Welcome to Colorful Colorado!

Another trip?!

Yeah...

In about a month's time we have managed to partake in 7 different flights, and we still have a few more trips scheduled for the year! Miseries associated with a one-year-old-on-a-plane aside, it's hard to complain. We have been to some amazing places and seen some even more amazing people. So then, I want to thank up-front all of you who invited us into your homes over the last month. We hope it was as worth while for you as it was for us!

All travel and no sleepy makes angry baby

Yay Airplanes!

One of Jennifer's good friends from Hillside Community Church in Golden, CO got married off this last weekend, providing us the perfect reason to head back for a long weekend and a short visit. As soon as I could get off work on Thursday we made the trip to LA to catch a redeye flight to Denver (see picture above). A stalwart friend made room for us in their basement and took the time to pick us up for the airport at 1am.

The three amigos
In college, I shared a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other guys in an apartment complex nicknamed the Cru-plex (I could write a whole separate post just about that. Maybe another day). Three of us stacked together in one room and because of that became quite close friends. Each of us have gotten married since and the wives subsequently also became fast friends. Suffice to say we have a great time whenever we get together.

The wedding, which we were all invited to, became a great opportunity for us to spend some time together again. The Makuh family (one of the three) housed all of us for the duration. The two families with kids slept in the house, the one without took the garage. Pretty stinkin' awesome.

The whole gang! From left to right: Underwoods, Makuhs, and Meyers!

Be Wed!
The wedding was for the pastor's daughter and her super cool now husband. They are two very genuine, caring, fun people and their wedding was truly enjoyable to be at; easy going, not pretentious or dry, but still powerful and beautiful. The bride and groom selected a few songs for worship during the service and you could tangibly feel the passion for the Lord of the people in the room. The whole event was an awesome celebration of the Lord bringing together and blessing two of His children.

Weddings may not have the same refining influence of funerals (Ecc 7:2), but for me this served as a great reminder of the promises I made to my wife on our wedding day and of the unbelievable gift my wife is to me. I hope I can do a better job of living up to the task of being a better husband and father.

With this in mind we enjoyed the rest of the day's festivities. I even danced. That's my allotment of miracles for the day.


Not everything that glitters is Golden
We had a few things in mind that were must-do's for the visit. We have to spend some time in downtown Golden, and we have to stop by one of our favorite restaurants, the Sherpa House. This place serves Chai-Tea so delicious... its not fair to come up with an analogy. It's a reason to go to Golden in of itself.

So, we spent the next morning playing in a park and farmers market in downtown and finished up the morning with lunch at the Sherpa House.



Behold: the people eat ambrosia brought by sherpas. Makuh's on the left, Meyers and Jennifer on the right. In this picture (including the photographer), there are 3 kids, 3 engineers, and 3 nurses. Technically there are 4 kids with the bonus baby bump (Underwood baby #2!).

A cool side note: the people who run the Sherpa House are actually from Nepal. They bring people over from Nepal for school and give them a job either working in the restaurant or working in their landscaping business. The whole restaurant outdoor space is decked out beautifully with flagstone, water features and sweet foliage thanks to the landscaping bit. This place didn't take long to become a Golden landmark.

We spent dinner that night with another set of good friends, the Loewen family, who invited us over for dinner that night. This is yet another great family with some hilarious kids. We are blessed to know them.

Fathers' Day.
Spending time back in Golden, for us, was like picking up where we left off, as if we never left. Sunday morning at Hillside was friendly and powerful. We had a great time catching up with faces we haven't seen in a while and seeing all the new ones that have come into the world since we left.

It's sad to note that, relative to Mother's Day, church attendance is relatively poor on Father's Day. Its been shown in studies that when a Father is fixed in his faith, the children, are much more likely to remain faithful. This is a comment not on the state of American culture, but on the church itself. There are far too few strong Christian men in the church. This is all the more reason to celebrate the men in our churches that strive to live and lead well.

The Makuh family let us join them in their family Father's Day get-together. These two brothers are strong godly men that I look up to. Their diligence in loving their wive's and children deserves attention and respect. I thank the Lord I have had the opportunity to call both of them my friends.

2 generation of Underwoods, 3 generations of Makuhs. The eldest Makuh makes the best pies in the world.

