"Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation." Mark 16:15


Saturday, February 16, 2013

Sunburned....

Yes, yes....today I actually received a sunburn!!:)  haha...although not bad...my face is just a little red!:)  But it was actually quite hot today, especially in the sun!! And was down at the court for a couple hours playing/watching tennis!

A medical team just came in tonight, so this next week will be busy!  Rick Aberle came in with them too.  Rick and his family are moving down here the middle of June as of right now.  He has three children ages 9, 6, and 16 mos.  Please pray for his family as they make plans and arrange for their move!!  Our Bonne Fin group is growing!!

For Valentines Day, all of us missionaries up at the hospital got together for a supper and an evening of games.  We all had a card at our seat with a different definition of love, which we all took turns reading after supper.  Then we played I Have Never and Psych!:)

Duane Steffen and David Wright left on Wednesday after spending 10 days here working on the hydro.  It was fun to have Duane back!! David also brought his mandolin, so we were able to play together a few times!  We also have Phil the Pharmacist here for a month.  I figured out his last name....but don't have a clue how to spell it, so he is referred to as stated above...:)  He is from Smithville, OH and just recently graduated college. 

Other than that, I wouldn't say anything too exciting as happened that is outside the norm in Haiti!:) hahaha....:) Yes, I know....good joke:)

Actually, one of the most exciting things for me this week, was that I was actually able to cook myself a meal last night!!!! YES!!!!! And I had the house completely to myself for a couple hours!!!!!  That seriously hasn't happened since I have been back from Christmas!! Well, the first week I was back, Heather and I cooked a little..but I was SOOOO ready to be able to make myself a meal!! Yes...I know what you all are thinking....it's so rough having someone to cook your meals for you, clean your house, and do your laundry...  Most the time it is a very nice addition....but I have to admit....I love being able to do them myself too....:)

Also, just thought I would let everyone know that there is always an open invitation to come visit/serve for a week!!!...or two...or three...or...well however God leads!!:)

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Photos

Photos at last!!!! The internet has cooperated enough times, that I have been able to upload several throughout time!! Hope you enjoy them!!:)
 
Gideon August Hartzler
 
 
 
Some of the waterfalls Heather & I seen on our exploration adventure
 
 
Sheila's 60th birthday and Silas' 4th
 
 
Some kids at the hospital
 
 
Conrad & Gaston drawing

 
Part of the medical team with two of the translators

 
Down at the hydro

 
A waterfall upstream
 
 
Following in daddy's footsteps....:)

 
Before church

 
Audrey & I

 
Conrad....you can see the mischief in this child....

 
Dutch Blitz!!

 
The mighty oak tree with his flowers
 
 
On the way to the beach

 
The kids playin in the waves


Rainbow beach (where we spend alot of our Sunday afternoons)

 
Typical supper at the beach
 
 
Iston playing the guitar (whenever I bring it down to the hospital, him & Gaston love to play it)

 
TRANTULA


Picture after finishing the Central Supply room

 
Waterfalls behind the hospital
 
 
Phil and a haitian boy

 
Quincy loves wearing my hat!!:)

 
 
 

 

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Incessant Pounding

This first part was written this past Saturday:)

Good thing I didn't sleep in this morning!! Because if I would have....I would have been awaken to a largely disturbing noise! Yes...I was ready for a relaxing and quiet day, but my idea was quickly shaken when there came from above a large racket which shook the entire house.  Yes...they choose today to repair the crack in the roof. It is a crack that goes across quite a bit of the living room through a corner of the office, through the hallway, and across my bedroom.  In order to fix it, apparently, you have to make the crack bigger first.:) Anyway, so I know have a bunch of concrete dust in my room, and water (because it rained a little bit...after the crack was made larger!) Haha...:) 

Anyway, the medical team that was here all week left early this morning.  It was really fun to have them here!!! I really enjoyed spending time with them and getting to know them!!! Dr. David Abdun-Nur from Oregon and his wife came and they did a Cervical Cancer screening thing Thursday and Friday.  The nurses that were on the team worked mostly in the central supply room and they worked hard!!!!! They went through everything, threw stuff, organized, counted, and cleaned!!!!!  It looks amazing and they did an awesome job!!!!

