Thursday, August 7, 2014

A Testimony of His Care and Provision!

 In my last few posts I shared with you all that we were praying for a house, job, school, and church for our family to settle down. We have been praying and knocking on many doors, trying to find God's will for our family. Last I blogged on here, we had been told that we could stay in the house that has been such a blessing to us in Gas City, IN. We were thankful and began to unpack, yet we were concerned about a job and school. After putting in several apps and receiving no calls, last Friday we received a FB message from some acquaintances in Salsibury, NC. They told us about a house they had for rent and a possible job, school, and church. After praying, we felt that God had opened this door and when the money was provided for the gas expense it was confirmation and we made the trip to NC. Within 2 days of arriving here, Danny has been hired for a full time job working for a Christian man who own a property management company. Danny will be his maintenance guy. We have a good sized house to rent with a front and back porch. There is a wonderful school just down the road, with a church around the corner. It is a beautiful neighborhood with several christian families with children. God has been faithful to answer every request!
  
   As you can imagine, we have mixed emotions, we will be very sad to leave our church, family and friends in Gas City. We are so thankful for the time God gave us there! He has truly used each one of them to be a blessing in our lives as we have gone thru this hard transition time! We will be saying some very hard goodbyes next weekend as we move. Yet, we want to focus on the good times ahead and how God has seen fit to bless us once again! We know that several of you have been praying for us that we would find what God wants for us and we have felt His seal of approval and leadership as He has guided us to North Carolina. We love being His children and have experienced once again that He will never forsake us!
                                                     Our new home!

     
                                       

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Caleb turns six and we have a place to live

Thanking God today for the 4th little blessing He has given us! Our little Mr. is six today! He has been asking for days now.."How long till my birthday?" ;o)
  When we look back on this past year and how far we have come from his fall and concussion on the 12 of July last year, we stand amazed at how God has helped, healed and touched him thru all the scary tests, waiting and his diagnosis of NF1. Today, Caleb is a lively bundle of energy who loves to ask lots of questions (hard ones at times), play games, do whatever big brother is doing, and snuggle with his raggedy, torn, but-much-loved 'B'. He keeps us on our toes and I know God was not making a mistake when He made Caleb our last child..whew! He plain wears me out at times! We love him so much and do not know what we would do without him! He completes our family and we are celebrating him today :o) We are in the middle of VBS at our church and so we made lots of fun cupcakes with gummy bears and sour patch kids on top to share. We have a lot going on right now so we will have a party for him later.
  Last blog post I shared that we were packing to move but did not know where. Well, God did! He worked it out that we have been offered more time in the house we are staying in. Victory Acres has another house that they feel will be better suited for the Nehemiah Project and have graciously offered to continue renting to us. We are still concerned about schooling and are continuing to pray for God's direction. Danny has applied for a good position at a local college and we are praying for God's will to be done. We are happy to be able to stay at 'our' church and looking forward to what God has in store for our family. Next week we will be going to Danville Bible Methodist church and teaching a VBS for them. Appreciate your prayers as we attempt to teach the boys and girls about how to be good Soldiers of the Cross and we are praying that some of them will want to 'enlist' in His army and give their hearts and lives to Jesus!
 The next week we will be going to Heartland Bible Methodist Youth Camp. Becca and Ben will be campers and we will be helping out wherever needed. Looking forward to a fun week!

Visit our Facebook page to see pics of his birthday photo shoot.
https://www.facebook.com/dannynlizhirschyf/media_set?set=a.751010808278233.1073741869.100001079620051&type=1
 
 




Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Learning to wait and leaning on Him