Wheel have a good time
Monday being our last day in Golden, Elliot (Makuh) had to go back to work. Elliot has an engineering degree, but he burnt out on office life and sought a respite for a time. He currently works a mobile alloy wheel repair franchise out of Arapahoe County. I was able to tag along with him for a day and help out repairing a few wheels at a couple car dealerships. It's pretty impressive to have a mobile workshop fit into a small trailer!

Seven wheels, 2 car dealerships, 2 burgers, and 4 margaritas later, Elliot and I returned back to the house to spend our last few hours with the rest of our families before we needed to head to the airport. Jennifer, Isabelle and I made it back safe and sound to Bakersfield by 1am the next morning.

I guess we just like night flights...

Finding balance when home is always on the move

In my experience home has never been a static thing. I grew up in a dynamic environment and rarely had the chance to feel well planted or tied to a place of origin. Maybe this wasn't the ideal situation. Should I strive for something different for my family?

The Designer Life
If any of you have been through similar experiences, or even if you haven't, you know the stress of trying to design your life in such a way that good things will result. It's a confusing, frustrating task that you can never really be certain what will result. There are too many variables. Who knows what mix of the good and bad experiences of our lives shapes us into what we should be. Some of the things I would have chosen to avoid in at the time have made me better today.

This, though, is the point. You may be capable of molding your path to suite your interests and I'm certain many of you could be very successful to that end.

But...should you? 

Colorado calling

As I type Jennifer, Isabelle and I are on our way to Colorado. We are super excited to see some of the best friends anyone could hope to have in life. These are the kind of friends that you want your kids to grow up together; go to every birthday party and soccer game. As close as family. Only one problem: they live over a thousand miles away. It can be frustrating to feel like you live and work in one place but your life, latest as you would like it to be, is in another. I'd love to set up a different situation for my kids sot hat they could be a part of a rich community as they grow up.

But if it's that important, I should orient my life so that it looks the way I think it should, right? Move across the country, find a different job. Make it happen.

An impossible puzzle

Here's the truth. Theres a lot more facets of life than those I idealize in my mind. Life is made up of more than I could every hope to fit into my own perfect design. The only way to account for all the multitude of variables in life is to trust someone who has the means to understand them all. We firmly believe that is the Lord God.

This doesn't mean that if I follow the Lord he will make my life or my families life fun fun fun. I don't buy that, far from it in fact. This might, no, will mean life becomes more difficult.

"God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him." -John Piper in Desiring God

Life is only meaningful, only worth living, if it is spent for the one whom it was meant to glorify. Whatever that looks like and wherever that leads you. Even if life is more difficult, it is spent with purpose.

Freedom for a purpose
If you are in the same boat as I am of constantly scheming how to make the ideal life, this should provide an incredible amount of freedom. There is no ideal life. There is no model life plan. Just seek each day to be obedient to the Lord's revealed calling for your life.

I have yet to see this lead to anything but adventure, a great story and joy. The Lord has shown to us that He isn't shy about providing for His own. He has given us amazing friends in Bakersfield and shown himself trustworthy time and time again.

Nothing is better than knowing God moved something for you. 

For example: it's almost midnight on an airplane full of screaming children flying across the U.S. and Isabelle finally fell asleep. 

I snapped a photo of Isabelle's feet on the plane (she actually slept!). This is the first time she has had her toenails painted.

Haiti visit: The Final Post

This is the final update about our recent short trip to Haiti. The rest of the information can be found in past posts Haiti Update Part 1 and Haiti Update Part 2.

Day 3: Take a hike!
The Haitians think it's absurd that anyone who doesn't have to walk somewhere would choose to do so for leisure. They walk constantly to get everywhere and to get anything they need, be it water or food or whatever else they may need.

So, you can imagine it seemed a bit weird to them for two white guys and their pregnant wives to take a multi-mile hike through the countryside for fun.

That's alright. It was fun.

We passed by the small plot of land (~1 - 1.5 acres by my guess) the Lancours are farming with a local. Their cabbage crop is one of the only in the whole area that has not failed due to lack of rain. Truly amazing and something they thank the Lord for frequently.

The terrain was fairly steep and the weather pretty hot, but the hike took us through some of Haiti's very precious forest. If you weren't aware, much of Haiti has undergone severe deforestation due to lack of regulation enforcement and overuse for things such as charcoal for cooking. Charcoal is the country's primary source of fuel for cooking.

lunch in the pine forest. Many of the trees have machete marks in them. You can't cut down a tree, but if the tree happens to die... well that's fair game, right?

