Back at Grande Riviere

 Our family has been here at GR for a little over a week now. We have been getting work done on our house..yay!  The men are putting up the ceiling today and the cement block wall has been built around the spiral stairs and the front windows have been enlarged as well as our security bars have been installed. Slowly, but surely, the house is coming along. Don brought us here along with his boys and they all have been busy working on it ever since. I have posted several pics on our Fb page. Feel free to check them out.

  This past Monday we started our kids school for the year. We are using Bob Jones University curriculum Distance Learning on dvd this year and so far we are very impressed. It is a curriculum that really makes learning fun! They use puppets, bright, colorful props and fun themes for each grade. Our kids are really enjoying it despite the challenges we have of limited power and some technical issues with our dvd players. Pray for us as we work to find some kind of routine amidst the challenges here in Haiti. Thanks-you!
  We are also enjoying having our Regional Caribbean Director, Frank Vaughn, here with us. We went to Cape Haitian (O Kap) and picked him up at the airport yesterday. He treated us out to our favorite restaurant, La Kay, and he also brought a couple suitcases with snack foods, toiletries that are expensive here, garbage bags, plastic re-sealable baggies ( Very expensive here and we always need them!), batteries and other stuff that our wonderful family sent us :o) It was very nice to get everything! We hope to get a lot more done on the house the rest of the week. In the meantime, we are enjoying getting to know our Haitian family better and are enjoying Madame Dominique's cooking very much!

Celebrating Fifteen years!

 Today is our fifteenth wedding anniversary :o) ( Kenz Ane in creole.) We are thankful for the way God put us together and has given us fifteen amazing years! We love each other more than ever and feel blessed with the good life He has given us. We celebrated by making cupcakes and decorating them with little hearts and we baked a yummy lasagna and Apple cobbler for our meal today. All of these foods are rare treats for us and we fully enjoyed them! Danny and I went to the open market today and when we came back the kids had put up a few decorations and made us a paper flower bouquet..so sweet! Caleb was trying to figure out what the name of the special day was and he told Becca that they needed to get some flowers for Daddy and Mommies Valentines Day! They looked for flowers in the yard but could only find weeds so Abby ended up making us a flower bouquet. Danny told Caleb that our anniversary and Valentines Day were the same thing! ;o)

  On another happy note, we have been pricing a stove and refrigerator for our house in GR. We decided to go ahead and buy them here in Port and use them here at the mission house while we are staying here since the ones we are currently using do not work very well. We prayed during family devotions for God to help us to find a good cost-efficient deal. God certainly answered our prayers as Danny and Don went to buy them. When they walked into the store and started looking at the appliances, a sales lady came up and immediately dropped the prices! By the time it was all said and done, she had given us such a good deal that we would have been foolish to pass it up! So, we now have a brand new Whirlpool fridge and stove that God helped us get :o)  The oven was not working in the other stove so I have enjoyed using this new one very much! And since the refrigerator is new, it holds the cold air very well and our food does not spoil when the power is off. Yay! This is a huge stress reliever for me! So thankful that God gives good things to His children!

Thank-you for your prayers! God is really helping us and we praise and thank Him for the grace and strength He gives us each day!


 I tried to post some pictures but blogger is not allowing it. Go to our FB page to see our pictures.  Dannynliz Hirschy Flowers is our FB name.

 

