School has been going great.  It keeps me very busy.  Both the kids and I seem to be finally getting back into the swing of things.  I'm so impressed with how much my kids have remembered from last school year.

This past Tuesday, one of our teachers had to leave school and go to the hospital because he had contracted cholera.  All of our teachers and students joined together to pray for him.  We, the teachers, visited him at the cholera clinic after school on Wednesday.  The patients sleep on cots made of tarp with holes cut in them for their uncontrollable diarrhea.  I know that he is glad to finally be released today.   We praise God that he has recovered and is healthy again.

Please pray for the cholera problem.  It appears that it may have spiked again.  We have been hearing of more and more cases lately and with the poor sanitation in Jubilee, cholera would be bad news if it were to spread again.

Yesterday was an interesting day in Gonaives.  Little did I know, all day while I was teaching, there were riots going on very close to my house.  There are several rumors floating around as to the reason.  When I drove home from school on my motorcycle, I unknowingly drove through tear gas that the wind had blown in the direction of my house.  Needless to say, that wasn't too enjoyable.  All afternoon and evening, we watched from my 2nd story porch as UN soldiers and Haitians fought in the street 100 yards from my house.  Watching clouds of tear gas and hearing gunshots all evening is a little unsettling.  Thankfully, we were safe and sound in our house.  Even more thankfully, it seems that all is well this morning and back to normal.

There is certainly never a dull moment here!

A Startling Reality

If you have ever wondered just how much malnutrition affects child development, this is something you should see.

BOTH children in this photo are 12 years old.  The little boy on the left is in my class, and he has struggled with malnutrition all his life.  The boy on the right is American and has had access to food and health care all his life.

Malnutrition affects my students in so many ways, and everyday we fight to overcome obstacles together.

First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school at Academie La Saline, and we could not have asked for a better day!  The teachers arrived an hour early to school for devotions.  I was the devotional leader for the day, and we talked about putting praise and worship first before all things.  I think it was a perfect way to start the day.

The students arrived excited with smiles on their faces, and they all had a great day!  They learned about classroom procedures and practiced classroom routines with their teachers.

I think we are off to a great start for the year!  (Pictures coming later...sorry, I'm too tired!)

I'm still here

Hi friends!  It has been quite some time since I've updated you.  We have had our fair share of struggles this fall, but yesterday all the teachers at Jubilee school went back to work.  The students are scheduled to start school on Monday!

After the announcement that we had to close school for one month, the Jubilee community stepped up to help us.  Parents and friends donated whatever money that they could to help.  With their help, we were able to move up the school start date.  We only had to close school for two weeks instead of a full month!  God is good!

I think we all feel as if we lost a little of our momentum with the time that we've had off.  We are all trying to get our heads back in school mode to prepare for the first day on Monday.  Please pray that all the teachers will be prepared and excited for the start of school, and that all of our students will be there on the first day.

I'm sure that many of you have been wondering what I've been doing with this extra time off school.  Most of you know that I moved into a new apartment when I came back in August.  I love to do household projects, but I don't have a lot of spare time outside of school to do them.  When I make my list of priorities, that always seems to fall to the bottom.  But with this extra week and a half off, I had the time I needed to do some work at my house!   I live in a great little apartment, but it was in some need of a little TLC.   So, I was excited to get to work.

My good friend Tia (another teacher at our school) has been living with me temporarily and will soon be moving into the apartment above mine.  She loves to paint and do projects so she offered to help me.  At first, we were just going to paint one room and touch up the trim.  However, the more we worked, the more creative and excited we got about our project.  So, we kept adding more and more to our household to-do list.  We worked HARD.  Almost everyday for a week straight we worked nonstop on the house.  We did cleaning, organizing, scrapping, painting, and we even rehung the bathroom door.  For two days, we worked from 9 am until midnight!

I'm quite proud of all the work we did.  I feel like I'm becoming a handy woman!  Since Gonaives is a little far for you to visit and see in person, I took pictures to share with you.

The tools and paint colors are very limited in our tiny hardware store so we had to work with what we could find.  That meant we did a lot of our own paint color mixing.  The trim in the house was originally gray and peeling off.  I repainted it a nice light blue color.

in progress

 It really brightened up the house.  When the power went off, we broke out the head lamp so that we could keep working on after sundown.

With the leftover paint from the trim, we added stripe accents in the kitchen to break up all the gray.

I also painted the two tin cans on the right side of the counter that we recycled and use for storage.

