ourlivesinhaiti

2020 in Review

Hello from Haiti! I have been thinking the last week or so that since we didn’t send out any Christmas card or letter I should just put an update on here with a photo so I can highlight some of our 2020.

The year started out really well for us! We had several different groups of visitors in January and February. We had a group come in January that installed our solar panels and new batteries. They have worked wonderfully for us and we never have to use the generator anymore. Not even during rainy season when it’s not very sunny. We also had Chad Groff from Pennsylvania come in January to spend several months with us. We all enjoyed having him around and he was able to get many projects done while he was here.

Bryan’s parents and youngest brother came the end of February for 2 weeks. We had a great time with them! It was Bryan’s brother’s 1st time here. Our children always enjoy when other young people are around to play with. We went to Jacmel with them and got to go to a beautiful waterfall,Basin Bleu. I was so glad we all got to go. Something I’ve been hoping to experience ever since we moved here! They left the beginning of March and Haiti closed their airport down without any warning, because of Covid-19, soon after they left. Even after the airport closed flights seemed to get authorized every week to leave Haiti even though no flights with passengers were coming in. We had 2 different weddings we did not want to miss in June so we hoped those flights would continue getting scheduled so we could still get to the States for the weddings.

In May different circumstances made us decide to get the next flight available to leave for the States. We got an email from the embassy on a Tuesday letting us know a flight was leaving 2 days later on Thursday. We booked tickets and also got a small plane to pick us up at an airstrip close to us on Wednesday. It felt a bit crazy to leave in such a short amount of time but we were glad we left when we did. We got to the States 3 weeks before my brothers wedding and a month before Bryan’s sister’s wedding. We first flew to Ohio. We spent about 10 days there then drove to Iowa for my brother’s wedding. We spent a week in Iowa before heading back to Ohio for Bryan’s sister’s wedding. After her wedding we went back to Iowa to stay until the Haiti airport opened for us to go back. We were able to fly back July 10 after exactly 8 weeks in the States. When we went we had no idea how long it would be before we could get back to Haiti. 8 weeks seemed like a fairly long time but it could have been longer!

Since we’ve been back we enjoyed a bit of summer vacation here before starting school in August. Peyton(7) is in 2nd grade. She loves animals and also has started to be a pretty good dishwasher for me. She spends lots of time reading. Hard to keep new books around for her since she reads new ones as soon as I give them to her! 😊 Weston (5) is in Kindergarten and learning to read. He goes with Bryan any chance he gets. He also loves to be the one to keep the girls bike tires aired up and any other job that gets him in the shop. He is very hands on and likes to take apart anything that we allow him too.😊 Alliyah (3) often writes in Peyton and Weston’s old, used school books and does ‘school’ too. She is a great worker and likes to keep things organized. She keeps her doll clothes folded and her shelf of clothes in neat organized piles. She also enjoys looking at books and being read too. I have enjoyed homeschooling much more then I ever thought I would. It’s so fun watching them learn! So far our school year has gone very well but we do have some visitors coming and we are hoping to go to the DR this winter so I’m glad we have worked hard so far so we can take off when visitors come.

Bryan stays very busy with all his responsibilities. He always has office work to do and has a really nice food forest growing around our house now. We had a group of students from another area of Haiti come for a week to intern for HRM and learn. It’s the 2nd time we’ve had a group come and I am so glad to see some of progress HRM has made here go to other areas in Haiti. Just a few days ago Bryan brought in a small fruit called a miracle berry. Weston was the one who ate it but hopefully soon the tree will be bearing so we can all try it. It’s so great to have fruit off of trees that Bryan has planted. Bryan does well at updating his Instagram so if you want to keep up with things that are happening here you can check it out there.

I think its time is sign off and start to get some other things done this afternoon. Thanks for all the Christmas mail we have been getting. It’s so fun to see pictures of your family’s. Even my children have really enjoyed looking at the pictures. God’s blessings to all of you as you start a new year! Love -Ashley

2020

Hello! I know I have not been very faithful at writing lately. Our year is probably similar to most of yours…. Not like we expected! Most everyone in Haiti was ready to put 2019 behind us with all the political unrest and gang activity. We were hopefully 2020 would be a better year with more visitors and more normal trips to Port. Our year started out on a good note. We were so excited to have a few sets of visitors again after 10 months of no visitors. The end of January we had a group come and install solar panels and batteries for us which has been great! No more running the generator 24/7 for electricity. Chad Groff from PA came with them and stayed with us for 5 months helping with odds and ends jobs we had around here. We did practice extra precautions when visitors came and avoided taking our mission truck to Port to pick them up from the airport. Instead we had a trusted van driver that was able to get them and bring them to a town near us. Everyone could ride inside and all the luggage was able to be inside too. We also felt better about having a normal looking public transportation van bringing our visitors away from the airport instead of our mission truck. We were also happy when Bryan’s parents and youngest brother came for 2 weeks end of February – beginning of March. They helped us with many different projects! We definitely enjoyed their help and their company. Our children had alot of fun with their youngest uncle Brandon. Because of increased robberies and kidnappings and also road blocks we decided instead of driving them to Port it would be better for them to fly on a small plane to Port. The company we used to fly us out of the small airstrip closest to our house was not available to fly on the day we needed them so we drove Jacmel to use an airstrip there. I had never been there before. It was about a 3 1/2 hour drive from our house. We stayed at a hotel and went to a popular falls. Basin Bleu. It was beautiful! It was a more of a hike to the falls then I was expecting but once we got there it was so worth it! Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures since it wasn’t really ideal to take a phone. I am hoping the next time we go we will remember to take Bryan’s gopro camera so we can get pictures and videos. Even though I don’t have pictures of the falls I did get a few from when they were visiting.

