Let's catch up!!

Greetings to all!  First of all, I would like to pass on a word of thanks from Ernst to all of you who prayed for him and his family and also to those who wrote him notes of encouragement.  All the traditional funeral events are over and now the family would appreciate your continued prayers as they face so many new and different things related to life without their dad, husband and friend.

Life here at the HOH has been moving along fairly normally.  The students are big into studying and school, there are various Bible studies and other studies taking place on different nights.  All in all, things are going really well.  Not far from everyone's mind, however are the upcoming school exams scheduled for the month of June, so please be in prayer as they prepare for this stressful time.

Linda spends her days helping many different people.  Today for instance she has spent most of her day at our mission's hospital helping 4 different people get to see the doctors and schedule surgeries.  One of these people is a staff member of our friends from the Lemuel Organization.  The other three come from a home for severely mentally and physically disabled children called the Miriam Center.  One of their staff and two of their kids are quite sick, so she's helping them get taken care of today.  One of the children will need to stay with us at the HOH for a few days as he gets treated for a severe infection. Linda does this on top of all her other responsibilities, so you can imagine, she's a pretty busy lady!

I (Jenny) have been busy trying to work out a new niche for myself at the HOH.  Numerous things that I have taken care of over the years are slowly being transferred over to our young leaders and it is freeing me up to start focusing on other things that the staff and residents here are not able to do.  I find the area where I can be the most helpful here at the HOH at this time is in the area of development; particularly for the moment in the area of donor relations.

It is neat to see our ministry progress over the years to the point where I feel I can let go of some things here and start focusing on other more pressing needs. This has led me to do some research on where our support team is coming from.  I have started working on some plans for developing our support base; and at this moment these plans include some extended periods of travel to see various supporters and attempt to gain others.

With this new opportunity that is in front of us to connect with our support base, we are anticipating God's provision to make these travels a reality.  We have come to understand that in order to adequately provide and care for our kids; and properly invest in their future it will require more funds.  We are asking you to help is with this need in whatever way you can.  We are trying to raise $3,500 so Jenny (and her husband Djordjy for at least part of this time) can spend 2 months traveling to various locations in the Northeastern USA, and parts of Canada.  The biggest expense is getting over there, so we want to make it to as many places as possible in the amount of time we have.  If you can please pray for us that God would supply this need over the next couple of weeks.  If you are able to help out with this need, you can send donations to Extreme Response and designate it for Jenny Reitz Compère's travels.   Their website is www.extremeresponse.org.  Their US address is:

PO Box 345,  Snellvill, GA  30078-0345.  And their Canadian address is:  PO Box 1013, Simcoe, ON N3Y 5B3.   If you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact us at houseofhope1@hotmail.com. 

One last thing we need to share with you is with regards to our friends in Miami who so graciously help us get food for our kids.  They have recently started their own non-profit organization so that they can receive funds for this directly instead of needing to go through their local church.  For those of you who have been giving funds for this through the Miami Shores Presbyterian Church, we are asking that you now send these funds to:  Friends of Humanity, c/o Renel Noel, 15414 NE 2nd Ave., Miami, FL 33162.  Again if you have question feel free to write and ask.  You will still receive tax-deductible receipts for these donations, just from Friends of Humanity Corporation instead of the church.

Thank you so much for your faithful support.  We know we couldn't bring hope to the children of Haiti if it wasn't for you giving us the chance to be here.  We are grateful for your partnership. Please continue to hold us up in prayer, and if you are able to help us out with the need we mentioned above, please consider doing that as well.  Blessings to you all... 
 

Thank you so much for those of you who sent your sympathies to Ernst and his family.  His brother Ruben also grew up with us here with us at the HOH.  He was away at University when his father got sick and died, so it was more of a shock for him.  He has come back, and could use your prayers as well.  Several have asked when the funeral is, and I just found out myself that it will be on Sunday at 2pm.   They will also have a wake on Saturday night before the funeral.  I'm sure they'd appreciate your prayers.

Prayer for Ernst

Good afternoon... this is just a short post to ask you to pray for one of our young leaders, Ernst.  His father had a stroke earlier this week, and then passed away this morning.  As you can imagine it was a terrible thing for that family -- Ernst, his mom and 4 brothers and 1 sister.  the family is also raising a young orphan boy they had taken into their home.  We'd ask you to please pray for the Jean family, especially for Ernst, he considered his dad his best friend. 

Oh my!  Where has this past month gone?  My last post to you all was as I was rushing out the door on my way to Florida.

I had a great trip there.  It was a wonderful time visiting with old friends and making new ones; encouraging our partners along the way, and being encouraged in return.  I was able to speak at multiple different events and places, and was blessed with a few days to relax with a cousin who came to see me in Orlando.  Thank you to each and everyone who made my trip successful.

