We Have a Guest House and it Rained Last Night.....

We Have a Guest House and it Rained Last Night.....

Three Weeks Into 2010/2011 School Year

Oh my! We never dreamed we'd be this busy!!! Our school enrollment is nearly 100 kids, 20 high school age. The office is busy from the moment the doors open until the last child is out of the building.

We took Crystal's class (first grade) Petit Homme's class (first grade), and Kevin's class (kindergarten) to our old house. So now ESLC is located in three buildings. We hired a young man who told us he might not be there very long, he wasn't. Stevenson spoke fluent English, had graduated the ACE system, was excellent helping the high school do their math (although he wasn't much older than they). He got the opportunity for higher education in the Dominican Republic and bid us farewell. To fill the void, Gary is in the classroom, I'm in the office and Dan is directing the whole thing. WE NEED HELP!!!

We need a couple of North Americans to come and commit some time to getting this school off the ground. We are doing it, but Gary and I have so much more that needs done with Bible schools, the orphanage oversight. We also work with two Haitian pastors, one to build a building and one to build a house. This doesn't get done without us being on the scene regularly, so it 's on hold right now. Pastor Cesar asked me today at Bible school what we were doing or when we would begin. I know he wants to get started, but we must check prices and make sure his estimate isn't higher than what we can do if we purchase here in St Marc. All that takes a lot of t-i-m-e and we don't seem to have much as we are using every available moment now.

The new house is coming along nicely…the one we rented and moved into three weeks ago (as if school opening wasn't enough on our plate). We finally got our mosquito netting up so sleeping is easier. BUT now we have rats. Ever since the dog died, the rats have invaded. The other morning, I got up and came in the office, noticed that a utensil called Cleenere's was bitten off at the tip…only a rat could have done it. Then I saw the droppings and later proceeded to put my hearing aids in, only one was missing. A rat stole my hearing aid! Although, we are joking about it, with the price of such, it is no laughing matter. And, the difficulty I have in hearing since it was the aid for the worst ear.

I don't know if I told you about the death of our little dog. We had to cut down some coconut leaves because they were shorting out the transformer. We took pictures of Buddy frolicking in the branches on the ground, eating at them and having a very nice time. Four days later he was dead, a horrible death! The leaves balled up in his stomach and cut his intestines. They wouldn't come up or go down. He was in such pain and literally bled to death. That was hard to watch happening. The vet kept coming to try and help him but to no avail. (He really needed surgery but that doesn't happen here and/or a shot to put him to sleep but that doesn't happen here either).

Back to the rats. When we got up this morning, a huge piece had been eaten out of an avocado that was sitting on the table. There was also evidence of one being right back up here on my desk. Trust me, my remaining hearing aid was NOT laying here. But the rat had been back and left his calling card!!

We have a new girl in the orphanage, Sylvana, a dear child who is getting along very well with everyone. Olivie and Junior are doing well and have truly bonded as brothers. Last night, Dan and Gary both got out of bed and headed toward their room at the same time. They were having a very loud disagreement. It had to do with one touching the others' bed. So, they were moving their beds away from one another….if that isn't a brotherly love fight, I've never known one.

The other morning the scripture from Acts came to me.
Act 6:3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; Act 6:4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word."

 

Gary and I need to give ourselves to prayer and to ministry of the Word. We must find the workers for the school and we pray we have North American help. If you know anyone who ever thought they would like to do this kind of thing, please steer them our way.

Hopefully, I'll get to post some recent pictures when this gets posted to the blog!

Love,

Gary and Carolyn

 

 

Is My Heart Right?

A good rule to follow in walking with the Lord is actually a question:  Is my heart right?

We were told in April, that the building we were living in was going to be sold. Of course, we were asked if we wanted to buy it.  But, buying was not convenient because we were already too crowded in the house.  Since Olivie and Junior came to live with us and our American volunteer numbers have grown, the house was somewhat overcrowded on a daily basis and especially when team members were with us.

Over the last year, I'd ask Gary if he could possibly make the house bigger, perhaps another bathroom (in our bedroom--impossible), and a balcony knocking a window out and making a door, so I could go and sit to be alone.  Impossible.

So, here we were knowing we would move sometime in April of 2011 but where?  Most bigger homes are hugely overpriced as far as rent is concerned and how would we begin looking. Those that we'd looked at in the past were so overpriced we were sure the owners had lost their minds.

My prayer became:  Lord, I just want to be alone with you, and right now there is no where to go in this house. When others are sleeping you don't dare make noise at 3AM (my usual wake-up time so I can pray).  I would say it and leave it with Him, it wasn't something I dwelt on because for ten years I've consistently thanked the Lord for where we lived.