We had heard some talk of Covid-19 while Bryan’s parents were here. The airport in Haiti took their temperature when they landed but other then that their flights were just like normal. About 2 weeks after they left Haiti had confirmed its first 2 cases in Country. They immediately closed down the airport to all incoming and outgoing flights. It was the end of March. American airlines got a flight authorized to fly out of Haiti for a few days after the airport closed. We talked about whether or not we wanted to go. We had 2 weddings in June we did not want to miss. My brother was getting married in Iowa and Bryan’s sister was getting married a week later in Ohio. We decided it was still to early to make a fast trip to the States so we didn’t leave not knowing for sure if more flights would get authorized or if the airports would be open by June. More flights continued to be authorized to fly into Haiti without any passengers to take American citizens back to the States. All through the month of April we waited hoping that these spontaneous flights would still be happening the end of May when we were ready to go to the States. The 2nd week in May we heard of another flight leaving. Several reasons made us decide to go ahead and get tickets to fly to the States. It was still a bit earlier then what we were needing to fly but we felt like it was the right thing to do. We had gotten tickets Tuesday to leave Thursday. Because of more gang activity we decided it was best to fly to Port from the airstrip close to our house. We got a flight for Wednesday noon. We stayed the night in Port Wednesday night and flew on Thursday to Florida. Another overnight layover and we finally arrived in Ohio on Friday. We spent a little over a week in Ohio before driving our van to Iowa. We attended my brother wedding before driving back to Ohio for Bryan’s sisters wedding. We ended up being exposed to Covid-19 while in Ohio. So after getting back to Iowa we spent some time in quarantine. It actually wasn’t to bad. We took the kids swimming a few times and went fishing and helped Bryan’s aunt, who had also been exposed, with some of her garden and outdoor projects. After our quarantine ended we had about 2 more weeks to see our friends and family before we flew back to Haiti. We weren’t sure how long the airport was going to be closed. We were expecting it to be closed to the end of July so we were pleasantly surprised when it opened the beginning of July and we were able to fly back to Haiti July 10. All together we spent 8 weeks in the States. The longest furlough we have ever had! We were so thankful we had a place of our own to stay. Bryan’s aunt graciously let us stay in a house she had that was no longer being rented out. They also had it nicely furnished.

It’s always fun to see our nieces and nephews!

The children and I also got to go to Kansas City to meet up with a dear friend of mine. We stayed 1 night at Great Wolf Lodge. The children had so much fun in their water park.

Here are some pictures yet of our time in Ohio. We celebrated Weston’s birthday and his little cousin Blake’s birthday on the same day. We also loved the nice warm weather that allowed us to be outside a lot of the time we were in the States.

Since we’ve been back home it’s been pretty normal. We quarantined for 2 weeks after getting back. We did see a few people in that time frame but tried to keep to ourselves as much as possible. We have been getting some lovely rains and our food forest behind our house is looking great! So nice and green! So different then July 2019 when we were at the end of a several month drought. Here are comparison photos of our back yard from June 2019 and today. Bryan started planting this food forest end of July 2019-August 2019 after we came back from ECHO where he took a week Agroforestry classes and workshops.

Its time I sign off now and get some other things done. Until next time….. -Ashley

Happy New Year!!!!

Welcome 2020! We ended 2019 with some wonderful memories. We were so excited that our friends who had tickets to come for Christmas were able to still come. There has been a pause in the protests and riots the last several weeks. We loved having Henry Millers (family from our church and good friends) and Monica Stutzman (Bryan’s cousin) here for a week. Henry’s had visited us the beginning of 2016 but didn’t bring their children that time. This time they came with their 4 children and we were thinking that its the 2nd time people have visited us and brought children along. We love all visitors even though it was fun to see our children showing their friends what life is like for them. We also had a very yummy Christmas dinner thanks to the ham that Monica brought for us. We went to the beach once and to the river twice while they were here.

It wasn’t uncommon for the inside of the truck to have extra room because all the children loved riding on the back! Ended up being nice when they were wet and sandy

This was our fun group of people! I am having a problem getting pictures to upload so even though I have lots more these 2 have to do. (photo credits belong to Monica)

Another exciting thing happened while they were visiting. My wringer washer blew up! It smoked gray smoke and smelled really hot. Bryan and Henry looked at it but said it wasn’t repairable so we were able to do 2 loads in it while it was smoking before it gave up completely. We had to do some laundry by hand but with 3 ladies we were able to put laundry in the kiddie pool and get some clean that way! It also worked out well because when Bryan took them back to the airport on Saturday he brought me home an automatic! This week has felt amazing with having lots of laundry to do and not feeling stressed about it at all! We had extra laundry piling up because of not having a machine and I had extra sheets and towels from our visitors. But it wasn’t a problem getting it all caught up the first 2 days of this week. Part of me hopes Bryan can repair the wringer because there might be times it would be nice to use it. I’m thinking of when we wash our super sandy beach clothes mainly. Not sure if that would be hard on an automatic or not.

When Bryan got home from Port on Saturday we decided to have a small Christmas with our children and give them their gifts. They were so excited.

I had spend 3 days sewing in our bedroom earlier in the month and so the girls knew I was making them something for Christmas. I had found this feather fabric when Bryan and I were in the Dominican Republic in September and thought it would make cute Indian dresses for the girls. I figured Peyton especially would be excited since we had read a book series about Indians and she’s been fascinated ever since. We got Weston bullets for his Nerf gun but he was gone before we could get a picture.

Today we took of from school and have had a very holiday feeling type of day! It’s been perfect. I had told the children we would make some candy today but yesterday afternoon it was dreary and rainy. (very unusual for December! We got 7/10ths yesterday afternoon) So even though we had done school and laundry that morning I felt caught up enough to make candy yesterday afternoon since it felt like a good day for it. We made caramel, buckeyes and rock candy (some people call it glass) And I know the buckeyes are not pretty enough for a picture but when little ones are helping you just let them have fun!

