Ripe Mango Chronicles

Merry Christmas to you, and our very best wishes for a joy filled New Year! This year was wonderfully chaotic, but we did it to ourselves! We are overjoyed to share that we will be adding a new member to the family in March. Jubilee is over the moon excited, Joseph has pretty high hopes as well, the teenagers are a little less excited about the prospect of having a crying baby in the house, but I’m confident when our baby boy arrives they will be just as in love as they were when we brought Jubilee home! We also adopted a GIANT 9 month old, 75lb, Newfoundland/Labrador mix puppy from the humane society in March. His name is Lou and he is well on his way to 100 pounds already. He is a gentle giant though. We were his 5 th home in 9 months, we don’t understand why. He is a wonderful dog, and just adores our family, especially Olivier. He is really good with children and loves playing with other dogs. He’s working on being more comfortable with adults, as he still gets quite sca...

2018  On this day 8 years ago my life changed forever. I survived one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history and saw, heard and experienced many horrific things. It was a dark time. Out of that darkness came great suffering, suffering I cannot even begin to explain, nor would I ever want to. That suffering was eventually followed by the most intense personal and spiritual growth I have ever and probably will ever experience. Out of the ashes came the Bernard family as it is today. I have been blessed with the incredible honour and privilege of raising three amazing boys who lost their mother that day. And I have been blessed with the most loving and kind hearted husband, who was miraculously spared. Jubilee, named for the year of Jubilee, a great symbol of restoration in years long past, is only here because of that terrible day. Always remember, no matter how dark your circumstance may be, God truly can make something beautiful come out of ...

When people ask how it's [the transition back to Canada] been I struggle to find the words to accurately describe the last 9 months. The best I can come up with is as follows: So good and also completely and utterly overwhelming. What exactly has been so overwhelming? Every. Single. Thing. Literally, every single thing. It's so hard to explain, and it doesn't make sense, but even the most simple thing feels overwhelming. Yet in the midst of those overwhelming emotions I'm also completely numb. I somehow feel everything and nothing in the same emotion. Which is why I struggle to accurately share how it's going. It doesn't make sense to me, so how is it going to make sense to anyone else? So much good has come. I can't even begin to tell you how incredible this journey has been. Being back is so good. Getting to know my nieces and nephews, spending time with old friends, celebrating birthdays and special family events together has just been the bigge...

I had a bad day yesterday. I've been shocked again and again at how insensitive, ungrateful and just plain rude people can be sometimes. I wont go into details of what happened but it's brought about some very strong feelings. Yesterday I was over it. O V E R  I T. In my devotional time this morning I asked the Lord to reveal to me where I am going wrong. Similar situations have happened with this same group of people over and over for a little more than two years. I'm realizing more and more how imperfect I am, and want to stop throwing blame around like confetti undeservingly. Am I the problem? Lord reveal to me the areas I need to grow, the places I need to change, and heaven help me but once again give me the willpower to forgive these people who have hurt me and never seem to realize the damage they have done. After a little too much reflecting and maybe some choice words and emotions spoken in my psyche I have come to the conclusion that the root of my disappointm...

I've come to the conclusion that I will need a lot of therapy to recover from 10 years 4 months and 4 days of life in Haiti. The depth of the pain and betrayal I have experienced personally and as part of the general population of a third world country. The pain I have been witness to, the human rights violations I've seen, the abuse of all kinds, the corruption I've witnessed, the screams of grief I've heard and held deep inside, the tears I've cried, oh the tears I've cried. This country is so dark some days, it can seem like a deep dark evil place where children aren't protected, women aren't valued highly, men rule with an iron fist and death is around every corner. There is a church or NGO on every dusty corner yet the body of Christ does not often work in unity. I've seen people take advantage of natural disasters for personal gain. I've experienced deep hurts inflicted by fellow believers. I'll also need therapy to talk through the m...

On Monday night I shared a prayer request with some friends. I said something along the lines of, "We believe and trust that God is going to come through for us, but I so desperately want something tangible, something I can actually touch, that will assure me this is all going to work out." We prayed together and I left that meeting feeling like God was going to show up in a real way. Tuesday came and went and nothing changed. Then Wednesday night my friends and I started a new Bible study, Gideon by Priscilla Shirer. About 20 minutes into the study Priscilla shared something and I felt like the Lord was speaking to me directly. This is what I heard: We get to see God move when we step out of a safe and comfortable existence and put ourselves in situations where God has to move, when we take a step of faith that requires God to show up in a real way for us or it all falls apart. But how often do we put ourselves in these situations where we become desperate for God? T...

The fear surrounding hurricane Matthew was immense. I'm talking terrifying. The giant angry red blot on the radar. Words like category 4, catastrophic, total destruction, villages washing away. This is what we were hearing, and this is what we were expecting. That Sunday Kenol told our congregation the hurricane was coming, and that it was expected to be huge, much bigger than anything we've had in recent history. The church spent time praying for the hurricane to weaken and for protection over the country. I was thankful he announced it because everyone I talked to really seemed to have no idea that it was coming. I can't tell you how many times I pulled my phone out to show the terrifying radar images, "See the red part, that's the hurricane! It's bigger than the entire country. It's going to be terrible. You need to take this seriously! " I cried out in my panicked voice. Most everyone just smiled and said, "God knows" or "We'll...