Camp Quaker Haven

     I remember clearly my first year at Quaker Haven. The 3 years that I went were some of the best summers ever! It's insane to me that this morning I went with the rest of the family to drop off Landon and Kate. This is Kate's first year to go and Landon's last. How weird is that?! So weird. I cannot believe they are old enough to go. 

     The temperatures last year were pretty insane for Landon. Around 105 every single day. Ugh. This year is supposed to be the same! Last year they didn't have air conditioning, but this year they installed it in every cabin! Lucky kids. 

Here are some pictures of us moving them in. 

The view from the boys' side of the camp. Pretty neat, huh?

Aww. I'm going to miss him. 

     It won't be long before we're sending Jack off to camp! I'll be 21 by then. Wow. Crazy. 

Hope you all have a great week! 

20 Years

     Today is the 20th anniversary of the day Julie and I married.  It is difficult to understand how 20 yrs has come and gone but I understand one thing - that I adore and cherish her more now than ever before.  I am so grateful to God for giving me such a wonderful wife.  

Julie is an amazing woman and those of you who know her understand what I mean.  She is so capable, organized, energetic, and wise.  Watching her care for our children makes me so proud.  She is truly a Godly woman that is totally devoted to her family and to the Lord Jesus Christ and I am so lucky to have her as my wife.  

Thank you Julie for the awesome last 20 yrs and I so look forward to the rest of our lives together.

~Your Adoring Husband

Haitian Food

     One of the things I love about traveling is getting to try new and interesting food. I found some of them delicious. And some of them not so much. So, here is a list of all the new things we've tried and our reactions.

Goat - Dad: I liked it. Very strong flavored. The cuts of meat left all the bones in though. It was really dark meat. I was surprised by that. 
Glynne: Liked the goat. But it was hard to eat because I got a piece with a lot of bones. 
Ally: I got a part with mostly bones and not much meat. It was ok. 
Emma: I got two pieces and only one had tiny bones in it. It was like, really really good. 


Passion Fruit - Dad: Um... I did like it. I wouldn't seek it out, but I like it. 
Glynne: Eh... Didn't really like this one. Taste and texture was like sour boogers with crunchy seeds. Not my favorite. 
Ally: I didn't even try this one. 
Emma: The texture was AWFUL, but the taste was ok. 


Mango - Dad: I liked mango. 
Glynne: Mango was really good. The only downside was that it would get stuck in your teeth. 
Ally: It was ok. Not my favorite. 
Emma: I didn't like it. Too sweet and weirdly textured. 


Fried Plantains - Dad: Awesome with peanut butter. Really plain without it. I would love to make it at home. It's probably the only thing I'd like to try at home. 
Glynne: All their desserts here are pretty bland, unlike ours back in the US. So I didn't like it much at first. Once I put peanut butter on it, it was pretty good. 
Ally: Oh, golly. I didn't like those either. 
Emma: I liked them if you ate them with peanut butter. And ketchup. They were good with ketchup. 


Conch Snail - Dad: Fun to eat. As long as you didn't completely chew it. 
Glynne: Well, the first time I ate this I thought I was biting into chicken. Nope. Snail. It has a very dense, fishy texture. Not the best. But fun to try. 
Ally: I didn't like it either. Too chewy. 
Emma: I just... (made a face) was kind of grossed out I was eating a snail. I sort of liked it the first time, but then it got gross. 


Some sort of unidentified root (sort of like a potato) - Dad: They were good. Like potatoes. I like these better actually. 
Glynne: Personally, I liked these better than potatoes. More of a creamy texture. 
Ally: I like those! They were good. 
Emma: They were my favorite of all the food. Really yummy. 

Update #?

Things still seem to be going well.  Bryan sent this email sometime yesterday.

Today again in the clinic this morning. Different translator today. His name is Robinson Pierre.  He is 27, married with 2 daughters and only works here and there as a translator.  Finished HS last week and would like to go to medical school in US.  Very nice and has a great love for Christ. 

Robinson told me he went through a tough time a while back.  I asked him and through tears he told me he had no food or water for his wife and kids 2 days.  His little one 2 yrs old learned to say she was hungry and thirsty.  He said it broke his heart.  But he trusts in God.

Then I read this email from Glynne.

Ally is having fun too. She also has a couple boys at VBS that follow her around. One of them gave her a nickname I can't remember, so she named him Chad in return. You'll have to ask Dad how she's doing. I haven't really gotten a chance to talk to her much. 

     Yesterday when I was swimming in the ocean I stepped on something sharp. At first I thought I cut my foot, but later I realized I had something stuck in it. It started to hurt the next morning so I asked Dad if he could take me to the clinic and dig it out. I thought it wouldn't hurt much since it seemed close to the surface and my heel is pretty calloused and tough. I was so wrong. It felt like I was getting stabbed in the foot multiple times! I think it was pretty hard to get out since it was super tiny so he had to dig around a lot to find it. Now that it's out it feels a lot better. 

