God is good - all the time. We enjoyed a relaxing, but quick, two weeks in the states, spending time with family and friends and welcoming my first niece into the world. :)

We traveled back in to Haiti on the 23rd of February with a team coming for SEED ministries and the dairy program. Included were Brent Hodel, on the dairy committee, one of my cousins and his wife, and my grandparents! While most of them spent the majority of their time at SEED, my grandma stayed with us, which was an added bonus. A couple days the team was able to come to the farm, where we got some more painting done in the house, cut some hay to bale, and other odds and ends. 

We came back to a brand new heifer calf, named Belle by Abbie :)

The milking station is coming along slowly but surely!

We love cousins!! So glad these two came down. It was so much fun to spend some extra special time with them!

My grandparents and Brent stayed another week with us and we were also joined by Doug Leman, along with a team from Goodfield, IL. I can't say it enough - God is good! We didn't know we needed this team, but God sure did. The Goodfield team was scheduled to spend time up at the hospital, but due to unrest in the Haitian community up there, they had to cancel. Instead of cancelling their plane tickets, they decided to come to work at the dairy, and we were beyond blessed by them! Not only were they a very hard working team, accomplishing in just days what would have taken us several weeks by ourselves, but they were so enjoyable and filled our week with lots of laughs. God knew just what we needed to give us an extra boost. :)

There were a couple of great carpenters that made some nice shelves for our pantry.

More painting was done... in pure Haiti fashion.

Baling hay 

This is the hand-powered baler my dad made a while back. 

And this is a sample of what came out of it!

I cannot express enough how much we are already missing these two! Sawyer and Abbie were such a help to have around physically, but also were such a boost emotionally and spiritually!

This is the whole Goodfield gang, plus Sawyer, Abbie, and Charleston.

After a week of hard work, we had to have a little fun, and enjoyed taking the team on a river hike - one of our favorite things to do in Haiti!

What's a good hike without a nice picnic spread afterwards?

Toyota-top views :)

 After a busy several weeks, it seems odd to have a quiet evening to ourselves, but we wouldn't change our life in Haiti for anything! So thankful for God's sovereignty and knowing just what we need and when to give it. We are truly blessed!

Lana:)

The past couple of weeks have been so much fun! On January 12th we welcomed a team full of many talented people who graciously offered their time for a week to help make our house ready for move-in in March. We were also excited to see Sawyer and Abbie, the honeymooners who are interning with us for two months. From hanging and staining doors, to installing cabinets, to getting running water and toilets working, a lot was accomplished the first week! 

Chris and Chad Huber did a great job of preparing the door frames and hanging the doors!

They had quite the job, trying to get square doors hung in less-than-square holes. Somehow they pulled it off!

Sanding and staining the doors was made light work with many hands!

I was THRILLED to have Emma Huber, a good friend of mine, come with her dad to keep me company! 

A couple of men from Bluffton came to install the cabinets. 

The finished kitchen! We are so looking forward to making some goodies here!

Plumber Tom. He has actually stayed past the length of the rest of the team, and has gotten all of our sinks, inside and out, working as well as our gas for the stove!

We can't forget the work that was going on outside as well! Here, Dad, along with Sawyer, Brian Putt from Francesville, and Maxi, were putting in the septic system. 

Sawyer, in his happy place on a tractor, filling our back yard with more dirt.

Of course, I have been bringing Brinley to the farm every chance I get. I'm so excited to be able to play with her in our yard, especially once we have grass again!

She already makes herself at home at the farm!

After a week of hard work, we took an afternoon at the beach. Here is pictured the whole gang, except for Chad, who took the picture. Going around the table is Emma Huber, me, Mom, Leah, Abby, Sawyer, Dad, Chris, Ted Habegger, Scott Minnear, and Bonnie and Steve Kaeb.

Since the team left, it has been a little quieter, but just as busy! It has been fun to get to know Sawyer and Abbie more, and we have gone out to the farm almost every day this past week. Mom, Abbie and I have been working on picking colors and painting the house, which was partially primed the first week. (I didn't have any pictures of that.) Dad and Sawyer have been doing jobs here and there, including planting a field of corn, putting up the last gate on our porch, hanging the door on the feed shed, cleaning out the big depo, and many other things.

