Mikencia

See this precious little face . . . this is Mikencia, taken just a few weeks ago in her school uniform, after arriving at our house from school. We haven’t seen this precious little smile much over the past week and a half. If you have been following our blog posts, you know that Mikencia has second degree burns over her abdomenal area, upper left arm, pelvic area, and upper legs after an accident with a kerosene lamp.

Everyday, Lee and I have been going to the hospital to visit Mikencia and her mother, Emilye who works for us as our housekeeper, so that we can take them some food and see Mikensia’s progress.

No trip to the hospital is pleasant, no matter where you are, but the hospital here is nothing like we experience in the states…it is a large concrete structure and when you enter the ward where patients stay, this is what you see…the nurse’s station is right inside the door, on both sides of that, there are long wings separated into four wards (I guess that is what you would call it) and in each of those wards there are probably about twenty beds lined up on boths sides. There is no privacy. The beds sit three to four feet apart with a small night stand between each. It has the familiar smell of any hospital, but there are no clean white walls or colorful wallpaper, just concrete with windows on the outer walls that open right up to the outside…no screens.

Normally, when we walk in, Mikencia is lying on her bed with nothing but the gauze on her burns and a mosquito net over her bed. However, today was different. Today, the mosquito net was pulled back, there was no gauze on Mikencia’s burns, and Emilye was bent over her daughter applying the medication to her burns with a small applicator. Mikencia’s body shook from head to toe with the pain. Everytime that Emilye would pause in applying the cream, Mikencia would take a breath and start to cry. When she was calmed down, Emilye would go back to work again. The burns on Mikencia’s tummy reminded me of a roasted chicken which had been in the oven a little too long. Emilye stopped several times to make conversation with us; the woman in the bed next to her even told her to stop and visit with us, but we urged her to finish her difficult task; that we would wait for her to finish. When they were finished, we helped to put the mosquito net back in place and briefly visited with Emilye and Mikencia before leaving them so that they could eat and rest. Mikencia was exhausted.

We both left the hospital with tears in our eyes. Somedays there just are no words for the hardships that are experienced here. Please continue to pray for Mikencia and Emilye and the rest of their family. They are longing for complete healing and the ability to be home with their family. Almost everyday, Emilye and I look at each other and one of us says, “Bondye konnen” (God knows). It is the one thing that this precious family has to hold on to in this difficult time in their lives. God does know!!! I have no doubt that God has great things in store for this precious little girl who has the strength to endure so much at the age of seven years.

Our First Look at the Damages

I’m sorry to be keeping you in suspense... it has been a busy week of preparations for our first team following the hurricane and internet was out most of the week, again, which makes it extremely hard to make any blog posts. Since I have a little bit of time before the team arrives at our house for lunch today, I will see if I can get some pictures posted for you:)

The following pictures were our first peek at the damages after the winds and rain started to die down:

As we opened the back door for the first time, we realized that the back wall between us and our neighbors had fallen into our backyard.

When we scanned the other side of the backyard, we saw that most of the trees in the backyard were down. The breadfruit tree that our cook had prayed that God would save was still standing... kind of. It now has a sharp slant to it. We don’t yet know if it will survive or not.

From the back corner of the house, we could see more trees were down and many of the shrubs were also mangled from the winds and rain.

The other side of the house looked even worse.

Then, there was the view from the front of the house once it was safe to venture outside.

The Christensen’s, who had weathered the storm with us were anxious to venture up to their house since one of their Haitian friends texted that he had been to the house and said that part of their roof was gone, so several from our two families ventured in that direction after we took a brief look across the wall. Here is what we saw...

This is the street on the other side of our wall, which leads to the other hill on the mission center. We could never see the area that looks like a lake to the left of the picture. That is how many trees went down.

This is the view as we turned in the opposite direction (toward the city of Cayes). Again, all of the water that you see there is usually not there and we could never see that land or the buildings because of the trees and other vegetation that had been there. Our neighborhood had changed completely in just a few hours.

The walk to Christensen’s house was not an easy one. The road was blocked with fallen trees and brush.

We felt like we had been on an obstacle course till we got over and under all of the downed trees, wires, and other objects in the way.

