Puddles and Cockroaches

We are back in Haiti! The house is quiet, Ron is praying over the kitchen sink, and I'm sitting down on our interesting couch with my leg up (the couch is a story for another day). Naomi is next to me eating popcorn with a rag on her nose. It's been a "normal for us" couple of hours. The sink is clogged, so Ron is trying to get the grease to go down with boiling water. Otherwise, he will be slightly unhappy to have to try to pull the sink apart. We are wondering if the faucet for our sink was in the missing bag? It has not materialized here, but it could be in one of the bags coming in with the Oregon medical team next week.

Since the sink is not working to even drain water, we're having to haul water both ways. We take the dishes downstairs (outside by the faucet) to wash them. There is still somehow remaining buckets of used water in the kitchen from a range of things. The kids are responsible for bringing water into the kitchen (and bathroom in buckets) and then we dump the used water into the toilets to flush. There is a whole process we previously developed in how this is done (in a relatively expedient way), but it seems while we were in the states, most of the kids have forgotten the routine. We're back to having puddles on the tile floors, hence me sitting with my leg up and me sitting in a quiet house.

After dinner, I proceeded to step from the dining room into the entryway (one step down) and slid onto my behind. In the process, I somehow came down hard on my knee and it has swollen up. (Amanda and Julia~ I feel your pain from last fall when the same thing happened to you in a short period of time). First you feel pain, then you feel the puddle you are sitting in, and then you feel a bit of annoyance at whoever spilled the water on the floor without cleaning it up. And in our home, it's kinda like Bill Cosby's home. Truthfulness is not always the first response. Where I want to hear, "I'm sorry. I made a mistake. Are you ok?" instead we may get "So and so did it. It wasn't me".  Basically we see one child pointing the finger at another when honestly they may not even know who splashed the water in the first place. Possibly because they were in la-la land when it happened BUT they are confident it could not have been them.

After a few minutes without the apology I was praying for, I made the executive decision for everyone to go to bed (after of course they cleaned up the water). We have a peaceful home at the moment and tomorrow will be a new day! It was actually a blessing in disguise. The kids need some extra sleep. They begin their first day back in formal homeschooling with our amazing homeschol teacher Joan in the morning.

Naomi is sitting next to me because her nose is bleeding. Ever since the battery incident, she has had trouble leaving her nose alone (or maybe before that and therefore we had the problem), but before Naomi didn't have nosebleeds. In the past few months, it has been a fairly regular occurrence.

Other then that, life is good and God is good! We are so thankful to be "home" to the familiar. The cockroaches were happy to occupy our house while we were away. It's sad for them, but we have kindly requested that they vacate. Some have refused and we have been forced to smash them in the process. We're learning to make noise as we enter the kitchen again. It is so much better to turn on the light, stomp your feet, and maybe even bang a pan together before opening a drawer. I would rather have them run off from the sound then see them scatter off when we open the drawer or cupboard. This way I can live in denial pretending that they have all vacated the premises.

I know they are relatively harmless, but they're still yucky and HUGE. The kitchen and bathrooms I can understand and expect, but the bedroom are bothersome. Roseminique had one in her bed the other night. Whenever I see one in a bed, I think of a little girl up at the clinic that had one stuck in her ear.  It had crawled in so far that the team was unable to remove all of it.

Please pray that the cockroaches go away! And that the tarantula that was in the entryway to the house does not find the inside of the home.

We will be transitioning to a consistent schedule in the morning which should help everyone to function better. Sometimes I don't "want" to have a time for everything and a person for everything (who does what on what days and what time they do it), but with our family, it makes everything manageable and actually helps to regulate our kids. This way they know what to expect and they are a part of the process of planning (which makes them less likely to grumble over it). I think that most people actually function better operating on a schedule and especially knowing (to some degree) what to expect. We know that God can often change things up for us. It is good to be adaptable, but planning our days helps us to be more happy and productive while we wait on the Lord to reveal his amazing plans in our lives.

Bright and early we will do devotions as a family and again in the evening. This is what we should have started immediately the first time we moved to Haiti, but because we did not schedule it (and were somewhat in survival mode),  devotions in the beginning were sporadic. We had good intentions, but I have found that often if we do not actually schedule it and write it down, our good intentions simply remain "intentions".  Now though, we have dedicated time with the Lord (as a family) as a top priority.  It changes our whole day. Yes, there will still be spills on the floor and the usual drama that comes with having children, but it gives us a different ability to handle the challenges that come to us.

We appreciate everyone's prayers and support for our family! We feel incredibly blessed to have met so many amazing people over the summer. We're thankful the Lord gave us the opportunity to visit so many friends and family. We miss everyone already, but we are grateful to be home.

Please keep watching the blog.....New and exciting things are on the horizon!