August 1, 2009-- Mangine Family HCH Update
Happy August 1st friends + family,
I am writing you tonight from my humid kitchen. I just washed a mountain of dishes and Nick has taken the kids on a water and diesel run. It has to be done every other day—hitting the gas station to fill up a tank with diesel for our generator and refilling our 5 gallon water jugs from the reverse osmosis plant in town. We’re finding that the “simple life” is sometimes very far from simple, but we do seem to be settling in well. We’re within ONE bin of having our Jacmel house unpacked—a real challenge in a small, two-bedroom house with ZERO closets.
As usual, since my last update, much has happened. Our director, Danny Pye, returned to Haiti from a whirlwind 5 weeks in the US, attending to some stateside business and speaking at the “Summer in the Son” conference. It’s great to have him back—it helps our family tremendously… and it helps his family too! Leann, Danny’s wife, planned a surprise birthday party for Danny last week at the land in Raymond. She came over earlier in the week with their daughter Riann and some of her HCH girls, and together with my kids, we made and painted 3 pinatats. We love spending time with our team and the HCH kids. My kids especially enjoy playing with the younger kids… and all of us have a soft spot for Woody after spending so much time with him when he was injured.
Speaking of Woody, he’s doing great with his cast off. He’s getting around with just one crutch and today he went in the ocean to swim for the first time since his accident, almost 2 and a half months ago. He and Patrick (another one of the older HCH boys) came over this past week to help Nick sand and finish a bunk bed that John made for us. Those boys are hard workers! They made the job go very quickly!
Today a team of youth from our home church, Crosspointe, arrived for a VBS in nearby Chabin. We’re all excited to spend Monday through Thursday in Chabin with the team and children in the community. In addition to Bible teaching, games, crafts and music, we provide a lunch meal each day for the children. We’re thinking we could have up to 300 children.
The frequency with which we’ve been receiving requests to take in children has increased. We met yesterday with a man who is caring for his two nieces. His sister (their mother) passed away two years ago and the father abandoned the children prior to the mother’s death. While we know and make it clear to everyone who inquires that we cannot accept children until December, Nick and I have started to try to discern how to handle these situations we’re faced with. Please pray for clarity as we strive to help build Haitian families.
A few specific prayer requests:
• Please pray for landlord negotiations. We think we might have found a good house for our orphanage home starting in December.
• Please pray for our health. We’ve all been doing relatively well but our immune systems are still adjusting to Haiti!
• Please pray for our family. This is a good time, but also very stressful, Please pray for unity and encouragement and grace with one another.
• Please be praying patience with continued language learning. We’re doing well, and realize the rest will come with time and practice!
• Please be praying for us as we begin to plan a “clothing drive” during the next few months to get clothing ready for our new kids! More details will be coming in the Aug 15th update.
We are ever-mindful that we cannot be here without your support. Thank you for loving us and trusting us with this mission.
With grateful hearts,
Gwenn, writing for the entire Mangine 5—Nick, Gwenn, Nia, N
