June 5, 2009 update

Hello friends-

Over a month has now passed since we’ve moved to Haiti—and when I look back on that month, it feels far longer. FAR longer. It’s been an eventful and trying two weeks since our last update.

First let me update you on Woody, one of the HCH boys who is in the hospital awaiting surgery for a severely broken leg. Woody has now been in this hospital for over nearly four weeks. Until yesterday when he had his surgery, he was in traction so he was not able to move around and was extremely uncomfortable. Still, God has been faithful and he’s had his final surgery yesterday. He’s doing well and hopes to go home possibly as early as this weekend. This event has taken a pretty steep emotional and financial toll on the Haitian Children’s Home and the Pye family. In addition to the cost of Woody’s medical care, HCH has had to foot the bill for someone to stay at a nearby hotel to care for Woody since the accident. Haitian hospitals are nothing like North American hospitals. Patients are responsible for having someone bring them food and water, bathe them, help them use the bathroom, change their bedding, bring them hygiene supplies like soap, washcloths, toothpaste and toothbrushes, towels, etc. Having had the chance to spend some good time with Woody over the past few weeks and meet some of these needs (he’s only 50-some blocks away), I can tell you this for sure—I am thankful he’s alive and going to be well soon, and I never, ever want to be in a Haitian hospital if I can avoid it. The total cost of this unanticipated expense is daily increasing—and well into the several thousand dollar range. If you’d like to be a part of helping to meet this need, you can give online or send a check in the mail to HCH PO BOX 384 Ellenton, FL 34222. Be sure to put “Woody’s surgery” in the memo so that money is correctly designated.

We’ve had a pretty discouraging turn of events this past week. The short story is this-- we lost our house in Jacmel. We’ve been having struggles with the landlord for over a month now—and the date for occupancy kept getting pushed back further. The final occupancy date for us was slated to be May 28. (After getting pushed back since May 1.) On that morning, we received a text message saying there were still problems with the existing tenant and that we weren’t going to get the house. Today, nearly a week later, we received our initial deposit back, and were supposed to receive a portion of the money we’d spent getting the home ready to move into. However, the landlord has not been true to his word and now it appears that we will not get any of the funds returned that we used to improve this property -- we repainted the ENTIRE interior (as well as all the outdoor depots), put in brand new counters, built a concrete outbuilding to house the generator, and fixed the concrete that was broken in the compound. Additionally, we did SIGNIFICANT cleaning to the property, both inside and out—including clean out one room that had been used as a pigeon coop. The total cost for these repairs and additions exceeds $2000. So as it appears now, we are going to lose that money unless we decide to pursue legal action to try to get it back. Which, we’re not sure we really want to do as the new folks in town. We have some leads on a few other houses in Jacmel, but at the moment, nothing is looking particularly promising. Being that we only have 3 weeks left here in Port Au Prince, we’re really having to go on faith that God has a plan.

We’re now nearly 3 weeks into language school and wow! It’s INTENSIVE! We’re speaking a lot of Creole already and having Naomi as part of our family is helping us to learn quickly. In addition to language, we’re learning a lot of interesting things about Haitian culture in language school. For instance, I did NOT know it was rude to whistle in front of Haitian people, unless they are small children. Who knew?

We’re managing well in this new culture, but it is taking some getting used to. The majority of Port Au Prince (where we now live for language school) has been without city power for over a week. There was a fire at the power plant and they expect it to be several more weeks until the problem is resolved. This house did not have a functioning generator and our inverter recently died too… so we’ve been spending a lot of evenings in the dark. Without fans. I am not going to lie to you—it’s been difficult. Difficult enough that Nick made the 6 hour round trip today to Jacmel to pick up the (600 LB!) generator we purchased for our home in Jacmel, so we’ll at least have ½ time power. We’re hoping to find someone to come fix the inverter as well so we can get back to full-time power, but with the majority of the city not having power, generator + inverter repairmen are hard to find! One of the benefits of the majority of Port Au Prince being without power is that now that we have a generator, the internet is much faster, since very few people have electricity! So we’ve been able to talk to our families often via skype! It’s been great.

Another big culture difference is driving here in Haiti. It’s basically a free-for-all. The biggest/fastest/bossiest wins. It was initially intimidating, but we’re both learning to feel comfortable getting around. It is an HCH requirement that new staff members spend a minimum of 6 weeks living in Port Au Prince to get used to the city/learn the language/learn to get around in a setting other than what we know and are comfortable with in Jacmel. Honestly, we weren’t looking forward to this time, as Port can be kind of “overwhelming,” but I am definitely thankful for this opportunity, and see the incredible wisdom of our directors for requiring it. I already feel much more prepared to living in Jacmel after living in Port Au Prince.

Our kids are doing well with the transition for the most part, but they’ve been definitely having their moments of chaos. We’re trying to always be mindful of the difficulties they are having with this adjustment, while still requiring obedience. It’s a hard line to walk at times. We’re thankful for the 2 little boys who live downstairs from us—our kids have tireless playmates! It gets confusing since they are from the Dominican Republic and don’t speak English OR Creole. But we’re making do! Kids have a way of doing that it seems.

Josiah turned two this past Monday and we celebrated his special day with some swimming and ice cream. Since he’s allergic to eggs, we couldn’t purchase a cake and our small oven here in Port Au Prince does not have actual temperatures. Just low, medium and high. That worked for us since ice cream feels good in this climate. The mosquitoes are still having a hayday with us. I feel certain each of us must be down at least a pint since arriving!

While we walk in this new life God has given us, things have been complicated, but we remain encouraged by the faithfulness of our friends and family, who have been so faithful in their prayer and support. Thank you for loving us like you do.

Ever grateful,

Gwenn, Nick, Nia, Nico and (the TWO YEAR OLD) Josiah!