The first look at their home was not what any of us had hoped for... much of their roof was gone, along with almost all of the roof of the adjoining house where the Ferris’ had lived before returning to the states this summer. Needless to say, Heather and her family were glad that they had chosen to weather the storm somewhere else. Several other missionary homes sustained significant damage as well. The first few weeks, the missionary community pulled our resources together and worked on getting each family into safe housing for the days ahead.

Now, a month later, we still have a couple of families that are not back in their homes, but some of the roofs have been repaired and teams have come in to help with some of the recovery efforts. All the houses have electric again and all but one have water back in working order. The Christensen’s are the only ones that have not had their roof repaired yet, as they have been able to temporarily move into another house until those repairs can be completed.

Thank you for your continued prayers as we have been able to start reaching out into the communities around us to help with further clean-up.

Lastly, I want to update you on some prayer requests that we sent out last week. Please continue to pray for Vonel, our RMI mechanic. He continues to be in the hospital, following his motorcycle accident last week. The doctors here have decided to wait until some American orthopedic surgeons come in this week to look at his case to determine how to treat him. Vonel is not a man to sit when there is much to do, so please pray for patience and rest for him.

Mikencia, our housekeeper’s daughter, is also still in the hospital. She has had an infection this week and we had some trouble getting her the medications that she needed, but we were able to find them and yesterday was the closest that we have been to seeing her precious little smile.

Lastly, Joel and Laura plan to head back to Haiti early this week after spending almost a week with Laura’s family while her mother was in the hospital. Her mother is now settling into an assisted living home and seems to be doing well, in spite of all that she has been through.

No words can begin to express our gratitude to each of you for your prayers and concern, not only for our immediate family, but also for our extended family here in Haiti.

Weathering the Storm

We have been promising to get some posts up once we have some internet, so since the internet is working for the moment, I will see if I can get a post up about our experience :)

First of all, we decided that the waiting for a hurricane’s arrival is as exhausting and stressful as experiencing it... it felt like we prepared and waited for a very long time before the Hurricane actually arrived.

On the evening of Monday, October 3, our friends and neighbors Heather Christensen and her four children; Ian, Erik, Joey, and Ellie decided to come to stay with us in our home because we have a concrete roof and they have a metal roof on their house. Heather’s husband, Sean, was half-way around the world in Thailand for some work with their missions organization. Heather had hoped to weather the storm in their own home, but with numerous people asking her to find a safer place, she decided to head our way to ease the minds of others. The following picture was taken of them as they arrived at our home that evening.

Throughout the evening the kids played board games and video games to pass the time.

We filled buckets and water jugs, just in case we needed them and we all kept a close eye on the radar of the approaching storm.

We enjoyed the luxury of electric and internet until we all headed to bed later in the evening. Before going to bed, it had started raining and we would hear bands of wind picking up, but most of us slept for the first portion of the night. Starting at about 1am, the winds and rain really started to pick up and we slept more fitfully, but there wasn’t a whole lot of movement around the house until between 4 and 5am. At that point, I (Tina) walked out of our bedroom to check on the rest of the house. We could hardly hear one another talking without yelling. The roar of the storm outside was tremendous. Heather and her children were all laying quietly in their makeshift beds in our living room, although I soon learned that they weren’t sleeping, either. I walked back into Nathan and Isaac’s room where both boys were sleeping, even though the rain was soaking their beds. I woke them and we started moving their beds away from walls and windows and moved their mattresses into our bedroom where it was drier.

When we walked into Daniel and Josiah’s room, it was obvious that these two had been up for awhile... they had towels stuffed into all of their window louvres, there was a broom sitting in the corner with a rag draped over it and their beds were pulled into the middle of the room. Both boys were in their beds, but Daniel had himself wrapped in a plastic rain poncho to try to stay dry. After they had stuffed their windows with towels, they realized that they were still getting wet, so they turned on a flashlight and realized that it was “raining” from their ceiling. At that point, they went to the hall closet to get a broom and rag which they used to “mop” the ceiling. This only solved the problem briefly. So, we moved their mattresses into our room, as well, and our night of sleep was over.