Now, this deforestation has much more significant impacts than the typical run of the mill environmental impacts you may hear about on the news. A lack of trees means a lack of plants securing the steep slopes when they are loaded from heavy rain. This can lead to slope failures: landslides and mudslides. This is one of the reasons the last earthquake caused so much destruction in Haiti. If you get the chance or are a bit curious, the difference in vegetation caused by deforestation can be easily seen in Google Maps directly tracing the border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Oriani Clinic
The destination of our hike was a clinic in the nearby village of Oriani. This is a pretty decent facility run by the Mennonite missionaries in the area. The clinic was packed both inside and outside with people waiting to be seen. The people that run the clinic are friends with the Lancours and also quite friendly. They showed us around and we were able to chat with them for a bit. As you might expect, they are excellent people. Just that morning they had delivered several babies onsite. This in addition to treating everything else imaginable.

After visiting the clinic, we bought drinks from the town market (open air, people selling things on the ground and crude tables) and continued on to visit with a few of the Mennonite missionaries in their home. They were extremely kind - they gave us coffee!

Quick side note on that point. Haitians drink 'coffee.' They just add more sugar to it than I would want in a Pixie Stick. It's actually a little bit difficult to get down. I blame this entirely on our coffee snob friend back in Bakersfield (you know who you are).

After meeting and spending some time with these find people, we made our way back to home base, trying our best to take it slow and enjoy good conversation. If you have the opportunity to spend some time with these folks I highly recommend it. They are such a pleasure to be around and such an encouragement. Their love for the Lord and determination to seek Him out in their day puts a smile on my face.

We must have taken the pace a bit too fast, as Jennifer was sick for the rest of the day and a bit for the following day. We are fairly convinced she had a case of altitude sickness (too long from Colorado!). We made it a point to take it easy from there on. The rest of the day was spent enjoying Kirsten's cooking and playing board games. I'm pretty sure the Lancours crushed us in about every game that day.

Day 4: Desperate for water
I'll apologize upfront for the lack of pictures on this day. Leave the boys to their own devices and BAM! No pictures...

The Lancours have been facilitating and working towards several water related projects in their area including building water cisterns and rain collection. Recent climatic conditions have lead to the area being desperately dry: many people are so desperate they can be seen to take drinking water out of puddles in the street. This is quite a bad thing as far as disease goes. A few ministries have been sending water trucks up into the mountains, but the distribution of this water can be quite problematic.

Beautiful mountainous terrain. Unfortunately they are quite far from any form of running water. No rain = no water.

A truck can't simply stop and hand out water as the crowd that would form would very quickly become violent and dangerous due to how desperate people are for water. While we were in Haiti, such an event occurred and lead to a fight and a machete attack. The solution to this is careful and planned distribution in areas where people can be effectively corralled to prevent a mob from forming. The best solution thus far seems to be to have the water truck deliver water to one of the people's cisterns and then redistribute the water from that point. Its a hairy situation and the Lancours do everything within their means to facilitate these operations when they can.

stuck in the gutter
As I mentioned before, they also are involved with water collection for people's cisterns. I had the opportunity on this particular day to help Jessie install a simple gutter system on a house to collect rainwater from the roof and send it into the cistern. PVC pipes are sized and then cut lengthwise, allowing them to be pried open and placed over the corrugated tin roofing material. Water collects in the PVC gutters and runs through more PVC pipes to collect in the cistern.

It's a pretty simple setup but can mean a big difference for a family that would otherwise rush outside to collect the roof runoff with any buckets or bowls they had on hand whenever it rained. This was a very exciting project for me: every time it rained before we did this all I could think about was the wasted water and how that could have gone into that family's cistern. I'm very thankful I was able to be a part of this small project.

We didn't take any pictures of the gutter work, so here's another project I was able to help Jesse with. I don't remember what day we did this, but we replaced a few of the tin sheets with translucent plastic ones to let a bit more light in.

Some of the friends of the family that owned the house helped out by digging for the buried PVC pipe and helping hold pipe for hanging. This made the project go much more smoothly.

After stopping by one other house to do some repairs to gutters Jessie had previously installed, we headed back to the house. We spent a good bit of the remainder of the day trying to prune their avocado tree in order to get some wood for a bon fire.

Independence Day Pumpkin Puree! 
We finished off the day with Kirsten making some Haitian Pumpkin Soup. This is a particularly meaningful dish for the Haitians dating back to the time when the people were salves under French rule. Pumpkins were considered a delicacy and any slave caught eating one was severely punished (one guy, four horses, different directions). Now every Haitian independence day they celebrate with pumpkin soup. It was pretty dang good.

