Be still. live life.

One of the things that am learning here is to be still. To live life as it comes and not make things happen. To be content to LIVE here. I'm learning and seeing more and more that I am not on a "mission trip", but I have simply been called to live this chapter of my life here. It seems like a very short chapter. I'm almost a quarter of the way finished with it. In some ways I miss things back home, but in some ways I never want to go back to the states. The people here are slowly becoming my family for now. They will never EVER replace my family and friends back home, but for now they are my family.

This weekend was definitely a picture of what life is like. There was no work this weekend. Just life and laughs.

On Saturday we decided to hike the mountain in the backyard. I was so excited. I had hiked it once before and it is one of the most beautiful places I've seen. Where else can you see mountains, valleys, and the ocean in one glance? Not Texas... So because of the beauty this is a photo heavy blog... enjoy.

I mentioned the other day that I had found and claimed the land for my future house. As we were climbing the mountain I stopped to take some snapshots from my future porch!

North

West

South

Before long Guerline was tired and ready for a break.

(Also, for those of you who have read my last few blogs and seen the pictures... she does change clothes... but she has like 4 yellow shirts... hence the appearance that she doesn't change.)

Our fearless leaders... waiting for me and Guerline. The entire time Guerline was complaining... why are you running? Why are you walking so fast? Slow DOWN!! This only encouraged them to walk faster... thanks guys.

I don't know if you can see it clearly, but there is a black snake in the tree in the middle of the picture. Guerline had already expressed her fear of seeing a snake on the mountain (apparently there are different snakes up there than down here... the ones that live there are more scary like cobras... I think its a rumor.) But since neither of us are fans of snakes I told her I'd bring along the machete. Yes, I a whole mountain with a machete strapped to my back. I felt a little awesome... not gonna lie. But when it came time to kill the snake we decided against it, because it was peacefully in a tree, and to kill it I would have had to lean over and risk falling down the mountain.... into the snake tree. Since it was essentially doing us no harm we decided to let it live.

View from the ALMOST top!

Again. Our fearless leaders. Jonny (R) and Herman (L)

(I'm pretty sure that is the American spelling of their names... not the Haitian one.)

Happy to be almost there.

At this point. Once Guerline has sat down it was all over. She broke out her sugar cane and declared that she wasn't going any further. We were probably no further than 300 yards away. If that far. But she had decided it was over.... So alas, we didn't finish the climb. We turned around here. I wanted to give her some tough encouragement, which is needed sometimes for mountain climbing, but didn't know the correct words in Kreyol without sounding mean... oh well. Maybe next time

This is the view from the point that we turned around. If you look carefully you can see the ocean, and, if you've been here before and know our island you can see that too.

At this point we were descending. This is not my favorite. I am bad at going back down and almost fall with every 3rd step. They made a walking cane for me and then made fun of me because they said I looked like a blind grandma with my cane... and insisted on taking a picture... thanks guys.

On the way down

Happy to be going back down!

Not as happy to be going back down, but couldn't resist the urge to Gig'em!

Once we were back at camp we decided to make ourselves a little afternoon snack... after all, what's better to eat after climbing a mountain than sugar?

These guys are professional marshmellow roasters.

And eaters.

Guerline had never had a marshmellow in her life... much less a S'more... needless to say she was pleasantly suprised.

We spent the afternoon napping and drinking colas in our hammocks.  

Oh Jesus, thank you for this beautiful day!!

Sunday was much like Saturday in the resting aspect of things. I went to church, which made me a little sad. It was great to worship God in another language, but after a month without my churches back home I'm really missing them. In Tomball I have started to feel like part of the Redeemer Bible Church family and have been so blessed by the love for Christ and for each other that the body has. In College Station I recently became a member of New Life church, and the people there have blessed me so much. A few of my young mommy friends from New Life have just had babies or are about to give birth and it makes me sad that I'm not around. I was plugged in to two very healthy, God loving, people loving, Bible loving, church loving churches, and now I'm not. I am in a church where I don't understand much, and I'm stared at the whole time. Ever move I make is watched by someone or another. I can't even find the songs in the hymnal, so my neighbor has to help. I miss being able to sing my heart out to Jesus, cry if I need to, close my eyes and still know all the words, and know that those around me aren't staring and whispering to their neighbor about me.

(These are just things that I miss. I am not saying I want to come home or that I hate it here. Please don't worry about me!)

I am so thankful for technology, and have been listening to podcasts on sunday mornings from my church.

Sunday afternoon rolled around at Tala came by to say hello. She asked if we could go "upstairs" to the little hill that overlooks the valley. Guerline had some sugar cane that her dad brought for us, and so we went upstairs to watch the sunset. As we sat and watched the sun set the only noise "cruch, slurp, chew, slup, swallow, crunch, spit" repeat of us eating our sugar cane. (If you have never personally chewed on sugarcane that is what it sounds like... and I highly reccomend that you try some soon)

This was our sunset.  Mostly fog. But we enjoyed looking at the valley. This valley looks different every day.
 God never ceases to amaze me with His beauty.

These two are currently some of the sweetest blessings in my life.

 Guerline is on the left. Tala on the right.

Trying from another angle. Not quite successful at getting all of us, but this adequately captured our joy.

Thank you, Jesus for sweet friends!