Ripe Mango Chronicles

Good Friday and Easter Sunday are pretty important days in the Christian faith. It’s what our entire belief is based on. Without Jesus there would be no Christianity. Without Jesus there would be no salvation. Without Jesus we would be a lost and lonely people with no hope. I am thankful for Jesus, and the sacrifice He made for me. Tonight at the Good Friday service a few verses really stuck out to me. …the punishment that brought us peace was on him and by his wounds we are healed . We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:5-6 Those few lines sum up so much of where my hope is found. I have been, and continue to be healed through Jesus Christ. That being said I still sometimes go astray and turn to my own way, but God still laid all my iniquities on Jesus, knowing how many times I have and will need forgiveness. We sang a beautiful song tonight too, the chorus says, “A

Whenever a new child comes in to the orphanage I always take some time with their family to get their story, where they came from, their family history and why the family made the decision to bring them to the orphanage. It is so important when the children get older, and start to ask questions, that we can share their stories with them, so I was a little bummed when I found out via email that we had a new child in the orphanage, and I would have to wait 2 days to get back to Haiti to meet him. All I knew was that the child was male and about 20 months old. When I got back to Haiti I went straight to the baby room to meet little Mackenlove. He was fast asleep when I came in so I just got to take a peek at the little guy. Over the next few days I was asked a number of times what his story was, but I still had no idea. Then on Sunday at church a woman came to greet me and shared with me how happy she was that her son was in the orphanage now, and it all came together. I have me

Today I witnessed a beautiful miracle. I saw God's love poured out in a lovingly selfless act. Today I saw the hands and feet of Jesus at work. Today in Leveque something amazing happened. It started with something terribly sad. A newborn baby was dropped into a latrine and left to die. Something I cannot fathom and which shatters my heart. I cannot even begin to understand what went through this mother's mind as she let go of her baby and watched him fall into the dark pit. Thankfully God has a wonderful plan for this little life and his sweet cry was loud enough to be heard by a good samaritan passing by, who quickly called Pastor Williamson, the deaf pastor from Leveque. A group of people worked together to smash the cement cover off the latrine carefully so the baby would not be injured. Then they somehow used some metal bars and a net or basket of some sort to lift the baby out of the pit. Miraculously he only had a few scraps on him. The community came together to care

One of, if not the most difficult thing I have encountered in my 6 and a half years on the mission field is relationships. There are so many dynamics to the relationships we experience here every day. Relationship between North American staff members is a tricky one, on so many levels. We live together, we work together, we eat together (some people do anyway), we go to the grocery store together, we take our days off together, we work out together, we go to church together, we go to Bible study together, we live just a few meters away from each other, when we go for a walk we see each other, we see each other all dressed up for Sunday, in our pajamas and after we have just thrown up. We are in each others faces 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is a situation not many will ever experience. It can be amazing, it really can, and some of my closest friends have been my next-door neighbours or roommates over the years. It can be hard too though, especially when people leave. We are

I was sitting in my office earlier this week, working on some reports, when I heard my name being called out over and over by a number of cute little voices. A moment later 8 toddlers came running into my office for an afternoon visit. The kids must have been talking about coming up to my house before they came into the office because they all started asking when they could come to my house. We have kids up at the house often for different things; birthday parties, sleep overs, baking cakes, watching movies and so on. Well apparently word got out to the toddler room that our house is where all the fun happens. They were so excited when I told them I would bring them up on Saturday afternoon for a pool party. They talked about it all week and we had an absolute blast! How many people can you fit in a 9x9 pool? A lot more than you might think! It was a little chaotic, but it was also SO MUCH FUN! Hannah is just so cute!! Matthew was swimming all around and had an absol