I realize that it has been two months since I last up-dated this. We have came to the end of the time to live in the Nehemiah House here in Gas City, IN. We are very thankful for the huge blessing it has been and really appreciate Victory Acres for renting it to us. We have enjoyed attending Community Bible Methodist and making and strengthening wonderful friendships here. Living here has truly been a positive experience for our family and we have made lasting memories!
  We really need your prayers as we are praying and trying to figure out what and where God wants us. After much discussion and prayer, we have came to the conclusion that we really need to put our children in a good, Christian school. We have had 2 very unstable years of homeschooling with all the travel, sickness and moving around that we feel they need a stable school environment. Unfortunately, there is no school here that we are interested in sending our kids. We have also decided that after being blessed to spend a wonderful week at Heartland Bible Methodist camp, where I grew up, that we want to keep our family in the Bible Methodist connection. We love the Bible Methodist and feel at home with the people and churches and we want our children to stay in this wonderful circle of influence. We also would really like to stay in ministry. To know that we are helping in some way to teach, love and mentor people for God's Kingdom is our goal.
  We have looked for housing around here and have ran into a few problems. First of all, even though we are virtually debt free, because we have been out of the country and have only had a steady job for 6 months, our credit is too low to get financing on anything. We were blessed to go to Florida and pick up the rest of our household things that have been in storage for over a yr., but the trip took everything we had financially and we do not have a nest egg to use for renting a house as most people require a deposit. We have come to the conclusion that we need a job that furnishes a house and schooling for our kids, so we have looked for and applied for jobs as maintenance/groundskeeper and are waiting to hear back from a few of them.
  At this point, we are planning on moving out this weekend, renting a storage unit and living in our camper. We truly feel God has a plan and ultimately we want it to be HIS plan and not ours. So we will continue to wait and trust in Him and His timing. When we were in Haiti, we were so happy and at peace because we KNEW it was where He wanted us, even though the living conditions were less than ideal and everything was different and new to us. We desire to have and feel that same peace again as we pray for His direction. A dear pastor of ours once told us that when you are waiting on God, that you are in the center of His will at that time for your life. This thought and God's amazing strength and grace keeps us sane! So that is what is going on with us. Thank-you for your prayers!


Our camper that we are thankful we have!

Abigail turned 10 on May 24th so we now have 3 kiddos in the double digits! We had a fun, little party for her with a Tangled party theme. I made her a cake with a tower on it with Rapunzel's hair hanging out of it. She loved it!

 


Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Taking it one step at a time...

 Many of you have sent us personal facebook messages, emails and phone calls letting us know that you are thinking and praying for us during this time of transition. Thank-you!! Your kind words and support have meant more to us than we can ever let you know! The decision to not go back to Haiti was not made lightly and was an even harder decision to make than it was to go. Please understand that God directed both decisions and we have a sweet peace that we are in His will by NOT going back at this time.

  Does that mean that it has made things any easier? NO! I can not count how many buckets of tears I have, personally, shed over this decision. Some days it really hits me that we are not going to get to live in the house that we have been working on for a long time. The house, that we had envisioned how we would decorate each room, entertain work teams, cook yummy Haitian meals in the kitchen, and live together in as a family. I think of each child at the compound and the relationship that God helped us to form with them. It hurts to realize that we will not be there to encourage and love them as they continue to grow to adulthood. Each one of them are so special! I think of Pastor & Madame Dominique and how much they love God and share what they have with others. Madame and I became fairly close, considering the language and cultural barrier. She was so sweet to find little things for me at the open market when I had mentioned that I was needing a new hat to keep the sun off my head, or some flip flops for the shower. One time I told her I would like a plastic tablecloth and she came back from market with one and a very nice linen one as well. She loved to buy conips (a Spanish lime) for Caleb and would have a big smile on her face as she called to him to come and see what she had for him. She loved Caleb and spoiled him rotten! She even had a little teacup that she used for his drinks at meals. The cup had a fish on it and Caleb loved it and felt very special when she served his tea in it :o) Yes, I miss her sweet, quiet ways and her amazing cooking. The last night we spent at Grande Riviere before flying back to the States last October was a special one and it is even more special as we realize it was our last time with these dear friends. Madame fried plantain chips for us and we got out our collection of flavored teabags and brewed some water. The boys enjoyed tasting the different flavored teas and we sat around eating, drinking and visiting. When we were finished there were some teabags left and I told Madame she could have them to enjoy. Her face lit up and she replied, "Merci, Madame Danny!" 
   It is not an easy thing to think you know how your life is going to go for the next two years and then suddenly to have God reveal to you that the way you thought things were going to go is not part of His plan at all. Even though, we do not understand why He told us to stay in the States, we choose to TRUST that He knows what is best. I am thankful that our Heavenly Father sees the BIG picture of our lives and knows what is best for us. I am thankful that He is able to be trusted and his track record has no failures! We are so thankful for the short time He allowed us to be a small part of the orphanage in GR and we will always cherish our time there. Well, maybe not the part with the huge spiders, mice and crowing roosters! ;o)
 Please keep the orphanage in your prayers and that God would call someone really special to live and serve there. Please keep us in your prayers as we pray and attempt to discover what God has for us. We plan to serve Him in whatever capacity He has for us and we are open to His leading wherever that may be.
 Below are a few of the memories:









Friday, April 11, 2014

How God is leading us...


