Top Ten Bummers:
10. Waiting to go to the beach (which I am doing right now).
9. Bugs in the flour, and rice, and sugar, and....
8. The smell of charcoal fires first thing when you wake up and last thing before you go to bed.
7.  When the Internet goes down.
6. Walking back and forth to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
5. Lack of fresh fruits and vegetables!
4. Being woken up at 6am on a Saturday morning by loud piano music and being woken up at 6am on Sunday mornings by loud music. (Not that I don't love music...just not that early!)
3. My diminished chocolate stash-  3 pieces of chocolate left to last two weeks. Very sad.
2. When my kids get homesick...and when I get homesick for family and friends.
1. Having to say no to children who tell me they are hungry and ask for food. (NVM discourages begging - otherwise it would get out of control.)

Top Ten Blessings
10. We have 6 ice cream cups left in our freezer...waiting for a rainy day to eat them.
9. Our two new kittens who give us the gift of  laughter and fuzzy snuggles.
8. Watching the sunset on the top of a roof.
7. Eating mango cobbler and learning how to make Chinese Food with lots of veggies! Yeah!
6. Our tent is adventurous and helps me really look forward to our staff housing - pray for it to be fully funded and complete soon - March 4th is projected date. Ooohhh! Our own bathroom AND air conditioning! Ooooh!
5. Going to the beach...and taking Fedlaine to see the ocean for the first time. (Waiting patiently, can't you tell!?... Right now they are checking to see if the bus will run...)
4. Seeing people from all over the world work together to accomplish God's provision and blessing for those in Haiti. Pray that many would turn to Him and that this country would be blessed and healed.
3. Surrounded by neat people who love Jesus.
2. Our family is all together and healthy and I have a wonderful husband.
1. God is WITH us in Haiti.

We’ve had an exciting few days here at NVM in Chambrun.  On Wednesday we started digging the foundation for the Children’s Home.  It’s amazing how hard these Haitian men work.  They dig down 30 inches in the hard soil.  They dig the footer for all the walls including the interior walls.  The walls are all concrete block including the interior.  So they all require a foundation under them.  The digging crew of nine men works from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm for $5.00 a day.

Don Bradley arrived earlier this week as well.  He is an architect who had designed our hospital, Children’s Home, and second floor on the preschool building.  He’s here for a few days.  He has been very patiently going over all the plans for the buildings.  He asked me to help him keep an eye on things while he is gone.  So, I’ll be overseeing two separate construction projects.  We have a team of welders coming down the first of March.  They will be welding the steel truss on top of the walls.  We have a lot of work to get done between now and then to make sure everything is ready for them.

Today we got another container in to the compound.  It was full of vitamin fortified rice.  We used the fork truck to unload 38 pallets of food.  Then we took the container off the chassis.  Once we got the container set, we loaded all the food back in.  All the food is taken off the skids when we reloaded it.  Each pallet has 32 boxes on it.  So we loaded 1216 boxes in about 2 hours. I was proud of Anna, Jeremiah, and Jacob.   They pitched in and helped the whole time.  It is amazing how much work a team of 15 people can accomplish when working together.  It reminds me of the Scripture where Paul talks about their being many different parts to the body, yet they all work together to make the body work efficiently.

So God has been so good to us. We had been encouraged to hire someone to help around the "house". We only wanted someone a couple of afternoons a week to help with laundry, but apparently NVM wants precedent set that workers work all day every day, AND that it would be a blessing to someone to have a job. So, for $62 a month a LOVELY young single mom comes all day. She has a 7 year old son who is a real sweetie. She sweeps, does our laundry, cleans our shoes, etc. She also helps Fedlaine with her homework, does her hair, and watches her when I have to go to the store. I am working on teaching her English and she teaches me Creole and I watch her do Fedlaine's hair. I've also been teaching her how to make paper beads. She reads the Bible to me in Creole and I repeat after her. What a huge blessing. Pray that we can encourage her and be a blessing to her and her son.

God was good to me yesterday morning. I took the Elliott's dog, Kofe for a walk into Chambrun. This dog is a hoot. He lives in the fence that surrounds our two tents and chases and barks at any Haitian that comes near the fence. (Not Americans...only Haitians - no joke!) Anyway, I took this dear dog on a walk and felt VERY safe. No Haitians came near me while I walk...which is great since usually the kids all want to come up and hold my hand and I don't get a very good walk in. As Kofe and I walked, we saw pigs, cows, goats, and about got run over by a huge herd of sheep. It was a beautiful morning walking, listening to worship musi

Yes, God has been good to us. Yesterday the trip to the store was accomplished in record time. (Although when Aaron Elliott got behind the wheel, none of the front panel was working - had no idea how much gas we had or how fast we were going... He only tried to run over two cows. AND only saw one dump truck which had crashed into a corner of a building, leaving dirt/manure all over.)

