Surprised by Beauty

Recently we returned to our home in Port-au-Prince after six weeks.  Since coming to Haiti eight years ago, we have amassed a considerable number of plants which are so readily available here as a hobby.  While I was poking around our garden, I found this unexpected flower budding out of one of our many tropical plants.  I was confused because I know this particular plant sends out stalks of tiny white flowers, but only after it is three or four years old (the plant pictured is only one or two years old).  When I looked closer, I realized that the flower was a rose!  It turns out that a slender stalk of a nearby rose plant had stealthily wound itself around its larger, leafier neighbor and sent out one small bloom that matched the variegated color of its leaves.  The beauty of Haiti often surprises those who have preconceptions of the country as little more than a dilapidated and over-populated dust-pan.  So also, the beauty of God's creation often surprises us in our cynical and jaded moments.  We are reminded that despite the deprivations we unleash on ourselves, our neighbors and our surroundings, the loving hand of our heavenly Father dispenses grace in unexpected and unforeseen places.  This is the kind of discernment we need to live with joy in our world, whether it be Haiti or Hawaii!

Safe Arrival in Haiti and Prayer Request Update

Dear Friends and Family:

Greetings from sultry Haiti! Last night our thermometer read 96° F in our bedroom at 11 pm, so we are having a bit of an adjustment from our last six weeks of cool summer weather in Michigan. 

We are writing to inform you all of two things.  First, we give thanks to God for our safe arrival back in Haiti with six members of our family and ten pieces of luggage.  We found everything in order at our house, so we give thanks to God.  Secondly, we wanted to let you know the results of the biopsies done on tissues surgically removed from the skin of our oldest daughter, Hannah, on Tuesday the 6^th of August.  Last Friday we learned that none of the tissue was cancerous, though two (out of four) samples were “pre-cancerous” (which means that Hannah will probably have to have moles surgically removed from her skin the rest of her life).  Hannah, and the rest of our children, are enjoying their second week at Quisqueya Christian School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.  Since our youngest, Esther, started school last week, it is the first time in a decade in which we have no children at home during the day.

Thanks so much for your prayers!