Dear Friends and Supporters,

We want each of you to know how much we have appreciated your prayers and support as our family endeavored to follow God’s calling. It has been a privilege and honor to follow Him as He lead us to Haiti. We thank God for the help He gave in allowing our family to reach out and minister to the Haitians. He put a special place in our hearts for Haiti, and especially Hope International Missions’ orphanage in Grande Riviere.

When we returned to the US last October, we fully anticipated going back to Haiti in January. As most of you know, two of our children had some serious medical issues requiring surgery and testing in the first part of January that kept us here. God helped and healed. As we began to make return plans for March, we felt a check in our spirits, and God clearly asked us to wait. We earnestly sought His will through fasting, counsel, and prayer. To our surprise, God began changing our awareness of His plans for our family. As certain as we were in 2010 that God had called us to Haiti, we now feel with a peaceful certainly that He has released us from that same call. Although our broken hearts have shed many tears, we feel that for our family to return to Haiti would be out of God’s will. Our main goal in this life is to stay in the center of his will as we know that is the best place for any Christian to be.

We have shared this with our director and Hope International Missions. They support us in our decision. We are very appreciative and thankful for their support and prayers. Please keep the future of the orphanage in your prayers that God would call more workers to this harvest field. We appreciate your continued prayers as we go through this transition time. We plan to follow wherever God’s call may lead.

Satisfied Serving Him,

Danny, Liz, Rebecca, Benjamin, Abigail, and Caleb Flowers

Monday, February 24, 2014

Up-date! ;o)


 Dear Friends and Supporters,

 Hello! We are sending out this up-date to thank all of you for your faithful, monthly support for our family and to give you an up-date. We thank God for helping us thru language school last summer in Carrefour, Haiti. God was faithful to help us with beginning to understand and learn Creole. As most of you know, our youngest son, Caleb suffered a terrible fall and concussion while we were there. This resulted in troubling MRI results that led us back to the States to Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, IN. When we returned to the States last October, we had no idea the long, scary journey that was before us. Along that journey we found out that Caleb, has a degenerative nerve disease called Neurofibromatosis (NF1). We went thru a series of tests to see how the disease is progressing and as we waited for the test results, we have asked you to help us pray for God’s touch and perfect will. God has answered and at this time Caleb has a very mild form and is doing well. His doctor’s have cleared him to return to Haiti as long as we keep the disease monitored with yearly check-ups. Praise the Lord!

  God has also helped us to get our children’s passports renewed and we still feel the need and call to serve in Grande Riviere du Nord, Haiti. We are preparing to return in April, Lord willing. God has put it on a generous donor’s heart to give the finances for our airfare and we praise the Lord that part is covered! However, we have noticed a serious drop in our monthly support the last few months. We need this to come back up in order for our family to be able to live in Haiti. (Budget: $2,500 a month) We also need the finances to pay for shipping over the other half of our things. Missionary Flights charges about $1.60 a lb for everything shipped and we have about 1600 lbs that we need to ship over. ($2,500)  We are also trusting God to supply traveling expenses from IN to FL.  Thank-you for helping us pray about these important needs!

 We really appreciate your prayers and support as we continue to follow in His footsteps. God is so good and faithful and it is a joy to serve Him and go where he leads!

 

Satisfied Serving Him!

Your Haiti missionaries with Hope International Missions

Danny, Liz, Rebecca, Benjamin, Abigail and Caleb Flowers

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Test results: Normal! On to Haiti!

 Yes, you read the title correctly, Caleb's test results from Riley have all came back 'normal'. The endocrinologist feels that there is no need to be worried at this point in time. He has been released to go back to Haiti :o) We will plan on yearly MRI's and eye exams to monitor his NF1. We want to thank each and everyone of you for your prayers! It has been a scary, deep valley that we have went thru since Caleb's accident, yet, we can look back and see how God has orchestrated events and circumstances for our good and His glory! Our hearts are full of praise to Him and we  stand amazed at His watch care and protection!
  We are still staying here in Gas City, counting the many blessings that God has given us, from a fantastic church family at Community Bible Methodist that have encouraged, prayed for and supported us to making and re-newing special friendships. We have truly cherished this time and now we are beginning to get back into 'Haiti Preparation' mode. We are praying and are asking you to help us pray that God will give us clear direction on a return date to Haiti. In the next few months, two major holidays for Haiti are celebrated. During these holidays, voodoo parades and Raa-raa bands are prevalent. Moving to Haiti during this time could cause a lot of problems, especially if the streets are blocked. Another issue to take into consideration is our un-finished house. We are praying about taking another team in to finish it up before we move in. If you know of someone or feel it on your heart to be part of that team in the next few months then send us an email.  flowersinhaiti@gmail.com