While some of my friends were over, they mentioned that my bathroom was a little "creepy".  I had to agree considering that it is quite small, doesn't have any windows, the bathroom door opened inward blocking the light switch and toilet, and the light switch didn't have a cover so it just dangled dangerously.  We decided since the bathroom is so small, it wouldn't be hard to fix it up and slap a fresh coat of paint on it.  Like I said, the paint colors are limited.  So, we mixed to get a peachy color to replace the original cream color.  I bought a light switch cover and screws at the hardware store and we had a whole new bathroom in a matter of hours!

Before/After

BEFORE

AFTER

While I worked on painting a self and a bench...

Tia worked hard on painting a beautiful mural and quote on the porch!

The sun was setting so the lighting was weird for this picture but it says, "Even after all this time the sun never said to the earth, "you owe me".  Look what happens with a love like that: it lights up the whole sky." -Hafiz

After Tia was finished with the mural, I worked in my "garden" on the porch.  I repotted plants, reorganized them, and planted herbs.

The porch is small but it is my green sanctuary.  There's a general lack of plants and trees in Haiti so I love growing as much as I can in my little space.  I never knew how much I love plants until I moved here.  Now, gardening is one of my favorite pastimes.  The neighbors below have started noticing the green and asking me to share plants with them!

My favorite addition is this beautiful hibiscus plant that I bought in Port-au-Prince!

I could stare at it all day!  It is SO beautiful!

Hibiscus reminds me of my grandma because she used to always grow the most beautiful hibiscus in her garden.  I hope that I have inherited her green thumb!

The kitchen in "the safe house" is especially small.  I wanted to make the most of the limited space that we have and de-clutter.  I added hooks to our shelf to hang mugs and save on space.

 I reorganized the stairwell cubby in the kitchen.  It freed up enough space to move the stove to a better location.  Where the stove used to be, my friend Scott is going to build a small extension onto my counter so I have more space!  (Yes, we do use a little camping stove for our cooking!)

And now, time for the grand finale.  The final step of "Extreme Makeover Haiti Edition":  THE TORTURE CHAMBER.

Last year before I lived here, my friend Chris lived in a tiny room, or closet (we're not really sure), that we fondly called "The torture chamber."  It is a tiny windowless room that had unpainted concrete walls and one creepy light bulb hanging from the ceiling.  Because it is so small and so dark, it was difficult to get before pictures.

From inside the room looking out to the hall....

the torture chamber in all its glory....

the little corner where Chris used to sleep.  I don't know how he did it!

Now you understand how it got it's name?  We were using water based paint and it was very thin so it took three coats of cream colored paint to cover up the concrete. 

With leftover paint from the bathroom, we got creative and painted a chevron ombre accent wall!

Tia the artist drew it all out freehand and we painted it without tape.

Almost finished.....

In a matter of two days, the creepiest room in the house was transformed into the cutest!

The room is too small to actually fit a twin bed, so with some grass mats and a camping pad, we created a little bed for guests.  Friends, you are welcome to come sleep in our torture chamber any time :)

It is amazing what a transformation we made with just 5 cans of paint and some hard work.  Now, the apartment feels more like my own, and it is a beautiful sanctuary for me to relax in after long days at school!  I couldn't be more pleased with the result!

I know many of you are curious what the apartment/neighborhood is like, so I hope to give you a video tour soon!

Teacher Training

During teacher training, we taught sessions for our Haitian teachers on how to write lesson plans, how to ask high level thinking questions, how to teach problem solving and creative thinking, how to create routines in your classroom, and how to handle behavior.  We also saved time for fun team building activities.

We sure did entertain the Jubilee community with our crazy games.

Teacher training was also a great time to hear our teachers hearts for the children.  In the past, working at our school was simply a job for most of the teachers.  A way to earn money.  Recently, we've seen a change in their attitudes and hearts.  We see the love that they have for the children.  We see their desire to help change Jubilee.  One particular moment really touched my heart.  After we received our class lists, Fresnel (pictured below) chuckled to himself when he saw his.  He was assigned a class that is especially difficult.  His comment was, "Wow, I have a sick class this year."  

The next day, he was in charge of devotions.  As he was speaking to us, he shared that he had been thinking and praying about his class.  As he was praying, he said that the Lord brought something to mind.  He shared that even though he was assigned a very difficult class with low level students, he knows that with God, a king could rise up from that class and so he is not going to give up on them.  He shared that he is going to work hard, pray for them, and love them this coming year.  

H o l y.