By this time, everyone in the house was up and about trying to peek out the windows to see the damage that had occurred as the sun began to peek through. We could see trees down everywhere and soon realized that the back portion of the concrete and metal wall between us and our neighbor had come crashing down along with some of the trees. The next couple of hours were passed by listening to the storm, peeking through the windows, and the kids started to play some more board games by lantern light, since there was no longer any electric, internet, or water.

There was a lot of time spent looking out the windows to watch what the wind and rain continued to do around us.

The kids even got a little creative and made a green, glowing eyeball out of an old lightbulb before the rain and wind started to subside and we ventured out to take a closer look at the damages. We will save those pictures for the next post.

Prayers Needed, please…

The end of this week brought us a number of things to pray for and we are asking for you to join us in prayer for some very precious peope in our lives...

On Thursday morning, Vonel, one of RMI’s mechanics was in a motorcycle accident while doing some work for RMI. From what we have been told, there was a man carrying a plank on the road ahead of Vonel and when he heard Vonel’s motorcycle approaching, he turned to see what was coming behind him. As he did this, it did not occur to him that the plank would follow his turn. Although, Vonel was able to swerve and miss hitting the plank completely, it caught and broke his upper arm. Amazingly, in spite of the pain in his arm, Vonel was able to steer his cycle with his one good arm and come to a safe stop without hurting himself or anyone else. That is a praise. Last that we heard, Vonel was at the hospital and was likely waiting for surgery on Monday when American orthopedic surgeons will be available. In addition to this crisis in Vonel’s life, his home was badly damaged, or destroyed in the hurricane and requires a lot of work. His father has also been sick and fell down the hill by his house the night before Vonel’s accident and had moved to Vonel's house for more help.

Then, Thursday afternoon, our housekeeper, Emilye, shared that her mother’s health is declining in addition to the loss of her home which is in an area that was much harder hit by the hurricane than we were here in Les Cayes. Emilye had planned to leave Friday morning to visit her mother, however, while she was at church Thursday evening her seven year old daughter, Mikensia, was playing with a small kerosene lamp at home. Unfortunately, Mikensia’s clothes caught fire and she was rushed to the hospital with second degree burns to her left arm, side, abdomen, pelvic area, and upper left leg. Needless to say, Emilye’s trip to see her mother has been put on hold until Mikensia is doing better. It appears that she will be hospitalized for a while.

Late Friday afternoon, we then recieved a call from one of our teammates, Laura Sutton, to let us know that she had just received word that her 91 year old mother was admitted to ICU following two heart events that day. Therefore, Laura and her husband, Joel, will be leaving to spend time with her family in PA on Monday morning.

Please lift all of these individuals in prayer. Pray for complete healing for Vonel and for wisdom for the doctors as they care for his arm. Pray against infection for little Mikensia as she has a long road of recovery ahead of her and her family. Pray for strength for Emilye and her five other children as they care for her. Pray, as well, for Joel and Laura as they prepare and travel this weekend to spend time with her Mom. Pray for wisdom for her mother's doctors as they continue to care for her. In addition to all of this, continue to pray for the needs of the Haitian communities around us.

No words can begin to express our appreciation of each and every one of you as you pray for us, support us, and support the community in which we live.

We also realize that you are all anxious to see some of the pictures and stories that we have from our experiences over the last month. We plan to get them out to you as soon as we have a reliable enough connection to the internet. Thank you for your patience and support as we try to keep you updated.

Nou La! (We’re Here!)

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for your prayers over these past two weeks. It has been an exhausting time in our lives, for sure, but we are so thankful for God’s provision of strength, protection, and fellowship. It is because of the incredible people that God has surrounded us with that we are able to keep smiles on our faces and are reminded that God has this difficult situation.

We weathered the storm well, in light of the circumstances. Another missionary family joined us in our home for the storm, since their roof was made of metal and not concrete. This proved to be a good decision for them because most of their roof was ripped away during the storm; they are still assessing the damages to their belongings. Fortunately, there is another home on the center that was empty, so they have moved in there for the time being, until repairs can be made to their home. There are several missionary families in our community that are experiencing the same types of damages to their homes in differing degrees.

