We had a number of recent photos gathered in a file. They didn’t seem to go together at all, but they did have one thing in common…they reminded us of our blessings!

Child Sponsorship Support. Sea containers come down regularly with needed supplies for the various programs we help manage: supplying food to five schools, school and health kits and bible story books to sponsored kids.

Our section of the depot is jammed full of blessings: buckets of rice, boxes of school kits, soap and story books!

This is the amount of rice prepared every day just for the local Simon MEBSH elementary school!

What kid doesn’t appreciate the blessing of having a full stomach?

School and health kits continue to be huge blessings for sponsored kids!

Enjoying a story from the Creole 101 Favorites storybook!

MEBSH convention. Every April we experience the national convention here in Simon. Church members from about 450 MEBSH churches join for services from Wednesday to Sunday. It is interesting, but loud and very crowded for the most part. There are lots of choirs performing during that time and everyone that can’t attend has the same radio station on broadcasting it all day long.

The first morning we volunteered to help serve the food for the MEBSH worker’s meeting. It reminded us of lunches at church conferences in the states, except they were served rice & beans, a piece of beef and a little sauce to put over all of it.

The Simon MEBSH church is the only church that can handle the convention and they are making plans to expand it.

Evangelism training. We have been blessed to have several young Haitian men come weekly for an evangelism class we have been teaching. Two of them are missing in the photo below, and all but one are all able to speak English quite well. We have enjoyed hearing them share the gospel in Creole.

The guys always seem to disappear into our black couch!

Sunshine! We have been blessed to be able to convert our house to solar power this month.

The solar panels cover the entire second story roof!

With very few rainy days, this solar investment will pay for itself in three to four years.

Rain! Last but not least, we have finally been having the blessing of rain return to south Haiti! After an extremely dry year with almost no measurable precipitation, we have been having rain almost every night! It’s a blessing for the land, but a real hardship at the same time for those who have to dry out all their belongings every day.

“And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.” – Ezekiel 34:26

Time and talents have been poured into making beautiful pillowcase dresses!

Generous friends from our home church (Smithville, Ohio) and nearby churches got together to make and donate over 100 pillowcase dresses for us to hand out! We have been giving them out as we have the opportunity! When the Uhlers were here recently, they helped distribute some, too! Once we took a whole suitcase to a poor country school and left them for the pastor to distribute. The church pastor will get them to the neediest girls a whole lot easier than it would be for us to figure out.

The Haitians just love your pillowcase dresses! Even adults try them on and the larger ones do fit them! Everyone is so thankful for the beautiful patterns and the knowledge that someone, somewhere has remembered them.

The suitcases have arrived with underwear and shoes too! Recently we have received several boxes of beautiful book bags, baby blankets and women’s dresses made by Sarasota church ladies. These are all blessings to the Haitians! Several of the book bags will go to a summer camp where the children win tokens for verse memorization or keeping their rooms clean, and they can select a book bag as their prize!

We love to see the creativity that you ship our way! Keep them coming. May God be your rewarder as you see some of the photos below.

We (Susie, Trinity & Grace) were invited to see everyone at work and participate!

All ages were present and could learn a great skill while helping!

What you have done for the least of these, you have done it as unto Me!….Jesus

Dresses, underwear, and shoes are all loaded into suitcases for delivery to Haiti!

Previously packed with love, now all ready to distribute at a school!

This mom was thrilled to find a matching pillowcase dress for herself!

This little girl was very interested in her new dress!

The Uhlers got to see the responses to the dresses!

The Uhlers were able to give a much appreciated handmade book bag to their sponsored child!

We have gotten to know this sweet family a little because the father is a translator for Housetops for Haiti.

We saved the best for last…until we post more!

Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Galatians 6:9

Adam and Ann Uhler and two of their children, Lane and Elise, came recently to spend a week with us! We spent part of a day in Port-au-Prince while picking them up, several days at the beach, experiencing Haitian church, meeting their sponsored children, one hiking day and also some touring around Cayes to show them the area and where we shop. Adam & Ann also got to participate in one of our Bible studies. Elise even got to go to school with Grace one day!

It was so nice to have time to show them what we experience daily, to see first hand both the challenges and blessings there are serving here in Haiti. Some of our experiences that week are interspersed between the photos to break them up a bit!

We were blessed with the visit of the Uhlers, friends from our home church in Ohio.

We stopped to visit the Homes of Hope at the Cancer Redemption Project.

The Uhlers recieving the customary greeting from the kids at CRP!

Lane, Elise and Grace made some new friends easily!

The boys from one of the newest houses were pretty excited to see us!