I am having a bit better luck uploading pictures from my phone then I did when trying to upload Monica’s pictures from their time here. So I’ll admit my galaxy doesn’t have a camera like an iPhone 😉 😉

I am gonna sign off. This ended up taking alot longer then I expected because our internet wasn’t working well. Hope you all have a wonderful start to the beginning of this year! Love -Ashley

Quick update

To all our many friends who are wondering what’s the latest on the situation in Haiti and where we are currently at. I wrote several weeks ago that we had plans to go to the States while Bryan went to ECHO and stay until after his brothers wedding. We took a small plane and flew to Port au Prince because the day we flew (Nov 11) we didnt feel like it was safe to drive. While in the States Bryan had lots of contact with friends in Haiti and the last 2 weeks we were in the States things started to get better in Haiti. We were so thankful to be able to keep our original return tickets for Dec 10 and not have to postpone our return. We flew in yesterday and drove home from Port without a problem. We are very happy to be home again! The weather is beautiful and Bryan’s trees and plants are looking great. Gode got some rain when we were in the States which is unusual for December since it’s usually a dry time but we are always thankful for rain! The late rain also made so our yearly rainfall was within the normal range even with the drought we had this summer! God has blessed us in so many ways and I have been thanking Him all day for making the way clear so we can be home again! Thank you all for your prayers of protection over us as we serve Him here in Haiti. We also want to thank you for your support in our decision to come back even though things may seem a little tense here right now. God bless you! -AshleyAnd just because it’s always fun to share pictures here is a few from today 😊Bryan unpacking the trees he brought back from the States.

Getting to see this little cutie and watch Alliyah and her play

Bryan got weedeater parts when we were in the States and got the weed eater working! It hasn’t been working since we moved. The yard is looking very nice!

More Protests, Violence, and Chaos

The recent weeks have not been bringing any positive change into this country. Many have been praying and we know God is all powerful and hears our prayers. Sometimes the situation here seems hopeless and like their is no end in sight. But other times we wonder how much longer the country can go on like this when people are already suffering so much! We are thankful to be in an area that feels completely safe to us. We just stay close to home and make wise decisions about where we will go. We haven’t been to Port-au-Prince since we came back from the DR. We had to cancel visitors coming to see us because we can’t drive to get them from the airport and couldn’t get a plane to fly them to a nearby air strip. Many missionaries that live in towns have left since they couldn’t even go to their workplace every day and it wasn’t safe for them to stay. I am often so thankful to be in a village that is peaceful, even though people here are still suffering because resources in our area are more limited and everything seems to cost more. So many things seem out of our control when we look into the future. I guess it’s a good opportunity for us to place our trust in God. Today a lady told me ‘Bondye Konnen’ (God knows) when we were talking about the future of Haiti. I am so glad we have a God who does know the future and we don’t have any reason to worry! Right now we are just making decisions for our future one week at a time. Because of things that have seemed out of our control we are planning to take a small airplane from a nearby airstrip to Port-au-Prince on Monday, the 11th, and fly to the States on Tuesday, the 12th. I think I may have mentioned in my last blog post about how we had changed our plans to fly to the States together so Bryan can go to ECHO in FL and we can go to his brothers wedding in Ohio in one trip instead of two trips like we had planned to do it before the country became unstable. We booked tickets to fly out of Haiti on the 18th, with Bryan staying in Florida while the children and I continued on to Iowa. Bryan tried every resource he knew to try to get a small plane to fly us out of the airstrip nearby on the 18th. He got a maybe, but nothing solid. Helicopters are so much more expensive then planes so we did not want to use one to fly to Port-au-Prince if we could at all avoid it. Bryan found a plane that was flying into the airstrip near us on the 11th and had 5 empty seats flying back to Port-au-Prince. Plus we could split the cost of flying with the people that were flying in! Seemed like the perfect plan for us so we ended up changing our tickets to fly a week earlier and we will all go to Iowa together before Bryan flies back to FL for ECHO. We have return tickets for the 2nd week in December and really hope we can come back by then. But we are also planning for the possibility of spending more time in the States then a month, in case things continue getting worse here. Please keep praying for Haiti. If you don’t already have it on your prayer list, add it! We have several friends here who are adopting children or have a children’s home that they cannot leave. You can pray specifically for them as they are very committed to staying for the children! Also remember us in prayer as we fly. We see prayers getting answered in the rains God sent during this last growing season. People have beautiful gardens here that will be ready for harvest soon. It is such an answer to prayer in the way they have provisions here that people in big towns don’t have. I don’t want to forget to praise God for answered prayer even in the midst of turmoil. Thanks to each of you that have prayed with us for rain and are praying with us again now! We appreciate your care and support in every way! May God bless you for your kindness. Love to all -Ashley

10th Anniversary Trip…. More unrest in Haiti

Hello again from Haiti! Hope everyone who reads this is doing well. We’ve been back from our 10th anniversary trip to the DR for a month already and I am finally taking a bit a time to share some pictures. We had such a great time! We left the children with some friends of ours in Ti Goave. It was hard to leave them for 4 days but they did so good and it was great to be able to spend time together without them for a change! We drove over to the DR on Friday. We left early in the morning. We were once again amazed at how DR and Haiti are on the same island and yet so different! We got to Santo Domingo and did some shopping and got some grass seed for Bryan. We went to eat at a very neat cave that evening.

The second day we were there was a Saturday. We left the Santo Domingo early drove several hours to a farm of a guy Bryan found online. He had some varieties of trees and plants Bryan was interested in and he gave us some seeds and seedlings to take home with us. We passed many fruit stands on the side of the road. We stopped at several and Bryan enjoyed getting as many different kinds of fruit he could to try. We also stopped at a supermarket that had some exotic fruit and found some that was very yummy! Some of the fruits we tried Bryan has trees of here in Haiti but they are not producing fruit yet.