     Tell the kids we got them all presents today! Well... all of them except Jonah. There isn't much to get a 7 month old here. We can't wait to show them what we got. 

Love you all! - Glynne 

P.S. Write me an email about what you all have been doing! I MISS JONAH! 

The rest of this post is for Glynne.  She wants to hear about what we've been doing, so here it is - in words & pictures.

We painted the window in our den.  Now it matches all our other windows.

The kids had fun climbing on the ladder and helping me sand.

Guess who's cooking since the you guys are gone?!?

 

We've had some attitudes this week - not tons, but some!

 Landon entices Jonah to crawl and...

it is working! We have a crawler here - well, more like a scooter.

Jonah is wondering, "Hey, where are you guys?  It's  been awhile since you smothered me with your kisses!"

Scooping up Cheerios off the kitchen floor.  This was right after the swimming party and the floor, well, let's just say, it could be cleaner - especially if you were here! :)

I love this one.  He looks so sweet.

Food for the week.

 On Monday (you missed out!), we had 11 boys over (including ours) for a swimming party.

 We bought this formal for Kate at the Salvation Army ($2.50) and cut it down to fit her

just like I used to do with you guys.

       

Peek - a - boo!  I see you.

How is this for cuteness??

Jonah will be so excited to see you all.

 The boys have also been having a blast with fireworks.  On Monday night, they put on their own little show down at the beach for Grandma and Grandpa Pettey.  Landon even had little flags sticking out of the sand.  I loved how the scale of the fireworks (small) matched the size of the flags (small).  The show was a hit.

We've also been reading Island of the Blue Dolphins at night.  They've enjoyed that.  By the time I'm done reading, almost everyone is sleeping.

Other than that, just normal things have been happening.  Laundry.  Laundry.  Cleaning up lots of sticky spots, and just keeping track of Jonah.  I'll be so glad when you guys come home.  It feels lonely when you all are gone!  I love you. Mom

Mom: 


AW! I almost wish I hadn't seen these pictures because it makes me miss everyone so much! I can't wait to be home, but it's also really sad to leave. I even started to call the resort home... funny, huh? 
We have already discussed how we're going to hug Jonah when we get back. Dad gets to go first, and then Emma. Ally and I are scared she'll end up hurting us to get to him if we don't let her go before us. ;) Tell Kate that she looks so beautiful in her dress! I'm excited to see it in person. Don't forget to tell everyone we love them lots and cannot wait to see them on Saturday! 

- Glynne 

Another Update on the Travelers

I was so excited to finally get another e-mail from Glynne.  It feels like they have been gone so long and it's only been 4 days.  If you are like me and want lots of details about what's been going on, you're gonna like this post. 

Here is Glynne's email and it is full of information!  Enjoy.

Mom - 

     Today was quite the adventure. We start off everyday by waking up at 5:30ish. Ouch. We gather our stuff for the day and eat breakfast from 5:45 to 6:15. After that we head off to the bus/truck (We like to call it the Scrambler after the ride at the fair that squishes people into each other.) that takes us to the Mission of Hope compound. Once there, we wait an hour or so until VBS begins. I wish they would just let us sleep an hour longer instead of waiting. Anyway... VBS begins around 9:00 in the morning. Dad heads off as well to the clinic. We help as much as we can by just hanging out with the kids and trying to keep them in line. It's really confusing because everything they say is in Creole - the native language. It's a mixture of French, English, and Spanish... sort of. (Dad found it extremely entertaining that their word for urine is pee-pee.) Lunch was a hard thing to help with. We're supposed to pass out food first and then water. At first I didn't understand why, but once we started passing it out I saw. Kids scrambled to get their share. Some even hid one bag under their shirts and then claimed they had never gotten theirs. I felt so helpless because I couldn't tell which kids were just trying to get more and which were genuinely asking for their first bag. I couldn't even speak their language to ask them questions. All I could do was hand the bags to a Haitian worker and let her handle it. 

     Funny story: Emma was hanging out with some boys during VBS (she always seems to be with boys...) and one of them asked her if he could kiss her! She just kindly told him he was supposed to get in line and then ignored him. 