Meanwhile back at the HOH,  just a few days before I was due to return, our kids were in a car accident.  It was after dark and they were coming home from a school function in Port-de-Paix (the town 6 miles up the road from us).  An oncoming mini bus had only one headlight and St. Germain thought it was a motorcycle.  Meanwhile the mini bus was passing a parked vehicle on their side of the road.  It smashed right into our vehicle... We thank God that no one was killed.  St. Gemain the driver had the worst injuries, and is still recovering; everyone else walked away just really shaken up.  The car on the other hand...

Throughout the week before Easter our kids were all on vacation from school.  They once again planned and put together a Spiritual Life Crusade each night of the week.  It ended with a great Easter service on Sunday morning.  There was lots of singing, special musical numbers and preaching from a pastor and national missionary in our area.  We had a good turn out of several hundred people the first two nights.  Then the rains started... all day... all night for 4 days/nights.  Not to be deterred, the kids moved the crusade inside, and the people crowded in; in smaller numbers, but quite a few from the local community came anyway.  It really was a good time of remember what Jesus did for us, and all that He gave us in His death and His resurrection.

Our students are back in school now.  Several have received their report cards for the last semester.  We've had a mix of results.  The star by far has been 8 year old Dieula who brought home a 9.4 out of 10.  Very impressive.  Others are struggling and could use your prayers, those include:  Esther, Siliana, Ivinsky, Chedlyn, and John Wisly.  School is just not easy for them, and the school system leaves no room for kids who need extra help or different methods.

We have been able to start up a weekly Bible study again with the residents of the HOH.  We are thankful that God has brought a young national Child Evangelism Fellowship missionary to live in our town, and he has expressed a desire to work with our children/young people.  Please pray as David gets to know our kids and starts to share God's Word with them that they would grow in their knowledge of Jesus.

We'd appreciate your prayers as we continue to struggle to get enough financial support to pay our bills.  I know I must sound like a broken record, but we need approximately $200 per child/youth per month.  That adds up to quite a bit when you consider we have 85 here at any given time.  This includes their schooling, food and medical costs as well as any other needs they might have.  Please pray with us that we work to find more supporters to help us with this need.  If you are able to help in any way, please let us know.

Thanks so much for what each of you does do to help us out.  God's blessings on you!  Till next time...

Some quick prayer requests

Hi Everyone!  Once again I am almost out the door!  On my way out, I thought I'd give you some ideas of how to pray for us over the next few weeks.

• I, Jenny will be traveling to various places in Florida over the next couple of weeks.  Please pray for safety in travel, and for good health as I will be really busy.  Also pray for the right words to speak as I have numerous speaking engagements on behalf of the HOH.  
• Pray for Linda and the kids as they remain here and write exams!  Yep, it's exam time again, and everyone is deep into studying.  Pray for health for them too at this time, and the wisdom to balance their time and lives to study and remain in good health, and keep the house running!
• Praise God for a good amount of support that came in for the last month, and pray for continued financial support to come in to meet our monthly needs.
• Pray specifically for 8 year old Ivinsky.  This little ball of energy has been giving his teachers a lot of trouble at school.  They have threatened to not allow him back at school.  We have been all over the place with Ivinsky since he started school, and we had thought we were getting over the misbehaving at school, as last year we had no problems whatsoever.  So, please pray for wisdom for us as we deal with this, and pray for a change in Ivinsky. 

Many thanks for your support!

A bit of a vacation

 It seems that no sooner did we get back into the swing of things around here after the Christmas vacation, that the kids received another week off of school.  This past week's vacation was for the "Mardi Gras"/"Carnaval" celebrations that were happening in Haiti.  Most of our students got the whole week off, and a few were off for just half the week.  They found ample things to do to keep themselves busy...

the older kids helped Linda organize our clothes

this group of little ones enjoyed reading a book

Lala & Nani help sift flour for the noon meal

Blandjina took care of her little one

 

 

 

 

With the end of the "Carnaval" celebrations came Valentine's Day.  The older students had programs and parties with their various schools.  So in the afternoon Djordjy & I took the younger kids to a local store (about 5 miles and a 45 minute drive away) to buy some chocolate.  They were thrilled -- almost as much for the ride in the car as for the chocolate. 

This coming week, I will be traveling to various places in Haiti.  Some of our Extreme Response partners will be coming to visit their partnering organizations in Haiti.  Djordjy and I will be traveling around with them.  We'd ask you to pray for safety as we have many miles over very bad roads to cover.  Also, pray that our visits would be encouraging, profitable and a blessing to all involved.  This is the first time we've met these men, and so are looking forward to that very much.  

Back at the fort, Linda will be holding things down with the three young men who are helping out.  One of these men, Jean Daniel, is going to have an eye operation this coming week as well.  We go to see the doctor tomorrow, but are not sure when exactly the operation will happen.  It isn't a serious operation, but we'd ask you to pray anyway that it would be a success.  Last year he had he operation, but it didn't work.  This year the team is bringing the exact equipment they need to do the operation, and we hope it is successful this time.