We didn’t even need stop to eat lunch because we had plenty of fruit to eat.

One of the highlights of our trip we couldn’t get any pictures of. After spending the morning fruit shopping we went to a place called 27 waterfalls. We had went another time with a group of friends when Weston was 6 months old. Another girl and me stayed back with the children that time while the rest went on the tour. I was glad we had a chance to go again without children so I could go along! A guide took a group of about 15 on a pretty steep hike uphill! When we finally got to the top we were all hot and sweaty! The first fall we came to a high place to jump in. I’m not good judging heights but Bryan thought it looked about 20 ft high. Our whole group jumped except one lady who ended up climbing down a ladder that was available. Because of a drought in DR only 7 of the 27 waterfalls were available to go through. We were in the water almost the whole time and some places we jumped and some we slid down like a slide. We would just swim to the next place and the water started to feel pretty cold by the time we were done! The last place we jumped was 25 to 30 ft high. We went down far when we hit the water and my feet still didn’t touch the bottom of the pool we jumped into! My teeth were chattering when we got out of the water. It was nice to hike back out into the sunshine! It took us a total of about 2 and a half hours to hike in go through the falls and hike back out. It was lots of fun and I’m so glad we got to go together. I’m also glad I have an adventurous husband who encourages me to do things like that!

After we left the waterfalls we drove to the Blue Ridge Mission in Juan Adrian. Friends of ours that live there, Merle and Mary Yoder, had us for supper and we spent the night and went to church with them the next day. We spent all day Sunday their and left 1st thing Monday to go visit a tree nursery and then head back to Santo Domingo. The tree nursery was off on some back roads. It started reminding of us Haiti. 🙂 Bryan had google translate on his phone that helped him communicate with allot of people. We walked around and looked at the grown trees at the nursery while Bryan kept his phone in his hand so he could ask questions about things he saw. I had to snap a picture of him holding his phone and looking up at the trees. I even joked to him that I got stuck carrying everything for him so he could keep his phone in his hand so he could talk! He got a nice selection of trees and we loaded up the truck and left. We had the whole backseat filled with trees and part of the back of the truck.

We had to stop and buy a tarp to protect the from wind and shade. We stopped at 2 greenhouses that we passed on the way back to Santo Domingo. We took our empty liquid nitrogen tank and another one for another organization that we got filled with liquid nitrogen in Santo Domingo Monday afternoon. After that we went fabric shopping, grocery shopping and got some toys and fun things for the children. We went out to eat at a steakhouse that night and enjoyed some very yummy food!!

All day Monday we talked off and on about what would be the best thing to do about getting home. We heard there was protests and roadblocks happening in Port au Prince and didn’t think the chance of us getting home on Tuesday looked very good. We finally decided to go and see how far we could get. I really wanted to get home and not leave the children longer than we had planned but I also didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t safe. We left Tuesday morning as planned and got across the border without any problems. Almost as soon as we crossed the border we could see evidence of road blocks that had been there earlier. But nothing seemed active so we kept driving. We made it to Port but didn’t want to stick around very long. We stopped to get some food for lunch and Bryan went into get it and I stayed out in the truck since we decided to eat on the way. While he was getting food he heard people talking that the protests were starting up again in the afternoon. When he got out to the truck we could see smoke in the distance from burning tires. We decided we should go to the Blue Ridge mission (in Haiti) and maybe spend the night and try to leave as early as possible the next morning. We took backroads to avoid road blocks and still almost got stuck in one. Thankfully we managed to get to Blue Ridge. After being their for about 3 hours we heard things were open again. Bryan called several people and we decided to try to make it to Ti Goave to pick up the children. I was so very relieved when we got out of Port au Prince. It just felt eerie the whole time we drove. No traffic and few people were out. I know we had people praying for us and we didn’t run into any problems. We got the children and made it home yet the same day. I never expected that when we left DR on Tuesday morning! Later we found out that the Haiti/DR border closed Tuesday and if we hadn’t crossed that morning we would not have been able to until they opened it again. I’m not even sure now how many days it was closed.

That was a month ago and the country still has not been operated on a normal level since then. On top of the protests there has been an ongoing fuel shortage which just seems to make matters much worse then we have ever seen here. Gangs like to take advantage of the country being in this state to become more bold in robbing and harming people. No schools have been open and trucks hauling food or public transportation have not been operating like normal. The protests stem because there are people that want the president to resign. Every statement the president makes he says he will not fight back with violence but wants to talk about matters. He also always states he will not resign. It seems this has to end. People cannot live like this! But at the same time it also appears there is not end in sight. We have been praying daily for the country of Haiti. For the people and for the leaders. Please join us in prayer that this country could find peace. There has been government corruption and instability for years but it seems to be at a whole different level the last year and a half. We know God cares and hears our prayers. I also need to add that in the small village where we live life has been pretty normal. Schools, clinics, hospitals, markets are all open and normal. The price of food has gone up and the fuel shortage has effected people here. Not as many motos are on the road and if people have a small generator its likely they don’t have fuel to run it. We have a diesel generator and our truck also takes diesel. Diesel seems easier to find then gas and we have a tank that had been filled before all this started so we have enough to keep us going for awhile and also have been able to share with others who needed. We are thankful to live in a remote place where things can keep going on as normal. But it can still wear on us mentally to think of where this country is going and not knowing if the work we do even makes a difference in a country that is so unstable. Please also pray for Bryan as he struggles to keep his mind strong in spite of everything that he knows is happening.