It took four to five days to get running water operating at the mission center, but now we all have water in our homes again, which is a huge help to all of us. Yesterday (Saturday, October 15), crews were able to get electric back up and running for the center, as well. Although we lost our inverter during the hurricane, so we will not have power all the time, some is better than none. The boys said last night that they feel like we are now living like kings and queens. Since electric is back up now, work can resume on repairing the internet.

Wednesday was the first day back to school for the children of Cite Lumiere Christian school. We felt it was necessary to try to get some routine and normalcy back into our lives, whether we all felt ready for it, or not. That proved to be a good decision for us all, and we were overjoyed to see that all of our students; Haitian, American, and German were able to return.

Everyone has been very busy with different aspects of the clean up here on the mission center and the surrounding communities over the past two weeks.

We have had anywhere from 2-4 young men (our cook and housekeeper’s sons), along with Lee, the boys, and some of our teammates working on our yard almost everyday since the storm, to try to get some of the mess cleaned up there. Yes, there was that much damage and that much mess. We lost about a dozen trees and that doesn’t count the trees that came over the wall from the neighbors’ yards. Our house help and their families have been an incredible help to get life back together here at the house. We feel like we are finally able to enjoy our yard again. It looks a world different than it did the day after the storm. There are still some trees that need to be tended to, but the worst of the clean-up is complete.

This week, RMI staff also started to evaluate the needs in the communities and churches in which we work. Our partnership facilitators have been traveling out to churches and meeting with pastors all week to see where the greatest needs are. As I have seen a few of the reports, it looks like the situation is extremely difficult in many of the areas in which we serve. Most crops are completely lost and many have lost their livestock, as well. Many homes are at least damaged, if not completely destroyed. You can imagine that with the condition of homes and the loss of crops and livestock, the issue of hunger is huge here. Everywhere we go, people are asking for food and water. The needs are great, and continue to get worse the further west that you go.

Since the storm, Lee and the boys did a tremendous amount of tree trimming and cutting, burning brush, repairing water lines, assessing the needs with the internet system, and numerous other projects. One project that Daniel and our team member, Joel Sutton, had was to construct a cage for a four to five foot pet iguana whose cage was destroyed during the hurricane. After the hurricane, he was moved into a bathroom for about a week, so that he wouldn’t escape into the community and cause more fear and commotion. He is now happily enjoying a new temporary home.

Throughout the days immediately following the hurricane, we were feeding between 11 and 25 people at our home everyday. With limited supplies and food resources, it proved to be a challenge some days, but God provided tremendously for all of us over that time. They may not have been categorized as gourmet meals, but there was food to nourish hungry and exhausted bodies. There was also a tremendous amount of clean-up from water and leaves that blew through the windows during the storm, as well as the constant stream of mud and debris that we were dragging in and out all day, every day. Now, we feel like we have a handle on many of those things, and it is a matter of sorting through and getting life back together.

We continue to be amazed at the resilience of the Haitian people. The faith and trust in Christ in the Christian community is amazing. We are encouraged by them every day and are constantly reminded of how difficult their lives are from day to day. If this past week has done nothing else for us, it has been a constant reminder to me (Tina) that I have nothing to complain about... those days when we had no running water and the heat was rising after the storm, I longed for a cold shower... and then I would be reminded that 90% of the people who live around us, live like that every single day of their lives... no running water, no electric, and no internet... that really puts things in perspective.

A number of you have asked how you can be of help during this time of difficulty, both to the Haitian community and to our family. If you want to help the Haitian people in this great time of need, please see RMI’s website for ways that you can help financially to provide food, clean water, and/or shelter to the Haitian people. Some of you have asked how you can bless our family with care packages. We appreciate your thoughts in this regard, as well. Some items that we have depleted are: our supplies of are paper supplies (plates, cups, plastic ware), granola bars, canned meats, drink mixes (individual or canisters, such as Gatorade, Kool-Aid, Lemonade, Tea, etc.), Ramen Noodles, seasoning packets (salad dressing, marinade mixes, etc.), and other quick and easy snacks and meal ideas. Just please keep in mind, if you are sending a care package, that we need to pay between $2.50 and $3.00 per pound for the packages that are sent to us, until the customs and flight expenses are paid. If you would prefer to help financially, that would be greatly appreciated as well. We were blessed to be able to acquire a generator for around $1,000, thanks to Agape Flights, and we will will need to purchase a new inverter (approximately $1800). In addition, we have used a tremendous amount of gas and supplies during these last few weeks.