We had several new and surprising things happen to us while the Uhlers were here! One afternoon we were hanging out at the beach at Port Salut together. As is typical on a weekday, we had almost the entire beach to ourselves and so all the salespeople had us to themselves, too! There is no snoozing on the beach, at least not very long, with the vendors constantly approaching…

Later when the girls were in the water and we adults were resting in chairs watching them, suddenly we noticed there was a long line of people coming onto the beach a long ways down. They just kept coming and coming, at least a hundred of them! They were dressed in a certain uniform like they belonged to a club or organization. And now they were coming our way! Did they walk behind us and leave us alone like most people would probably do? No. They stopped in front of us and started surrounding us. About a hundred young people staring at us! Some took pictures and even a few video cameras were panning over us! We decided to wave and smile… Now, I know Adam and Ann look like models and they probably thought they were famous or something, but we have never been considered a tourist stop before!

New experiences were simply everywhere!

We also had many different visitors at our door during their visit. One of them was a Haitian lady selling peanuts. Ann wanted to try and see if she could hold the basket of peanuts on her head. It is harder to do it than it looks!

Balancing a basket on your head is much harder than the Haitians make it look!

While walking through a local village, we stopped to taste sugarcane, which the seller cuts on the spot for you!

Trying sugarcane for the first time! It does have a sweet taste like honey, but the woody core is quickly spit out!

We had opportunity to tour around Cayes and see some Haitian houses and how they live. We enjoyed climbing up a hill to reach one of the houses to get a quick tour inside, visit, give pillow cases dresses, rice, and pork cans. They were so excited for all of them!

Fun at the beach is always a hit!

Taking a swimming break to eat lunch on the beach!

Who couldn’t resist buying shells from this guy?

The Uhlers met their sponsored child, Jolly Sophia, for the first time! She lives with her grandmother.

Jolly Sophia seemed to really like her new Creole 101 Favorites Story book!

They also met their other sponsored child, Fardens, who came with his Mom.

We spent one morning checking out many of our shopping spots in Cayes!

Ann was brave dealing with local vendors near the open-air market!

The downtown streets full of new sights and smells!

We bought four peppers from this vendor so we could get a picture of the market!

Another surprising experience was awaiting us when we hiked to a natural spring. It was truly eye opening to get there by car to the area where we wanted to hike. We hit market day in Ducis, a town we had to drive through, and we couldn’t get through for quite a while! They really didn’t want cars coming through their market! We handed out gospel tracts from our window and they were more receptive to that…

When we arrived at our parking spot, several Haitian guides went along to show us where the trail was and get to the spring. The hiking was spectacular; walking along the river between mountains, interesting smells of burning charcoal, and unique sounds of birds and goats. When we arrived at the spring, the water was different hues of blue and very clear. It was icy cold, but it was refreshing to swim in after our hot, sweaty hike.

On the way back, we asked one of the Haitians if he could show us where to stop and share the gospel and deliver some rice. Eventually they pointed to a house close to the trail. We followed them and suddenly realized that the flag in the middle of the yard represented voodoo! The people of the house welcomed us, but we turned to Adam and Ann and asked them to really pray! We were friendly and proceeded to ask spiritual questions. The old lady said clearly who she served as her master…she admitted her god was Satan and that she was a slave to him. She was a witch doctor and that is how she made her living. We proceeded to share the gospel and God’s Word. Hopefully, seeds were planted and the ground shaken by God’s power to free her from her sin and slavery to Satan. God covered all of us underneath the shadow of His wings, and He protected us from any spiritual darkness. What a God we serve! It is only through Him that we can stand against the spiritual darkness in high places.

A hiking trip was really a hit with the kids!

During the hike, we came across several cute kids like this one! She really appreciated our crackers!

Arriving at Tet Lakil, a natural spring that emerges from a cave!

The water color and natural beauty of the spring is hard to describe!

One of the sights along the way. Can you find three people in this photo?

The girls enjoyed shopping at the Domestic Center!

Another hit for the girls was getting their hair braided by a Haitian!

Thanks for your visit and the many special memories we have of our time together! We love you!

This morning was the annual sunrise service and breakfast on our rooftop for all the local missionaries and their guests. We organized it with our neighbors the Yordy’s and there was a great turnout! Thankfully it was a clear, beautiful morning following a rather rainy week. Afterwards we shared a huge breakfast and time of fellowship together.

The service was well underway before the sun made it’s appearance!

The large, flat roof of our house provides a great space with a view.

The kids were at it again with a special musical production!

The breakfast we shared afterwards was a blessing!

The kids were off in a flash to find Easter eggs!

All the kids got Easter baskets too!

Grace’s teacher, Mrs. Leger, has returned with husband Robenson-n and baby Jayden-n!