Anyway, as I was saying, God has been so good. I bypassed the $9 container of Edy's ice cream and bought 12 little cups of ice cream for $6. Our first ice cream in 3 weeks! Watched the sunset on the roof of the school with Jay and the kids just before dinner. THEN... right before bed the grapevine spread the fact that there were  GHIRADELLI chocolate chip cookies, just hot out of the oven. One of the team members had brought down the chocolate and they made them as a special treat. Let me tell you... those had to have been the best cookies I have ever had!

This morning that same team got up early and made cheese omelets, hash browns, and bacon for breakfast. I am feeling very full and very spoiled. Thank you, Jesus.

I have to laugh when....
I get attacked by a cricket in the shower.
A donkey's braying wakes me up.
My laundry goes missing...only to find out it got put away in suitcases.
My husband can only learn slang Creole...nothing really useful.
I almost step on a frog in my living room.
We almost get run over by a herd of goats during our evening walk.
Everywhere I go in Chambrun, some kid is there, yelling, "Hey- YOU! What is your name?"
Our two new kittens keep escaping and hiding underneath the pallets our tent sits on.
Fedlaine came home from school today with a different hair-do...do you think someone doesn't like my hair dressing skills?
Everyday my husband makes some sort of comment about ice cream or DQ or something we can't have...
Fedlaine calls Jay, "Ti Grande Moun"... Little Old Man
After Jay tries to sing Fedlaine a song, she says, "Ou pa chante." ... You can't sing.

God’s Mercies
…are new every morning….just sometimes later in the morning. Ha! I think weekends are hard for the kids… missing their worship time and time with family. Anyway, intestinal issues hit me during the day on Monday, while homesickness hit the kids that night in a big way. Then, Tuesday morning, while I was hoping for those new mercies… Fedlaine had a crying fit about going to school.  I was completely undone at that point in the morning…so I went to the office and I called out for prayer. As soon as I walked back to the tent, God gave us the gift of two new kittens, hand-delivered by Dianne Pierre.  

God so answers prayer- Tuesday ended up to be a wonderful day. The kids were happy. I felt better. We moved all of our school to the office so that we won’t be going back and forth between tent and office – and had a great day of school. The afternoon was cooler and the sunset was gorgeous. God’s mercies were definitely new on Tuesday… just in the nick of time. Thank you all for praying. I can tell you they sustain us through each day. God is so good.

It’s Sunday afternoon and Jay was just pulled up from his nap to go help unload 15 boxes from the container for someone. I’m sitting outside our tent trying to catch some breeze while Fedlaine makes pictures with chalk on our little walkway. The boys are reading and Anna went to the beach with the team.  I’m supposed to be working on grading and planning school. It's hard to stop and think about what our time here has been like....there's always something going on and something to do.  Friday night a container came in unexpectedly and the guys spent several hours trying to get it unloaded. Saturday night we made pizza and after dinner I assisted Jay in making cinnamon rolls for Sunday morning (they were REALLY good!) Right now there's a girl at the gate who wants to talk.

It’s been a busy, “a lot” week with a lot of people here.  We’ve done lots of cooking…cookies, pizza, Jay’s cinnamon rolls. Jay’s had lots of issues with generators breaking down. The kids actually got a lot of schooling in. Anna worked in the clinic a lot this week.  And God is definitely on my mind "a lot". He has been reminding me in Isaiah that apart from Him there is no God that He is the One who is my only Savior. No clean well or hand sanitizer or doctor or donor or team or friend or small group can be all that God is or be my Savior. But, He sends those gifts and more to remind me to praise him.

Praise:We had a team here who ran a vision clinic and sewing clinics with women from the community every afternoon. It was a great hit. We also have an idea of running a paper bead making clinic for women….combining it with a women’s health clinic. We heard that in some places they teach women about their menstrual cycle using beads on a necklace, to help teach about natural family planning. Pray that we can get supplies to make this happen, along with getting the CPR Abstinence program up and running.

Jay is planning on trying to figure out what parts he needs for all the equipment on the campus, and making maintenance routine sheets. Praise that Jay has been able to troubleshoot some mechanical problems. Pray that we can get all the parts he needs to get everything up and running.

For my part, I’ve mainly just been doing the homeschool thing, along with helping in the kitchen. I have been slowly working on creating an English curriculum.  Everything is going well, but progress is made in bits and starts, with lots of interruptions. Please pray for perseverance.

We met with the lawyer who represents NVM and who has agreed to be our adoption lawyer on Friday.  Jacques is one of Esperandieu’s friends and has served on Haiti’s Supreme Court as a justice. He indicated that we would not need to go through a crèche (official orphanage) and that he thought he could push this adoption through in 6-8 months. (Amy thinks this would be a miracle!) We were very encouraged, especially since he told Pierre to set up a meeting with Fedlaine’s biological parents next week…feels like he’s ready to work on this in a timely manner.  He wants to sit down with both parents and make sure that they both know that they are not obligated to give Fedlaine up. We are both in agreement that this discussion needs to be had with a lawyer present. Please pray that the meeting would actually happen and that it would go well.

The kids all seem to be adjusting better. Not as many tears this week from the boys. Seems like weekends are the hardest.  School is going more smoothly and Fedlaine seems to realize that we mean what we say.  She seems very happy and content. Please keep praying for all Shultz kids and for wisdom in parenting.

