Lydia has been a real blessing here.... helping with extra domestic duties such as hanging laundry, scrubbing floors, meal prep, dishes....and just being someone familiar from home. She has also helped at Clinic with taking blood pressures and such. This has been nice for our nurses with their busy days the first week we were here- as well as good (but stretching) for Lydia to get a crash course into Haitian culture and language. She had been with us before when we came here two years ago to help build the house for Don's but this is a lot more of a real Haitian experience for her. Not knowing the language is one of those natural frustrations in a foreign culture... So Lydia is thankful for every little bit she picks up on. I'm not sure how we will get along without her servant heart around here. Janelle (the expert house help young lady here) is very good at doing a lot of work to keep the houses running smoothly, but with my extra little ones we've really been glad for Lydia :)

The other day we took a family walk mid-morning. We stopped at a local man's house whom we know and watched him and his helper working a wood laithe. It was amazing watching how he made very primitive tools turn out beautiful bed heads, chairs and tables. No motors or electricity were used.

I've had some days where I could do school with the boys and other days where an extra project took it's place. As parents with young ones in the midst of such a busy place we have to keep our pulse on their hearts to know when they just need to spend time with Daddy and Mommy. Tabitha has had some fairly rough nights being up more than usual. We did notice she popped a tooth through successfully and then she slept very well, so hopefully that will continue. Being up a lot with our little one makes for days with a little more fuzziness around the edges....

                   

                     Tabitha couldn't figure out how to keep
                            this slippery mango seed in her hands
                   so she finally managed to hold tight
                         this way.

Theodore helping Daddy prepare  to
make cement for the gazebo steps
where they plan to group the young
people or children who come for
Bible classes or such.

We have been very anxious for rain. Some of the dear people are very concerned their bean crops will fail if we don't see some soon. We have been very grateful to see a few small showers lately, but we sure need more.  Your prayers are appreciated!

      

Kindra Stohl sharing her Green Heron
chick pet with my very pleased boys.
We've enjoyed feeding and playing
with it.

Our boys examining a large Katydid
with a beautiful iridescent blue belly.
It stayed in our house as a pet for a
couple days until we gave it freedom.

My dear Sweetheart winning my heart all over again by picking Moringa leaves so that I can tincture them.  This is a very healthful tree that I had planted when I lived here.  The leaves have all the essential vitamins and minerals humans need.

Hello from Haiti!

We are safely here at the Ailegue mission.  Our two days of travel were exhausting -as might be expected, but our family didn't miss any flights and we were able to spend the night at a hotel in Florida which was refreshing after being in airports all day.  Lydia, however wasn't able to travel with us as hoped.  We had an unexpected problem with her tickets and she actually had to sit in the SF airport from 5a.m. when we arrived together until 5:30p.m. when she finally flew out.  We met up the next morning at the Florida airport where we flew together to Haiti.  Poor girl was very ready to meet up with us.

Our trip through Port was one of running errands, weaving through typical Haitian traffic, escaping a near miss with a big Mack truck that would give us no room but to veer off the road.... Ahhh! Poor Julian- our driver- was gracious with my involuntary exclamations. My(Kara's) later exhaustion might have been equally from stimulation as from lack of sleep - ;-).

Here at the mission we are finding our place after getting unpacked and rested up.  The children are thrilled with the play place they have.... The compound is fenced and there are lots of aunts and a couple uncles to interact with.  There is even a playful puppy and a cat to run with.  Life at home might seem pretty tame when we go back. :-). They like to watch the goat, pigs and rabbits by turn too.

Tabitha is doing great also.  She has done surprisingly well with the Haitian people holding her.  She had become pretty shy at home, but somehow she prefers the black skinned friends here and loves to be held and jabbered at by them.  We think it might be because of Eugene and my personality being similar to their animated conversation.  The children are learning some Haitian greetings and brushing up on how to speak respectfully.... Good opportunities to keep forming life skills and character.

