Trust

Ryan and I felt God was leading us back to the states, but there was no one to replace us. So for awhile we were very confused as to what God was trying to do/ teach us. Ryan was trying to work towards giving some of his responsibilities over to the hatiens. We were feeling very unsure about leaving here without replacements! We had tickets to move back, but yet it still felt strange leaving. We had been praying for replacements for quite some time!

We are very overjoyed to announce that the Lord has supplied and we have replacements!!  :) Andy & Bev Faller will be joining CWM on May 7th! They have lived down in Haiti for a year working with another mission. Their year commitment is up and they feel like God is directing them here. We are very happy for the way God has supplied! It feels like nothing short of a miracle with how everything fell into place! 

To us it feels like God wanted us to be ok with moving to the states, getting tickets and working in that direction, before He would show us His plan. Trusting God when you dont know what His plan is, is not easy. It feels like we need to "help" God or He had forgotten about us. He hasn't!!! His timing is always perfect!!

Pray for Andy's as they move up here and learn the responsibilities here. Also pray for us as we pack up and move back.

God is good, even when we cant see His plan!!!

God bless your day,
Ryan and Kendra Skrivseth

A Visitor From South Carolina

April 11th-19th Geneva came to visit us!! We had a wonderful time.

She helped me defrost my freezer. She sewed me a dress. She got up at 6am on Saturday morning to do the laundry, because the sun woke her up. (someone needs to learn to sleep in :) we went to market and the beach one day. Some how I only got one picture of her being here.

Our time here in Haiti is fast coming to a end. For those of you that haven't heard, we have tickets to fly back to the states June 1st. How can 2 years go so fast? We have enjoyed our time here and it will be hard to leave our friends, but we are excited about entering a new adventure. Pray for us as we finish our time here and settle into our lives in South Carolina.

Yall have a blessed evening!

New Church, Seminar, Ordination & a Helicopter Comes to the Clinic

Jan 29th was our 1st service in the new church!! It felt so big! We praise God for giving us this church. 

Pastor Milord

Every one that was there the 1st sunday

Feb 1st- 7th was Seminar. It was a busy week. I was glad my sister Julissa came and helped out.

Sanford Yoder from Ohio was the one pastor

It was Rochemy's 1st time to translate. Pray for him as he continues to learn English.

 Dan Smucker from Indiana was the other

Sunday, Feb 7th the church here ordained 2 deacons. There was 3 in the lot. The men chosen were George & Grevil.

 The ordination

In other news:  Yesterday we had a helicopter come out to our clinic! We now are able to call this helicopter in a emergency and they come out and take the sick person to a hospital!!  Since our closest hospital is 1.5 hrs away, and is less then desirable, this will be wonderful!!

They are able land right outside the clinic which is a blessing!

 The guy on the left is the Doctor the one in the middle is a journalist from Puerto Rico (he is in Haiti and was able to come along with the guys) and the one on the right is the pilot.

Prayer requests:

*Joe & Sara Martin are leaving March 2nd. Their replacements Denny & Lora Musser come in Feb 22nd. Pray for a smooth change over & and both families as they settle into new lives.

*Replacement for us

*Pray for the newly ordained deacons & their families

*The youth of Haiti, that they can become strong Christians. And for the young men that they will be the leaders they should be.

*Milord, he is a busy man. He has 2 churches, 2 schools, he preaches on the radio once a week & lots more. 

*for the CWM staff, pray we could be lights to these people. For wisdom for every decision we need to make.

Yall have a blessed weekend

Our Trip up North

December 29th-31st, we as a mission, went up to Cap-Haitian. We went to the palace and Cidadel. They are both full of history of Haiti. 

The Palace were King Henri Christophe lived.