Because of the way Haiti is right now we have made plans to be in the States for awhile. Bryan enjoys going to the ECHO conference every year and we feel it does allot of good for his work here. Normally the children and I stay for a week by ourselves while he goes and comes back but this year we decided we would be more comfortable if while he was gone we wouldn’t have to be here alone. We are all flying to Florida in November and then the children and I will fly to Iowa and spend the week at my parents. He will fly to Iowa after his week at ECHO is finished and we will be in the States for Thanksgiving and stay until after his brothers wedding the beginning of December. Many of the people that have needed to travel the last month have gotten helicopters or small airplanes to take them to the airport. Things seem to be booked in advance so we are hoping to line something up for us now while still hoping we can cancel it and drive to the airport like we always have in the past. Even though we hadn’t originally planned to be in Iowa again so soon after our visit in May it’s always nice to be able to see family and friends. Thanks for all your prayers for us and for Haiti. I’ll add a few more ‘life’ pictures before closing

These 3…. Sometimes they are best friends…. (we won’t talk about the other times right now!)

We had some beautiful rainy days. It’s warmed up again and we had to take a trip to the river yesterday to cool off!

We’ve been able to keep a pretty strict school schedule. Tomorrow we finish up the first quarter of school. 9 weeks done! So far we have only missed one day and I’m so proud of her. Weston joins in when he wants to and Alliyah likes me to ‘teach’ her too. She no longer can sit and color she calls me over and says ‘teach, me teach me!’

and 2 more from our trip to the DR.

Hope you all have a great day!

Butchering…. and other news

Hope you are all having a relaxing Sunday like we are today. The children are all resting or napping and I am enjoying some quiet. Thought it would be a good opportunity to post a bit about our last few weeks. Not much has been happening except normal life. Tomorrow we are starting our 3rd week of school. So far it has been going very well. Weston loves to join in and do some preschool books quite often. Peyton has had a good attitude and has been getting her school work done quickly every day. I hope it lasts throughout the school year.

Last Saturday we butchered with 2 other families. There were plenty of children running around and they played together so well! Friday evening one family came and helped kill the 2 hogs and put them on ice and by 6:30 Saturday morning the other family had arrived and we were starting to cut the meat off. We ended up with 150 lbs of ground meat plus a lot of cuts to split between the 3 of us. We were done and cleaned up by lunchtime. I decided I would like to try to make lard. One lady that was helping had done it before so she told us what needed to be done. Now I’m not sure if I know how to use it but I have several quarts canned and waiting to be used.

After we had lunch the ladies took all the children down to the river to swim. We had quite the tribe with 13 children between the 3 of us and they had a lot of fun!

I am so blessed to have these ladies as my friends! Amanda has been here since the 2010 earthquake and has been a good constant friend to me! Carol was with me in the hospital and is like a sister to me. I am so thankful God has given me such wonderful friends here.

Bryan has been quite busy this last week working on our truck. He took it to get fixed and stayed and helped that guy take it apart one day. The next day they took part of the motor to a shop in Les Cayes to get fixed and another day Bryan went to Port to get parts for it to send to the guy in Les Cayes who is working on it. Bryan said it’ll take them a few days to get it put back together after they get the motor back. One day when Bryan was gone I decided to let the children help me make donuts. Sometimes I wonder why I get these crazy ideas! But it actually went very well. The children didn’t stay with me the whole time but that was ok. As long as they entertained themselves and let me finish what I had started I didn’t mind. It made a huge mess and we ate way to many of them! But since they are best eaten the day you make them I didn’t ration them too much. They were gone by the next day.

Bryan and I are planning on going to the DR for our 10th wedding anniversary once the truck gets fixed. I am really looking forward to it but am not sure how I feel about leaving the children for 4 or 5 days. The only time I’ve gone a full day without seeing them was when I was in the hospital so I’m sure it’ll feel very different for me to leave them! But I also want to be able to enjoy my time and I know we are leaving them in good hands here with our friends Jesse and Carol.

I’ll post a few more snapshots of some visitors we had the last week. I don’t often take pictures when people come to visit and this week I remembered to take a few. Usually its soccer or jumping rope when kids come. There are a few we get the toys out for and don’t have to worry about them getting snuck in their pockets. I also had to add one of a friends baby that we held part of the time during church today.

Since we were actually dressed and ready for church this morning with a few minutes to spare I took a picture of the children and had Peyton take one of Bryan and I.

I am so happy and thankful for the life God has given us and the incredible peace He gives when we are living where He has called. Love to you all and thanks so much for all your prayers and support! -Ashley

The past few months…..

Hello again for another overdue update from the Beachy’s. I know it’s been months since I’ve written an update. Thanks for all of you that still check in with us even when I’ve been so silent on here! We have been having rains that we are so thankful for! It has boosted everyone’s spirits and the mountains look green again. I know we had many friends who joined us in praying for rain. It’s also nice to have cooler evenings since the rains have started.

We were in the States during the month of May. We were able to visit Bryan’s family in Ohio and my family in Iowa. We had a good time seeing everyone. It felt like a long time to me since it was the 1st time I had been out of the Country of Haiti since we moved. It always amazes me just a bit every time we fly into the States and things are so different and it’s just whats normal to everyone! But its a great time to refresh and see family and friends again.

When we came back to Haiti it was very hot and dry. We prayed and prayed for rain. It was difficult watching peoples gardens die. Bryan has a garden he has been farming using the Foundation for Farming method in for the last 3 years. Even with the drought that garden produced a nice amount of black beans. But to start a garden using that method is pretty labor intensive with allot of different steps you have to do. Sometimes it seems the better approach is to pick one thing that can make a difference and focus on that then to try a method that is so different from their traditional methods. Bryan had planted some sweet corn seeds he got at ECHO. He irrigated the patch with buckets of water to keep the corn from dying. We each got one ear to eat and it was very good! The rest he saved for seeds. He is about to plant them and this time he will have enough we can eat more!

One of the ways we stayed cool during the hot days was many trips to the river, It’s not right behind our house like it used to be but we can still walk if we want or drive to the farm and walk from there. The children begged to go every day but the most we went was 3 times in one week. Usually it was more like once a week but when it’s to warm to work anyway why not just take everyone to the river!