God's Faithfulness and the Power of Prayer

It was about eight o’clock  Friday night, July 12th, when we heard a thump and Abby screaming. The kids had been playing outside with some of the Haitian children and Caleb had accidentally been pushed off the side of 4 concrete steps. He had fallen on his head. Danny ran down the steps and picked him up. He was crying & whimpering and in obvious pain. We checked him and found a goose egg and applied ice and gave him Ibuprofen. He was so sleepy and seemed to be doing ok so we let him fall asleep. Suddenly his eyes popped wide open, his pupils were huge and dilated and he was very confused. He was not able to answer basic questions and acted like he did not know us. We were very scared and decided to call Bro. Vaughn. We had the kids run and get our Haitian friend, Escotte. I explained to Bro. Vaughn what had happened and asked him to tell Escotte in creole that we needed to get him to a hospital. Bro. Vaughn was able to explain everything to Escotte and we quickly got Caleb ready to go. By this time, he had grown limp, pale and had thrown up once. He shut his eyes and was in a lethargic state. I talked with Bro. Vaughn for a short while after letting him know how scared we were and asking him to please pray that things looked really bad. He kept reassuring me that they would be praying and that we needed to calm down and pray too. Our older kids were very upset and we were all crying and praying out loud for God to touch our Caleb. Danny took Caleb to the court yard and a couple of the boys who live here with our missionary host and friend, Don Mobley, tried to start a couple motorcycles they have here. Don was gone for the week end and had taken his truck. They would not start and so they went out in the street and flagged down some taxi motorbikes. Danny jumped on one with Caleb while the boys jumped on another one. They raced off to a hospital about 2-3 miles away from us.

 

  In the meantime, I gathered Becca, Ben and Abby around me and we prayed hard that God would clear the way for them to get to the hospital for traffic is terrible here in the day and night. We prayed for their to be a good doctor who would know what to do for Caleb. Our Haitian friends were holding their own prayer meeting down in the courtyard too. I put out an emergency prayer request on Face book and people began to respond and say that they were praying. Many of you reading this touched Heaven for us for God's touch on Caleb! Within minutes of their prayers going up, we began to feel them! God gave me such a calmness in the midst of this terrible storm! Shortly, I was able to hear from Danny via someone’s cell phone that Caleb was still out of it and that the Dr. had only checked his pulse and temp and wanted to keep him overnight for observation. We were concerned with this and thought he should have a cat scan done immediately. Escotte was in the process of checking him into the hospital and was going to ask for a cat scan. I was talking to Danny when the cell went dead. Thankfully we had power for a short while and our laptops were fully charged so that I could stay on FB and talk with Daryl Hobbs, who is a missionary nurse practitioner and good friend.  She was able to help me stay calm while giving medical advice. A little while later, I heard back from Danny only to find out that they were now at a different hospital. The boys felt that it was too expensive to stay there and so they paid for the care he had received , hired more motorcycles and went to a clinic. The first thing Danny said was that Caleb was AWAKE, was asking to come home and knew his name, age and other basic questions! Danny said that he felt he was doing good and he thought he could come home. The Dr. at the second clinic checked him out, gave him ibuprofen and sent him home with instructions to get a cat scan the next day.

I cannot explain the RELIEF and rejoicing that we all felt when they came back and Caleb looked completely back to himself! We were so happy and praising God for His touch!

   Escotte came up to our house and asked if they could come and pray around Caleb. We agreed and several of our Haitian friends came and surrounded his bed. They began by singing 'Trust & Obey' in creole. At first I thought it was an inappropriate song but then God showed me that it was perfect. God asked our family to 'trust and obey' Him to come here to Haiti and now He was asking us to 'trust and obey' Him once more to take care of Caleb. By this time, it was nearly midnight and Caleb had fallen asleep. As they sang the precious words to the hymn, tears began to roll down my cheeks and God's calming presence began to settle around us. We all prayed after the song, they in creole and us in English. God met with us! There were many tears and hugs as we thanked God for His touch and asked for His continued healing on our little guy. After we finished praying they all stood for a while just gazing down at him as he slept. My eyes strayed above his head to a picture that is hanging there and suddenly I realized that it was a beautiful picture of Jesus. At that moment I knew that God truly was watching over Caleb and God had just shown me a tangible reminder! Needless to say, we watched him closely throughout the night and even had him sleep in our bed as his room seems a little far away! He slept thru the night and woke up asking to play my tablet. I gave it to him and he played it just fine with no problems at all. He got up and walked, talked, ate and was doing wonderful!

