New addition!

This past weekend we stayed home from Sat until Monday. We heard reports of rioting and several concerned Haitians called to make sure we were staying put. From our home though, we heard nothing, we had no problems, in fact we were able to carry on our gym class with the Good Samaritan girls and take a walk through the beautiful surrounding area! We continue to pray for this country as results are giving later this week. From what we understand, if no one has a majority vote, there will be another election in a few weeks. We are very grateful for your prayers for our family and ask you would continue to pray for the country of Haiti.


While we were housebound, we made an addition to our family! Since we came here in October, we had been watching our neighbor's puppies play. When we could hear their little puppy barks, we'd run out to our balcony to see them. We watched the children run and play with them and we also saw the mother and father (who reminds us of our dog Tundra). Next thing we know, the girls began asking if we could get a puppy. We held a family meeting and agreed we would get one with the help of the kids in caring for he/she. So, about a week later, I finally worked up the courage to approach the neighbor (with a translator, which is kind of weird). I had been praying about this decision because we have had 2 bad experiences with dogs and we couldn't have that with all the kids. To me it is such a petty thing to pray about, but how do you even go about getting a healthy, well behaved, and friendly dog here without knowing people that have raised them? So as I approached our neighbor, I sort of thought if we were going to get a dog here, this has to be the right situation. Unfortunately, after a very friendly conversation, the couple apologized and said the puppies were already claimed and the buyers were coming this Wed for them. Ok, so now what? So the next morning in my prayer time, I simply asked that the right puppy be matched with our family and left it at that. Several hours later as the kids and I were playing outside, some of them came running to get me and said the neighbor wants us to have their puppy...hmmm...I did manage to learn the phrase "how much does it cost?" just the day before in Kreyol class, so I used my new line when I approached the neighbors gate. Only to find they were saying they wanted nothing and handed the puppy out the gate and shut it before I could ask any questions in fact, I barely got the words "messi anpil" out. I was kind of stunned. So now we have this cute little girl named "Nessa". She is already housebroken, she hasn't chewed anything(yet), and she loves the kids...hmmm! We just love her and we really hope to get Tundra down here to meet her little sister soon:)
I'm trying to post a picture of Nessa, but today the computer won't load it, maybe tomorrow...that's Haiti!
Wed, we are preparing for Mom and Dad Denlinger to arrive for a ten day visit. We are very excited to show them around some of our recent projects and just to catch up a bit. After having power and running water for 2 weeks straight, we now haven't had city power for 24 hours which means we will soon be out of battery power and running water. We're kind of getting used to it now, not sure what mom and pops will think of it:) ...welcome to Haiti!
~Deb