Bryan was able to attend an agriforestry class at ECHO the end of July. It also worked out that the children and I could tag along. While Bryan was in class studying and busy the whole time the children and I got to vacation! My brother Laban came for 3 days and we went to the pool every day he was there. We also took walks and just hung out at the house we were staying at. We were very grateful for all the ECHO staff’s hospitality. We stayed at one of their houses that was had lots of books and toys. They also had a vehicle we could drive and carseats we could borrow. It was so good for Bryan, who was feeling pretty discouraged with the drought here, to be able to go and get new and fresh ideas on things to implement here that work well in tropical agriculture. Especially since it was already a topic he was interested in and wanting to learn more about. We had a rough trip home from ECHO with our flight but I was still happy we could all go along with Bryan. Sometimes it can feel long when we stay here while he goes, even though I am glad he has the opportunity to go and learn and feel inspired by everything ECHO has to offer.

I’ll finish by posting some pictures of other things that has been happening and of normal life around here.

This 2 year old keeps life interesting. She loves books and trying to keep up with her big sister and brother.

We found a library about a 45 min drive from here! We have only been there once. They have a nice selection of children’s books and some are even in English. I’m not sure if you can actually check them out but we had fun just sitting and looking at them while Bryan waited on our food in the restaurant that is in the downstairs of the library.

A few pictures from when we were in Florida. I wish I had more. We spent some time at a park while waiting on Laban’s plane to land, and went to a science center on Saturday when Bryan didn’t have class. Alliyah was fearless with it came to petting the snake!

Everyone needs a bonnet or a hat to keep the sun out of their eyes!

Back to school! A peek into our small school corner.

Last Saturday Bryan pruned our huge mango tree in our front yard. It is loaded with mango every year. The branches are so heavy we need sticks to keep them propped up so they don’t touch the ground or break. Now the children’s tree house is in plain view. And Peyton says dad cut down some of her climbing branches so maybe it’s safer this way!

Well I had better get going. Bryan is out watering his plants and all the children are out with him. I thought this is a good of chance as any to sit and write an update on here. Thanks for all your prayers and support. We love and appreciate you all!

-Ashley for the Beachy’s

From Bryan

Good afternoon to all! Greetings from Haiti.

The past couple of months have been a blur it seems like. Protests that crippled our little country in February seemed to add to the gloom and hardships of most Haitians over this period that always seems to be one of the most difficult seasons in the lives of people living in Haiti. Dry weather, low food supplies and fatigue physically and mentally. Topped with gas, fuels, rice, beans and oil/food in general now selling for double of their normal price is a recipe of disaster. This is all because of rich greedy wealthy men playing political games, at the expense of the poor in Haiti. Thankfully God is always faithful and promises to be with us through these hard times.

The rains finally started to come on the 26th of March and by the first of April people were planting. Gardens are looking nice for the most part but we’ve been dry for a week now and are praying for more rain to come soon! A few gardens have crop failure because of all the animals that were loose from the severe drought and unfortunately some gardens got ate. A few people lost cows over the drought because there was no feed available. We hope to use this as a stepping stone with the community to help everyone understand the importance of planning for the dry season and planting forages for the animals. Sometimes it can be very frustrating to me to see things like this, then hear people complain about not having feed over the dry season, when they have lived here their whole lives and seem to not be able to connect the dots on something that looks so simple to me. I have to remind myself that God made everyone in His image and loves us all the same. Often the things that look so simple to me are a manifestation of a much deeper problem that I am still trying to understand and learn about.

As far as the projects here at HRM and what I have been working on.

Dairy project/Animals

We’re in the process of planting 6 acres of pasture and building fence around it. It’s divided into 7 small parcels and plus around 2 acres of river front ground that can’t be fenced off due to periodic flooding. Most of the pasture is planted with grass. We’re currently waiting on more rain to finish planting. The majority of the fields we planted with two different grasses, Mulato II (Brachiaria) and Guinea grass (a local favorite) along with those we planted sorghum and sun hemp as well as a few other beans, velvet bean, sword bean, cow peas, and pigeon peas. All the added plants with the grass are to help get a canopy asap to suppress the weeds and the beans will also work to fix nitrogen for the young grasses. All these added plants are vital because the grass is planted by planting plugs in holes about every 3 ft and it takes awhile for the grasses to fill in the gaps and get concentrated across the soil. We have high hopes for the Mulato II as well as 3 other kinds of Brachiaria grasses we’re experimenting with. Most of them around double the protein and are much more palatable then the Guinea grass. Also the Guinea grass is susceptible to grubs and frequently whole pastures get destroyed by grubs. The fences are made out of barb wire and several different kinds of trees that sprout and grow when stuck in the ground during dormancy, a living fence. The trees are good forages and will be cut every year to build more fence or to feed cattle. Gliricidia is the main one we plant, there’s also moringa ‘tree of life’ and some Gumbo limbo ‘Bursera simaruba L’

As for the cattle, they’re all doing well. We had a Holstein/Brown Swiss cross calve on Jan. 14th. I was very disappointed as she only milks in her 2 back quarters. Luckily she had a nice little heifer. We have a Brown Swiss heifer calving in July, Holstein calving in November and a Haitian bred cow to calve in December if the Lord will. As for the other animals, our ol’ faithful sow had 9 piglets again. They are 32 days old and we just vaccinated them all for teschen, and de-wormed them. Our pigs sell for a premium around here, about 1000 goud more then the other local pigs. People are asking questions about how we get them to grow so fast. Everyone is also wanting the vaccine so I bought 200 doses of teschen vaccine and we’re currently working with the local vet to help people get their hogs vaccinated. A large percentage of hogs in Haiti die prematurely from teschen disease. The goats are doing better since we took them out of their pens and are taking care of them the old Haitian way on a rope. So the main thing we’ve learned with goats so far is, the way they do it is better then any way we’ve found yet. This doesn’t change the fact about how much of a problem goats are for Haiti. Or should I say, it doesn’t change the fact about how much goats are THEE problem in Haiti. We’re still motivated to try and find a solution to loose goats and try to find an answer to this problem.

