Dinner by candlelight

Two weeks ago, on Monday, I had a rather frustrating day. There had been no running water all morning (a very frequent occurrence) and then the electricity had been off and on all afternoon (another fairly frequent occurrence). Between having no water and no electricity, very little cleaning got done, no clothes had been washed, and the meal I had planned was not going to happen. When the electricity did come back on, I decided to just make cornbread and heat up a can of soup. About 20 minutes later, while the bread was in the oven, the electricity went off again.

Urgh!

I got upset, "Now the cornbread will be ruined! I didn't even get to heat up the soup! We can't even see anything it's so dark! We won't be able to heat up water for Timmy's bath! Dan won't get to eat anything before his meeting! Why can't basic things like running water and electricity just work in this country!?"

Whoa.

It hit me... I needed a big attitude check.

Be thankful. Rejoice in the LORD. Be content in all circumstances.

As I shifted my attitude, the situation changed. It was still dark, and I still couldn't heat up any soup or water. But, suddenly the situation was... fun. It was... dinner by candlelight! By the light of flickering candles, Dan reviewed his Bible study. Timmy was entranced by the candles on the table. I let the cornbread sit in the oven that was rapidly cooling, and when I did get it out, it was done perfectly, so we had a great candlelit dinner of warm cornbread with extra butter and honey and cut up fruit. We even talked about how we should have candelit dinners more often.

From now on, when the water has been off for a day or two, or the electricity is unexplainedly going on and off, or when I miss my family and friends, or when it seems almost unbearablely hot here, or when any other circumstance arises that threatens joy and contentment, I hope I'll look back on the lesson I learned through our simple little dinner by candlelight.

Haitian Children’s Home

Summer 2009 Project Trip:

Haitian Children’s Home

Jacmel, Haiti

It has been a long time in coming, but I (Dan) wanted to blog about the project trip I took to Haiti at the end of May. It was a great trip and I always seem to be amazed by the ministries that we serve and the volunteers who give so much to be a part of what God is doing around the world.

HCH raises orphaned and abandoned Haitian children in a Christian environment so that, as adults, they will be thoroughly equipped to live out their faith as leaders in their communities. It was truly a great blessing to help them continue that vision by developing their new property to better serve their needs as they serve the Lord.

Danny Pye, the director of the ministry told us that, “Haiti is about 80% Catholic, 20% Protestant, and 100% Voodoo.” That is obviously not true because there are a significant number of true believers that are setting aside their pagan roots, but his point is clear. Voodoo undergirds almost everything in Haiti. HCH is trying to break that cycle by raising up godly Haitians to be the leaders in their communities.

We arrived to help develop a plot of about 15 acres on the southern coast of Haiti. HCH’s vision for the property is, “to create a ‘cul-de-sac’ of 8 homes, each with a family of 20 orphaned and abandoned children living with a house family. In addition this land will have a primary school, a secondary school, a trade school, a clinic, a church, a soccer field, farm land, and a water-treatment facility to support the homes and serve the surrounding community.” This is a big vision, and we started with a master plan for the entire site to include these features:

From there, we focused on the children’s homes. The home is designed to house 20 orphans and a house family:

This will be the only building we design in detail for this trip. In the future, we hope to return to HCH to continue to design the other buildings that we laid out on the master plan.

I came away from the trip feeling blessed and encouraged by what Danny is doing at HCH, but even more impressed with what God is doing in Haiti.

With that, I am excited to return again at the end of this month to design a church for a local ministry in Arachaie. Stay tuned for the update from that trip (hopefully more prompt than this one was).