Greetings from Sunny Florida!?

I’m thrilled to be able to say that today, as we’ve had about 2-3 weeks now of gloomy, rainy weather here in South FL.  I must be getting too used to the sun here, because I was already a little blue in just the few weeks it disappeared!

While Ted and Em probably have much more interesting experiences to write about, I wanted to share what God has been doing in our lives during this time here in FL.

1.  Ted has been able to travel back & forth to Haiti 4 times in the past 2 months, and is there again now.  His presence & support for Ron our Haitian program director has been invaluable.  Ron was stretched very thin.  (and if you knew Ron, you would see that is as literal as it is figurative – he is a bean pole!)  There have been American teams coming and going all summer long. Ted has been able to shoulder part of the workload and keep the guest house functioning comfortably and smoothly for them.

2. With our home sale finally closed, my job has provided our housing & the funds necessary for T to travel back & forth.  It has also been an opportunity to share with many co-workers about our ministry, the plight of the orphan, and my faith.  A side benefit is that I have met many Haitians and learned more about their culture, as well as many others.

3. All of us have learned how to be a minority, which is great preparation for our move.  This area is extremely multicultural; we have enjoyed hearing a large variety of different languages wherever we go!

4.  Through God’s leading we dropped in & began attending a church very close to home, called Calvary Chapel, Sawgrass. As it turns out they have a ministry with orphans in Haiti as well!  In fact according to Pastor J, the youth minister, who leads the Haiti missions program, they had just begun praying that they could find someone on the ground, in Port au Prince to provide help as needed for their ministry!

5.  In addition to connecting about our ministries and our heart for orphans, the youth and leaders at this church have welcomed our kids like “family”. We have been so blessed by this body of believers!  This past week, they sent Tynan & Olivia at last minute to their HS/College summer camp with scholarships.  While there, Olivia refreshed her relationship with Christ, personalized her call to Haiti, recommitted herself to the move, and was baptized in the lake to proclaim her life in Him.

6.  There are hundreds of little ways that I have also seen God at work in each of us the past few months.  Some I cannot exactly put into words, except to say that I see Him preparing us in such small details now.  It is exciting, because it confirms our need for this time still here in the states, and yet proclaims His faithfulness in providing everything that we need to do His work there.  Our faith in His provision for anything more we may need has been rooted deeply during this time.

As the next phase of our transitional time quickly approaches, please keep us in your prayers:

-For each of us to walk in the Spirit daily & glorify Him in all that we do

-Packing up again, begins in 2 weeks 1 week! 

-Getting everything that we need from here over to Haiti

-Locating our housing in PAP this month.

-Finding the right vehicle to purchase in Haiti

-Travel up the Northeast Coast to visit family & friends

-Travel back to TX in early September for Ted’s niece’s wedding

- Tynan’s school plans for this fall to be clear

-Our cross-cultural training in CO in September

-Full monthly support to be in place for our anticipated move date: October 1^st

Update on Tuesday, July 12, 2011 at 11:30PM by barlowfamily

Just as I prepared this post, the news came today from my travel RN agency that all of the travel positions are receiving 2 weeks notice (which apparently began Saturday) due to low census in the hospital.  So my position and thus our housing ends a week earlier than planned - an interesting twist...

                     so, we're moving out in 12 days!

Why Haiti?

Hi everyone, Ted here. I am sitting in a nearly empty guest house this morning, as Emma and the team from San Diego have travelled to the nearby town of Jacmel for the day. It turns out to be a good day to stay behind because we have another team here that was supposed to leave for the Dominican Republic by bus this morning but can't due to a national strike there. So I am here trying to monitor the situation and help them in any way I can.

I chose the title of this blog post because I want to try to explain the "why" of Haiti over the next several entries. It seems that during each new trip here, God reveals a little more about the work He has for us and why He has called us to Haiti. I hope to share some of those things with you so keep checking back here over the next week or so.

Before I finish though, I wanted to share something that happened just this morning. The team left around 6am to try and beat the traffic to Jacmel, and I was opening the gate for their van to drive out. There was a short delay as they were inside the van saying a prayer for safety. I was standing by the gate and noticed a few of the neighborhood kids standing nearby and watching me. One was a little boy about 4 years old and he was pulling a homemade toy car constructed from a plastic bottle and 4 round water bottle caps for the tires. He was followed by his little sister who looked to be about 5. As I stood on the sidewalk by the open gate waiting for the van to pull out, I looked around and saw two balloons on the ground that had drifted up by the gate. I picked them up and handed them to the 2 little kids. From their wide eyes and expressions of pure joy, you would think I had just handed them the best toy they had ever seen. I saw them scamper off and then turned my attention back to the van. As the van pulled out onto the street, I looked around and saw 3 other kids that just appeared out of nowhere. They wanted to know if I had any more "balons" to give them too. Unfortunately I didn't have any more, and I'm not exactly sure where the first 2 came from! 

So the first answer as to "why Haiti" is this: I want to be in a place where the simple act of handing a child a balloon can make their whole day!

It's Way Past Time for an Update!

Wow! I find it hard to believe that it's been 3 months since our last blog update. So many things have happened over that time, so many changes to our family on this journey to Haiti. As we clear the dust off this blog we will commit to doing a better job of keeping you all updated on what is going on with us. 

Since early April, we have:

• Closed on the sale of our home in Poetry, TX
• Sold our remaining furniture, household items, and everything else that we can't store or use in Haiti
• Traveled to California, where we had a refreshing time reconnecting with family & friends
• Moved to Ft. Lauderdale, FL 
• Started a travel nursing position at Plantation General Hospital in FL (Rebecca)
• Traveled back and forth to Haiti 4 times to work at the guest house and help with visiting teams (Ted)
• Emma got a job and is working at Subway in Plantation; Olivia is hard at work with homeschooling & Tynan is enjoying making good friends at church
• Ana came back from a year in Germany, promptly got married, and is now back in Germany for a while 

Whew! I hope you can appreciate how our heads have been spinning a little bit with all these changes. But God has been gracious and has helped us navigate this unpredictable and slightly crazy journey that we are on. 

I am here in Haiti again (4th trip in 8 weeks) and this time Emma was able to come with me. It's her very first trip to Haiti, and she will be blogging this week about what she thinks about it all. Check it out on their "Em & Liv" page. 

Thanks again for taking the time to catch up with all our "goings on", and we'd really appreciate it if you could remember to pray for our whole family as we are now on the "homestretch" to our goal of serving full-time in Haiti. God bless you!

 

I always feel happy when I see Haiti out the window!