When Lex is Away…

Lex headed to Massachusetts on Friday.  Saturday a friend asked me if I missed him.  I suddenly became bi-polar.  Part of me thought, “he JUST left yesterday!” and the other part said, “OHHHHH do I miss him.”  Now, our kids have said recently that we’re “lovey dovey,” but that is NOT the reason I was missing him.  The REAL reason had nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with responsibilities.  When Lex is here I can make decisions, but I can always just give my opinion and let Lex make the decision – which is often my preference.

The kids and I dropped Lex off Friday morning.  Immediately I had the responsibility to get one of the vehicles repaired, which meant doing what I needed to do quickly, because Pastor Hakine was waiting for me to bring him money for the repair.  Part of what I was doing was picking up some items at a grocery store in the mountains overlooking the capitol.  I hardly ever go to the city, so when I do, I usually will go to the grocery store – it’s like being in America for an hour every few months!  This particular time, however, we managed to get stuck in the store’s elevator!!!  I was glad it was only Jordan, Alexis, A. Jay and I, so we could tell jokes until someone opened the door for us.

The boat was getting swamped

The traffic was terrible, so we didn’t get back to Grand-Goâve until about 5pm.  Around six I get a phone call from Alexis, down at the guest house.  “Mom, the boat is full of water and the ocean is too wild for anyone to get to it.  There’s nothing we can do…”  In my mind, I see the boat full of water with just the railing sticking over the top of the ocean.  The reality was that the ocean was throwing it around like a ping pong ball, so the back of it was full of water a lot of the time.  Now I have to decide what to do about the boat.  I make some phone calls and gather some men together to go get the boat.  I think to myself, “I’ll stay here and let them handle it, so we can fit an extra guy in the car, since I won’t be much help pull the boat out.”  But then it occurs to me that someone has to make decisions – decisions that Lex would normally make.  If I don’t go and something goes wrong, it’s totally MY fault.  YIKES!  I go down to the ocean.  We had a about 20 guys there and were able to get the boat to safety.  It was good that I went, because I was able to make more decisions.  I got to enforce my decisions, too…  “Yes, I know you think it’ll be alright here, but it’s much easier to push it up another 25 yards right now than it will be in the middle of the night when someone realizes the ocean flooded this area and the boat is in the water again!”  “I know it’s not really necessary to tie it to the trees, but it’s not really that difficult and if there WERE to be unusual circumstances, it would keep the boat from floating away.”

I miss Lex a lot when he’s gone, because the decisions I have to make are a lot different from “which email am I going to respond to first?”

Computers

Today I had the privilege of meeting with our friends from Child in Hand and One Laptop per Child.  In just over a week, a team from OLPC will be coming to train twenty of our students on laptops.  I’m so excited – you have NO idea!!!  One of the things that they may be learning about is investigative reporting – using the laptop to take pictures and make a cartoon of a story they witnessed.  Perhaps the children at MOHI will one day be publishing a newspaper for the school or maybe even for the city.  How cool is that?  I really appreciated the conversations I had with Adam Holt, the country director for Haïti.  It was obvious to me that he wasn’t a novice in international affairs and working within the Haitian culture.  I am looking forward to the training and working with OLPC long-term.

Friends

Tim, Renée, Ginger and Emery

We met Emery and Jeannita Gaudet when our kids were little.  Whenever we were Stateside during “yard sale weather” we would go to yard sales.  I was a major book-aholic.  I would read to my children daily and as they began learning to read I wanted to have books available for them.  Lex, of course would always look for things like used tools.  Emery and Jeannita hold an annual yard sale to benefit an organization they work with here in Aquin and so when we came upon their place in Leominster, MA we had a lot to talk about.  Last year Emery helped on the school construction and the Be Like Brit orphanage.  It was great to see him today and to make a couple of new friends – Ginger and Tim.

Children and Music

Church in Thozin this morning was full of all sorts of praise and worship.  I put some video clips together so that you could enjoy a glimpse of the diversity.

We have so many beautiful children in the church.  I just have to share pictures of some of them with you…

Music was already playing when Kristy arrived. She was really entering into His temple with thanksgiving and praise this morning!

Woud is safe in the arms of her cousin, Figenia.

Lovena likes the camera

Stanley, Kendy’s baby brother, is feeling all grown up these days. He actually sat on my lap during the service this morning!

They are precious in His sight!

School Construction

The school is transforming before my eyes!  As the painting progresses, we are starting to see just how beautiful this school will be.  This week we started building flower beds in front of the building.  They are being built out of the local green rocks we see here in Grand-Goâve.  Do you like them?

Flower bed construction