Team Is In Haiti

After a long, but safe drive from the airport to the Mission Center, the team arrived very late last night, Thursday, May 12. The traffic was very heavy coming out of Port-au-Prince. Pastor Herve said they were in the traffic for four hours. Wow.

Again, all is well.

Drones, Bubbles, and Rain - Oh My!!

There has been so much rain the last two nights, and this afternoon, leaving us with wet clothes and shoes, and no MPCA Secondary school today.  But we got to share our Skyview Crew Good Choices skits with MPCA Primary, while the other MP Leaders taught their Good Choices sessions.

Jn Michel leading his class around the MPCA school for

Good Choices day.

This afternoon, our PR team was still able to spend some time doing interviews and getting great photos and videos.  Speaking of videos, Mike took his drone camera with us, and we had so much fun  watching the kiddos go crazy over it.  The footage we are getting from both Shelby and Mike is a huge blessing for Mission Possible!

Mike had a blast entertaining the kids with his drone camera!

The women who work in the MPCA kitchen spend hours

every morning sorting the beans and rice to prepare for lunch.

Since there was not school this afternoon, we got to play with kids,

and Tyler & Mallory spent lots of time teaching this little girl how to blow bubbles.

After leaving MPCA, we spent the afternoon at the Mission Center, and the Skyview team did some more work on the fence.  We watched an(other) amazing sunset, which included sail boats, fishing boats, and fishermen with nets.  Hachemy has been spending time with us in the evenings, and has been teaching some of us how to play his version of Dominoes (we learned last night he prefers this to cards or dice games).

Hoping we don't have rain in the morning so we can visit Degeance (although, after all the rain we've had in the last couple of days, the muddy mountain will be quite a challenge!).

Only 1 1/2 more days for this team, and we're beginning to miss home & plan our last meal together in Miami.  Looking forward to seeing all of you very soon!

~ Kimberlie :)

Hi, All!  We had a great day - a hard morning hike to Dupin, then a relaxing afternoon & evening at the Center.  Torrential thunderstorms last night made the mountain hike muddy & difficult - but we all made it, and no one fell in the river!

We spent the evening welcoming Mike (our videographer who just arrived this afternoon) and Hachemy for dinner, then playing games with cards and dice.  Almost everyone is in bed, and the rest of us are heading there soon.

We are missing home, but still anxious to work hard with the students here for the next couple of days.  Tomorrow is a full day at MPCA, and we'll end Thursday at Degeance.

Wondering how staff meeting will go at our office tomorrow without the two cool girls there?  Don't have too much fun without us!! :)

Sunburn

From Kimberlie: There are 3 very important lessons I have learned so far on this trip... (1) Shorts are NOT optional!  (2) ALWAYS hang on tight! and (3) Apparently, fat IS flavor!  You'll have to ask me in person for more details about those stories. :)

Today was a full day of ministry at our Chardene School with both primary and secondary students. Our Skyview Ranch team did a great job helping with the Good Choices Leadership program for the first time, performing skits and helping our students learn how to avoid being selfish, remaining humble, and putting others before themsleves (Phil 2:3).  Even though things did not go as smoothly as we hoped to begin with, Brent and his team were flexible and made adjustments as needed, and the Haitian students had tons of fun!

 One of our adorable primary students (wearing his MP Leadership bracelet) waiting to

learn about Good Choices from our Skyview team.

I was excited to learn that our Chardene Primary students now receive both breakfast and lunch each school day! 

This was one of several rotated varieties - a sweet & sandy concoction (pronounced "shut-shum") made

of ground corn, ground peanuts, and brown sugar.

Did you know it's HOT in Haiti?  Some of us are sunburned, and trying to avoid more sun, which leaves us in places where the air barely moves.  We're longing for cold water, quickly running out of bug spray (yeah - we didn't plan on that!), and really hoping Miguel can fix the Life Straw at the Center that isn't working.  But despite being uncomfortable at times, the joy we receive when serving him is well worth the momentary lack of our Western comforts!  Nothing can replace the fun we're having loving on kids in Jesus' name - even the ones who don't know what we're saying to them, have no idea what American life is like, and probably don't fully understand the hope & vision we have for how great this country can become through God's grace and the leading of his Holy Spirit.

I loved watching our students receive copies of their student photos!  Many of them have never had a

printed photo of themselves!  This little one kept staring at it and loved showing hers to her friends.

