Moving to Haiti...we hope!

Greetings friends and family!  This is a simple update of the progress we are making as we prepare to relocate to Haiti. 

As a side note, we started homeschooling today in order to ease the transition to the mission field.  We thought it would have been much harder to pull the kids out of school, probably mid-semester, move down to Haiti, and start homeschooling from scratch.  Day 1 went very well!  Kester already had a math problem to which Daddy didn't know the answer.  We'll keep you updated on how this goes.

We had a great discussion the other day with an old friend about what we should do with our house, which we are trying to sell.  We had briefly considered the option of renting it out, but after going through a process of assessing our financial situation and our goals, we arrived at the conclusion that the wisest option for us right now is to sell the house and not try to be landlords from 2,000 miles away.  So we are drastically reducing the price, ramping up our advertising, and praying REALLY hard.

Another important decision came out of that conversation.  Our friend helped us take a hard look at our goals for moving to Haiti.  People often ask us, "How long do you think you will live down there?"  But we never know quite what to say.  We hope we will be able to live and work down there for a very long time, but people with much more perseverance, faith, and resolve than us have left the mission field after only a year or two, so we can't say for sure what will happen in the future.  So our friend helped us to think of it in a different way, and this is what we came up with:

We will live in Haiti for the rest of this school year (minus the time it takes to sell our house and move down there), come back to visit and raise financial support next summer, and then return to Haiti for the 2011-2012 school year.  This will be a 18-month or so trial period where we will assess for sure whether God is calling us to live down there for a very long time or not.  Towards the end of that trial period we will be better equipped to make that decision, and if at that time it becomes clear that we are not cut out to live in Haiti, it won't be a complete failure.  We will have worked as hard as we could for the 18-month trial period, and then we would figure out how to move forward from there.  On the other hand, if we know at the end of the trial period that we are called there for many years, we will also feel confident about taking on larger projects such as building a Bible School and College, etc...

One other thing we had promised earlier and we would like to include on this blog entry...the list of costs associated with making the move to Haiti.  We are putting this list out to everyone we know and asking people pray about helping us financially with these extra expenses.  If God puts it on your heart to help us out, just contact us about more information.  All donations are tax-deductible as always, and it will be fun to see how each item on the list gradually gets checked off as we prepare to go!  Here it is:

Additional Expenses for Moving to Haiti


Homeschooling Curriculum- $962
Passports / Immunizations- $450
Plane tickets / in-country travel (one way)- $2500
Table & chairs- $300
Beds (around $200 each)- $800
Other furniture (shelving, etc...)- $500
Generator- $1500
Stove- $250
Freezer- $350
House accessibility updates- (not sure yet)
Phone set-up- $100
Internet set-up- (not sure yet)