Quonset Hut is Here!!

The first step towards us moving to Atrel is starting to happen. About a week ago the quonset hut that was ordered at the end of November finally arrived at the mission. It really was an answer to pray that we were able to get it through customs using the mission franchise and therefore did not have to pay the customs bill for it. God is Good!
It also came at the perfect time. (Of, course it was perfect timing, God is in control)
When we go to Atrel on July 26, with a large group from the Netherlands Kyrk is going to have some of the workers come along and start to build the foundation for the quonset hut. This way he can supervise 2 jobs at the same time.
Below is a picture of all the pieces in the truck when it arrived here. It doesn't look like much, but it will turn into a large 30x60 storage facility.

Jonathan

Yesterday started off as a normal busy day, especially since we have a team of 15 here from Pennsylvania right now.
Around 4 in the afternoon, Jonathan and I went over to the kitchen to see how supper was coming along. Jonathan chose to ride his bike, which he had been doing for most of the day. The only difference was that it had just rained, making the cement a little slippery.
As I was talking with the cook I hear Jonathan start screaming. He had fallen off of his bike and hit his head on the cement. I ran to him and took him into the kitchen to put a wash cloth on his forehead (which was really bleeding bad) I knew that I was not going to be able to deal with this, so I sent some people to find Kyrk.
Kyrk is wonderful!!!! He called the Doctor to make sure he was here and then took Jonathan up to the hospital. 3 stitches later he was back home.
We are so thankful for good medical staff right here at the mission. Dr. Bernard is a great doctor and he even stopped by the house this morning to see how he was doing.
This was taken right after he came back from getting the stitches. I think he was feeling good at this point. Back to his same silly self.

This is what his head looked like this morning when I changed the bandage.

Special Visitor

On Saturday we had the wonderful surprise of having Nate come visit us.
I'm sure many of you are wondering, who is Nate?
Some of you may remember back in November a large school collapsed in Petionville. If you want to read all the details you can here
Kyrk still does not know who called him that day to ask him and the other men to come down and help. It really is amazing to see God's hand at work through out all of this.
When Kyrk got to the school he started working along side of Nate. Nate is a Haitian man who lives in Florida and was here for 3 days to help train local fire fighters.
As we talked with him on Saturday it was so clear that God brought him here for those 3 short days to be at the school. He and Kyrk were able to spend many hours freeing a little 6 year old boy.
Shortly after the boy was rescued Kyrk and the other men from the mission left and no information was exchanged with Nate. Since that time they have been trying to get back together again and talk. All Nate knew was Kyrk's first name and that he worked at the Baptist Mission.
A few weeks after the incident the pastor from our church here was preaching in Florida (at Nate's church) and Nate was able to ask him if he knew Kyrk and he was able to give Pastor Joubert his card and email address for Kyrk. Since then they have been emailing and hoping to someday meet again and share what God has done.
As Nate and Kyrk talked on Saturday they were so amazed at how God brought them together for the purpose of rescuing that little boy.
Nate and his wife are wonderful Godly people and it was such an encouragement to us be able to talk with Nate and to meet his wife.

Rats

I guess part of living in a third world country is having to deal with rats. Usually it is not terrible, but recently we have been having a lot of fun with rats.
It all started about 1 week ago. One evening, last week I heard a little chewing sound in the kitchen and asked Kyrk is check it out. Being the wonderful man that he is, he found the rat in a drawer and hit it with a stick. After a couple of times he was successful in killing it.
A couple of days later we caught another rat in a trap. At this point I thought we are finished with rats in our house for awhile.
Well I was wrong. This morning when I opened my dish towel drawer I found a dead baby rat laying on top of the towels. It was so gross and Naomi knew that I was not going to deal with it, so she immediately called Kyrk.
He came and discovered 6 more dead baby rats amongst the towels.

Rebekah liked the little rats and after they were in this cup she took them to show Grandma, her cousins and the other missionary family here.

Once they had shown the rats to everyone, it was time to bury them. Naomi had the honors on digging the grave and covering them.

Yeah there are 9 less rats around!!

Fun evening out

On Saturday night we had the rare treat of going out to eat as a staff. It was a very enjoyable evening and we had a great time. The restaurant is a rather unique place. The main part is covered only by plants and branches. This is where we were initially sitting, until it started raining. Then it was time to quickly move to a drier location. Our children especially enjoyed it. This was only the second time that they have been to a restaurant in the evening like this, so this was a really huge treat for them.
This isn't the best picture since it was pretty dark.

