.  We have continued to travel around with the team from Minnesota and they have richly blessed us.  They are incredibly affirming to the kids and just down right great people.  On Monday and Tuesday Jason and I got to go with a translator into a few different homes and sit on their porches and talk about families.  We weren't shocked by the things we heard, but we had a lot of fun talking with them and asking a lot of questions.  People were very willing to share their, what seemed to be, honest truth with us and we were excited to begin our research here on families.

Brooklyn continues to draw a crowd everywhere she goes.  One surprising thing is that when we have gone into places that have vendors, they all want to give her something for free.  So far she has scored a bracelet and a purse!  Today she stole the heart of the Pastor in the village we were in.  He had sliced up a watermelon and served everyone a piece.  While she was walking she tripped and fell and the watermelon went flying.  He quickly grabbed her a new piece and in between whimpers she said, "me.....ci" (Creole for thank you.)  I wish I could have captured the smile on his face!  Cameron is INCREDIBLE with the kids.  He is able to spend hours playing soccer in the HOT sun.  I don't know how he does it, but it is such a bridge builder.  I'm proud of Katelyn too!  She is diving right in to help wherever and always brings that HUGE smile with her.  She definitely knows how to light up a room.

On a separate note, please pray for Jason.  He is sick right now.  He has been sick in Haiti before, so we aren't too concerned, but it is definitely a bummer.

Love and hugs to all of you!!!!

SUNDAY FUNDAY

Sorry for the video announcement fail at church this morning.  If you want to see what we put together, here you go!  Today was Sunday funday.  We got to go to an English speaking church and then have lunch together and swim in a pool.  We are a bit burnt, but boy did we have fun!