Birthday Celebrations

The end of December is a time for celebrations around our house.  Yesterday we celebrated Kyrk's birthday. 

 This is the cake that we called Kyrk's "Birthday Cake"  Yes it was given to him just like this, with a couple pieces out of it and the words on the top say Merry Christmas. 

Robert's Birthday was today and he enjoyed being King for the day.

 Enjoying the air hockey game from Grandma Campbell.

 He wore this hat almost all day.

 Enjoying his gift from Gerben and Ellen.

No birthday in our house is complete without Ice cream. 

Great Start to our week in Atrel

We traveled up to Atrel on Friday so Kyrk could work with the local guys to pour the walls of our cistern and hopefully the bottom floor of our house.  So far it has been a great time and we are enjoying being here as a family and continuing to get to know the people of Atrel.

 Friday night pizza night, even in Atrel!

 On Saturday we decided to put some rocks around our fire pit.  But when we discovered it had great dirt around it we didn't want to cover it up.  So we dug all the good dirt out and then filled it is with rocks.  It was hard work, but we had fun working together as a family.

The men have been working on the entrance to our property, preparing to put up a fence soon.

 This is the entrance to our property.

Today they started pouring the walls of the cistern.  It was a lot of work to get all the forms ready to go, but today they were able to get one side all finished.  It was a huge blessing to have a cement mixer to make the job much easier and efficient.

We have been doing school each morning while we are here, but in the afternoons the children get to really develop their creativity.  We have no toys up here, so today they made things out of rocks and pieces of wood.  Rebekah made a phone from a rock, Naomi made a doll from a rock and Anna was pretending that her little piece of wood was an telephone. 

Great time in Atrel and Progress on our House

As you may have read from our recent updates, we spent the past 2 weeks in Atrel with a group from World Servants in the Netherlands. 
For our family it was truly an answer to prayer to spend the 2 weeks continuing to build relationships with the people of Atrel.  Each day we would walk from our little house down to the school.  It is about a 15 minute walk and it was a great opportunity to interact with the local people.  God used these conversations to continue to confirm to us that we are supposed to be in Atrel.  Overall the people are very welcoming to us and they are very thankful that we are willing to come and live in their community.  The last thing that Pastor Fritz asked us as we were leaving was "When are you going to stay here?" 

During the 2 weeks that we were in Atrel we were able to have the men continue the work on our cistern.  They completed the rock walls and prepared all the iron for the walls and floor.  The last day they poured the floor.
Now the plan is for us to return on December 7 for 1 week with a cement mixer and pour the concrete part of the cistern walls, the bottom floor of the house and if time allows the top of the cistern.

We are then planning on returning in January to begin building the actual structure.  It is so exciting to finally see all the planning and preparing coming together.  Beginning in January we will mainly be living in Atrel.  From that time on we will just come back to Fermathe to get supplies and our belongings as we have place to put them.

 The rock walls being built for the cistern. 

Thank you World Servants

We have had a wonderful 2 weeks with the World Servants group.  The school is mostly completed and will be finished soon.
Here is a video sharing some of the highlights from the past 2 weeks.

Almost Finished the School and A Great Soccer Game

Things are continuing to go very well with the World Servants group.  They are diligently working today to finish the school and tomorrow they will have a dedication ceremony to turn the building over to the community.

On Saturday several members of the World Servants group played soccer against a team of men from Atrel.  It was a great game and several people from the community came to watch the game.  At the end of the game it was tied 1-1, so they went to penalty kicks.  In the end the Dutch team won, but everyone had a great time.

 The Atrel Team

 The Dutch Team

 There were a few injuries through out the game but thankfully the nurse was there :)

 Blocking the penalty kicks

We are Thankful

Today as many of our American friends and family are celebrating Thanksgiving, we are enjoying another day in Atrel with the World Servants group.  We truly are thankful for so many things.

We are thankful that everyone is still in great health from the team.
We are thankful that the community is eagerly working along side and helping in any way they can.
We are thankful for good food, especially in an area where many are hungry.

Yes it many not have been a big turkey dinner with all the trimmings, but it sure was delicious.  Our thanksgiving dinner was bulger (cracked wheat) with beans and sauce.

There have been many learning opportunities through out the past week and we praise God that we are all learning from each other and we trust that we are also being drawn closer to God through this experience.

Here are a few pictures from today.

Enjoying our time in Atrel with World Servants

On Thursday of last week we traveled to Atrel once again.  This time it required a significant amount of planning to prepare for a group of 30 people from Holland to come and help build the second floor of the high school building.  Thankfully all the travels went well and everyone arrived in Atrel by Friday afternoon.
It has been a wonderful time of interacting with the people of Atrel and also the World Servants group from Holland.

As many of you know, the area of Atrel is a very dry area of Haiti.  When you receive rain, you are very thankful.  Yesterday it was such a wonderful sound to hear rain falling into our cistern that was being collected off of the roof. 
This morning we took this picture.  It was not raining at our house, but it was raining hard at the school and there was this beautiful rainbow right beside the school.

 The buildings to the right of the rainbow is the church and school.

 Together with some local people and a group of masonry workers the building is coming along.

Each day in the afternoon the group is having a children's program for the children in the school.  The children are enjoying the Bible stories, songs and activities.

 We will be here in Atrel until wednesday of next week.  Please join us in praying that God would continue to help us build relationships with the people of Atrel and that things would continue to go well for the group as they build and get to know the people of Atrel.