Please continue to pray for 

• The spiritual growth of our young people, for their testimony as they interact with the local community, and that they would be diligent in their studies.
• Our support needs are still lacking.  I am planning several trips this coming year to visit supporters in various areas.  Please pray for an increase in monthly support to meet the needs of caring for the kids God has given us.
• Wisdom for Linda, the three young men and myself as we make decisions daily that affect the home.  

We appreciate each one of you very much.  Till next time... God bless!

Back into the swing of things...

Greetings once again from the House of Hope.  It is good for us all to be back in our places, and getting back into a more "normal" routine after so many weeks of school vacation.  They might have gotten out late in December, but the schools sure took their time starting up again in January. 

It was a really nice vacation time though. I was traveling back in the US, and had the chance to spend Christmas and New Years with my family.  And also had the chance to visit with some friends and supporters of our ministry.  Linda held the fort down here with our budding leaders.  As I wrote before they were unable to have a Christmas program, but we were so thankful to receive the Christmas gifts before Christmas this year, and the kids received them on the 24th.  It really was a great Christmas as far as gifts go this year, and it was just perfect for the kids to have all their gifts to play with during their school vacation. 



Our faithful supporters from the Grace Baptist Church in York, PA made sure each of our kids had a special Christmas bag just for them.  Here is Valandina with her Christmas bag spread out all around her! 






 
Another very generous supporter in Miami made sure they each had a gift she had chosen just for them.  Most of the younger girls, like Jedline here, received dolls or play houses, the younger boys trucks.  All the older kids/youth received watches, and a few some other jewelry.  We were so blessed by everyone's generosity this year, and the kids really did feel special.  Thank you to everyone for your participation in making this special time of year very special for our kids this year.

The toys have by now lost their luster; they have been played with and passed around, and enjoyed and utilized to their max.  But now, school has started, and the toys are back in their gift bags waiting for the weekend to come.  That's right, it's back to School. 

That means, getting up at 5:00 am, getting the chores done, and getting the first group of students out of the house by 7.  The second group goes at 7:30, and then the last of the morning groups leaves at 8.  School here at the HOH with kids who can't go out to the community schools, starts at 9am.  This year a young man named Wilvens has volunteered his time to teach the younger children who stay here at the HOH for school.  Wilvens is one of the neighborhood boys from our boy's Saturday Bible Club.  How good it is to see him taking his time to teach the younger kids.  We are happy to help him as we are able to, so he can pay for his own schooling which he attends in the afternoons.  Several of our older kids go to afternoon school as well.  It actually helps us with our schedule at the HOH, with both morning and afternoon school options, we can make sure we always have some older youth here to help run the house throughout the day.

So, you might just be wondering how our kids did this last semester of school.  Well, for the most part, we were very pleased with the grades our kids brought home.  We had just a few who didn't do too well.  Some we need to discipline to try harder, others we need to give a bit more help.  But we are working out what we need to do in order to try and get these grades up where they should be.  School can be very frustrating for our students, especially those who perhaps don't learn as quickly as everyone else.  There are no programs that offer special help; if you get behind, it's your responsibility to catch up again.  We'd ask your prayers specifically for Chedlyn, Siliana, and Lovedine, John Wisly and Terrens. 

We want to thank each one of you who gave financially in the month of December.  We were blessed by many generous gifts, and will once again be able to make a payment on our debt.  Please continue to pray for more monthly donors to come alongside of us and help us with these needs.  Until next time... Blessings...

HOH 2012 Christmas Card

Christmas and other news...

Well, the house is now cheerfully decorated for Christmas.  Quite a feat, considering our kids are all still in the midst of writing exams.  Unfortunately, their school have messed up their schedules so much that none of our kids have Christmas vacation at the same time.  Each school (our students are in 12 different schools) has decided to let the kids out at a different time, one of the schools is holding onto the students right up through the 24th!  So, we've had to cancel the annual Christmas program this year, there's just no way they can practice and pull it off with all their different schedules.  This also means that I won't get to participate in any of the holiday activities around here this year as I leave on the 22nd for 2 weeks with my family in Tx.  It sounds like our special Christmas gifts from numerous supporters are actually going to get here before Christmas this year!  This will be a first since quite a few years, so I will hopefully get a chance to get all the kids Christmas sacks organized before I leave.  It's going to be a busy week!!

We had fun this past month celebrating Nani's 6th birthday.  With the arrival of our baby Rose Nirva (who by the way is doing great), we were reminded of how tiny and sickly Nani was when she came to us 6 years ago.  No one thought she'd live, and now here she is bringing joy to all everyday.  