   The next day after going to 2 different places, we were able to get a cat scan done. The results took 4 days to come back. We received them in French and the only word we could understand was ‘mass’. We were worried that he had a tumor. After having the scan translated, we found out that it said there was possible swelling and that a contrast scan needed to be done to rule out a tumor. That same day we discovered a bump on his head that was dime sized when we found it and by the afternoon it was the size of a quarter. We put ice on it and gave him ibuprofen and it went down. We were very concerned and wondered if we should take him to a hospital that night. Because of how dangerous it is to travel here at night and not knowing if the hospital would even be open, we prayerfully decided to wait until the next morning. Daryl had given us the name of a lady Dr. that she had went to when she lived here. This lady had studied in the States for 9 years and spoke English fluently. She also founded a very nice hospital in Port-Au-Prince and so we went to her hospital. We asked people to pray for God to work it out for us to get answers and for things to go smoothly. He definitely went before us! We mentioned Daryl Bradbury and Frank Vaughn and she ushered us right into her office. She gave Caleb an examination and then took us to her head Pediatrician. She took us thru a crowded waiting room right to her. The Pediatrician examined Caleb and was concerned that he had a bump a week after falling. She wrote out an order for another cat scan. Then this sweet lady called ahead and set up an appt. for us at the lab.and then refused any money for her time and care. I hugged her with tears in my eyes, so thankful for her direct attention and concern.

  We took Caleb to a lab. and once again we were ushered right in past a crowded room of people. We had a short wait before they did the scan. The radiologist came out and talked with us and let us know that he had studied in the States for 14 yrs. and that he would take care of us. He did a wonderful job. After doing the scan, he came out and talked with me. He said he was confused because he was looking for a tumor but there was no tumor. He reported there was no bleeding, no clots, no cracks in his skull. He did say that there is something going on but he did not know what. He recommended we get a neuro-radiologist’s opinion in the States. He informed us that he is the top radiologist in Haiti and there are no neuro-radiologists here. He was confused about the bump but said it appeared to be on the outside of his skull and that he did not feel that Caleb is in any immediate danger.

   We praise God for His touch as Caleb has healed from his fall and has no complications from it. We feel that God allowed this to show us that he needs further medical attention. We do not know what is going on with him. We have some suspicions but nothing has been confirmed. Please pray for us as we will be sending the cd to get another opinion. Pray for us as we have many decisions to be made. Pray for Caleb's healing if it is God's will. Above all, pray for God’s will and leading. Thank-you! We could not be here with out your prayers!

    Looking back on this traumatic night, we can see that God's provision and protection were evident. If Caleb had fallen just an hour earlier there would not have been any of the boys home to help us get him to a hospital. They all had left for several hours that day and had JUST returned right before the accident. We had short amounts of power insuring that our laptops were fully charged. I had a good enough internet connection to stay on FB and talk with good friends who helped me stay calm and I was able to put out the emergency prayer request. God helped them to get safely to the hospital and clinic despite the heavy, crazy traffic here! And God taught us in a REAl way what it means to rely ONLY on Him! We felt so helpless and the only thing we could do was PRAY! We were at the mercy of the Haitians with our broken creole. We are so thankful for our Haitian Christian friends here! They were there when we needed them! And YOU all were faithful to help us pray! God is so good! Please feel free to leave a comment letting us know if you were praying that night or if you just want to let us know you read this story of God's Touch on our Caleb!

 

 

 

Celebrating independence Day in Haiti and Caleb turns five!

 We were blessed to have two July 4th picnics with our American and Haitian friends. July 3rd we enjoyed a supper of hotdogs, homemade baked beans, potato salad and pasta salad. Later we had brownies and homemade ice cream with pop and ice! Those are rare treats here! Our ice cream did not set up because we did not buy enough ice but we thoroughly enjoyed ice cream soup ;o) our missionary friends to the island of LaGonave were visiting, Yben and Laura Dalla and her sister, Tiffany, who flew in for a visit from the States.

Celebrating the 4th

 



 

Our yummy meal. The' hotdog buns' are actually a type of bread here.

 

We had a fun time visiting with each other and then the next morning we took Yben, Laura, and Tiffany to the boat docks so they could go home to the island of La Gonave. After telling them goodbye we drove another hour to the village of La Croix. Our friends, Elwood and Anita Martin are missionaries there and we enjoyed visiting and staying overnight with them. Anita does a wonderful job of running a clinic there and it was interesting to see where she sees the patients. The Martin's fixed us delicious hamburgers on the grill, coleslaw, fresh veggies and Doritos..yummy! We have missed Doritos! Then we enjoyed Anita's wonderful homemade brownies :o)  It was a nice relaxing visit and we all enjoyed getting away from the noisy, busy city of Carrefoure. Thank-you soo much Martin's for hosting us in your lovely home! We really appreciated everything!