Canning Fun

This past week I have been having fun learning how to can meat. Growing up I helped my mom can fruit and vegetables, but never meat. Thankfully we found a large pressure cooker in one of our storage rooms here at the mission and it has been working great.
Then a missionary friend had some extra jars and was willing to let me borrow them.
It has really been amazing to see God work in providing the things that we need.
You may ask, why am I canning all this meat??
This summer we have a group of 31 dutch people coming for 2 1/2 weeks. We will be staying in Atrel for that time. Since we are not living there yet, we will all be sleeping in the school and we will not have any electricity or refrigeration. This has caused me to get creative and figure out how we can have some meat with our meals. We will be purchasing some meat fresh from the market but they only have market 2 times a week (Friday and Saturday) and with the heat up there it would not take long for meat to spoil.
These are going to be stretching days for our family. Our whole family will be traveling with the group and staying in the school along with them. We are praying that during this time we will be able to get to know more of the people in the community and learn more about the needs that are there, so we can better prepare for moving there.
Our goal is to move to Atrel by the summer of 2010. We are still praying that God provides the funds in His timing. We currently have about 20% of the needed funds.

Some ground beef and chicken that I have canned.

Visitors

This week has been a fun week so far. On Saturday we had a group of 7 people from from West Virginia and Virginia come to visit for 1 week. One of them is Uncle Roger (Kyrk's uncle) and along with him is his son Tony with his wife and daughter. So not only is it great to have visitors here, it is great to have family visiting.
The men are working on replacing the roof on part of the conference center. It leaked really bad and desperately needed to be replaced.
We are so thankful that they have come and helped out in this way.

The view from the top of what they are doing.


This is Tony and Boss TiJean

Garden

At the beginning of April we decided to start a garden. We had heard about Square Foot gardening and wanted to try it.

This is our Haitian version of a square foot garden. So far it has been doing fairly well.

We also wanted to see how successful we would be growing vegetables in only compost in old tires.

These are all techniques that we are trying, hoping to find out what works so we can have a garden when we move to Atrel. In Atrel there is very little good soil and it is very difficult to grow many vegetables, so we are experimenting. Our next project is going to be making compost, to find the best methods for doing that.
On Wednesday we ate the first things from our garden. The romaine lettuce was such a wonderful treat. The people here do not grow romaine lettuce, so it is a treat. We also had one cucumber that we felt was big enough to use in the salad.

Having the garden has turned into a great family project. The kids have each claimed a tire and help take care of their plants. They were very excited to finally be able to pick something from their little gardens.

Garden

Bible Curriculum

Yesterday we started working on the grade 3 Bible curriculum. This a huge task and after 2 hours yesterday we had put together the basic information that the people writing the stories will need for 6 of the 40 stories. Thankfully we have some people in the United States who are willing to write the stories for us. This is a huge blessing!!
Once the stories are written they are sent back to us here in Haiti and then people here spend a large amount of time editing them and making sure that they are appropriate for Haiti. We also write application questions, review questions and put a memory verse along with an explanation of that verse.
As you can see this is no small task. I have been overseeing this project for the past 2 years, but have recently been convicted about the importance of putting family before ministry, even if the ministry it super important, my family should come first. My children are my main ministry right now.
I currently do not have the time to spend editing these stories and writing more etc, as well and all the meetings that go with it.
Please join us in praying that God would show us His way of getting this very important Bible curriculum written. It is our prayer that God would send someone here to help oversee this project. There are still many more years of work, since we hope to write a curriculum through 6th grade.

Thanks for your prayers!

Kyrk's Atrel trip and Robert

The past few days have been full of exciting things.
On Tuesday Kyrk took a dutch couple who is visiting up to Atrel to show them where World Servants is working. It is always exciting to show people where we are planning to move to and also to introduce them to the wonderful people in that area. Kyrk was also able to visit with a family that lost everything in a house fire back at the end of February when Kyrk was staying in Atrel. Their home was completely destroyed and their youngest child died as a result of the burns that he received. They have 8 other children and they are currently living with a family member. Through all of this it is encouraging to see how the church community is coming together and helping them is whatever way they can. It is their pray that somehow they will be able to build a new home, but right now they don't know how that will happen.

The children in this picture are 4 of the 8 and the lady in the white dress is the mother. The lady beside her is the lady that they are staying with right now.