  God continues to re-new the excitement, passion and call on our hearts to get back to Haiti and we are ready and willing to go as soon as He opens the doors. Thank-you for helping us pray!


 Below are a few pics of our last few weeks here. Our girls had a sweet Tea Party with their new friends, we celebrated Danny's 40th birthday with a Surprise party for him and we hosted a fun sleepover all in the middle of getting LOTS more snow! And we have all been enjoying getting to know our new neice/cousin, Miss Arya. She is such a sweetie and we had fun taking pics of her and her cousins when her and her mom came to visit ;o)  Enjoy the pics!





 


Thursday, January 23, 2014

Living Day to Day in Trust as He guides

 Thank-you for everyone's prayers for Rebecca! She is completely recovered and doing wonderful! We are so thankful the surgery is behind us and she is better. We thank God for His healing touch!
   We took Caleb to Riley  to meet with an Endocrinologist. Caleb is on the lowest end of normal for his age and weight. Still weighs 35 lbs, even though his appetite has seemed to pick up a little bit :o) He is just very active and must burn off the calories as soon as he eats them! She had a Bone Age x-ray ran on him and a lot of blood work. She said that an MRI of the pituitary is just a picture and does not really tell her anything. These tests should tell us more and if he needs any treatment then we will go from there. We are a little frustrated that we did not get any real answers but have resigned ourselves to the fact that we have to...WAIT...ugh! ;o) At this point, it is very important to us that we know what Caleb's medical needs are going to be and how they can be treated with us going to Haiti. Thank-you for helping us pray about this. God's timetable is very different from ours and we continue to trust in His perfect plan.
  In other news, we have temporarily re-located. We are very thankful for my parents allowing us to stay in their extra efficiency apartment for the past couple months and we have enjoyed spending time with them. However, due to tight finances, it has become necessary for Danny to find some temporary work. God has provided some handy-man, construction, carpeting jobs for him and housing has also been provided for us closer to where he is working. Our family is enjoying being together in our 'own' place and not living out of a suitcase, as we have for the past two years. We have been blessed with a 3 bedroom with a large area upstairs for school and a play room and we are loving it :o) So, temporarily, we are now Gas City, IN residents and are enjoying being apart of Community Bible Methodist Church. Pastor Jeff Moore leads a friendly, welcoming group of people and we feel right at home. :o)  God is so good to provide this temporary house, job and a fantastic church while we wait for His timing to return to Haiti.( We are still receiving mail at our Craigville address of PO Box 62 Craigville, IN 46731 if anyone needs to send us anything.) In the meantime, we are going to try not to freeze into icicles with these polar temps..brrrr! Haiti is sounding pretty good and WARM right now! ;o)

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Surviving the 2014 Blizzard and Surgery Recovery

We have been hoping for a couple good snowfalls since we have been back here in the North. Our family loves snow and missed it when we lived in Florida for two years and we know we will miss it a lot when we are in Haiti. Well, as most of you know, God sent us SNOW! LOTS of it! And is it ever beautiful! Now, we did NOT hope and pray for the frigid temperatures that have came along with it, but I guess you sometimes have to take the good with the bad when it comes to winter in the North! Our area received over a foot of the white stuff and the day it was falling down the temperature was in the 20-30's so we let our kids go out and play for a while and they loved it :o) They have been sad that it has been so cold the past few days and they have been unable to go out in in. We have literally been buried here as it has taken the plows a couple days to dig everybody out. Yesterday was a snow day for a lot of people as most businesses and places of employment were closed and the schools are going on three days of no school. Last night, my brother, sister-in-law and new baby niece came over and we made Pepperoni Rolls and other goodies and played Dominoes. It was fun to have an impromptu party while being snowed in :o) If you remember in my last post, I mentioned that Danny and Ben were going to be driving to Florida today. Well, due to the blizzard and the fact that 29 counties in IN had level 3 snow emergencies out and anyone caught driving would be fined several thousand dollars, they did not go. We are a little disappointed that they could not go since we were hoping that they could finish out our kitchen, yet I am relieved to know they will not be driving on the roads.( We are trusting that God has another plan and that He will reveal and lead in His time.) We have had high winds and a lot of roads keep drifting shut and they are forecasting more snow in the next few days. I think it is safe to say that we have had enough 'winter' to last us for good, long while! (And something tells me that it is not yet over!)