The Greenhouse and Seed Bank

Spring is always a busy, busy time for the greenhouses. It seems like the success of the whole year swings in the balance in a matter of a few months. We just got done doing the distributions to the students for the year. I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me right now. We distributed Key lime, Sour orange, Cashew, Jack fruit, Breadnut, and Coconut. We grafted a couple hundred avocados in January and February that are looking really nice. The main one is called Choquette. We grafted 9 other varieties as well that all bare in the off season. So now we need to plant out these trees and in a few years we can get reports from the community about which varieties are preferred. We do already know that the choquette is a very popular one and is highly valued by natives in the areas it has been introduced. The reason for planting all the others is we would like to have enough varieties to have an avocado supply 12 months out of the year, and then use them in the school programs to get those varieties throughout the communities we’re working in. I have also been working in getting two different food forests going, to serve as living seed banks for our greenhouses. Mostly tropical fruit trees are very difficult to find in Haiti today, as well as a few that aren’t here in Haiti at all, that I think could be useful. Finding seed and bud wood for the greenhouses is the biggest challenge. Bud wood is best used within 1-2 days after harvesting it, and in some cases can still be good 8 days after harvesting it. It is also very dangerous to import from other countries because of disease risk, so working to find what is here on the island in Haiti and the Dominican Republic is the only option and they can be very hard to find. Having bud wood to graft the trees we’re planting is very important because trees take a long time to bare from seed and it can be difficult to get people excited to plant a tree that will take 10 years to bare fruit. Most grafted trees will flower 2-3 after being grafted. Another advantage to grafting is getting a tree with 100% of the same genetics as the mother plant. Most fruits cross pollinate with other close by varieties and sometimes produce undesirable hybrids. Some fruit trees have stronger sour genetic strains than the sweet strains therefore are mostly sour from seed producing unmarketable fruit unless its grafted with sweeter varieties.

As far as the seed bank, we’ve been pretty busy the last while collecting seeds for lumber trees and we also have a fair amount of vegetables in production right now. Harvesting lumber tree seeds when they are available is vital because they only bare seed once a year and some only every other year. So usually when you need the seed and its time to start planting for spring August-December there are no seeds available at that time unless you stored them from spring. So many things like that we take for granted in the States because whenever we need something we can go to Google and in a few seconds put in a order for whatever it is we need. It’s much different here. You need a seed, it’s usually up to you to get it because there are prolly no people or very few here in Haiti that harvest tree seeds to sell. and if there are any you’ll have a hard time finding them on Google. Some of the veggies we have growing for seeds right now are bell pepper, tomatoes, Habaneros, eggplant, okra, open pollinated sweet corn from Hawaii and Vegetable Amaranth, black beans, green beans, Lima beans, jackbean, and velvet bean. Some things like beans we only grow in rainy season but a few things like peppers and tomatoes we have several different varieties of so we alternate them year round so we don’t have multiple varieties growing at once causing cross pollination. Storing seeds and keeping things organized and documented is the hardest part. The biggest thing in seed saving is to keep the total number of temperature and humidity combined as low as possible, ideally the two combined need to stay below 100F to keep seeds viable, this is nearly impossible in tropical countries where both temperature and humidity are usually pretty high. Right now what we do to combat the humidity and heat is vacuum seal everything in glass jars with some kind of a desiccant, sometimes plain rice. Beans, sorghum, corn and other seeds in large quantities are stored in air tight buckets and barrels.

As far as what else is going on around here, the last few months I haven’t had much time to do much work around the house and shop because the planting season has been hectic. We’re looking forward to our furlough coming up in two weeks and hope to see some of you all while we are in Ohio and Iowa. We are also glad to hear our solar system might be close to getting to Gode when we get back from furlough. This will be very nice to get this off the back of my mind. I always think about it when leaving to go somewhere, I hope the generator keeps working.

We’re going to CAM for Bible study on Saturday. This is the first one of the summer. It’s always nice to get together with other Americans once a month and worship in our native tongue. I better bring this to a close! God Bless, Bryan

Happy (belated) New Year

It’s been quite hard to imagine the winter that most of my stateside friends are experiencing! It’s actually been cool here in Haiti too. The coolest I have ever seen in the winters we’ve been here. One morning our thermometer showed 58*! We get our jackets out mornings and evenings but it always warms up during the day. I took the children to the river recently and the water there was very cold! But not to cold to keep the children out. Even though their legs were knocking against each other when they got out.

We’ve been getting some visitors the last few months. My brother and his wife were here over Thanksgiving. Another guy from our church in Iowa came with them. They worked on building a rack for our truck and 2 other trucks while they were here. The last evening they were here we realized they had been so busy we never even showed them around to see our animals and gardens.

We had a good Thanksgiving. Around that time things were pretty crazy in Port because of a rise in fuel prices. We were thankful our visitors made it to our place safely. Things in our area were very calm and normal. We had some American friends over and had a Thanksgiving meal on Thanksgiving day. Our Turkey was a bit tough but also very authentic.

The day after Thanksgiving Joe Karn came for 6 weeks. He had lived with us the 3 years we had been in Haiti previously so it was nice to have him around again for awhile. While he was he was here our house for hit with dengue fever. I don’t remember ever being so sick! Joe got it first, then Alliyah then me. It hung on for days. Bryan did all my work for me for probably a week. I was glad he didn’t get it since he’s seemed to have gotten sick enough since we moved back in June. We had plans Christmas day but ended up staying home and I spent the day in bed. It was a pretty discouraging day. Holidays always seem hard when you are away from family.