So thankful for all of Abbie's help!

Our windows were also put in! Here, he is screwing in the frames.

After the frames, the glass panels go in!

Dad, Sawyer, and Maxi putting up our sliding gate!

Mandy and Bri Yordy came out to see our new place and brought their dog. Brinley was happy to have some company while watching the chickens! 

Brinley has proven to be quite the little mouser. She has killed at least a dozen mice so far, well earning her keep! 

This is the corn, just five days after it was planted!

The thought of moving to the farm is becoming very real. I am excited about some things, like quieter life in the country, more space for Brinley to run, being able to be out working with dad more, and many other things, but I am also a little apprehensive about leaving this missionary family here that we have grown to love and trust, and being completely surrounded by Creole-speaking Haitians. We trust that God will see us through in these changes, and I look forward to what He has in store for us next! All glory to God!

Lana:)

Happenings

I will start of this post by saying that I am sorry I am so late in updating! The last several months have been so busy with projects at the farm and life on the compound, but we are thankful for all God is doing and for all of those to came and will come to show support and help.

Since there has been so much happening in the past three months, I will stick to mostly pictures. If you want more details about everything, you can leave your email in the comments and  we would be happy to send you my mom's email updates. :)

We are so thankful to see the progress being done on our house! It makes moving there in a month or two seem much more real! The smooth coat, or krepe, on all the walls has been done, electrical wiring was put in, the floors have been poured, the metal doors have been installed, the metal bars on the windows have been put in, and they are now putting the metal "fè fòje" around our porch.

My dad and Graham, our intern from the middle of November to the middle of December, did a great job on the floors inside our house. Now it is ready to have cabinets installed and walls painted!

This is the fè fòje that will go around the porch. Charleton thought of this design and spent many hours shaping, measuring, cutting, and welding the metal to make four or five sections like this, as well as all the windows!

In the past couple of months, there have been many masons working to put up this feed shed. This is where we will store, process, and sell grains.

My dad built one of these corn cribs to see if it works as a reliable way to store corn. The first trial worked great, so Graham built two more. Now we have a great way to store and dry corn on the cob until we want to sell it! 

We were happy to have a team of four men to help out at the farm for a few days. While they were here, we shelled the corn from the first crib with a sheller that we got on our last container!

I have enjoyed having Brinley around to keep me busy! Every chance I get, I like to take her to the farm, since we will be living there soon, and she loves every minute of it! She likes to explore, and enjoys meeting, and, in some cases, chasing the other animals. We'll have to see what we can do about her obsession with chasing the chickens, hopefully before she catches one... We have been trying to keep her busy by controlling the mouse population in our main depo, and she does a great job for being just  a puppy! The first day we took her on a mouse hunt, she killed at least half a dozen, and a few days later, when I took her out again, she went straight to the depo and started looking for more! The hunting instinct is definitely bred into her!

I am excited to have this view every morning once we live out here! I just love seeing the young heifers out in the pasture. 

This is Maxi's cow, who just had her first calf! We are hoping that she gives a lot of milk, as Maxi feeds her good grain and milks her every day. 

Pictured here along with Maxi's cow is our heifer, who is due to calve sometime this month. We look forward to growing the herd!

There is so much to be thankful for, and we can see that God is doing amazing things in the community that we are working alongside, and we are privileged to be used for God's glory! Please be prayerful in this busy time that we can be witnesses for Christ and show his love to all we interact with. Prayers would also be appreciated for the several teams planning to come in the next couple of months! We are so grateful for their support and willing hands as well as the many prayer warriors and supporters back in the states!

In Christ,
Lana

It has been a crazy couple of weeks full of hurricanes, changes of plans, and prayers! Hurricane Irma did go north of Haiti, and the only effect we got from her was some rain. We are thankful, but praying for those in other places who did not fare as well as we did. Hurricane season is still in full swing, so we still ask for your prayers on behalf of those of us in Haiti, as well as, more importantly, those in places that have been hit hard.