Rene and Heather have spent a lot of time interviewing staff, teachers, and students to learn more about their lives and backgrounds, and we are learning awesome things to share with our donors and sponsors.  Shelby is a great photographer (we've been peeking at her work!), and we're excited that Mike, our videographer, will be arriving tomorrow.  The work that they are doing this week will give us amazing opportunities to share the great things that Mission Possible is doing here in Haiti!

This is a picture Shelby took this morning - a fisherman

on the ocean just outside our Mission Center gate. 

Finally, we will be traveling to Dupin tomorrow morning, then working on the Mission Center fence in the afternoon.  It will be interesting to see the result of mixing intense heat and humidity, paint dust & rust, and red paint with adventerous, high-energy young adults! We'll be sure to take pictures of THAT to share!

I love & miss you, Todd Guys - can't wait to see you in just 4 1/2 days!!

P.S. Someone should really stop in to check in on our male co-workers... We're worried that they won't speak to each other the entire week we're gone and will get too used to a really quiet office!! :)

Bon soir!!

Today we went to church in St. Marc and were welcomed with open arms. We were given the opportunity to lead a worship song during the service as well.  The Haitians were very friendly and gave us all hugs and handshakes after the service. Following the church service we drove around the city of St. Marc, which has a population of 350,000 people (Fun fact from Brent).

Once we got back from church we ate a very delicious lunch and then relaxed the rest of the day. Some of us went swimming in the ocean for quite some time and got roasted by the sun (Tyler). Others sat underneath the pavilion enjoying the view and breeze of the ocean. Overall it was a very relaxing day filled with great conversation and lots of laughs.

-- Kayla

Shout outs:

To the Knoll Family: Brent loves you all so much! He hopes you got his email that he sent yesterday. The plate he has been eating his meals on has the same green leaf design as the first set of plates you had when you first got married and is one of the many times he thinks about you guys throughout the day.

To the SVR Staff: Most of us have been sweating in the ninety plus degree weather except Kayla. We have been diving in the ocean every day after a long day of ministry work, like you have been diving in the snow J.  Erin we hope that you can read this well with your glasses. Also make sure you actually have an inspirational quote for the morning meeting tomorrow. Reilly says arriva derci!

To the Todd Family:  I hope everyone is well and ready for school & work tomorrow.   So many stories to share already – can’t wait to tell you!  Love you tons!!

Hi all! Everything is great down in hot Haiti. We have had such an amazing time and it’s only Sunday! Love and miss you all. The mission center is beautiful and on the ocean. The sunsets are absolutely incredible! Can’t wait to show y’all my pictures. —   Shelby

Heather is asleep, but I’m sure she’d want us to tell Jeff and the family “hi, I miss and love you all!” J

Rene says, “HI LINDA!! You’re almost 30! Happy early birthday!” ;)

A hot day at LaHatte!

Our first full day in Haiti was a great one!! We started off the day taking a bumpy ride up to our school in LaHatte to have a fun day with the kids! We played games, blew bubbles, some of us got our hair done (aka put in a bunch of tiny braids), and we just got to love on the kids. Heather and Rene got the opportunity to work on the Public Relations project by sitting down with some Mission Possible employees and hearing their stories. It was a blessing! While we all talked in devotions tonight, almost everyone talked about their different personal experiences at LaHatte. They noticed how much the children just loved to be near us- they loved to hold our hands, take pictures with us, and genuinely just wanted to be loved. We had an opportunity to walk up through their village as well, and of course we were being accompanied by all of the kids! The pastor at LaHatte walked with us and gave us a little history on the community, which was very kind of him and was interesting for all of us to learn about. Once we got back to the mission center and took care of our sunburns (despite having put on the spf 50 sunscreen that we had applied in the morning), we started working on our gate-painting project! The view of the ocean, and the sound of the waves, made it a pretty relaxing job. :)  Today was so good, we can't wait to see what the rest of the week holds!!

Kimberlie with her little sponsor girl and another little buddy!

Mallory getting loved through pampering and hugs! 

Todd made all sorts of new friends!

Shelby's little shadow! :) 

Working hard on the mission center gate!

We made it! Yay!

We're sleepy and hot... but we made it! We had a really smooth day of traveling; all of our luggage made it with no issues, and we even arrived at the Mission Center with plenty of time to eat some of Manita's infamous Haitian spaghetti and swim a little bit before the sun went down! It's good to be back, and we're anticipating a really great week ahead of us! Thank you for praying for safety while traveling- please continue to do so! :)  We'll write more tomorrow when our eyes aren't totally glazed over and we're feeling a little more awake. :)

-- Rene (and team!)