Being near the end of the year, I've been working on getting finance reports finished up, and working on a new budget for the coming year.  I figured it's probably just as good a time as any to let you know how things are financially for us.  Because of two things, tightening up on our spending, and our friends in Miami who have been regularly sending us food, we were able to come in well under our budget this past year.  That is the good news.   The bad is that we received even fewer donations than we saved by cutting down on the spending.  So in the end, we still have a debt with our local hospital (who takes care of our staff payroll for us each month--then we pay them back).

I know many of you gave gifts for us to be able to pay off that debt, but in the meantime, several months pay were added to it, and the monthly amount we received to cover other necessary items at the HOH were not very high.  So... the bottom line is we still owe money, and we are lacking in the monthly donations that are coming in for the ministry.  

I have been reminded by several of our supporters, that it is my responsibility to share our needs with you all, so this is what I am doing.  Perhaps some of you are able to help us out financially, perhaps you can pray with us for this need to be met, perhaps you have a way to share the need with others who can help.  However you can help us out, we'd appreciate it very much.

Our new budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal year stands at just over $200,000.00 US for the year.  I know that looks like a huge amount, but I've worked it out in a bite size chunk for you that maybe doesn't seem so huge.  It costs us $200 US per child per month to keep them here at the HOH.  This includes everything... food, school, clothes, medical care, and a home to live in -- everything.  So, maybe you can do that... pay for one child to be here... maybe you can't, but you could get a group of friends/family together to pay for one.  Or, perhaps you could just cover part of a child's needs:  Food needs are $65/month for a child, paying the staff to take care of them is $59, school is $13, the rest is for general supplies and overall expenses.  However you can work it out... can you help us meet this need?  We generally have between 85 - 90 children/youth/young adults in our home at any given time.  

Thanks for doing what you can.  We are blessed to have you as partners in this ministry.  We hope you have a blessed Christmas season, wherever you are!

A New Baby!

It's been a while since we've had a baby in our home.  This week we were so blessed to receive tiny little Rose Nirva.  In spite of the fact that she is 6 months old, she only weighs just over 2 pounds!  She is tiny, but so cute and so much fun to have a baby again.  As usual, she already has more mom's than she knows what to do with, but  Tati Da and Tati Jen always take precedence :). She is the 10th child born to her parents, and after her birth, her mom started having psychological problems.  She is not able to care for this child, and the father brought her to us asking for our help.  This we can do!

The other HOH kids are all busy with school and homework.  Exams are coming up, so studying is happening pretty much constantly.  When they do have some spare time, the kids who have been here a long time are taking the time to show the new kids all the Christmas songs, in preparation for the annual Christmas program.  Being so busy, they've not had time to decorate the house for Christmas yet, but I'm sure it won't be long before that happens.  Everyone loves Christmas around here, and the question on all the younger kids's lips is, "Is it almost Christmas?"  This year the question started a couple of weeks ago, when I still had to answer there was 7 weeks left.  Every box of supplies that comes into our home gets looked at and pondered.  The questions start to circulate...."looks like it's Christmas gifts!!".  It's going to be a long count down for them!

We were blessed once again with a shipment of food from our friends at Friends of Humanity in Miami.  What a help this is to us as our finances are still doing so poorly.   We are so grateful for our financial supporters, and for those of you who pray for and encourage us.  Please make this prayer request a priority, we really need more people who are willing to stand with us financially each month, to help us cover the daily needs we have as we care for those God has brought to our home.  We are blessed to have some supporters send us gifts from time to time.  These gifts help us make ends meet, but we really need to have some more partners come on board to help us with consistent monthly needs.  Thank you for helping us in this way.  And if you can, pass the need around on our behalf.

I will be away for the coming week, as I'll be traveling with a friend who has some government paperwork that she needs to do.  So, please pray for Linda and the other leader as they have a lot to keep up with around here.  Pray for wisdom in dealing with all the daily situations that come up.  Pray that others would see Christ in us as we interact with many others on a daily basis.

Many thanks for your support...Hope our American friends had a great Thanksgiving!  And a great weekend to all of you.

In Memory of...

It seems somewhat ironic that I am posting this today.... here in Haiti it is the "Holiday for the dead".  We, as believers in Jesus do not celebrate this day as others around us do, we did however want to share a tribute with you all of a man who was a very dear partner with us in ministry, and who passed away on Monday.

Larry Bailly from Snohomish, WA has come to the HOH every year for as long as I can remember.  Every January, we could bank on him and his group coming and fixing whatever needed fixing at the HOH.  Taking care of our vehicles was his specialty.  And when he wasn't working, he was busy loving on our kids and others in our town here in Haiti.  He was a beautiful model of Christ, as he served others and shared his love to those around him. 

