Thankful Post Procedure

Greetings from Michigan.  After many diagnoses and treatments, Vivian's pain has lessened, but she continues to have abdominal pain.  Today Vivian successfully completed an operating room procedure.  Above is a picture of her post-procedure.  We need to wait awhile for the results.  We pray that they will further clarify her continuing abdominal pain.   Zachary continues to juggle responsibilities of fathering three of our children, helping with a visiting team, supervising an intern and a new missionary family in addition to his regular responsibilities as a Church and Leadership Developer.  We pray for clarity so that all medical issues will be correctly identified and treated so that Vivian will be pain-free and we can be reunited as a family soon.  Thanks for all your prayers.

Zach Balancing in Haiti While Vivian Seeks Continued Medical Care

This picture is of our intern Cara DeHaan and three of our four kids (picture taken by Zach and re-posted from Cara's Facebook page).

Dear all, Greetings from the USA and Haiti.  Vivian continues to seek medical care in Michigan.  She is now clear of infections, but continues to have abdominal pain and will have a sedated procedure on January 26.  Please keep her in your prayers—prayers of thanks that the infections have cleared but continued concern for the persistent pain she still has and her upcoming procedure. 

Zach continues to balance many roles in Haiti as he supervises seminary intern Cara DeHaan, will receive a new missionary family (the Zuiderveens) next week, receives a team from Goshen beginning on Saturday and fathers three children in addition to doing his regular work.  He is overseeing a lot and prayers would be appreciated for him as well. 

We really need Vivian to get better because she is tired of not feeling well and because Zach needs to defend his PhD thesis in February so I, Sharon, need to be back to manage everything and everyone while he does this.  Blessings to you all!

An Exclamation Point for Jean Rabel

When we arrived in Jean Rabel in January, we were greeted by green since rains had been falling for several weeks.  This is a huge blessing for the Jean Rabel area which has been parched from a multi-year drought.

Zach and Gary Schipper congratulate one of thirteen graduates from the Timothy Leadership Institute training in the Jean Rabel area.

The group of visitors who participated in the graduation ceremony.  From left to right: Dextra Wegens (Director of Ministry for Christian Development, the implementing partner for TLT in Haiti), Cara DeHaan (Calvin Seminary Intern serving in Haiti in January), Zach, Fevrier Cherubin (Program Assistant for CRWM-Haiti), and Gary Schipper (who coordinates much of TLT International's work in Latin America)

It would be a huge understatement to say that people in Haiti enjoy graduations.  Haitians savor dressing up, organizing special music, monologues, and drawn-out thank-you speeches.  In nearly five years of training in Jean-Rabel, our Port-au-Prince-based training team never had the opportunity to organize a graduation.  Gary Schipper, a key player in the coordination of TLT in Latin America, is an expert in putting together inspiring graduation ceremonies.  When Gary and several others decided to organize a graduation in January, 2017, they invited Zach and other members of the Port-au-Prince team to participate.  Despite the punishing drive to Jean-Rabel, Zach, Dextra, and Calvin Seminary Intern Cara DeHaan, arrived fresh and ready to participate in an authentic Haitian graduation ceremony.  It was exciting to see the pride and passion of the graduates during the ceremony which was surprisingly short.  Zach even got the opportunity to wash the feet of the graduates as well as issuing his own inspirational monologue and thank-you speech for the edification of the graduates. Please pray that this experience will motivate the graduates to plant TLT throughout the Northwest Department.  Training like TLT is so effective in an area like Jean-Rabel where so few opportunities exist because of distance and isolation.

Family Divided in Different Countries

Greetings from beautiful snow-covered Michigan at the start of 2017!  Vivian and I, Sharon, flew into Michigan due to persistent abdominal pains that Vivian has been having for many weeks in order to seek medical treatment.  We have left the Caribbean temperatures and are blasted by cold temperatures which are supposed to plummet to 7 degrees Fahrenheit later this week.  Vivian is shown above as she was dressed as Queen Victoria for school a few weeks ago.  Zach remains in balmy Haiti with our other three kids and has just received a Calvin Theological Seminary intern, Cara DeHaan, who will be with us in Haiti for several weeks during the month of January.  Later on this month we are looking forward to receiving a new missionary family who are our coworkers, Cody and Jessica Zuiderveen along with their son Hudson.  Please pray that Vivian’s abdominal pain is resolved and that Zachary can balance the many needs of work with parenting.  God’s blessings on everyone at the start of this New Year!