I got the chance this week to see Jimmy's (our PT guy) bees!!  He makes honey and sells it!  Anyway, it was really interesting....he has them in logs in a little area next to his mom's house.  He gave us some honey comb too!  It was delicious!:)

I also was able to take some of the team down to the hydro.  It was fun....and we got rained on!!:)  Then two of the girls and I walked all the way back to the hospital so they could get better pictures.....we even had entourage!!:) ha

So now, a little more up to date:).......
This week I spent a couple afternoons working on an end table.  It had contact paper on both shelves which had to be scraped off (a huge job) then I had to use terpentine(sp?) to try to get most of the sticky stuff off.  Then I used a belt sander to get it down to where I could use a rotary sander.  But now that is done....it actually looks quite nice!! Especially after it is stained and varnished!

Today they are actually working on the cracks on the inside of the house.....so it is quite the mess/disaster right now! But it will be nice when they are done! My room is the ultimate disaster right now because of it too!!! :)

Also, I want to apologize for the lack of pictures!! One of these times I really hope I will be able to get the uploaded and posted!!! It just usually takes better quality internet to upload the pics than we have been having lately!!!:(  Oh well...I have to remember that I am in a third world country. It is amazing that I even can have internet!!

Friday, January 25, 2013

New Missionaries

Pre Read: I tried to post this last Saturday and it didn't post, we haven't had very good internet if any all week...so I will try this again....just know that it is a little outdated!:)

We have three new missionaries!! The first two are Daryl & Norma Luginbuhl from Philadelphia. Prayers for them as they adjust to life down here! We are really excited to have them living down here!! The third is just a little guy named Gideon August. He arrived on Jan. 15th weighing 5.5 lbs!!:) Congratulations to the Hartzler family!! I think I can safely say that everyone is really excited that he arrived safely and that we now have a little baby to hold!:)

We had a construction team here last week working on the house that Daryl & Norma will be living in.  It was nice to have them around! I even got to work with them a little one afternoon, took them on a hike to the hydro, took them on a morning hike up doctors mountain, and played guitar & sang in the hospital a couple of times!

We have a medical team coming in tonight, so I am excited to meet them & spend time with them!

Update on my ankle: I had it x-rayed and it didn't appear to me that anything was wrong....Sheila also thought it looked fine.  So I didn't have a doctor look at it.  It is feeling much better and I can move it up and down fine.  Side to side is still a little sore. The top of my foot is what hurts the most still.  It is possible that I did break a bone on the top of my foot, the x-ray wasn't clear on that part, but there isn't to much I can do about that anyway.  I think it will just take a little time and some toughening up.:)

P.S. For some reason, I can't get my pictures uploaded....so I will try to get it figured out and post more later!

Sunday, January 13, 2013

My randomly normal life

Well I have been back in Haiti for a week now!  It is so good to be back in Haiti, even though I loved spending time at home with my family and friends.  Since coming back, I have switched from teaching the Pfister kids, to teaching the Hartzler kids since Jamie is due the end of January.

On Thursday, I went to Port with Sheila and Shadrach(our new pharmacist!!!).  We left around 4:30AM.:)  We had a few things we needed to do, then Shadrach wanted to go to a few Pharmacys to get lists of medicines.  It was very interesting....take the crazy driving in general down here and add tons of people....yah, it was crazy!!  But we survived, although narrowly at times....:) Sheila and I also got to go to the Iron Market.  It is called that because it is enclosed in all tin.  It is a pretty nice market actually!! On the way home, we stopped to fill up in Maraguan and I got a pint of ice cream and ate the entire thing!!:)  Let me tell you, I didn't even feel an ounce of guilt about the amount of calories I just ate!:) haha... We got home around 9, so we made pretty good time on the way home, other than hitting some construction work around Port.