Enjoying our cook-out

Mrs. Anita had a willing helper with the dishes.

Our happy group with Reggie, their dog.

 

Elwood & Anita Martin

 

Reggie and Caleb hanging out

 

Abby by a huge tree in the front yard of the compound.

 

Next big celebration was Mr. Caleb turning five. He requested pancakes for his breakfast. I have learned how to make them from scratch and the syrup too so we enjoyed pancakes. Later in the day we made a big cake with Abby & Caleb's help. He wanted a jungle theme cake so using what we could find such as Abby's Pet Shop's and some very cute palm trees that Ben made out of straws and construction paper we were able to deliver a jungle cake! We were quite happy with how it turned out and so was he :o) We made homemade chocolate ice cream and invited Don and 9 of his boys over for a fun birthday party. We brought some decorations from the States and Caleb's siblings had fun putting up crepe paper and making the kitchen look festive. Everyone enjoyed the cake and ice cream and then we passed out some glow sticks we had left over. Then everyone went outside and had fun tossing glow sticks. It was a fun night! You can visit our Face book page for lots more pics.

 

 

Checking out his jungle cake.

 

The finished product!

 

Party guests playing with the glow sticks

 

Happy Birthday Mr. Caleb!

 

Fun with the TLC team and Beginning Language School

 Sorry that I have not been able to up-date this blog in quite a while! We have been in Carrefoure for almost 2 weeks now. We had a great week with the TLC team in Grande Riviere :o) They were a huge help with the ongoing  work projects for our house. They put on a 3 day VBS and we had around 200 children some nights :o) They all enjoyed getting to know the boys and had a great time playing with the children. Several of them brought treats to hand out and some of the team even donated some of their clothes. We put together goody sacks for each one, including Pastor and Madame Dominique, Madame Masees, and some of the helpers that cooked and washed clothes for us. It was fun to watch them open them, knowing that it was like Christmas to them as they rarely get fun stuff just for themselves :o) We thank God for His help and protection and for giving us all a good week! We also thank you for your prayers!

                                                  

                                     

   We began language school last week and God is helping :o) Our teacher is our good friend, Escotte, who is doing a good job helping us learn creole. The kids are learning how to count in creole too :o) Language school is costing us $250 a month. If you feel lead to help towards this cost you can click the donate button. Thank-you!  Escotte has taken us to the market a few times and we are learning how to barter and buy our groceries. Completely different then going into Walmart ! ;o)

 I am learning how to 'cook' again, as cooking here is very different than in the States! I thought I knew how to cook but I am discovering that I do not! You have to plan ahead to soak the beans, wash the rice and wash all the veggies and fruits. The flour must be sifted. The eggs must be washed well with a little bleach and water. Leftovers do not keep due to the heat and the in-consistency of the electricity for running the fridge. These are just a few lessons I am learning. ;o)

 Life here is hard. We have a lot of comforts that we take for granted in America. In America we turn on the tap and fill our glass with fresh, safe water, open the freezer and pop out ice cubes into our drink, proceed to the living room where we sit down in our comfy lazy boy while enjoying the cool breezes of the Air conditioner!  In Haiti we get our drinking water from a jug of water that has been filtered and IF the power has been on long enough, it might be cold from being in the fridge. Ice is a rare treat here. We sit down on hard chairs by the open door hoping that a breeze might be out today. Notice the differences?! The moral of the story....enjoy America today and pray for God's grace and help as we adapt to Haiti.

  In other news, we are in NEED of a team to come to GR (Grande Riviere) the first or second week of August. We plan to be putting up the walls in our house, possibly plumbing in the bathrooms and other house projects. We are looking for 8-10 people who are not afraid to ROUGH it and are willing and able to do HARD work. Rewards will be enjoying Madame Dominique's DELICIOUS cooking, getting to the KNOW the boys at the orphanage and the BLESSING of helping to further God's work in Haiti! All interested applicants email us for more details such as cost, what to bring and etc.