                                                         

                                       Taken from Wikipedia: 

Henri Christophe (French pronunciation: ​[ɑ̃ʁi kʁistɔf]; 6 October 1767 – 8 October 1820; used the anglicized version of Henry Christopher) was a former slave of Bambara ethnicity, and key leader in the Haitian Revolution, which succeeded in gaining independence from France in 1804. In 1805 he took part under Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the capturing of Santo Domingo (now Dominican Republic), against French forces who acquired the colony from Spain in the Treaty of Basel.

After Dessalines was assassinated, Christophe retreated to the Plaine-du-Nord and created a separate government. On 17 February 1807, he was elected President of the State of Haiti, as he named that area. Alexandre Pétion was elected president in the South. On 26 March 1811, Christophe created a kingdom in the North and was later proclaimed Henry I, King of Haïti. He also created a nobility and named his legitimate son Jacques-Victor Henry as prince and heir.

He is known for constructing Citadel Henry, now known as Citadelle Laferrière, the Sans-Souci Palace, and numerous other palaces. Under his policies of corvée, or forced labor, the Kingdom earned revenues from agricultural production, primarily the commodity sugar, but the people resented the system. He reached agreement with Great Britain to respect its Caribbean colonies in exchange for their warning his government of any French navy activity threatening Haiti. Unpopular, ill and fearing a coup, he committed suicide. His son and heir was assassinated 10 days later. The general Jean-Pierre Boyer came to power and reunited the two parts of Haiti.

The Citadelle

Its massive! 

We hiked up to it, it took us about 35 minutes. It was a nice cobblestone path.

Taken from Wikipedia:

 The massive stone structure was built by up to 20,000 workers between 1805 and 1820 as part of a system of fortifications designed to keep the newly independent nation of Haiti safe from French incursions. The Citadel was built several miles inland, and atop the 3,000 ft (910 m) Bonnet a L’Eveque mountain, to deter attacks and to provide a lookout into the nearby valleys. Cap-Haïtien and the adjoining Atlantic Ocean are visible from the roof of the fortress. Anecdotally, it is possible to sight the eastern coast of Cuba, some 90 miles (140 km) to the west, on clear days.

The Haitians outfitted the fortress with 365 cannons of varying size. These were obtained from various nations, and still bear the crests of 18th Century monarchs. Enormous stockpiles of cannonballs still sit in pyramidal stacks at the base of the fortress walls. Since its construction, the fortress has withstood numerous earthquakes, though a French attack never came and it was eventually abandoned.

Henri Christophe initially commissioned the fortress in 1805. At the time, Christophe was a general in the Haitian army and chief administrator of the country's northern regions. In 1806, Alexandre Pétion launched a coup against Haiti's emperor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Though General Christophe was aware of this through his system of spies, he did not warn Dessaline viewing his assassination as a necessary evil that would permit him to achieve his goals. Dessalines's death led to a power struggle between Christophe and Pétion, which ended with Haiti divided into northern and southern states, with the north under Christophe's presidency by 1807. He declared himself king in 1811.

The Citadel was part of a system of fortifications that included Fort Jacques and Fort Alexandre, built on the mountains overlookingPort-au-Prince. Dessalines ordered those forts built in 1805 to protect the new nation against French attacks.

In the event of an invasion, Christophe planned to have his military burn the valuable crops and food stocks along the coast, then retreat to the fortress, setting ambushes along the sole mountain path leading to the Citadel.

Christophe suffered a stroke in 1820, and some of his troops mutinied. Shortly afterwards, he committed suicide—according to legend, by shooting himself with a silver bullet. Loyal followers covered his body in quicklime and entombed it in one of the Citadel's interior courtyards to prevent others from mutilating the corpse.

One of the powder rooms

 Cannon balls

 What used to be a drawbridge.

We had a wonderful time and it was nice to be able to see the northern part of Haiti!






Prayer requests:

*Elections
*That change over with Joes and the new family goes well, and they both can settle into their new lives smoothly.
*Replacement for us
*Kids club
*We are having a ordination coming up in Feb, there are 3 brethren in the lot. Pray for them.
*Seminar is the 1st week of Feb. Pray for the pastors coming for wisdom on what to preach as well as us as sit under the preaching of the word of God, that we can change what needs changed.