Post meal time at the Lancour house.

Day 5: Down down down and it got way hotter
We took the morning slow and got everything packed up and ready for the trip back down the mountain. The trip was just as rough as before and Isabelle slept just as well. It seemed about as comfortable as sleeping in a washing machine, but who am I to argue.

Several hours later we arrived at our destination: a resort called Moulin Sur Mer.

It was hot. They had air-conditioning. It was wonderful.

Joseph and I throwing rocks into the ocean.

We all put in plenty of bug spray to keep off the mosquitos. I regretfully missed covering my feet entirely and payed a steep price for it. We rested well and called it an early night.

Day 6:  ♪♫It's getting hot in here... so don't take off any of your clothes or you'll be eaten alive by mosquitos... ♪♬
The last full day in Haiti. We took our time at the hotel; the Lancours met a guy who runs a jet ski company as a part of a discipleship ministry. He offered them a great deal on a jet ski ride so they went out and terrorized some fish for a bit while Jennifer and I watched the kids.

Lancours on a jet ski.

After a few more board games we hit the road for Port Au Prince for our final night. We stayed at a house that's owned by a group that provides free daycare to some families in the area. The house is a larger 4 bedroom home and they provide free daycare, 2 meals a day and vitamins to 85 children 5 days a week. Yeah. 85 kids. Crazy.

They were very kind and fed us well, but there is no air conditioning. That last night was made up of perfuse sweating and fear of mosquitos. Still, it was very much worth it to spend time with the kind people there and see what the Lord is doing in their lives.

Travel!
The next morning we left from the PAP airport and spent then next 18 hours traveling back to Bakersfield. We ran into some mechanical trouble on the first leg of our flight that caused some cascading missed connections and log waits in a few airports. It was a tiring day.

Beautiful photo Jennifer snapped on the way down from the mountain. It was amazing how much these red trees stood out from the rest of the either barren or slightly green landscape.

If you feel called to, I would encourage you to check out the Lancours Haiti mission in more detail and consider supporting them. They do great work and the Lord is blessing it. Follow this link to learn more about supporting them.

Thank you so much for following along with what's going on in our lives. We will continue to update this blog as often as possible, so keep checking back.

Haiti Visit: Part 2

Part two of our recent trip to Haiti. Please see post titled "Ki jan ou di "Haiti" nan kreyòl?" for earlier information.

In total we stayed in Haiti for 6 nights with an additional night used on either end for traveling.

Day 1 (actually day 2 but we won't count air travel)
After a few hours of traveling up the mountain, we arrived at the Lancour's home. As you can imagine, Jennifer and I were a bit tired so we traded off watching Isabelle and napping. We finished off the first night with good conversation and Settlers of Catan.

We even managed to remain on speaking terms after playing.

Day 2: The Pines for the Forest

The closest town to the Lancours is a tiny village called Foret De Pins. The ladies (both nurses by training) planned on holding a clinic in the town's church. We figured this would be a great opportunity to hand out some of the clothes we had donated to us for this trip. Jennifer and Kirsten had each person come to the front of the church one at a time.

Beautiful photo of some of these beautiful people. Credit goes to Jennifer for this photo

They handed them a small plastic pouch of water to drink and asked them some health related questions. Haitians, at least in this area, are not in the habit of drinking plain water in any decent quantities so many of them find even the modest quantity they were given hard to get down or even unpalatable. Most regularly drink sugary beverages as their main source of hydration. This also contributes to a decent percentage of them having high blood pressure, and all the symptoms that come with it.

It was a blessing to us to be able to minister to a few people in any way. It made me even more proud of my wife Jennifer. Even more than healthcare or stuff, these people need Jesus; just like anywhere else you go.

After the nurses provided any help they could (basic medications, dewormer, vitamins), they would pray for the patient and then send them down to Jessie and I. There they would receive a packet of hygiene supplies and could pick out a few pieces of clothing. We (Jessie and myself) had this role and the job of keeping the kiddos entertained. They were able to play with each other a decent amount. The Haitians were quickly enamored with Isabelle and many loved holding her. It's always nice to have people around to keep kids entertained.

Joseph and Isabelle filling holes with rocks. It's so much fun to see these kids playing together, even if playing is better described as fearfully tolerating one another most of the time. Isabelle likes to hit sometime... Believe it or not those flowers are made from garbage plastic.