 
A beautiful winter wonderland!

  We have appreciated everyone's texts, calls, prayers and emails asking how Becca is doing from her surgery. She came thru surgery just fine and when it was over the surgeon came out and told us that her tonsils were quite a bit bigger than he had thought and it was good we had the surgery. We were not prepared for how MUCH pain she would be in afterwards. She said it was the worst pain she had ever had in her life and she could not get enough ice chips and cold liquids. We felt so bad for her and helpless and were so thankful when the pain meds finally took effect. It is 5 days after her surgery and as long as she keeps taking her pain meds and drinking/eating cold stuff she is ok. We have to watch for any bleeding as the scabs can sometimes bleed as much as 10 days after surgery. So 5 more days to go before she is out of the woods. Appreciate your continued prayers!

                                
This was taken before her surgery and she would have not been happy if I had taken an after picture!
At this point, she was happy to be getting them out.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Surgery today and a Quick Up-date

 Rebecca is scheduled to be at the surgery center at 12:30 today for her tonsillectomy. She is relieved to be getting them out and we are hoping and praying that she will feel much better after getting rid of her swollen, scarred tonsils. Please keep her in your prayers today and for the next 10 days of recovery. The ENT has told us that there is a slight chance of bleeding up to 10 days after surgery so we will be watching her closely.
  We have been so thankful for our insurance company during this time of medical issues that we have seemed to be bombarded with the last few months. Christian Healthcare Ministries have been wonderful! After scheduling Becca's surgery at the ENT Surgery Center, and thinking we were going to get billed for it, they called us to let us know that the regular scheduling person was not in the day we scheduled and she neglected to tell us that we needed 1/2 of the bill down before they will operate! What?! Needless to say, this was a huge surprise and concern! We called CHM and was so relieved when they worked it out to over night us a check..whew! They came thru with getting the money to us, even though it was the Holidays and we are ready to not only pay 1/2 but the whole amount today! We are very satisified with CHM and thankful we have them! The best part is that they are covered under the new health care mess and way cheaper! If anyone is needing a great insurance program for major medical issues, check out www.chm.org . If you decide to join, feel free to let them know we referred you with our member number...321-160895 and we will get a FREE month once you have been with them for 3 months! This is a great way to help support us and get insurance for your family too! Win-win for everyone! We have already had 2 people join and possibly a third in just this last month, feel free to jump in :o) Then you can turn around and tell people about it and after they join then you get a free month too! This gift just keeps on giving! It is simply Christians helping each other out the way the Bible asks us too and it works!

  With all the changes going on, it has worked out for Danny and Ben to fly back to Haiti next week. They will be driving to Fl this next Tues. and flying out Fri. with another work team. The plans are to get our kitchen finished out and the kitchen in the mission house below re-done. This will be soo nice for Madame Dominique to have a new, functioning kitchen to cook in and I need a working kitchen when we move there. God is good the way that He works out things for our best and to His glory! We can see Him working in many ways thru this 'detour' that we are on presently, proving that His time truly is Best!

 Please pray for traveling mercies for Danny and Ben next Tues. and Wed. and all week as they go back to Grande Riviere. Anyone wanting to help out with the financial end of this trip can click on the donate now button or you can go thru Hope International's website www.feaministries.org  Go under the Where we serve button to the Caribbean button to our name and make your donation there. You can specify what you want it to go toward under: Special Instructions.  We are still raising money to buy a water pump for the orphanage. Thank God that some has come in for that and we are trusting Him to supply the rest so we can insure our kids have clean, drinking water. We continue to raise the rest of the $6,000 needed to complete our house. $1,000 will complete the kitchen. Thank-you for praying and giving as God directs! Investing in His work has wonderful returns and no regrets!
 We LOVE to see who all is visiting and where you are visiting from! Please leave a comment just to let us know you stopped by and are praying. Thank-you!