Yall have a wonderful weekend and a happy new year!

Weddings, Seeing Friends from the States, Learing about trees, ect

  Last Saturday we were privileged to be able to attend a wedding. It was the first Haitian wedding we were at. The service was sopose to start at 2. So we got there by 2 and there was people still running around preparing things. They soon started music in the church so we went and sat down. A lot of the songs they were playing were in English! There were lots of fresh flowers, it was beautiful!! Around 3 the wedding started. They spoke in French so we couldn't understand a thing :( Finally about half way through the one man that was talking said that the Americans cant understand the french so he switched to Croele, so then we could kinda understand what was going on! I was impressed how the one man that spoke emphasized that divorce is not for the christian!! It felt like it service went on and on. It ended at 5:30!    We then were served a wonderful meal of rice & beans, fried banan, & macaroni salad or red beat salad. The bridal table was pretty with lots of flowers, food, and cake. Since we had 2 hours home and it was already dark, we didnt stay to watch the bride & groom cut the cake. The couple was very happy & we/I were glad we could attend. (Going to weddings is not Ryans favorite past time:)

 (Sorry for the bad quality:( )

Two weekend ago we had the pleasure of hanging out with some people from South Carolina. They were down to visit a orphanage about 1.5 hours from our place. So we went and spent Saturday morning with them and then brought them up to our place for a couple hours in the evening. We also went back down Sunday afternoon & evening. They did a craft with the young people and then had a church service. They sang for awhile, in English! It was wonderful to listen that them!

 Them with the children from the orphanage!

We also are starting a "program" with the 5th graders, that go the Milords schools. The 1st time they come, to the nursery, they will be taught the importance of trees & how compost is made, they then will put compost in sacks. The 2nd time they will bring either 3 seeds or small trees to plant, they will continue to be taught about trees. The 3rd time they come they will, be taught more about trees again, and be able to take their, now bigger trees, home to plant. They will get graded on their participation.

learning about trees

 Learning about compost

 putting compost in sacks

 We have not had childrens Bible study the last time because of the wedding. We had children asking if we are going to have it! Its good to see them excited and wanting to come.

Prayer requests:

* Elections coming up & peace over that time

* Praise the Lord for replacement for Joes & pray for a smooth change over 

* Wisdom for the board as they look for someone to replace us

* That we could be lights to the people we are around

* The childrens Bible study

Visitors!

October 24th - November 17th Justin & Abby Troyer and family were here to visit. They also brought along his sister Janessa. They served here for 2 years before we came down. We had a wonderful time with them here. 

The guys worked on the benches most of the time.

Justin welded 102 of these bench legs!

 Janessa helped them out and painted alot of the legs.

Landen grinding the legs

 Two heads are better then one??!

One day all of us went up to the new church and worked at sanding, varnishing, & painting the benches.

November 7th everyone from CWM went over to Jacmel, and went to see Bassin Bleu. Its a water falls that you need to hike in to see. Then when you get to it you need to wade in chest deep water to go see the falls.

We were treated to supper at Royal Oasis. The food was amazing! :)

We also went to Sugar Rush and got some icecream!! :)

In other news, the children's Bible study was started last Saturday. It went really well. There was around 30 children that came! Continue to pray for the teachers and the children, that we can be a light to them and teach them to become strong christian young people.

Prayer Requests:

* Presidential election is Dec 27th.  (they had the 1st election October 24th, with around 50 canidates. No one took a majority vote so now its down to 5 canidates.) Continue to pray for peace in country.

* A replacement for Joes at the clinic

* We would like to return to the states in June, when our term is over, yall could pray that the board would be able to find a replacement for us.

* Pray for us, that we would be a light to the people down here.

Yall have a blessed day