This past January, he came even though he wasn't feeling well.  He worked, as though everything was fine, but we all knew it wasn't.  We never would have dreamed where it would all end though.  His last words to our kids as he left them was, "See you in 2013".  It was his trade mark saying.... always, see you the next year.  But, this was to be his last visit.  We are saddened that we will no longer see Larry here in our home, see his smile light up the room, hear his laughter ringing out.  But we are so thankful that he no longer suffers, that he has gone to be with his Lord, whom he loved so faithfully; and that one day we will be reunited with him. 

We are grateful that God directed Larry our way, that he gave to the work here so faithfully, and that he loved our kids so much and made them feel special.  His favorite was Lovedine, she was his girl and loved it when he came down. The other younger kids here knew Larry as, "Papa Didine" (Lovedine's dad).

 

 He was loved an appreciated by kids of all ages though here at the HOH...

When he had time to spare from his work in the shop, "Boss Larry" would come over and inevitably the kids would play with his beard.  Beards of Larry's quality are a rare thing in our part of the world, and boy did they love to play with it.  And Larry was such a good sport about it.  He let them braid it, and occasionally let out an "ARRGGHH" or two. 

He spent many hours working with our youth and young adults.  He was always ready to teach them what he knew about cars, mechanics and whatever else he could teach them as they worked with him.  A favorite of his was Dukeman, our deaf, mute maintenance man.  Larry and Dukeman had a way to communicate between them that just worked.  Neither spoke the other's language but they communicated and Dukeman learned much from Larry. 

We send our sympathies to Larry's family, especially his wife Paula, and Rachel, his daughter who often came down with Larry to love on our kids while her dad worked on the cars!  We are praying for you as you face these difficult days.  We want everyone to know how much we appreciated Larry  and look forward to continuing our partnership with the many people he brought down over the years.  Blessings on you all...

A New School Year

School has officially started, and we are getting back to a more regular schedule here at the HOH.  Our kids are in 10 different schools this year, and each has a time to be there and a time to come home!  But our new leaders seem to have it all figured out, and so far things are moving along quite smoothly.

We've managed to publish a new Prayer Letter for the HOH.  I have put it here on the blog, so you should be able to manipulate it here and read it.  If you can't, let me know and I'll send it to you via e-mail directly!


fall 2012 We appreciate your prayers and support.  We have been able to pay off much of our debt thanks to your generosity.  Please continue to pray for our monthly support to continue to pick up so that we do not fall into that hole again!  Blessings on you!

Somtimes you just need a hand...

On this particular day, Mike was having a bit of trouble finding his smile.  Big sis, Nani was right there to lend a hand, well two actually.  The results were somewhat comical, but the help was heartfelt. 

That's kinda how we felt when we sent out the plea for some help with our financial situation here at the HOH.  And many of you responded in kind.  We have received many gifts over the past month.  We haven't paid off our debt completely, but we are well on our way.  Thank you so much to those who gave so generously. 

We are working on many different projects these days.  The kids are trying to come up with ways to make some money of their own to help pay for their school books this year.  I am working with some friends in England to come up with our very own website for the HOH, where we hope to keep you better informed of what's happening down here.

Please continue to pray for us.  Pray specifically for more monthly donors so we do not fall into the same financial problems as we had before.  We appreciate you all, and are so thankful you've been part of helping us find our smiles!

Long Summer Days

Well, we have another month of summer vacation before school starts.  I'm not sure what the government down here basis their decision of when to start school on, but I'm pretty sure it's not on how the parents feel.  Our the kids for that matter, some of ours have been heard discussing how happy they'll be for school to start. 

So just what have they been doing to keep busy... here are some pictures to give you an idea... some are here at the HOH.  Some are taken at the campground that is connected to our property.  When there isn't a camp going on, we are allowed to take the kids over there to play... we are thankful for the extra land for the kids to be able to run around on and explore.

Wetsen and his cache of almonds that he collected, this is a favorite pass time whenever we take the kids to Bethel Camp.

Berlanda breaking open her almonds with a rock.  Young and old take part in opening the almonds to find the tiny nut inside.

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If you are very lucky, you can find an almond that still has the soft juicy flesh on the outside.  Here Rose Carline is eating the outside of an almond before breaking it open to get to the inside.

Ivinsky & Daphno are perfecting their methods of kite flying. 

Lala and Nitchy decided to prepare a party, only no one had their birthday that day.  Well, that's not too big of a problem, there's always plenty of volunteers to be the Birthday Kid...

Nani (on the left) was the chosen one for this party.  What was served?  Almonds of course!

Ti Joseph plays a game of "I Spy" in the office.

Ronaldson adds to the noise level at the HOH with his toy drum.

Nani takes a break from the noise by eating popcorn and watching a movie with Tati Jen.

Gachner and Jameson battle it out on the soccer field.

