Oliver Twist Yoder

Since I’ll likely be in Haiti for a number of years yet and since someone was selling four-wheelers for a good price it only made sense to add another member to my family!! Meet Oliver:

Oliver came on the back of a truck,

everyone came to watch,

And there was plenty of advice to go all around!!

And now we’re a family!!

Nika and I definitely think Oliver is the best ever, we are having so much fun with him! Thanks to our bighearted, funny, dysfunctional, family for providing the funds!!    ( I think they did!! )

Another Goodbye

On Tues. we said goodbye once again to one of our children. After being here for two and a half years Came Suze moved to a children’s home in Leogane about three hours west of us. It’s a newly opened home for children with special needs. They will offer therapies, adaptive gear, etc. to meet the needs of children like Came Suze. It was a sad day saying goodbye to this sweet girl but we had prayed for a long time about a long term place for her and are very thankful how God led us to find this place.

The children’s home is strangely quiet and empty with out her bright smile and happy squeals. We pray that she will continue to grow and develop in her new home.

God bless you, Came Suze !! We love you and miss you!

Finally!!

I have a computer again that actually works!

When my laptop was stolen out of my bedroom one night while I was at church I felt like a part of me went missing too. I had stuff snitched from me before but it wasn't ever a big deal; it wasn’t a personal attack on me. But this time it was different- it was some one I was pretty familiar with, and it was a deliberate, premeditated, move of revenge on me. Not to mention a huge invasion of privacy to go snooping in my bedroom, my most personal space.

At first it was disappointing but I didn’t think it was such a huge deal, I mean I can always buy another laptop… but as time went on it actually bothered me more than I ever thought it would. That laptop had a lot of personal stuff on it, not only photos but stuff I had written, LOTS of stuff I had written. Things that were a part of me, of who I am.  Thankfully a lot of it was also saved on my hard drive but not everything and those things I can never retrieve. The worst part of this is that the person who stole this stuff is pretty fluent in English. If he wanted to he could probably get a pretty rounded view of my personal life and opinions. I think that’s actually the thing that makes me feel most invaded.

For a long time I didn’t feel like writing and then when I did feel like writing I picked up my pencil and my big fat journal and wrote epistles in that . That parts been good- filling page after page of journal in the old fashioned way!!

But now I’m ready to move on. I am forgiving the thief. He is the one who has to suffer from a defiled conscience against God. He is the one who lost his job and the one who can’t make eye contact and who avoids people like the plague. He is the one who is miserable, the one who is suffering and the one to be pitied.

I hope I’m learning to let go, whether that’s my feeling or my possessions or both!! And I hope I’m learning to move on and not let little things get me down. I have too much to be thankful for and too much life to live to waste it by fretting over a bump in the road!