Here's a funny side note to that bit: I would hand out the hygiene packets and breifly describe what was in them in creole. Chanpou (shampoo), savon (soap), pa dan (tooth paste.. i have no idea how thats actually spelled in the creole). Another phrase we learned was "Jezi renmen ou," or "Jesus loves you." For some reason i mixed up pa dan and renmen for quite a few people...

So they all had love in their bags instead of toothpaste.

In order to keep this whole operation calm, only the first 30 people who requested to attend this clinic were allowed to go. Their names were selected during a church service the previous Sunday. Without this kind of setup, the event easily could have been overrun and become unruly or even dangerous. The people in this community are desperately poor and have little access to any form of healthcare. This whole situation, as I hope you can imagine, is a bit of a paradigm shift from everyday life in the US.

View of the 'stage' of the church building. Jessie's back can be seen on the far right of the photo. Jennifer and Kirsten on stage. Joseph is front and center and Isabelle is hamming it up with the locals. 

Trains planes and board games
After finishing up with the allotted number of patients, and even a few more that slipped in, we packed up and headed back to the Lancours. We managed to pack Ticket to Ride in our luggage on the way there and put it to good use while in Haiti. We had fun teaching them a new game after the day in the clinic. I can't remember who won that first match but I remember it being a significant victory and everyone being terribly impressed... Jennifer insisted I put a wink face here to make sure everyone understands I won that game. So...

;)

In the name of keeping things within the attention span of the digital age, we will continue adding updates to this as time permits. Please keep coming back to check for updates and leave any comments or suggestions here.

Thanks!

Baby underwood is a...

You know what that means!

Thats right. It's a girl!


Wait... what?
I guess blue means girl now, at least to cake decorators! A pretty hilarious mistake if you ask us.

We are having a girl!!

And a free cake! Thanks Sweet Surrender!

Thank to everyone who was able to join in with us via video chat and to the Reagan family for sharing this special moment with us! Mishaps like this make life more fun, if not a little confusing.

Hello Mercedes! Thanks again to everyone who was able to join us from around the country.

Ki jan ou di "Haiti" nan kreyòl ?*

*Credit for spelling, and all blame for incorrectness goes to Google Translate...

Late last month (May), Jennifer, Isabelle and I had the pleasure of spending some time with friends Kirsten and Jesse Lancour and their little boy Joseph. They have a small cement walled home in the southern mountains of Haiti, a region called Gwo Cheval. They run Cornerstone Church Haiti ministering to the people in their community. 

Many Planes make Flight Work
As anyone who has had the experience can tell you, flying with a one year old isn't entirely pleasant. Now, Isabelle is of course an angel, but she is an angel overstuffed into a tiny body that screams for constant motion. This conflicts a bit with the necessities of commercial flight and the sanity of her parents and fellow passengers. We had a longer layover in Fort Lauderdale where we could get a hotel and take a 4 hour nap before catching our last leg to Port Au Prince. The hotel didn't make it terribly clear that their hotel shuttle does not run 24 hours a day. This gave us an excellent opportunity to try out Uber for the first time.

Phone /fōn/ noun
1.object capable of producing brief seconds of entertainment for a child. 2.object that a child will seek out at any cost. 3. projectile

 
It should go without saying that the difficulties of traveling were more amply compensated by the joy of spending time with friends such as the Lancours who really strive to lay the weight of their lives on the strength of the Gospel. The joy of eating a breakfast sandwich from the Food Network Kitchen was pretty cool too.

Port us in the right direction
We were picked up at the Port Au Prince Airport by the Lancours and together the six of us made our way out of the city.

"Toussaint Louverture International Airport" by Didier Moïse (picture not by us). We apologize for not have any pictures of this particular event, but the airport is surrounded by people who are extremely insistent about helping you carry your bags.

The city of Port Au Prince is itself a bit of an experience.

 The Port Au Prince metropolitan area is home to more than 2 million people. There are no widespread sewer or water utilities, electricity is available only at scarce, random points throughout the day, trash is basically not collected by any central body, leaving it to be piled and then burned in the streets. The roads are poorly maintained, if at all, and traffic is just plain anarchy. There are maybe a dozen traffic signals in the whole city, most of which are non-functional anyways.

Then, there's the weather: hot, humid and plenty of both. We were very excited to find the weather up in the mountains was much cooler.