Many thanks to all of your for your various ways of support.  Please continue to pray as we work to pay off the debt we have, and then for the monthly support needs we continue to have.  We know we have a great God, who is able to do more than we can imagine.  And we know we have a great group of supporters.  Many have helped out already.  Thanks to those of you who have, and pray for others to be able to do so as well.  Blessings to you all, and a great weekend to you wherever you are!

Blessings!!!

We share our needs with you often enough, so today we wanted you to share in our blessings.  

A shipment of food from our friends in Miami came in over the weekend. 

 Our food depot was empty... now it is full!  

Thank God with us, and enjoy the pictures of our kids enjoying the blessings....

Thank you to those of you who gave in some way or another to make sure we received this shipment.
God bless you for your generosity!!

Whew!!! We're back!!

Wow, well, that was quite the trip!  It took me 5 whole days of traveling to get back to the House of Hope from Canada this time.  I guess it was that short cut through the Dominican Republic -- we'll be thinking twice before we take that route again!  We had a great 6 weeks in Canada visiting friends, family and supporters.  Thank you everyone for the great hospitality.

Arriving back at the HOH was a joyous occasion as always.  It's always a great boost for the moral when you pull through the back gate and hear the chants of "Here's Tati Jen!!" getting louder and louder.  We got back to find the kids neck deep into summer holidays. Thankfully, our friends from England and the Hands of Hope charity were here to keep them busy during the days.  And the week before that it was our friends from Miami Shores who were here.  The kids sure have had a lot of fun spending time with these different teams, and with all the free time they have every day.

Berlanda, Ivinsky, Nitchy and Lala wearing their homemade necklaces and playing a very unique rendition of Chinese checkers

The Poultry coop is teaming with life again as the kids have rebuilt and restocked it.

Ronaldson adds some extra noise to the day with his drummer boy routine.

Real men wear Pink!!  Making masks was a fun way to spend an afternoon. 

Now we are looking forward to a visit from our friends from Centennial Church in Frisco, Tx.  Lord willing they'll be coming in later on this week, with lots of energy to entertain the kids over the weekend.  We are thankful for the blessing that these teams are to the kids. 

Before I left for Canada, we sat down and had a bit of restructuring at the HOH.  Linda and I have felt for a while that the older kids needed to take on more responsibility at the home, and I have felt a need to spend my time in some different areas of development.  Our goals are to work to more self-sufficiency, and at the same time responsibility and ownership among the kids, and not spoon fed from Linda and myself all the time.  With this in mind, we have done some shuffling around of positions and job responsibilities.  The most significant of this has been my stepping aside as Linda's assistants to make room for a team of three young men who have stepped up from the ranks of the HOH to become leaders under her direction.  These three young men are St. Germain, Jean Daniel, and Ernst.  My role will be much more one of coaching, and support/donor development.

Over the past number of years really, our support level has been in decline.  This partly has caused us to put our new project "Hope Village" on hold for the present time, as we work through these issues with the kids and young people at the HOH; and also as we attempt to rebuild our support base. If you have any way of helping us in this area, please feel free to contact us at houseofhope1@hotmail.com.  

Prayer requests:

• Pray for the three new leaders who have stepped forward to try and make changes at the HOH.
• As the kids are busy enjoying their summer vacation, we are starting to pray about God's provision for us to be able to pay for another school year for them.  Please pray with us for God's provision.  Share the news around to friends and family if they'd be interested in helping us provide our kids with an education.
• We have lots of traveling planned over the next couple of weeks.  From teams traveling in to see us, us traveling around for various reasons, and the kids traveling back to their home communities to touch base as they do every summer.  Please pray for safety, wisdom and smart choices as we are all on the road (or in the air).
• We have come into debt quite heavily with our local hospital.  They have, for a number of months now, covered our staff salaries as we were not able to.  We need to pay them back these funds as they are in desperate need of them now.  It looks hopeless from our human perspective, but we know we are not alone.  Please share the word around that the HOH needs a helping hand with our finances at this time.  And please pray and ask our Heavenly Father, who has all the resources we could ever need, to open his floodgates of blessing and meet this pressing need. 

Thank you so much for your partnership in this ministry.  We marvel everyday at the lives God has changed through this ministry. 

• Ayi, the boy with Myosthenia Gravis is doing incredibly well.  He passed his grade at school, and is now even able to play the keyboard in our church services.
• Remember Nani, the 1.8 lbs little 2 week old baby no one thought was going to live?  She'll be 6 in November.  She just graduated from Kindergarten and just lost her first tooth.
• Carl Evens who has been working through University in Port-au-Prince will finish this year with a degree in Business Management.  He has a job working at a factory in PAP.
• Jean Daniel, Ernst, and St. Germain all started here as sick young kids... now they have stepped up as leaders among their peers. 

The list could go on and on, we praise God for his work, and thank you for your part.  Blessings...