This is what was left of their home after the fire.

Overall it was a great trip and Kyrk was able to see the property boundaries and has a better idea now of where we will build our house and put the training center buildings.

Robert started having a high fever on Monday afternoon and when he still had a high fever on Wednesday I decided that it was time to see a doctor. Dr.Bernard a wonderful Haitian doctor that lives and works here at the mission took a look at him and prescribed axocillen and a strong fever reducer. Since he wasn't sure what was causing the fever he also sent Robert for Blood and Urine tests. Taking my kids for things like that is very challenging, so it was a tough things for me. Robert handled it very well and thankfully all the tests came back showing no serious problem.
Then today he has a rash all over his body. We now know that this is what was causing his high fever and we are continuing to pray for his complete recovery.

Great Weekend

This past weekend we had the privilege of going on a staff retreat. It was a wonderful time of rest and relaxation as well and planning. Saturday afternoon we spent time as a staff discussing what we think God is leading us as a mission to be doing and what changes we need to make. It really is exciting to see what God is doing through the Baptist Haiti Mission.
The kids enjoyed the time away as well. I think that the highlight was being able to swim in the pool most of the day on Saturday.
Today was back to our normal routines again.
Unfortunately I have no pictures since I forgot that we had our camera with us.

Fun Family

For those who have not seen updated pictures of our children in awhile we thought we would share a few. These were taken last week after dinner one night. The kids had some boxes and they were trying to see if they could fit completely in them. It was very entertaining to watch them try.

Naomi was more interested in just using the box as a hat.

Jonathan figured out that he could get covered completely with 2 boxes.

Rebekah just being her cute self with her box.

Robert really enjoys this rocking chair.

We are back!

We have recently been convicted about our lack of communication with our faithful supporters, friends, family and many others. We realize that we have failed in keeping you informed about what is happening in our lives and what God is doing here in Haiti. It is our hope to update this blog on a regular basis so people can stay up to date on what we are doing, how our kids are growing and what God is doing.

Enjoying Northwest Haiti

Since Aug. 1, our family has been in northwest Haiti, hosting a group of 12 from the Netherlands. They are here doing a construction project at a school.
On Sunday Aug 12 we went on an adventure and went to Port-de-Paix. But to get there we had to travel on very muddy roads with large mud puddles. The group was riding in the back of a large truck, so their ride was interesting.
Also we had to cross a very large river. It was probably about 2 feet deep and was fun to drive through, but we were thankful that it was not any deeper.
So we are having fun and enjoying our time here. I will probably be posting more soon from our time up here.

The Beauty of Haiti

As Kyrk and I were driving home from our trip up north this week we passed this sight. Kyrk was so impressed with it that he had to stop and take a picture. It was so neat to see and hear the water rushing over the little rocks and it truly was a beautiful glimpse of God's creation.

Rebekah

Many have asked for an updated picture of Rebekah, so here it is.

School

I thought that I would give you a glimpse of what school is like here. Each morning I teach school from 8 am until 12pm. It is fun to be able to teach Hannah, Elizabeth, Naomi and Jonathan. Rebekah cooperates most of the time by having a long nap.

Anyone want to swim?

This past weekend we took a little vacation and went to the beach. It was very relaxing and a much needed break. On Saturday we enjoyed the water for awhile, but as the afternoon went on the garbage kept getting closer. By 4:30 this is what the ocean looked like. It was the first time we had seen this and we assume that it is trash that had floated up the coast from Port-au-Prince.

School visit

Today I again had an opportunity to travel up in the mountains to visit a little remote school. The road that we traveled on to get there a very rocky rough road along the side of the mountain.
We went to gather information about the school and visited 2 classes, the preschool class and the grade 6 classroom. The small children were very cute. It was sort of sad to see 68 kids all squished into their tiny classroom, but the children were all happy to be there and to have the opportunity to learn.
I think that I would have a hard time learning at that school though because right next to the preschool is the grade 6 classroom. When we were in that classroom we could barely hear the students talking to us because the preschool children were loudly reciting their lessons. But I guess it is all a part of education here.