Other items that we recently realized that we could use, are DVDs, books, and/or CDs for us to use for Bible studies/church services when we don’t get out for Sunday services. These do not need to be new, but we would be happy to use items that you have already used and found beneficial for you and your family. We often watch and or study sermons or series that are available to us online, but these last couple of weeks with no internet have made us aware that we don’t have a lot in the house that we have not already seen or studied. There are still a few things that we can use, but some other materials would be helpful in the future.

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support over the past few weeks, starting even before the storm. No words can begin to express our appreciation to all of you. When we get the internet back up and working again, we will do our best to get the pictures of the last couple of weeks out to you through our blog posts.

In the Lord’s service with you,

Lee, Tina, Daniel, Josiah, Nathan, and Isaac Nunemaker

Preparations for Hurricane Matthew

As you have most likely heard already, we are bracing for Hurricane Matthew. We have spent the last two days moving things inside or to safer buildings, helping fellow missionaries board up their houses, cleaning roofs off, and storing up water so that we are prepared for whatever might happen over the coming days. We have also spent some time checking on our Haitian brothers and sisters to make sure that they have adequately prepared their homes and families for the days ahead.

It is always interesting to me, how God prepares even the animals for the weather to come. This morning, I was going out to put my hummingbird feeder away, for safe keeping, when I realized that there were five bananaquits eating from it at the same time. I have never seen that many birds at our feeders, at one time. The best picture that I could get was of three of them (yesterday was the first that I was able to get any decent pictures of a bananaquit at it, and I have been trying since we arrived here last year). Therefore, I am going to leave the feeder out front until the winds pick up to a point where the birds are no longer coming in. Apparently, they are also storing up for the coming storm.

Tobi became extremely stressed this morning when he saw us removing everything from our back porch and moving it inside. The last time we did that, we left for six weeks and he was not ready to watch us drive out the gate again . . . in fact, when we did head out the gate to help some others in the community with their preparations, he slipped out the gate, as well; trying to ensure that he wouldn’t be left behind. Now, he is keeping watch from the front porch and patroling the gate to make sure that all is well.

This morning our American team met on our back porch to go over our plan of action, in order to finish up our preparations and to pray together for the safety of everyone in our area.

When it really comes down to it, we are all in well protected homes. Yes, the winds will be picking up and the rains that are projected are like nothing that we have ever seen, but we have safeguards that our Haitian neighbors do not. We ask you to please pray for them. RMI is already prepared to help with food and other support to our neighbors and the churches that we work alongside.

School is already cancelled for tomorrow, so that we can all be protected in our homes. It is likely that other offices will also be closed. When the storm passes, we will assess the damages and let you know how you can continue to pray for us, our friends, and ministry partners.

If you don’t hear from us right away, don’t be concerned, because we will likely lose internet over the next few hours and/or days. We will do our best to let you know how we are doing, as soon as we are able. RMI will likely be in touch with us and post updates on Facebook and the website at www.rmibridge.org as soon as they are able to connect with us.

Thank you for your prayers! We feel them, already, and appreciate all of the support that we are receiving from our friends and family around the world.

This life is rough . . .

You know life is rough when you “have” to spend your Sunday at Zanglais beach trying out the sailboat that you recently bought from a fellow missionary who is leaving the field . . .

It was a blessing to have the opportunity to take a break from ministry and normal life with our teammate, Star Harvie today.

Tomorrow, our leadership team from the States flies in to spend a week with us for planning and preparation for the busy year ahead. We look forward to spending the week with Dan Shoemaker, Rob Thompson, Kim and Barb Rose. Please pray for all of us as there is a lot of work to be done this week.

For those of you who are following the rat saga here; in the past week, we have diminished the rodent population by four rats and one mouse. :)