During her trips to the Ravine, Mary takes many pictures or has someone else taking the pictures. Kite flying is but a simple pleasure for this small boy. The kite is made from the things on hand - twigs and plastic. January is still the dry season, but the winds certainly make the days more enjoyable, for little children in their play and the big people in their daily work outside. The Lord certainly knows our needs. He supplies abundantly if we but have the eyes to see.

The girls lined up here are the students in the school run by Sheri Fausey. Most of the students in this school - up to grade five - come from the Ravine where Mary makes her weekly trips with the team. Sheri is in the process of building a new school with the property already purchased. It is the plan that these children wear a new school uniform next year - blue jeans, blue jean jumpers and skirts. This would be a cheaper way for the families for the school uniforms are too expensive for the families in the ravine.

The people pictured here are the Vriends from Abbotsford BC. Whenever there tis a work team working at the mission center, we always get together for one meal before they leave. And ofcourse we play 'Dutch Bingo.' Yes they knew Jake Vriend who is the administrator at the Christian school in Stouffeville when I left. And yes, they knew of John Vriend(Redeemer prof) who was a high school teacher when we were in St. Catharines. This team spent two weeks working at the center.

This past week the MS/HS had chapel every morning listening to the speaker Mr. Galloway on the theme of Nurturing the Faith. As he stated: The beauty and truth and life that God offers you are ETERNAL! They never fade, they never grow old, and they never die. He keeps on giving and giving to us. But you must desire Him above all else. You must pursue Him and His will with all that you are and have. He is looking for those who will do the hard thing and not settle for less than He has planned.

This week is the ES Readathon once again. The Readathon started with a book character parade around the soccer field with the parents watching and then the students walked through the MS/HS chapel, entertaining the the students before they listened to Mr. Galloway. The students are finding sponsors for the reading, trying to break last year's money raised for the restaveks. If you would like to know more about these lost children of Haiti, go to U Tube and type in Restaveks in their search field.

This past Saturday, the QCS staff met for a barbecue at John McHoul's place, a member of the school board and a member of the Personnel Committee. This is the first time I saw his ministry called Heartline Ministries. John raises chickens for laying hens. Between the baby house and the toddler house, as well as feeding the women in their women's program they use about 240 eggs a week. Visit Heartline Ministries at

http://heartlineministries.org/default.aspx

There were at least 50 people at the barbecue, including the work team that is at school making updates to the school apartments. The Bleshes in the upstairs apartment and we are enjoying their expertise as they are making improvements to our apartments.

Pastor S is in church development. He has started a rooftop church for people in a ravine in Petionville. Petionville is up the mountain in Port au Prince. Every Thursday at 4:30 he has an evangelical church service. He does this from the rooftop of one of the houses. The pastor had asked for a medical clinic to be done in the area of his church.



On January11, I assisted with a clinic in the ravine. Tickets to 30 people were handed out the day before by the pastor. On the day of the clinic many more showed up. At the end of the morning I had seen 40 patients with many symptoms. The most interesting symptom was "he eats his teeth at night". It took me a while to understand this problem but soon figured it out that the child grinds his teeth during sleep. Many anti-worm pills were handed out that day!

We had a great time visiting Jeff and Kathy as well as Susan and Mark in Canada for a week at Christmas. Here you can see five of our seven grandchildren around the kid's table. The two babies born in October, Benjamin and Aidann had really grown since we saw them last. The temperature sure was a drastic change from Haiti, but we were well prepared for the change. We did see some snow but it had all but melted before we left.

We went from 85 degrees F in Haiti to freezing temperatures in Canada. One morning we woke up to heavy frost. The trees were totally covered with a half inch of frost! Just beautiful! We left Canada to the warm climate of Florida. Back to 85 degree F weather. By the end of the week, the day we left the temperature in Florida was freezing! On to Haiti, and back sunny hot weather.

After spending a week in Canada we flew to Florida to relax for a week. There we met up with Jan and Dave. They were visiting Dave's grandparents. We rented a house in St. James City on Pine Island just outside of Fort Myers. The bird wildlife was just beautiful! We saw many different birds. This white crane spent a lot of time in our backyard. Our yard as you can see here, backed on to a canal. We had a good time watching the birds and also the boats and yachts go by.

While spending time in Florida with Jan and Dave, we did see a manatee or two or three. While packing for our return to Haiti I quickly went through Jan's jump drive and placed it on our blog:-)