Jenny's travels

I have just a few minutes as I'm rushing out the door.  I left the HOH yesterday.  We got the visa for my husband to travel to Canada in the afternoon, and are heading out early Tuesday morning to go to the Dominican Republic.  That is the only place we can find a direct flight to Canada still this week.  If all goes well, we will arrive in Manitoba just in time for the Canadian installment of our wedding this coming weekend.

A few things to pray for for the HOH

• For Linda and the kids who are all writing their final exams for the year. 
• Pray as I'm gone traveling this month visiting supporters and friends that Linda and her helpers will have the strength and wisdom to deal with the daily issues that come up.
• Pray for God's continued provision of all our needs.
• Praise God for providing for us already.
• Pray for safety in travels for Jenny & Djordjy.

There are a few new exciting developments at the HOH, and I hope to get some time in the next little while to share them with you.  In an effort to make it easier for me to update you all, you'll be getting an automatic message each time I post on the blog.  If for some reason this does not work out for you, or there is a problem of some kind with the message you receive, please let me know.

Blessings on you all!!

"5th and 6th Timothy"

So, just how well do you know the Books of the Bible? It has been the major project of all the HOH kids over the past couple of weeks to learn as many as they can.  From youngest to oldest, a various moments you can hear the familiar names being recited around our house.

4 year old Carly has been the star of this endeavor,  at the last quiz night she was able to recite the entire Old Testament.  They weren't all in order, but they were all there -- all 39 of them!  This past week she took it upon herself to help the other kids learn all the books of the Bible.  She would call them out, and they would repeat after her.  She did pretty good in both the Old and New Testaments, at least until she got to Timothy, that is.  The start was ok, "First Timothy, Second Timothy...uhh, Third Timothy, Fouth Timothy, Fifth Timothy...".  By this time she was getting a little unsure of herself and started to look for help.  I don't usually like to interrupt these informal learning sessions, but at Sixth Timothy, I finally broke in to say I thought that was more than enough Timothies and they could move on to Titus. It is amazing how much these kids can learn, and so nice to have the chance to fill their minds with good and positive information.

The highlights of our past couple of weeks has included several holidays from school.  There was the Agricultural holiday on May 1st, and then Flag Day on the 18th.  Flag Day is always such a fun day for the kids are there are parades with the various schools in the area, and a special program out on the community soccer field.  None of our kids participated in the parades this year, but they did have their annual drinks and BBQ chicken stand set up on the soccer field to try and make some money.  Unfortunately the rain did not cooperate with us this year, and Flag Day got rained out. 

Unfortunately, Roselanda wasn't one of the kids who got to participate in these festivities this year.  She came into the HOH several months ago with  severe malnutrition.  She is just the sweetest little thing, she has the friendliest personality and just loved getting involved with every bit of life she could.  One afternoon about a month ago she decided to go watch the big boys playing basketball out in the back yard.  Through a series of very unfortunate events, Roselanda ended up with a broken leg.  People who come to visit us here are always asking if we don't have kids get hurt here very often.  And the incredible thing is we don't.  But Roselanda is one of the rare exceptions. 

She has two more weeks to go in her cast, but she is already itching to get it off so she can start moving around more like she is used to.  She spends her days on a big bed, calling out to every person who walks past her.  There's not a name here that she doesn't know, and she just brings a smile to your face every time you walk by.  She recently had a smile brought to her face with some hand-made dolls that were sent down from some friends in Vermont. 

We have had a number of different visitors and teams come through over the past couple of weeks, each bringing along there particular expertise to help out either us or the hospital. 

A number of our kids received  their report cards for the last semester of school.  On the whole they have done pretty good.  There are a few who are going to have to work extra hard to pass the school year, but the rest are doing well.

We'd ask you to lift us up in pray for the following requests:

• Continue to pray for our financial needs.  God is so faithful, please continue to ask Him to provide for our needs to cover our payroll, and for the months the hospital has helped us in this area.
• Thank God for his provisions for us, especially our great friends in Miami whose food shipments are such a blessing to us.
• We still don't know if Jenny & Djordjy are going to be traveling to Canada in the month of June for their "Church Wedding", but we do have high hopes that it will all work out.  Pray for all the different parts of the process to come together to make this a reality.
• We seem to be having a nasty virus going through our home.  Several of the kids are down, and Linda and I haven't been feeling well the past few days either.  We'd appreciate your prayers for health and healing for those who are not well.
• A number of the youth here are preparing for their difficult government exams that will take place during the months of June and July.  Please pray for them as they study, that they would be faithful in studying, and be able to remember what they need to in order to pass these exams.

Many thanks to each of you for your various types of support.  May God bless you greatly as you help us help the needy kids and youth of Haiti.

Well, greetings from the House of Hope!  Where do the days go to?  It's not like I thought my life would suddenly get less busy after I got married, but goodness how did it get to be mid-April already? 