Visiting a little Haitian hut

Yesterday I (Deborah) had a chance to go visit a rural mountain family. I was collecting information for an upcoming BHM newsletter and needed to get some information about a little girl who needs a sponsor.
We picked up her sister from school and then went to find the little girl. The little girl had been sick that morning so we tried to find her and her mother at a local clinic, but she wasn't there. We went to the home anyway and it was very eye opening to see the conditions that this family lives is. There are 7 girls and 2 boys in the family. The boys have moved out, but all the girls still live at home along with 3 cousins and their grandfather. All these people sleep in one small room that had 2 single beds in it. One wall of thier house had fallen down so they can't use the other bedroom of their house.
The father wasn't there since he was in his garden which was 1 hour's walk away. That was the closest place that he could find to rent land for a garden.
Even amongst such poverty the family members that we talked with were very happy and content. They didn't beg us for things, which was amazing. It was very evident that the family has made many sacrifices to send their children to school.
It was challenging to me to see this and then to think about all that I have, and to really ask myself if I am content with what I have. Also to thank God for all that He has given me and then realizing that God has so richly blessed me, that I need to share with others around me.
These pictures are of the older sister with her grandpa in the family bedroom. The other is the sister in the kitchen.

Clinic Dedication

Since we have a previous post, from a long time ago, refering to the clinic construction I thought that it would be a good idea to give a little update on that project.
Today the Clinic was officially dedicated and they are going to start using it on Monday.
Kyrk worked very hard to have it completed for today, and it looks great!
These pictures are: The outside of the new clinic, the dedication ceremony, and then some of the people going through the clinic to see what it looks like following the dedication ceremony.

Snow in Haiti

The kids enjoyed the snow so much that when I cleaned out the freezer they wanted to play with the "snow." This is as close as we can get to snow in Haiti.

Okay, we give in and actually posted again

After reading some of the comments, we thought that we should actually write something so that we are no longer accused of being the laziest bloggers.
Well I don't want to over exert myself on this blog and should gradually ease back into this great blogging world.
Stay tuned for more coming soon.

updated pictures

Here are a few updated pictures of your kids. They sure grow quickly.
We are looking forward to seeing many of you soon. We will be in Forest from Oct. 20 - Nov. 7 and in Michigan from Nov. 23 - Dec. 12.

New Version Released

THAT'S RIGHT the newest version is now OUT!!!
We rejoice at the Production and DesignTeam's miraculous work which allowed for an earlier than expected release. GOD really is wonderful. After a visit to the Delivery Facilitator on Monday we were told that Release would be possibly the end of the week.
Rebekah Patricia Baker was born on June 20 at 3:13 am weighing 6 lbs 9 oz and 18 inches long. She was born at home and everything went very well. Thankfully we had planned to have this one at home since the labor went so quickly that we probably would not have made it to the hospital in time. We had arranged for a midwife to come from Northern Haiti and delivery the baby. She arrived on the 16th so the baby waited long enough for her to be here.

Naomi and Jonathan are really enjoying their new little sister. They both love to hold her and try to be helpers in their own special way. Thankfully Grandma Baker and Aunt Kelli are helping take care of them so that Rebekah and Mommy can rest.

Update at Last

I thought that I would try and figure out how to add a new post to this blog since it has been a long time since our last update.
Kyrk has been very busy recently so finding time to update this blog has not been easy.
Hopefully now that I think I have figured this out, it will be updated a little more often.
Since the last update the clinic building has really started to take shape. The shell is almost complete and now the tedious interior projects will soon have to start like laying tile, putting in a celing, windows etc. It really is going to be a nice facility when it is finished. We thank God that during construction there have been no serious injuries.

Some of you may not be aware, but my mom FINALLY came to Haiti to visit in the middle on April. It was so wonderful to have her here and for her to finally see where we live and what Haiti is really like. We are praying that next time Dad will come with her also.

The first weekend in May Kyrk and I along with Chris and Kelli were able to take a trip up to the northwest of Haiti. During this 4 day trip we visited 15 churches and schools. It was a relaxing time. We were able to stay with some missionary friends and have an enjoyable little break. Thanks to Grandma Baker and Grandma Lieb for watching our children.

The next big news will be the release of Baker version 3.0. Release date is scheduled for June 30th, but hoping that development allowes for an earlier than expected release. Version 3.0 is planning to be first launched in a domestic environment with the assistance of well trained humanoid transfer enginer.The Transfer enginer will arive on site the 16th of June stay here until the development process is complete. She is a missionary in the northern part of Haiti and has agreed to come and help with the launch of our newest installment. Grandma Baker is going to be assisting her, so I will be in good hands.