Friday afternoon, I went down to town with Amber and Kate.  Kate and I rode on top, and at one point I almost lost my legs! :)  Actually, what happened was we met a truck on the way, and there wasn't room for us both to pass...so we backed up some and then both of us were going slowly to pass.... Anyway, what I didn't see was the large metal gate laying on top of the truck, and it had it's legs sticking out. By the time I saw it, is was to late to pull my legs out from the bars on the truck.  So I pulled back a little and hoped for the best.  The leg of the gate hit the bar on the truck, then my leg, then a couple more bars.  It sounded alot worse than it was though. It ripped my skirt just a little, but it more or less just felt like a hard punch to my thigh.  I do have to admit though, it could have been worse if the leg of the gate was any lower!! God was watching over me!! Anway, we got all of our shopping down, picked up some food at the Nami(a restaurant in town), dropped of Kate at the Reinhards, then headed back up the mountain!!

Saturday Heather & I took a hike, we decided to try and find a certain waterfall that we kept seeing from the road.  It turned out to be alot more adventuresome that we thought!! We ended up doing quite a bit of rock climbing/sliding, but we did get to see some really pretty views!! Yah, I also made a pretty good fall! And even though I hurt my ankle pretty good, it was still quite a humorous fall! On that note, please pray that my ankle heals quickly!! I am not sure what I exactly did to it, but it is pretty sore!:(

We have our first work team of 2013 here too!! They arrived last night along with Darryl & Norma Luginbuhl, who will now be living down here!  Please pray for the Luginbuhl's as they adjust to life down here!

This song popped into my head just a little bit ago, so I thought I would share it. The reason of why it came to me, could have something to do with the fact that the song starts out...."It's three in the morning and I'm still awake...", and it is now currently 3:30 am. :) Now, don't get ideas....I didn't stay up until now....I went to bed and woke up around 2:30 and couldn't sleep! Anyway, here is the chorus.
 
Be strong in the Lord and,
Never give up hope,
You're going to do great things,
I already know,
God's got His hand on you so,
Don't live life in fear,
Forgive and forget,
But don't forget why you're here,
Take your time and pray,
These are the words I would say.
 
It just really spoke peace to me. God is in control of all and He knows the plans He has for me and for each one of you! Always remember, that no matter where God takes you in life, He has a purpose there for you and watches over you always!

Thursday, January 3, 2013

2013!!

First of all, I am going to have to apologize for not posting in over a month!! I will set a time to do it, and something always seems to come up or take its place!:)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!!! I can't believe another year has completely flown by!! I am so thankful that I was able to spend the holidays with my family! I flew out Dec. 15th with Heather and Beth Newton.  My time home was packed during the almost three weeks home; I went to Iowa and Illinois (a entirely different story there.....), skiing, bowling, played basketball, hung out with the Schmidgall cousins, spent time with my family, and spent time in the cities and the MOA with the Round Robin group!! I really had a lot of fun being home....although I was sick pretty much the entire time I was home.:( 

As I am writing this, I am sitting in a hotel room in Miami.  I flew out of Minneapolis this morning and fly to Port tomorrow morning.  I am really excited to get back!!  It is an amazing feeling to be right where God wants you to be!  Even though I loved spending time with my family and friends, and even though I miss them and some things that you just don't get in Haiti.......I am so ready to be back where my calling and passion is!