There are a handful of stores in Port Au Prince that approach western/US standards. These include a handful of hardware stores and grocery stores. They have onsite generators to ensure a consistent power supply. The truck was guarded by a shotgun wielding security guard while shopping in one of these grocery stores before heading up the mountains. The Lancours tend to make a trip down to Port once a month for supplies. They try to line this up with incoming visitors whenever possible.

Take a ride in a washing machine
Before heading up the mountain, we stopped by to see a local friend of the Lancours named Jean Wesner Jolimeau, a local minister in Port. John Wesner has 7 children of his own and 1 adopted from a poor family in the mountains. We arrived in time to play with some of the kids and get some Haitian food for lunch!

 The mountain road leading to Gwo Cheval was a bit rough. As Jennifer's Grandpa would say, it was "a pile of rocks, not a road." Miraculously (thank the Lord for Dramamine) Neither Jennifer nor I vomited during the trip. Somehow, virtually the only time Isabelle slept during this entire trip was while traveling on this bumpy road. Head bouncing against the window and all.

We didn't take any pictures of the road on the way up, so here's another picture of Isabelle climbing up a walking trail near where we stayed.

The Lancour Home. Note the solar panel in the upper right hand corner and the PVC pipes used for rain collection gutters.

A house on a mountain
The Lancour's home is simple, but quite sufficient. They have a cistern that collects rainwater from the roof, a few solar panels to power a mini-fridge and a pump for running water to their kitchen faucet. The outhouse building is split into two rooms: one is obviously for the toilet, the other for showers. Showers are taken by heating water on the propane stone and filling a bucket. The house has a loft where they store some supplies and tools and where they house visitors when they come. Just recently before we arrived they housed a mission team who built a roof onto their church building.

Here's a picture of Isabelle walking down the Lancour's driveway. Oh, and the new church roof too!

I think I'll split this into a few posts to keep them a quick-readable length. Please check back soon for more updates. Please post comments below if you have any specific requests for information we could pass along here.

Thanks for reading!


2 Whole Years!

Without wanting to repeat the oft-said cliché, "time flies!," the last two years seems to have gone by fast.

2 Years?!
That's right, it's been 2 whole years since our last post here and we've left tracks being us to prove it, so lets look at a short review: Reno (our beloved RV) is long since gone, we have lived in and moved on from our first Bakersfield apartment to a rental home on a 1.5 acre lot in west Oildale.

Yes that Oildale.

We have had our first kiddo, the most-beautiful-girl-in-creation Isabelle Grace:

Like I said: "most-beautiful-girl-in-creation." Jennifer has started a little photo business on the side. I can say without any bias you should pay hundreds of dollars for her to take your pictures. 

We don't just watch Netflix... We do stuff too.
We have had 2 semi-successful vegetable gardens, one bicycle stolen, one old black truck with a rebuilt motor, a grapefruit tree, and more plane flights than anyone not getting paid to fly on should ever experience. I (David) have had the pleasure of working with 3 separate groups at Occidental Petroleum and witnessed this company spin off into California Resources Corporation. And now, Jennifer and I have the great pleasure of expecting our next drooly crawling mini-person this November!

Isabelle helping her daddy with garden version 2.0. Our original experiment can be seen in the cedar planters on the right. They did great even with the daily cigarette ash from our old upstairs neighbors.

Yet another generation of Underwoods enjoying the tailgate on this wonderful machine. The rebuild process was expensive and extremely time consuming, but worth it to save this piece of Underwood history.

Walk the Streets of Bakersfield
Don't let the cheery pictures fool you: Bakersfield is not a lovely place. It's hot, dry, the air is incredible dirty (yay inhalers!), and people love driving trucks that would make you nervous to go through a drive-thru. We desperately miss Colorado and the friends we left behind. The extra 1000 miles makes the drive unfeasible for family and friends, so we spend a lot of time and money on air travel. But... BUT, we have made good friends and have seen the Lord work in our lives while we have been here. That is why we are here. We have met incredible people who have become dear friends. It is our hope that we will continue to grow in the Lord and lead our children to do the same, with the help of those that He has placed into our lives.

It's not easy, it's not always fun, but everyday we learn to treat this place a bit more like home for the time we are here. We can't wait for our next little one and to see what adventures are waiting for us tomorrow.



Hopefully soon we will get the time to summarize our recent experiences in Haiti. We hope you will come back to take a look!