Eugene has been learning the ropes doing a little of this and that... He fixed the faucet in our kitchen here and sharpened a local man's axe head, did something with some tanks of propane.  Soon here I think he will be taking the boys and going for an errand with one of the vehicles.

I(Kara) feel more settled as I am finding a place for everything and getting a feel of the schedule and my responsibilities.  I made breakfast for our crew today which felt good.  We had visitors for supper and breakfast... Grandpa Harold came with his daughter Esther and her husband Eldon Shenk.  They were a joy to host.

By the way... Internet is quite a challenge here so if we don't post often or don't have pictures uploaded it's probably due to connection problems.  It has taken us a lot of spare moments to get this far with the blog.  We are also trying to get our list together so we can notify you of updates when we have them on here.  Thanks for your patience and prayers!  The staff down here is having a very busy time with Clinic.  They are spending long hours there every day.  They have some Cholera patients again as well so that creates a new dimension of care with hydrating and sanitizing.  We are hoping it doesn't spread more.  Haiti is also having demostrations again... this means anything from planned protests to bus burnings, forced road blocks, etc.  The people get outraged due to high gas prices or no electricity or mistreatment in some other area of life.  Hans Hertzlers' brother is due to arrive Tues of this coming week and Rhoda Eshbach is due to fly out the same day.  We found out there are planned demonstrations planned which mean the people will be trying to force everyone to stay off the roads.  It could be dangerous for those needing to drive...  Your prayers are apprciated!

Eugene & Kara Waldner Family

Hello Friends and Family!  This is our little spot in the web world where we plan to make posts while we are in Haiti.  We are excited about our time but also very conscious of our need for the Lord to walk with us through this special time as a family!  

I'll give you a quick over view of what we plan on doing in the next couple months....

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The picture below shows the current group of missionaries at the Ailegue mission where we will be serving.  The couple with the baby- Donovan and Thea Hostetler are coming home due to some complications with her pregnancy.  Their baby that is due within a month or so is breech and seems to be very comfortable in that position.  Since they can't get it to turn they decided to be safe and come home to the States to deliver.  We will be a married couple there in their place as a support to the young people serving in the Clinic or as compound personnel.  Donovon's and one young lady are already gone and one more young lady I believe will be leaving within the month.  Another young man will be coming while we are in Haiti as well.  

We will be sharing our home with 2-3 young men.  The girls live in the other house on the compound.  We share all of our meals.  One night a week we have to ourselves as a family.  On the weekends the group either goes up to Rhonda Reinfords or Don Weaver.  Each morning we have devotions as a group and then everyone scatters to their various responsibilities.  It should be a very interesting time.  I'm sure there will be stretching moments as we go from our little family of 5 to 15 ;-) .  We grew up fast!

 We do have a few specific prayer requests for those of you who would like to support us in this way.

1.  Pray that we would not neglect our personal time with the Lord in the busyness of being with so many people and activity.  We know from experience that to neglect our Lord is to plan to fail.  We feel keenly our need for the Spirit of God to guide us in everyday life here in the States and we know that Haiti will just increase our need for Him.

2. Pray for our marriage that it would remain close and vibrant and would not be stressed by the constant interaction with others.  We will need to carve out alone time strategically.
  

 3. Pray for unity as a family and security for our children as we share our home, meals and life with about 10 young people.  We want our children to have very special memories of the friendships they build there and also keep heart strings tied with us.

 4. Pray that we would be a real blessing to the young people serving there at Ailegue.  We want to do what we can to make it easy for them to fulfill their roles of clinic work and compound upkeep and errands.

5. Pray for our interaction with the Haitian people that it would be with humility and love. Kara already has a pretty good handle on the Creole language since she lived there a year before she got married.  This really helps with good relationships with the people.  We would love for Eugene and the children to start to get a grasp of Creole too.

Stitching a finger on my beloved...We have some very special memories of Haiti...
some more traumatic than others...