A Week Of Learning

So we have been here for over two weeks and we are learning everyday. It is amazing how God has worked in our lives this past week. Those kids with the endless energy have brought about hours of great conversation between Kathleen and I. We are asking questions as to what we are doing here, what we want to do, how we want to do whatever it is we want to do and more. Right now we are trying to set our goals and the way we are living in a way that we will be able to make it here for the next 8 months. We don't want to come home too soon, but there are times when we have asked ourselves if it will be too much if we continue the way we are. Mainly this has to do with the kids and our house. Our house has screen windows and we like to leave the door open to the breeze (when there is one). But this poses a problem in that we feel like we are always being watched. I mean we feel like this because more often than not we are. Kids will come and stare in our windows until we acknowledge them and then the will yell bonjou or bonswa (depending on the time of day) and then the type of ball they want to have. The answer seems easy at first.... Tell the kids to leave your house alone and knock if they want something rather than yelling through your windows. Well this is where our conversations begin because we don't speak the language to tell them to leave and we don't understand the culture of hanging out at a house all the time that is not yours. Privacy is just not the same in Haiti as it is in the States. So Kath and I are prayerfully trying to live each day with God's grace and humbleness to be able to live out the answer to these questions. We want our hearts and our door to be open to these kids, but it is hard not to feel trapped at times like you have to do what a bunch of kids want you to do. To be honest it is a great problem to be having. We feel like God is at work and will use us if we are willing. He is already using the kids to teach us to depend on him and not our American way. haha These are the types of things you run into living in a Haitian Culture thinking what we are used to is the best!
In other news :) Last night we got 5 inches of rain in the matter of a couple of hours. It was coming down like crazy! It sounded really cool on our tin roof until their were lightning strikes close enough make us jump out of our skin! Then we were reminded that we had a metal roof and were standing on a cement floor and we didn't want to get shocked. So we spent the night in our little house watching a movie on my laptop (compliments to the Thede's loaning us Ratatouille) with our curtains blowing a slight sewage smell that seemed to be wafting into our bedroom. It was great though and we had a great Sunday night of hanging out and talking about life here. A couple of nights before last we had a buggy night. I found the cockroach in the picture in the cabinet, I found another on our bathroom wall, and Kathleen walked into our house to find a nice little wolf spider waiting for her. Two of the three were ended with a flipflop - poor little guys. Our real pest right now is the little feet that we here running around in our ceiling...well they don't really sound so little to tell you the truth but we will see what we can do about that. Overall a successful second week...God provides.