Gary and I have one goal and that's to be good stewards' of God's money and to be a pipeline.  Concerning things, we gave.  Concerning the Gospel, we gave.  Concerning personal items we gave.  Nothing means anything to us.  If we have it and the Lord says give it, we do. That's it, Lord, make me a pipeline.  That's still my prayer.  Few people know what we do to help others.  They can see the employees all of whom get paid a fair wage, but few know what goes out from our hand on a regular basis.  God sees it, He's the only one who counts.

An employee came by and asked us to look at a house.  We thought okay but here we go again.  We  were impressed by the size, the possibilities and that our vehicles would be off the street behind the gate.  It wasn't just one house but two which answered the question as to what we can do with teams.  This  house  would hold all our long term volunteers and teams adequately.   To my utter surprise, the master bedroom had a balcony and a bathroom.  (All I could think of was "God you are real aren't You?)  We got some counsel from several people in ministry and approval from our board before we made the decision to draw up a contract.

The landlord was willing to sign that the rent would never go up, and the rent money did not cut into our budget.  So we signed.  When we showed the house to others there was silence and then talk.  "I could never live in a house like that with so many people suffering."  A statement like that brings me to one that my mother made when I was a child. "Eat all your food, remember the starving kids in China."  How in the world would my eating all my food, help any child in China. How would my not living in this house help those who are suffering?  And, those comments remind me of the time I wore a cheap ankle bracelet to Bible school.  They asked me to take it off.  I did because I'm well aware of the scripture that advises us not to cause a  brother to stumble, but how was an ankle bracelet causing them to stumble?  They gave me a pretty lame excuse.  When I took the ankle bracelet off, I asked if now the anointing was greater than it was a minute ago.  Is our anointing gone because we moved to a bigger house?  Are more people in Haiti going to suffer because we live in a nice house?

As I pondered these comments and questions this morning the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, "Is your heart right?"  And so I thought about this house, it will be used for ministry, for teams, for our Haitian staffuse will be used for ministry to teams and to Haitians and to our resident volunteers.  If there were a disaster (and I pray not) this house would be used for the homeless.  I can answer the question because I took the time before the Lord to check my heart.  Nothing has changed within me because of a house.  I don't care about things, I care about Jesus.   I care about ministry.  I care about helping others with their needs.  Where we live and what we wear has nothing to do with our heart and relationship with the Lord IF our heart is right.

Carolyn

Waiting for dinner: Delson, his two children, Junior and Olivie.  We were at the Pastor's house.

Gary had just fiinished preaching, sat down, little girl came to his lap.

Dr. Norm Dobbs and Crystal Salewski (teacher)

BUSY DAY

IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE, PLEASE READ THIS: WE NEED HELP. If you have ever wanted to come to the mission field to work, we need teachers at school. You do not have to be a qualified teacher, you have to love the Lord, love children, have at least a high school education and voila! We will find a place for you.

When I got up this morning, I realized there isn't much time to do everything there is to do. I don't know where I write things anymore so, here it is again…we are moving. We found a great house although we weren't looking for a house. We've been thinking that we should move since they want to sell this house, but we were no where near actively moving. But, as the Lord (and we know this is the Lord) would have it, an employee came by saying come and look at this house. We did. We dealt. We are moving. It's big and roomy and actually, it's two houses. So, teams will be able to stay comfortably. Balconies everywhere, no one has ever lived there. The house was built by a man who owns a cab franchise in New Jersey. He plans to retire there in ten years. That should be enough time for us to inhabit this house! What made the deal really inviting was his willingness not to raise the rent year after year. We drew up the contract, paid the yearly rent and then….he used some of the money to put razor wire around the top of the wall, paint everything, repair a few places in the concrete yard. We are blessed and so will the teams who come to visit.

Gary is so busy at school. People calling, coming in, questions to answer…busy time of year for him. He wasn't supposed to be doing this this year, but Dan Joshu met with some physical problems right before he was to leave the States. He's doing well now after a visit to the hospital and we rejoice he's well and will be here soon. But, in the meantime the load falls on Gary. He said this morning, "This is really too much, I'm being pulled in too many directions." Al Carpenter came up today to help with structural things. It seems the thieves removed the screen from the office windows to put what they were taking out the window. So, those need replaced. We couldn't figure out why the trombones (2) were still here. Well, they couldn't find the mouthpieces and left them, but praise the Lord, we found the mouth pieces!! Our band will have two trombones.

If you want to respond to our plea, email me at: wwgm_cgwalker@yahoo.com

Have a blessed day!

Carolyn

Everything Changes

Things have changed with Blogger and I don't know my way around it anymore.  So, until I figure it out, please be patient with me.

I'm ready for routine....

I'm ready for routine....