Ripe Mango Chronicles

I am sitting in my office all alone. There is a fairly strong breeze coming through to the point that I have to be careful my papers don’t fly away, and I hear nothing. No screaming, no whining, not even any giggles. It seems like so long since I have had a moment like this that I don’t even know what to do, and so I cleaned out some of my desk and now I write. The Village of Hope kids have been off school for a record breaking 4 months.   Four months of vacation is not necessarily a good thing when you have 65 children, most of which are teenagers, to keep busy.   To say the least it has been a very long and exhausting four months. We did have a fun filled summer though! Trips to the beach, Fort Jacques, St. Marc and the National Museum as well as a week of Crazy Games and a Miss Mission of Hope pageant. A number of our teens worked as interpreters this summer, and another group of kids volunteered every day with VBS. Plus we had tons of other activities; macramé, bane...

I've been really intentional lately with the time I spend with the kids. On Sunday afternoon I had about 20 kids come up to hang out, 12 boys plus our three hung out in the play room, watching movies and making a giant mess, while the girls and I baked cookies. It was lots of fun. I've been amazed at how quickly things have turned around at the orphanage, I'm so thankful my eyes were opened to the fact that the kids just needed some extra love and attention! I feel like so many of the kids attitudes have changed completely. I'm so thankful to see smiles, letters and hugs again! The teenage boys are still not too happy with me, but we will get there I am sure of it. One day at a time. This afternoon the activity we had planned was canceled so I decided to invite all the girls up for a dance practice. It turned into a big dance party and was so much fun. Here is a little sample of some of their moves! Please continue to keep the orphanage kids and ...

The boys were so cute today all dressed in matching outfits I had to do a photo shoot with them before they changed! This is Olivier (7) and Joseph (4), they are best buds!  Here are all three of the boys; Olivier (7), Joseph (4) and Joshua (8).  Olivier has this model pose he always sneaks in!  Here is Joshua getting ready for their jump shot.  Joseph just being cute.  The boys had fun doing this shot.

Since I moved to Haiti there has been much to learn, so many fun things, new things, cultural things, things that didn’t make sense, things that were hilarious, things that were shocking. I have learned all about; cell phone etiquette, toe nail extensions, sand paper foot scrubbers, cat for Christmas, lime juice with milk, proper wardrobe colour coordination, bread soup, why it is not a good idea for single people to consume spicy food, energy drinks and passion fruit juice, that lots of creole words mean more than one thing so you really need to be careful how you use them or you might end up accidentally telling your pastor how good it has been to be intimate with him when all you really meant to say was , “It was nice to meet you”, not all fruit trees bear fruit, even when they flower,   how to cut string with rocks, how to fix a bad car battery connection with a rock, that crazy people in Haiti throw rocks, that under Haiti’s layer of rocks is another couple layers of ...

The most common question I’ve been hearing lately is, “how has it been being a full time mom to the boys?” Well…it hasn’t been easy balancing 65 children that I consider mine but don’t live in our house, 1 husband who I adore, and 3 boys who have magically appeared in every moment of my life; morning, noon and night. Here is an honest answer to that question: Last Sunday one of our teenage girls, one that I’m normally pretty close with, lost it on me, she just started yelling at me, was incredibly rude and actually hung up the phone on me. This was her second fit of this sort in the past two weeks. I told her she was not allowed to go to youth group as a result of her behavior. A few hours later I was standing in the gym when the kids came up from youth, and to my surprise there she was wandering up the hill with the rest of the teens. I called her over and told her we would meet the next morning to discuss everything that had happened that day. Monday morning after devotion ...

Today started off like any other day, alarm goes off at 6:30, I cringe, hit snooze. The alarm goes off again at 6:40, I cringe again but this time force myself out of bed. Then I start the morning scramble getting ready for our 7:30 devotion with the kids. We sing a few worship songs, spend some time praying together and then I share a short devotional. Ironically this morning I talked about how priceless life is, how we don’t ever know what tomorrow will hold so we better make sure we are doing what God has called us to do today. I had forgotten something at home so I went back up for a few minutes. Kenol was on the phone with the church secretary explaining some report he needed her to work on when she got in to the office. Not 10 minutes later he got a call that there had been a terrible accident and Madame David, the church secretary was badly injured.  We made our way down to the clinic to see if she was still there. We pulled up, and there were people everywh...

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. There is so much to share with you, there just hasn't been any time to sit down and put it on the screen! Kenol and I are doing great, the boys are here and LOVING life on campus. I was shocked today to find out that they already know all the Hope House kids names. I knew they knew all the kids their age, but 3 of the teenage boys popped in this evening and they knew them too. They're having so much fun playing with all their buddies and are in LOVE with Katie Anderson, the Activities coordinator at the orphanage. All three of them have major crushes on her! I've been adjusting to life as in instant full time mom. It's been way  more of an adjustment than I ever imagined. The most shocking part of it  all is how the boys moving in full time has affected the Hope House  kids. They're having to adjust to sharing my attention and it has been  quite the challenge for everyone.  We've also bee...