We are enjoying our Christmas lights, cooler weather ("freezing" in the 60s), and Christmas music! This year our vacation has fallen right before Christmas, so we are not involved in Chritmas program preparation. Though we miss the excitement of preparing for a program in the church, we are enjoying having more family time especially at this season of the year.

How exciting this fall, to have all of our homes full of missionaries! Hartmans and Hansel and Danae are all settled in and Danae and the two Heidis started Creole lessons. Tim is so glad to have Richard's and Hansel’s help in the mission work. We are praying that we can soon start Bible School classes with several young men who feel the call of God on their hearts to preach.

Heidi Smith has been a wonderful teacher for the boys. They have accomplished a lot and at the same time are enjoying school. We are thankful that the Lord called her to Haiti for this year. Heidi Crouch has been a blessing helping anywhere she is needed, such as printing Sunday School quarterlies. She is coming back to help several more months after Christmas. Thank God for young people who are willing to sacrifice to do something for God!

Three weeks before Haitian school started, a two-room school building was donated! We were scrambling to get it put up before school started, especially since Tim had to go to the States during that time, but we were able to get it up and ready for the first day of school. The school building being donated was a miracle. But while putting up the building, we had a couple other miracles. We could not find any gravel to buy to finish the floor on time for the opening of school. The morning we were going to have to come to a standstill on the project, the company paving our road donated and delivered four front loaders of gravel! We were not sure how to work out the need of benches to start school Monday, but the company who gave the building gave us benches also! God is good!

Enrollment in the Thomonde school really jumped up this year, maxing out our buildings, even though we got two extra rooms built before school started. Enrollment is over 1,000 in the Thomonde school, 350 more than last year. However, we expect enrollment in the outlying schools to be down for varied reasons, making our total enrollment around 1,500.
Pray that God will continue to move in the schools and churches and many souls will be saved!

This year something happened that I never thought I would see; the road past the mission was paved! To top that off, we are supposed to soon have 24-hour electricity. If the road could happen, maybe the electricity will come true too!

Haiti has suffered an unusual amount this year, first the earthquake killing around 230,000, next a damaging wind storm, a flood, a hurricane, then Cholera. Over 2,000 have already died from Cholera. We have been doing what we can to get information out on how to avoid Cholera and to help our students get clean water, and of course we are all washing our hands constantly to avoid contacting the killer disease! However, in Bouhouc, one of our most primitive churches where we gave some simple instructions about Cholera, two to three are dying daily. Now, beyond all that suffering, Haiti is now suffering at their own hands. Because of fraud in the elections one political party is rioting. Thousands are in the streets, burning cars, throwing rocks, barricading roads with burning tires, etc. They are using fire now and saying that next they will use weapons.

After the earthquake, most of our time was employed helping victims who moved to Thomonde, by providing food, clothing, bedding, schooling and housing. We have been rewarded with several new faithful in our church. So far, we have been able to help 40 displaced earthquake families get homes. Six more homes will soon go up. Kester and Dylan especially enjoyed helping in this part of mission work this year. They did a large share of the driving, hauling the house parts to the building
sites, Kester in the pickup or ATV and Dylan the ATV. They especially enjoyed the days when they were able to stay and help pound the nails and put up the homes, working with their Haitian friends and then eating a scrumptious Haitian meal.

Before the Cholera epidemic started, the two Heidis and Dylan had their own scare. A rat got into the Heidis' water storage tank and died. Dylan cleaned out the water tank for them. Apparently because of the exposure to the infected water, the three of them contacted Leptospirosis. Thankfully, after a dose of antibiotics and some rough days, they were all feeling fine.

How far would you walk to get a pair of Crocs, a New Testament and a Bible story booklet? One Saturday 67 people walked 4 or 5 hours one way to get those three things. The earthquake refugees received some extra benefits: tennis shoes, food, and hygiene packs.

Tim’s dad passed away in September. We were thankful that Tim was able to be there before his dad died, as Tim had already planned a trip home to care for some family matters.

Kester and Dylan are both now teenagers. The little-boy stage is over and now at this age we are able to enjoy so much together. We enjoy playing music and singing together. They and Tim love playing basket ball. We all enjoy playing volley ball and driving out on ATVs to church (well they do when they are at the throttle :>) )

We are enjoying having all of our children and our grandchildren close by! Before the political turmoil, we got to Christmas shop for them. This will be the first Christmas with our grandchildren! We are looking forward to a most special Christmas, the first for Hansel and Danae to live next door to us. How blessed we are!

May God bless your Christmas,

Tim, Darlene, Kester, and Dylan