We VALUE your continued monthly support and prayers as we go thru language school and fight sometimes daily culture shock! Blessings on you all!

Hello from Grande Riviere!

 We have arrived safely and are doing well. The culture shock has been minimal so far. The city power has actually ran pretty steadily here in GR and we have been able to have our fans going and keep our water (dlo) cool in the freezer ;o)  We brought Terro and other bug sprays/killers with us and it has helped a lot with keeping the creepy crawlies away! We were received with shouts of joy, open arms, hugs and kisses from our Haitian family when we finally got here Tuesday afternoon. We had a long day of travel with minimal problems. Praise the Lord! God helped us thru customs, even though we had a few hairy moments. We have NO DOUBT that your prayers went before us and God intervened during the long, frustrating process.
  Our kids have had a wonderful time playing from dawn to way after dusk. They play futbol (soccer), wheel chair races, duck-duck-goose and anything else their imaginations can come up with. Danny has gone to Cap-Haitian with Pastor Dominique and is beginning to learn the ropes of shopping. I have went to the open market twice now with Madame Dominique. What an experience! I am thankful that she has been helping me as it is a LOT to learn! With God's help and your continued prayers, I will get it :o)
  Madame Dominique is a very good cook and she has been teaching me how to cook like a Haitian! I am enjoying it and learning a lot of creole words in the process. We made Diri and pwa with pul today and colsla ju to drink :o) (Rice & beans with fried chicken smothered in cashews. The juice is made with a fruit that grows here in Haiti...Mmmm!)

   We are all getting things ready for the Touching Lives for Christ ministry work team that will be here next Monday evening :o) Keep them in your prayers as they help with some building projects for our house and teach a 3 day vbs. We are looking forward to them coming. Will post up-dates as often as possible!  Bonswa! ( Good evening!)

Our family at the airport ready for the adventure!

Timoun jwe (children playing!)

Last Sunday in the States

 Life is full of 'lasts'. Last day of school. Last day at work. Last cookie in the cookie jar. Last time you see a loved one before they move or pass on. Today is a significant 'last' for our family. This is the 'last' Sunday we will be in the States for a span of time. As we sat in the service this morning, we were aware that next Sunday we will be worshipping in a completely different culture that will soon become 'normal' for us. We will understand about 25% of the service as it will all be in creole until we learn more of the language. We will hear very little English, if any. We will be with people we do not know very well, but will learn to know. We are all feeling a range of emotions: Sadness about saying goodbye, anxiety/fear of the un-known, Excitement for what lies ahead and overall a deep, abiding peace. That peace over-rides all the other emotions and it tells us that God is in control. This amazing journey that He has set us on has been His idea from the beginning, He has called us, prepared the way, provided for our needs and given us a ever-growing passion for Haiti! We are going to Haiti with His protection, His strength, His grace and He will NOT fail us! And we know that we are also going with the support of an awesome group of prayer warriors who are not afraid to touch Heaven on our behalf! Thank-you! You may never know, this side of Heaven, how MUCH your prayers mean to us and to every other missionary who is in the midst of deputation or on the field of their calling laboring for the Master. Thank-you for praying for your missionaries!

Please remember us in these SPECIFIC ways:

-Pray that God will make our way thru customs smooth, in-expensive and without incident.

-Pray for the culture shock that will no doubt hit us immediately as we experience the intense heat, warm drinks, no a/c, creepy crawlies and the language barrier. ( We will be without an interpreter for a week)

-Pray for the Touching Lives for Christ ministry work team that will be coming to Grande Riviere the 11th-18th. They will be flying into Port-au-Prince and driving up to our compound. Pray for safety on the long, winding roads. Pray for all of us as we minister to the children through Vacation Bible School and as the team works on various building projects.

-Pray for all of us as we will be driving back to Carrefoure (day long drive) to take the TLC team to the airport. Then our family will move in to the same guest house we stayed in last summer and began language lessons.

We will try our best to keep you all up-dated with pictures and blog posts as we can.

On to the Adventure!