     After lunch, we herded the kids down the hill and got them to their activity station. Then we headed back up the hill - one killer of a hill - to eat our own lunch at 12:00 p.m.. I was expecting to have trouble finding something I want to eat, but the food is really good! One thing we had today that I found yummy were fried plantains with peanut butter. Once lunch is finished we either head out to a work project (we painted a house yesterday) or we go to a village to talk with people. Today was a little different because we went to a soccer game. There is a village that the mission is building to bring deaf people out of Cite Solei - one of the top 3 worst slums in the world - into much better housing. Deaf people here are treated as worse than nothing and the mission is trying very hard to change that. One of their ways is to bring both hearing and deaf people together through weekly soccer games! Many people said that this was the best game they've had yet. A really cool thing happened while we were there. A few people from our big group had gone around to talk and pray with people in their homes. As they were about to leave one house, they asked a lady if she had prayer requests for them. She had a few, but she said that her biggest prayer request was for rain. As soon as the person finished praying for rain, it began to downpour. Amazing. All of us out on the soccer field (a big open area with dirt) were so relieved! It had been really hot with no shade and the rain felt wonderful. Someone pulled up a car on the side of the field, opened the doors, and began to play music. Emma and I were holding two little kids, so we started to dance with them. Soon, everyone was dancing. The soccer game became so much fun to watch because all the mud made the players slide around in the mud like they were ice skating. Eventually, people were having mud fights and tackling each other, Haitians and Americans alike. 

    The ride back to the mission was wet, muddy, and slightly scary. We had to go over a trench, through a stream, and up a really steep incline straight into a hairpin turn. All in a pretty good sized bus/truck. We were shaken up a lot, but made it through eventually! 

     We arrived at the mission earlier than usual - 4:15 p.m.. They had people waiting with hoses to give us spray downs before heading back to the resort. All of us kids were excited that we would have extra time before dinner to swim in the ocean! Our little bungalows are only 100 feet or so from the beach. No joke. After we swam, we showered, ate dinner (pizza, rice, shrimp, fresh fruit, veggies, and bread), had an evening meeting, and headed off to prepare for tomorrow! 

    I still have some things to do before bed like wash my tennis shoes and skirt free of mud. So, I better get started on that. 

LOVE YOU! - Glynne

P.S. I saw on the blog Jonah is crawling. I'm so sad I'm missing it! :( Tell him I love him. And the other kids too.

To me, it looks and sounds like they are having a ball.  Praise God!

Until the next email arrives!  Julie

Update on the Travelers

Here's a peek into the travelers' first impressions of Haiti. Here's Glynne.

Hi Mom!!!!

   It feels like forever since we said goodbye to you this morning. FOREVER. The airport here in Haiti is crazy hectic. People are so loud and fast moving here! That is something that is totally different from Zimbabwe. In Zimbabwe the people wouldn't talk if you begged them. Here they almost won't stop. Well, not really. It's not quite that extreme. But it is very loud.
   You would not like driving around here. There are no rules at all. It's a little scary actually.
   There are SO many people living in shacks made of cardboard looking stuff and tarps. It's almost depressing since I can't imagine anyone ever being able to help all of them.
   On the up side, our resort hotel place is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It's decorated all cheerful in blue and yellow. You'll love seeing the pictures. I'm sharing a room with Heidi and it connects to Dad, Ally, and Emma's room. We actually have air conditioning that feels fantastic and a tv that plays American tv! Lord of the Rings was actually on earlier.
 In conclusion, we are having a pretty good time. Oh, except for Dad. His intestinal problems are really acting up and he felt like he almost had to have our bus driver stop so he could get out and throw up. Luckily, he's been feeling a bit better since they have cold water here and pretty yummy food. They also gave us free Sprite tonight so I gave him mine and that seemed to help as well.
  We love you and miss you all!
- Glynne

P.S. Tell the little kids that we ate a conch snail. You should show them a picture of what it looks like. It was actually good.

P.P.S. Try not to criticize my email writing tonight. I'm dead tired and not functioning super well.

Totally agree that this has been a very long day! I wish I could transport myself there for about 10 minutes - see everything and then come home.

Your note is fabulous.  No criticism here!  In fact, I'm going to copy/paste it on the blog.  Do you mind? Or are you wanting to do a blog from there? It is possible, right?

I'm so glad you're taking care of Dad.  I'm getting ready to show the kids the conch snail.  Yum. Yum.

Love you!  Mom  

Hahaha! Sure. You can post it. Just make a little note saying I wrote it after a long day with only 2 hours or less of sleep. Love you! Tell the kids I miss them a ton and kiss Jonah like crazy for me. Oh! And make sure you email us when he crawls! And take a video. I don't want to miss it. - Glynne

(Side note - Jonah is crawling and of course the video camera is dead.  I'm going to have to locate my camera and try to film this momentous occasion for the big girls! :))

Bryan emailed me these pictures and it made me so glad they have this opportunity.

                               

                                

Bryan said the food is pretty good.

In the village, girls have to cover their shoulders and wear skirts.
Out at the work sites, girls can wear shorts as long as their knees are covered, but
they stressed NO SPAGHETTI STRAP tops.

It sounds like they're having a good time considering the circumstances.  It melts my heart to see those kids in the pictures.  I haven't heard the girls' take on what they've been doing, but as soon as I do, I'll share it with you!  In the meantime, please keep lifting them up in prayer.

God bless, Julie