Preparations

There are a couple of things that I would like to get out of the way immediately.

1. I don't know how to blog and I am not sure who is going to be reading this.
2. The last time that I had to write anything that made sense was in English 102 14 years ago.
3. My wife will read these before I post, but that does not mean that she is thrilled with everything that I put on the blog
4. As a family, we are taking a step in Faith, trusting that the Lord will continue to provide as we prepare for a new phase of life in Haiti.  
5. We appreciate all the love and support that our family, our church, and our friends have provided!

I will try and post once a week for the first month or two to cover all the chaos!
Please leave a comment if you read our blog.  It helps to know that people are interested!

A Short Timeline

• 2015 - God prepares our hearts by making us realize that we need to focus on His work
• January 2016 - Lucas goes to Dumay, Haiti and gets asked to assist in the Solar Project at Hospital Lumiere
• Feb 2016 - Lucas goes to Hospital Lumiere and feels God calling to serve in Haiti
• Feb 2016 - Raya feels God calling her to use her nursing skills for His work.
• April 2016 - Raya applies for a position at Hospital Lumiere after proving out God's calling.
• May 2016 - We start planning to take a trip during the month of July to get a vision for what we could be doing at Hospital Lumiere and how our kids would handle life in Haiti.
• April -Sept 2016 - Worked with HarvestCall and ACCFS to complete the pre-field screening and application process
• July 2016 - We spend 3 1/2 weeks at Hospital Lumiere with all of our kids.  It was hard!
• August -Sept 2016 - We complete the pre-field screening as well as the application process and meet with the Hospital Board.  We accepted a position for a term of 4 years at Hospital Lumiere.
• Sept 2016 - Jan 2017 - We prepare for moving to Haiti by attending multiple counseling sessions with ACCFS.  We make many trips to Sams Club and Walmart for groceries and supplies to send down on the container.  
• Feb 7 2017 - We plan to fly to Maimi, spend the night, and fly into Port-Au-Prince on Feb 8.  

I will try and keep the following blogs shorter, but since this is the first one I had a lot to show!

 

Loading some of the 70+ boxes of supplies, clothes, groceries, and stuff our kids couldn't do without!

Stacking boxes on pallets so we can shrink wrap them

Taking down our pool so it can be put in storage while we are gone

Three of our five pallets worth of supplies on their way to the Bluffton Distribution Center to be loaded in the container.

One last load of misc. stuff that we decided to add.  Also a bunch of mattresses on their way to the Distribution center for the Hospital.  Dog food for one of the missionary family's pet in Haiti.  

One more use for the boxes!

While we were making preparations to go to Haiti, David Z. and his men at the Hospital were busy making some changes to our future home.  In July we had decided that if we ended up living down in Haiti that we would want to do a little remodel work on the house.  It entailed taking out a wall in the living room, repairing our shower in the house, expanding our porch, repairing our depot bathroom as well as a few other things.  The depot is a small building separate from the house but connected by a porch.  It contains our laundry room, storage, and a complete bathroom, that my wife has declared is the men's room!

 The wall being torn out in the living room!

More of the mess after the wall was demolished.

 Preparing for the new concrete on the back porch.  Joel Zimmerman got to see some of the work up close and in person.

 It looks so much better with the wall gone and everything patched smooth.

 Having that wall out really opens the living room up!

 New shower handles!  Now they won't fall off when you try and turn the hot water on!  

 The finished concrete on the back porch. I'm sure the little boys will have many hours of fun playing here.  

 Our new front door. Before, it was a solid wood door that did not let any breeze through.  Now we can get more air movement in the house!

 Our new toilet and sink in our depot!  They were not functional before, but after the remodel work we have two working bathrooms!  It should be a big plus when my wife and daughter camp out in the main bath!

 More of the repaired depot bathroom.  We plan on painting soon after we arrive in country.

Work continues on our new fence around the yard.  Hurricane Matthew made a mess of the original one!

As we continue to prepare for our move in 3 weeks, we ask for everyone's prayers!

Lucas, Raya, Alayna, Tucker, Cy, Henry

God Bless!