I will try to post some pictures later.  Just thought I would let you all know that I am still alive and kicking!!:)

Oh....here is the story about traveling to IA/IL...... I left Mediapolis, IA during a blizzard on Thursday around 1:30.  Why? Because I didn't think it was that bad out and I knew that if you just keep your head and think smart, it is fine. Well around 3:30 there was a semi completely stopped in front of me....so I stopped. I didn't know why he was stopped, if it was just time, or alot of others. Well around 4:30, the semi driver parked behind me came up to my window and gave me a bottle of water, I asked what was going on and he said there was an accident ahead.  So I sat and waited and waited... and waited........and waited...............and waited.  I was able to talk to someone who lives in Monmouth (I was right outside of monmouth). I was planning on just spending the night with them when I got out...the problem was.....I WASN'T getting out....hmmm. He then informed me that Hwy 34 was closed.  I was like what??? and they just left all of us on??? So anyway.....I continued to sit there until midnight, when I was suddenly awakened by knocking on my window.  A couple guys said they were taking some people to a shelter. So I decided to go....I spent the night on the floor at a Senior Citizen's place. They served us breakfast the next morning and we waited to hear news about the road.  Well, they didn't even send out the state snow plows until around noon (even though it had stopped blowing at 10:30 the night before), they had one tow truck for all the semis/cars in the ditch, and then they decided that everything was going to be towed....whether in the ditch, stuck, or not.  (side blurp: my car was not stuck....it was just sitting on the road waiting for everyone else to become unstuck....) Noon came and went and still they were taking forever to get everything cleared.  Then the people started talking about making supper and even spending another night there.  At that point I was thinking... "just get me out of this place!!! This is soo stupid! If I were in Minnesota, none of this would be the way it is!!! Ridiculous!! Hmph....Illionisians don't know the first thing about snow.....!" Anyway, so they decided to tow all cars.....but they towed them different places and didn't know where all the cars went. Finally, one of the guys overheard us talking to someone about the types of cars a couple of us were driving and he said he saw my car headed toward Monmouth. So they drove me to Monmouth and I was able to pick up my car.  Let me tell you I have never been so happy to pay $150 and just get out of that madhouse!!! Yes.....they charged me even though I wasn't stuck...I was still towed.... But hey, I was not complaining. I was on my way to the Steffens by 4:30 Friday afternoon!!:)

Anyway....later!:)

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Funnest Teacher

Yep, Kendra told me I was a fun teacher.....Seth proceded to correct her, "No, she is the funnest teacher!" Made me smile.  They also decided that I was probably the only teacher to carry their students into the classroom like sack-of-potatoes! :)  Throughout the day, I hear pleadings from Silas(the youngest of the Pfisters) "do me a sak-a-tatos!!"  Now how can you resist that!?!?

I am loving my job as teacher!!! And am really enjoying putting together some activities for different things!!  It is definitely something I never thought I would be able to do.......teach that is! This week, for one of the science classes(they are studying birds), we made orgami birds!!:) Either a Mr. Penguin or a Pelican. 

The other thing I absolutely love to do is play with the kids...once they are done with school, or whenever I get the chance!! On Thursday, I was actually able to spend most of the day with them!! We had school in the morning, (they finished early) so I played with them some before lunch.  Then in the afternoon the Pfister kids, Amber, Hartzler kids, Jamie, and I went down to the basketball court and played kickball.  Afterwards, the Pfister kids decided to come to my place until supper, where we proceded to play some freeze tag, jail break, etc.  Then after supper they came back down to do some sledding on the hill next to the guest house.  Yes sledding!! And what did we sled on? Why palm branches....of course!!!!!:)  They actually work really good and you can go really fast!!!

Friday Amber, Jamie, Jamie's mom, all the kids, and I left at noon to go down to Cayes.  There was a birthday party for a little girl, so we dropped the kids of and then we went into town to do a little shopping. The volleyball started at 3ish, which I decided not to play until it stopped raining....:)  A good decision on my part if I do say so! hahaha:) It was alot of fun though, even though, I am not really good.:)  Then for supper we had a Pizza Potluck.  There was some really good pizza and dessert!!:) Afterwards, we headed back home!:)

A team is coming in today, which is really exciting!! It is actually the first team up at the hospital since I have been here! Anyway, this is a long enough post.:)

the hospital compound