Since our Christmas plans to go to a friends house didn’t work out we invited them to our house for a New Years eve party. The one family headed home a bit before midnight but the other couple we invited was planning to spend the night. We all stayed up til after midnight. The next day I wondered if it was worth it! Our children seem to wake up at same time no matter when they go to bed. We went to the river new years day and had a good time since we were all feeling better!

We spent a bit of time in LaBaliene while some board members were here and Bryan was gone for about 4 days when he went on a trip to the north to visit some farmers that came to the last agriculture conference we have every year in LaBaliene. On his way back from that he picked up my other brother Laban who came to visit for 2 weeks. Its been alot of fun to have him around. He has helped out alot with small house projects Bryan hadn’t gotten too. Bryan and him also built the children a tree house.

While Laban was here I left for Port to attend a women’s conference. There were 12 ladies from 2 hours or less in every direction around me that went out in a vehicle together. It was very full but it was fun to travel with a group of women and chat without having children to look after. The conference was a Friday evening and all day Saturday. There were 2 speakers that combined equaled to living in Haiti 23 years. They both live in the States again now but it was very refreshing to sit and be inspired by women who have so much experience to living here and in the culture we do. A total of 40 women were there. It would take a whole separate blog post to tell you everything that I gleaned from the weekend. Some thing that I really enjoyed was parts of an article titled ‘Meet Me in the Middle’ I asked for a copy of the article and will share part of it here.
One of the hardest things about being an American living in a developing country is the constant tug between the world you left and the world you are currently living in. You can’t ever really shake either one. They are simultaneously slapped in front of your face and tucked inside of your heart at all times. Living in a developing country means that we are constantly faced with need. It’s at our gate, in our homes, along the roads we travel, called out to us from the streets we walk, forced upon us, in front of us at all times. As Americans, we have access to money (not unlimited access by any means, but nevertheless access). It’s no secret and it’s obnoxious when we try to pretend otherwise. It’s not always fair, but it’s the truth about where we come from. Most of us try to help needs. Many of us give until it hurts, but it’s never enough. We live in the “Middle”; in between two worlds which contrast themselves in a million different ways. To Americans, we are the missionaries who are always in need and the ones who gave up so much. To many people in our host country, we are the wealthy; the glowing answers to meeting their needs and who just need to give more.

Farther on in the article,

So, living here in the “middle”, I have learned to live with heaviness. All of us here in the “middle” learn to live a little bit heavy at all times, swallowing a million thoughts and emotions that enter our brains because it’s just too hard to process and articulate it all.

All of us who live in this “middle” are in a battle which is constantly fluctuating between abundance and need. You learn to cry with those in need and rejoice with those in abundance and find yourself living in both at times. You learn to live without giving yourself too much permission to process or compare where you are currently falling in between those two extremes.

Those of us in the middle carry a pervasive struggle in our hearts. You can’t really articulate it because it’s a kind of schizophrenic leap between guilt and jealousy, gratitude and shame, pitying others and pitying yourself, anger and sorrow, generosity and greed, a bleeding heart and a shocking coldness due to compassion fatigue. It is a fight and we get tired of living in it often. We want to enjoy moments and people and things, but it isn’t that simple anymore. Our highs and delights are tempered, and your pains and sorrows often feel unworthy.

Even those missionaries who live in the village inside of mud huts with no running water carry health insurance cards that could save their children’s lives, and most are one phone call away from being able to return to the States if there was great danger. It is not fair. We are always going be different. Though I’ve fought this mental battle for years, I don’t believe that the answer is living guilt-ridden, nor pretending we are poor (people see past that, sorry!), nor is it giving away every single thing we own.

That’s the funny thing about contentment, right? We don’t get to choose what we are called to be content with. We have to be content with what God has given. In Philippians, Paul talks about this kind of contentment. He says that he had to learn how to be content in every situation; how to be in need and how to have plenty, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. Paul tells us that it is Christ who gives him the strength to do that. And it’s Christ who gives us strength, whether in need or in plenty, to live the same.

The phrase it’s not fair I felt like I could relate too. Something I have often felt when thinking about my own hospital experience here. If I had been a Haitian I would have died. Its not fair! But I know God placed us here. And I am very thankful for his protection we have experienced while living here.

Towards the end of her article she writes
So, I don’t have this battle won, but I think the answer is learning to live well within the “middle” rather than fighting it. Those of us who live in the “middle” aren’t comfortable on either side anymore, but that is exactly where God has placed us.
On this side of our “middle” we must find contentment in having less but loving those who have more.
Let’s have the courage to face either side of our strange “middle” and then have faith to give it to our Father. I think we will find peace there. We will be at peace, because though we are wildly out of control and insanely tugged from both of our realties, our Father is in control and He is good.

I went to pick parts out of the article and ended up sharing alot more then I thought I would! I do not know who originally wrote this article and if I did I would include her name.

There was so much more that I enjoyed while attending the women’s conference too. So much good food and wonderful fellowship. It felt like such a refreshing retreat. The children were excited to see me again but I know they had fun with their dad and uncle. Before I left Weston told me his plans for while I was gone was to ‘wrestle with dad!’

Laban is flying back to the States tomorrow. We came to Port yesterday evening because we had an appointment at the embassy to renew Peyton’s passport. So we are staying 2 nights in Port so we could do the passport appointment and taking Laban back to the airport in the same trip. This is the 2nd family Port trip we made since moving and each time I’m reminded that I am happy to stay home and let Bryan go! February 4th we are planning for more visitors coming from our church. It makes winter months fun and go by quickly when we get visitors and it is so very nice to have a house that can easily accommodate extra people around! So whoever is getting tired of the cold you can plan a trip down south! 😊 I’ll add a few pictures at the end of my post. God Bless you all as you follow Him -Ashley