Christmas Adventures

Family and Friends,

Day 51 of our Haiti Adventure!

We are doing well here and hope to have regular internet access again, or at least fairly regular.  We dream of the day when we can have it at home, but we know that will come soon enough.  We hope you all enjoyed a great Christmas with family and friends.  We heard you got some snow!  Sounds like fun.  We are looking forward to a great 2011, and some teams from our hometown of Sioux Center will be down here to visit soon.  We'll be sure to keep you updated on everything that happens.  Below are some adventures we experienced right before and after Christmas.  Enjoy!

Dec. 23, 2010-


Today was a memorable day. We finished what we needed to do for homeschool yesterday and decided to take today off from school. It was also Elizabeth's turn to go with me to the market. She was excited to go, and we headed down to the road at about 8 o'clock.

Soon a tap-tap came along heading for the market. A tap-tap is a pickup truck with benches in the back for public transportation. I told Elizabeth earlier that day that we would probably be riding with 32 other people in the truck. I was wrong. There were actually 35 after we got in...and another four or five in the cab. Many of the people also had their produce to sell in the market stashed in various places. Amazing.

We arrived at the market and started looking for the supplies we will need for our Christmas dinner...potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, and some other items. Earlier this week someone came to the door and let us know they were slaughtering their pig...we agreed to buy a hunk of it, and that meat is waiting patiently in the freezer for the big day. Actually, we are preparing a big meal on the Sunday after Christmas. Patchouko and his wife, Jesoula, are preparing a Haitian meal for us on Christmas day.

There is always quite a commotion when I go to the market. Between the people just standing there gawking at me, the beggars trying to get my attention, and the various vendors trying to lure me in and rip me off, it is quite a scene. Then I took Kester to the market one day, and the hub-bub doubled. Today, with Elizabeth in tow, the response was even more remarkable. The people here are just fascinated by “white” kids, and especially by the girls. They love their hair and many come up and try to touch it. That drives Alexandra nuts, but Elizabeth handles it pretty well.

We found what we needed at the market and got ready to return home. One great thing you java-drinkers will appreciate is that the coffee here is actually very good. Before the US embargo of the 90s, it is said that Haiti's coffee was approaching the quality and reputation of Jamaican coffee, which today sells for as much as $50/pound in the US. So Haitian coffee is very good and it goes for around $2-$3/pound at the market. Just one of the many perks of being a missionary! I hope to one day buy a big bucket of beans which haven't been roasted yet and send them back to my brother Adam who has a coffee-shop and roasterie. I'll let you know if that ever happens and those are ever available to be sampled.

Later in the day we went to pray with a couple of families in the village. One is Starlan's family, whom Pam led to Christ recently (see the post "Here for a Purpose" from Dec. 13), and we have continued to meet with them and encourage them during their early days of following Christ. We were happy to hear that they attended church, and Starlan has been doing much better. They are always so pleased to see us, and the mother said something memorable. She was thanking us for helping Starlan, and she said, “My fingers weren't long enough to help my daughter.” I recognized right away she was speaking figuratively, and I always get a kick out of Haitian culture and how people here intertwine these language patterns and proverbs with everyday conversation.

Another key moment today was a walk I took with Patchouko. We went to look at an ocean-side property Pam had purchased this year for future development. We wanted to see if there was any fruit to pick there (there wasn't...people had stolen everything) and to look around at the land a little bit. The piece of property starts at the road and goes down to the ocean, where there is a pretty little beach. It is about 2 acres and one can only imagine and speculate what such a property would cost in Florida or other coastal regions in the US.

We began to wander down the beach toward a cliff overlooking the sea. I have always been fascinated with this little spot, because you can see it from the road and from anywhere in the bay. We climbed up the pasture and garden leading to the cliff and found it lined with bushes and trees. We followed the ridge to a small home and cooking shed near the road. If you have visited on one of the mission trips, this property I am describing is near the “Welcome to Ti-Rivier” sign.

It suddently dawned on me that this ridge leading to the cliff is almost perfectly level with the road. In other words, if someone had a vision to buy this property and construct a facility (let's say for a Bible school as an example), the main building could overhang the cliff and have a panoramic view of the ocean to the east and south and the mountains to the north and west. Not only that but the property could be easily accessible from the road for any students (or a professor's wife) who have limited mobility, and all of it could connect to the property already purchased by Pam for Mission Haiti.

It was just one of those moments when my imagination took over and I saw what “could be” with a little prayer and dreaming and perseverance. We'll see what God does with that, but all-in-all it was a very inspiring day.

Dec. 27, 2010-

We enjoyed a great Christmas here in Haiti. Tonight we will have one last celebration of food with our friends and neighbors. Yesterday we cooked a meal for Patchouko and Jesoula, our co-workers who live here in the Mission Haiti compound with us. We got our hands on some pork and put together a thoroughly American meal. The biggest difference was probably the portions of meat. Here you normally get a small portion of meat if you have meat, like maybe 5 people sharing 3 chicken legs or something like that, so it was nice to spoon several hunks of pork onto each person's plate.

Everyone really likes Lynn's homemade bread as well, and people want to learn how to bake it. She wants to perfect it a little bit more before teaching others. The dough has been very sticky here and has required more flour than normal. Also, even though the temperatures are high, the bread takes longer to rise before baking. To regulate the temperature on the propane oven takes some careful oversight as well. We are getting better at the whole process, and luckily Mission Haiti accidentally bought way too much flour recently (I was there when it happened but deny any and all responsibility for the mix-up) which needs to be used up before it rots. I guess we will be baking! Too bad butter costs about double in the US or we could stuff ourselves on cookies every day.

We hope your Christmas Adventure was great!
-Grimm Family Adventurers