The Yordys, who were planning to come in the Thursday just before Irma, decided not to come that day, but instead came several days later, after Irma was well past us. We are thankful to have them back again! 

On the farm, work has been progressing on our house, as the ceiling of our house was just finished being poured Saturday after four days of hard work. Even though our house won't be completed for several months, we are already looking forward to the next projects on the farm. We have gotten building permits to start the feed barn, milking station and vet station! Dad and the men didn't waste any time in measuring and staking out where those buildings will be.

I look forward to being able to watch the sunset from here!

The most exciting point last week for me was receiving our new puppy, Brinley, who made her appearance just under two weeks later that we were originally planning. Already she has been so much fun to have around and I am looking forward to training her and seeing her grow to be a great help on the farm, especially in decreasing the rodent population, since she was bred to hunt! We are so grateful to the family that kept her in Florida those two weeks, and took such good care of her! 

Hopefully she'll eventually grow into her ears, but right now they make her pretty adorable!

One of Brinley's favorite things to do is play with the Yordy's dog, Izzy, even though she's about ten times Brinley's size!

Brinley has the funniest way of lying on the concrete, and her head tilt makes it even funnier when I make a noise new to her!

Settling in and Watching for Hurricanes

This week has been a good time of getting back into a "normal" routine of living in Haiti. I started school last Monday, which has kept me busy a good portion of each day. We were glad to see the two ladies that work for us at our house, and their smiles were just as cheerful as when we left them back in June. Dad has also been busy out at the farm. As it is planting season here, he has been asked by many many farmers to plow their fields with the new tractor and tiller that we got early this past summer. He says farmers come to him with money in hand ready to pay for a service which they see having a big effect on the crops' yield. The ground is so hard due to years of livestock grazing on it and the fact that when the farmers do till their ground, they usually don't cut in more than a few inches below the surface. The local farmers are seeing, in the example of our corn crops, just how beneficial a good root system is in providing necessary nutrients and water to the corn. It is so neat to be able to see their enthusiasm in wanting to learn and work harder!

This past weekend we were blessed to be able to spend time with some good friends from Bonne Fin! A couple and their two daughters, as well as two other young ladies came down early afternoon on Saturday and stayed until Sunday. We had a great time talking and getting to know each other better and playing games Saturday evening. On Sunday, we had the opportunity to go to Renault, which is where a family from Canada has a children's Sunday school mission. It is in one of the poorest parts of southern Haiti, and hundreds of children walk from miles around to come hear God's word and praise Him! After the time of worship, each child is given a "manna pack" that can feed six people.

It doesn't get much better than worshiping our God with hundreds of kids!

After a beautiful morning, we went to Port Salut where we enjoyed the beach and some amazing food! The weather was perfect for the beach and we happily rested in hammocks, caught a crab, and swam. 

Here we ate some delicious lobster, fish, and chicken. 

I'm so blessed to be able to call these girls my friends :)

I think I'll call him Charlie 

After a wonderful weekend of rest and relaxation, we now think of hurricane Irma, which is slowly nearing our location. At this point the eye is forecast to pass just north of Haiti, but because of its intensity and size, we could still have some damage done. We are hoping we don't have to deal with another "Matthew"! There are some people that are still planning to come in to Haiti in the next couple of days so we are praying that they can make it safely! We were also saddened by the news that our puppy Brinley, the next farm hand, will not be arriving tomorrow as we had hoped. She was scheduled to come in on Agape Flights, which is our mail service, but they had to cancel the flight for this week due to hurricane Irma. Brinley will be staying in Florida with some friends who have graciously agreed to keep her until Agape can make their next flight. Now we are just waiting and watching to see where Irma heads, and we are praying for those in Florida who seem to be in her path. 

How grateful we are that we serve the God who is in charge of the storm! Please pray with us during this time of uncertainty that all will work out for God's glory and for safety for those both in the Caribbean and in Florida! 

Lana :)