The Haiti leg of our wedding went very well, I know some of you are wondering about that.  I will post just one picture on the blog of me and some of the kids on wedding day.  It was a really nice day and fun time -- very typical House of Hope, which was just perfect for all of us here.  Anyone wanting to see more pictures should send me an e-mail to my new e-mail address:  jreitzcompere@extremeresponse.org .  This is the last time I will send out the blog update alerts with my old Crossworld address.  So, please start using this new address immediately. 

Life at the HOH has started to settled down to a more "normal" routine.  The kids had an exceptionally long Easter break from school this year.  It's always fun to have more time to spend with the kids, they never allow life to become dull at all. Here are a few things that kept them busy this time...

Lala celebrated her 7th birthday.  Here she is being serenaded by a group of the older boys, at her request

For her Birthday Lala received a small cooking pot as a gift.  She was thrilled, and just a few days later she made her very first pot of rice.  She even went to the market place to purchase the necessary ingredients before hand.  She feels very grown up now!

As for the other kids, they've been working very hard on their gymnastic moves.  As you can see here, some are quite agile.  Some seem to have it as their life goal to give Linda and I a heart attack by figuring out bigger and better moves.  I was chatting with a visiting missionary one day.  She's a teacher from a school in the city close to us and the kids were "showing off" their moves to her and the other visitors.  I mentioned that I'd love to find a gymnastic teacher for them someday because they need to learn how to do their moves safely.  "Well", she said, "I happen to teach gymnastics"!  And she asked if I'd like her to come do a class with the kids on Saturday mornings!   What a blessing!! So, the kids have had one class, and we are looking forward to more.

While the younger kids were busy tumbling around, the older kids planned and presented a week long Easter conference ending with a beautiful Easter morning service.  The evening meetings were well attended by people from our local community, with several hundred people gathering each evening in our yard.  Some of the local pastors shared God's Word each evening and our kids did the music and worship part of the meetings.  It really was a nice week and I am sorry I didn't even think to take pictures of it to show you.  Every evening the sky would cloud over, and we'd wonder if we needed to cancel because everything was held outdoors, but the rain never came.  Then on Sunday morning, when the service was almost over (about 3/4's of the way through the sermon) the rain started pouring down!

And it kept pouring down for days and days -- pretty much for the entire week.  So part of that is the reason the kids had more vacation days than normal, because with the rain and the incredibly muddy roads they couldn't have school till it dried out a bit.  Over where Linda is from (closer to Cap Haitian), the rain caused much flooding.  Her mom's house was flooded out several times through that week.  There were several nights when we were all very concerned as the floods came during the night, and it was very scarey for them.  One of our boys Rosnel has gone over there with a local mason who does work for us here at the HOH.  They have been working the past few days to clean up the mess in and around her house, and to build some things to prevent this from happening again in the future. 

We were very happy to have a work team come down here to help the hospital with fixing a number of things.  We at the HOH benefited from them a bit too.  It has been months since our electrical systems here at the HOH have been working properly.  This has made it difficult to get all of our work done around here as we had to work with greatly limited electricity. We now are back to having it all the time now with the help of inverter and battery systems.  It's amazing how much easier it makes life!  It has certainly helped us to see how blessed we are as most everyone around us in our community goes without electricity pretty much all the time. 

Our Bible studies and lessons have started up again.  We are continuing to teach Biblical Character in the  the children Sunday School class, and the Saturday Boy's club.  We are studying Orderliness with the boys right now, and Initiative with the kids.  We also are continuing with general Bible knowledge in our Sunday evening quizzes with all the HOH kids.  We've started a new way of teaching this class this year.  I am preparing simple lessons ahead of time, we then pass them along to the older kids, who are responsible to teach them to the younger kids in their care.  We then have a monthly quiz night to see how much the kids and youth have learned from their lessons.  So far it has gone well, and I think we'll continue like this for a while.

One last thing I'd like to share with you today is about the financial needs at the HOH.  We don't like to write about this too much other than to ask you to pray, and we'd certainly love it if you'd continue to do that for us. We just want to give you a bit more information this time so you can be aware of the needs you are praying for.  Donations have been incredibly low for quite a while now, and our constant prayer here at the HOH is that they would pick up, but they haven't yet.  We are very thankful to each one who gives, often sacrificially. so the ministry of the HOH can continue.  But would you please help us pray that God would bring along other people to join us as financial partners as well?  We have cut out all the "extra" expense we can, and have managed to keep the kids in school, clothed and fed -- which is much more than many other kids in our neighborhood.  But, there are other needs we have not been able to cover.  Particularly our staff salaries have been very difficult to cover.  Because their salaries are paid through our local mission hospital, they have been paid, but we have an obligation to pay back that money.  Would you please make it a priority to pray that God would provide for this pressing need?  We appreciate you all very much.  Thank you for the part you play in this very special ministry.