Thank you all for your prayers…we are definitely missing you all!

JAY: We've had one of those days here.  I'm starting to feel like we've had the CAT combine on fire again and the transmission went out!  Our Miller welder/generator that we use during the day to weld with in the evening powers the dorm, broke down at 2:00 am.  We worked most of the morning figuring out what was wrong with it.  Now we're trying to get a part in the States and get it down here.  I'm sure it's about like waiting on a transmission part from Canada!  We went to get the spare generator and the guys didn't have a pintal hitch so they tied straps on it and in the process bent the hitch 90 degrees. 

We were also running a small Miller Bobcat welder generator and someone put gas in the oil.  We thought may be there was diesel in the gas so we drained the fuel tank.  We thought we'd better changed the oil as well.  That's when we noticed the gas in the oil. 

We went to use the cement mixer and it wouldn't run.  It needed a new spark plug. 

The CAT roller/compacter has a bad bearing where it articulates in the center like a 4 wheel drive.  Fortunately we can get one here.

The bulldozer needs new clutches.  It works but only turns left.

Our Bobcat skid steer hasn't run since I've been here.  We replaced a solenoid and it worked for 10 minutes before a low hydraulic oil pressure indicator came on.  The Bobcat Indy North service manager has been great about helping me over the email.  We changed the Hydraulic oil filter, and discovered a leak in a hydraulic line. 

We have a rental CAT skid steer and one of the wheels' studs were stripped out. 

But hey, it's only 4:00 there's still time for something else to break!

At our meeting this morning I prayed that nothing else would break, God must be teaching us something.

Keep us in your prayers.

Jay

So, after several day and time changes, I finally made my first trip to the store yesterday. Accompanied by Dianne Pierre and Shelli Elliott and driven by Walton, we set out at 1pm.

First, however, we had to go pick up Dianne's son from school, which was on the other side of town (45 min.) Next, we drove to the Perdue meat store (30 min.) Picture this: We drive up to a big gate and honk. A man opens a small door in the gate and looks out at us. He opens the door and another man swinging a machine gun beckons us to a small entry way. Dianne goes up to a small window with a small opening in which she has to bend down to speak to the anonymous person on the other side to place her order for 34 cases of chicken hot dogs. Unfortunately, they don't take US dollars, so she makes her way to another office and speaks to a manager, who takes her cash. After they load us up with hot dogs (which cost only 1 dollar less a case than chicken!), we are finally ushered back out of the massive gate. THAT was buying hot dogs...not a drug deal. Ha!

After driving by one store, we decided to go to the one that was having a grand opening day and ten percent off of purchases. (30 min.) But, when we got there, it wasn't ready to open yet, so we had to drive back to the first store. (30 min.) We had to buy chips and buns for the 500 people of Chambrun, so we cleaned out the store's buns and chips. We filled the pack of the pick-up with supplies for the picnic, supplies for the regular kitchen food, and supplies for our individual families.
Grapes: about $10 for about 10 grapes.
Tyson Chicken Nuggets: Twice as much as we pay in the states
Apples and Pears: $.50 each
Dog food: $50 a bag

Then, because it was so late, we had to be dropped off at the Pierre's house so that the driver could go pick the other two Pierre kids from school. 1 hour later, he came back to pick us up. We arrived back at Chambrun in time for dinner at 6pm, 5 hours later and slightly car sick! Ha! Q

...slept in a tent in a tent
...made 200 snickerdoodles with no cream of tartar
...eaten mango cobbler
...loving having my laundry done for me! Can't bring myself to ask someone to pick up after my messy kids...
...realized that I really will eat beans and rice for lunch everyday for the next year
...carried my monkey daughter everywhere...she loves to be carried and snuggled
...put Cortizone cream on Jacob everyday
...accidentally put my toothbrush in the wrong water (from the tap instead of the water bottle) and accidentally put the toilet paper in the toilet instead of the trash can!
...already forgotten to look up at the mountains everyday
...put my small and dwindling chocolate stash in a secure, cool place
...been reading Isaiah and a devotion by Beth Moore
...learning lots of Creole... Mwen remen ou (I love you)  N'ap vini (I'll be right back) Ou rete la (Stay there) Ou grangou? Are you hungry?
...humbly asked for lots of help in doing Haitian hair
...been blessed to have Fedlaine tell me she loves me... in English!
...had lots of opportunities to hug my kids when they are missing home or overwhelmed, and to be proud of them when they smile graciously even when they don't feel like it
...watched my kids take on new adventures bravely... riding in the back of the pickup, trying mango cobbler (except Jacob, who gagged), praying aloud in front of 60 strangers, being surrounded by Haitian kids who all want to touch you and talk to you at the same time
...been falling in to bed earlier than I ever have.
...been trying to be brave enough to really SEE the people who live in such poverty - did you know that during church services Haitian moms usually scope out which Americans have water bottles and then plop their babies/small children on those people's laps?
...missing you all, but very at peace with where I am