Joyeux Noel! (the 24th)

I need to say very little in this blog as the pictures will speak for themselves!!! H2H sponsors donated extra money this month to help make the holiday season special for the kids who live at H2H and the kids who attend our school. The festivities took place on December 24th... which is usually a dreaded day for the school kids as it's report card day!!!! After a huge shopping trip in Port-au-Prince the H2H kids packed 400 Christmas presents for the students. The little elves were rewarded for their work with a Christmas dinner that made Santa himself proud!!! There was a double reward for some of them as they are students as well :) Luckily we had a team here visiting because we needed all the hands we could find!

Preparing the gift bags:














Giving out the gift bags & report cards:







Christmas Dinner with the kids at H2H:















The little guy hiding behind the Coke is Mackenson. He came to H2H this summer from a small village nearby and has already become a loved little brother to all the older boys... there's just something about a little boy who is willing to do anything on command... dishes, laundry, dancing, push ups... all with this smile on his face! After he finished eating dinner he came and sat with me. Our conversation went like this...

I asked him, "Are you full?" ... "Yup!"

"Do you want to eat some of mine?" ... "Yup!"

"Are you going to throw up?" ... "Maybe!"

Again... all with this smile on his face :)

(I'm going to plug our sponsorship program here... Mackenson still needs a sponsor, any takers?)









A special thank you from Renel & I for all your Christmas wishes. For the most part we celebrated Christmas "Haitian Style" but I made him wake up early to open stockings... a taste of the Larkinn Christmas :)

The kids with their new toys

The Crescent Beach Toy Store donated some new toys for the kids - here are some pictures of the kids playing with them:

Fundraiser at Crescent Beach

The Toy Store & the Wired Monk at Crescent Beach (South Surrey) are having a fundraiser on Saturday, December 5th ... 3pm - 6pm.

Have your picture taken with Santa at the Toy Store and decorate a Christmas cookie at the Wired Monk - ALL PROCEEDS FOR H2H!!

Not sure where to start!

Since my last entry (back in July!!) led me back home for the summer I’ll start there…

I spent the summer at my parent’s house (Crescent Beach, BC, Canada) and was there from July 15^th – October 1^st. It was a longer stay than normal but there was a good reason … parents must hate hearing that their kid is coming to stay with them & there is an agenda :) I spent the summer working at the Wired Monk coffee shop and doing other odd jobs to earn enough money to put a roof on a house in Haiti so Renel & I could get married in October. For those of you who just dropped your coffee mug (sorry, no more secrets, I promise!) here’s a quick summary to catch you up …

Renel & I met during my first year at H2H and starting dating quickly after that. He is originally from Bouva and grew up under Pastor Luc’s care at H2H. He has long since moved out and is making his living as a welder, but also does some electrical work & fixes small engines. We were officially engaged in March 2009 (while my parents were here visiting) and have been working hard on finishing the house that Renel had started several years before.

My parents came with me when I returned to Haiti in October. We had 2 intense weeks working on the house… only to be interrupted by another bout of typhoid fever, but MUCH less severe this time… and their trip ended with our wedding on October 18^th. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves but I will say that it was a great day… even after sitting in my wedding dress for over an hour waiting for the photographer to show up!

Assembling the cake the night before...





Waiting for the photographer to show up...

The 3rd attempt at getting a picture of the kiss... thanks to my dad...










Us with Renel's parents...













Returning to the house that night...



The wedding guests setting up the bed...



The next morning... taking advantage of my dad's last day...



We went to a hotel in Jacmel (southern Haiti) for a few days after the wedding and have been living in our new house ever since. We're not quite unpacked & we still have a few jobs to do around the house (like figure out why there is an electrical current running through our shower!!) but it already feels like home and we are very happy :)

The hotel in Jacmel...

The rest of October has been busy as a team was here from Alberta, and just left this week. We also poured the cement roof on the 2nd floor of the school and are getting ready for another team to arrive on Saturday. If this doesn't seem busy enough... we have 9 new kids at H2H!!

While I am now living “off campus” my role with H2H will not change… except for my sleeping quarters, which isn’t all that different as our house backs on the H2H compound. I thought I’d miss sitting around the yard at night with the kids but I hear their conversations better now through my bedroom window than I did staying at the Guest House within the compound :)