We Made It!

We made it!

We are officially “home.” Over the summer I remember writing a post about not knowing where home really is. But I think I may have figured it out, or at least for the time being: Emmaus Biblical Seminary (EBS)! We’ve only been in Haiti for 2 days, but somehow this just feels like home. And that is saying something considering that we are currently staying in a one-room dorm space, depending on other families here for every meal, and haven’t even moved into our apartment yet! :)

Within the past two years, every single move we have made was ONLY with the thought of coming to EBS in mind, whether it was to move back to NE to save money or move to Canada for language school or move to Sabetha to get more involved with our church. I suppose that after a few years of talking about moving to Haiti, maybe this mindset of already feeling at home is not so unordinary. And I’m so blessed for our joyful transition!

 Airport Ride

I was pleasantly surprised that IBC Airlines got a new airplane that is much of an upgrade from the previous rickety planes I have heard so much about in the past. :)

The airport extravaganzas and plane ride were nice and uneventful, which means that it was a very smooth process and everything worked out perfectly! We arrived at the EBS campus Monday, February 17^th at 9 in the morning, thanks to Matt and Phil who picked us up at the airport and got us out of there as quickly and painlessly as possible!

Flying into Haiti

Just before the landing

Our apartment is coming along quickly thanks to all of the teams who have already come and gone (and some still here) to work on it, to the guys here on campus and to the others who have helped. It is BEAUTIFUL and I am so excited to move in! Another huge blessing is that much of our home supplies that we shipped arrived today and there’s only a small amount left to get here. That is such a blessing because I didn’t expect ANY of it until the very end of February. Awesome!

Don and Rod (visitors) working on kitchen cabinets for the apartment!

We have been settling in and learning about life here at EBS and figuring out what our roles are. Ryan taught part of a class this morning with Matt Ayars translating. We are trying to jump in and get a lot of creole into our days (without being too overwhelmed).  We are hoping to get a tutor very soon and looking forward to getting better at speaking the language!

I will get some pictures of the campus within the next few days to show everyone (that hasn’t already seen it) what it looks like. I did happen to catch a cute photo of Mr. Ryan Lady’s Man Weaver surrounded by a sea of girls who adore him. :)

Ryan surrounded by the missionary kid girls :) 

I think that’s all for now; we are doing great and are so happy to finally be here. Blessings to all of you!

Airport Post

Well - the day is finally here! We arrived at the Fort Lauderdale airport at 4:00 this morning, thanks to our chauffeurs Jessie and Jason. It was pretty hard watching them leave! The reality is (sort of) starting to sink in.

I figured while I'm sitting here in the airport I would do a quick post of photos because by the time we arrive in Haiti it will all seem like old news in the midst of all of the NEW. :)

Above are all of the ladies who attended cross training (minus Lonnie!), and below are all of the men (minus James!). The pictures were taken Friday morning right before we were all officially commissioned into One Mission Society.

We left immediately after the ceremony, and as soon as we got in the van to make the drive from Indiana to Florida, it started snowing! We were hit by quite a bit of snow, heavy rain and spent a cumulative of at least an hour at a stand still during traffic jams. But, alas - we made it to Plant City, FL on Saturday morning at 4 am. We then picked Jessie and Jason up at the airport at noon the next day and spent the last day and a half being treated to some sunny beaches, yummy food, and most importantly, some last minute quality time with these two gems of friends!

And now is where the plethora of beach photos begins. :)

The first day at the Gulf was pretty CHILLY and windy! But still beautiful :)

 Above is the last photo from the Gulf and we got to walk along a neat pier that warned us of manatees, which we unfortunately didn't get to see that day!

Then on Sunday we spent the day at Vero Beach, which was much warmer and more enjoyable. :)

Ryan was thoroughly convinced that his sunscreen was rubbed in PLENTY enough. Whatever floats his boat :)

The guys dived head first into the waves and had a lot of tiring fun even though the water was really cold!

Aw, I'm married to such a handsome fella :)

Jason and Jessie make Cat Castles... Macey and Kaden would be so proud of their parents :)

Haha, I had to post these two; they were too funny. I think that these guys could go into modeling, don't you?

^^Big Red! This bad boy got us all the way from Kansas to Indiana to Florida filled to the brim and now (hoping) that it makes it back to Kansas.

And, lastly - here's our departure photo. Bittersweet! Looking forward to what God has in store for us in the next days, weeks, months, years.. Our lives are in His hands!

As I'm typing, Ryan is pretty excited to be speaking Creole to all of the Haitians surrounding us at the airport. Maybe I should join!

We love you all. Thank you so much for being a part of this amazing journey! Pray that we will do good for the Kingdom and that we will remember the reason we are there every minute of every day.

Cross Training

Hi, all!

Here’s a very quick update:

We are in our final week of cross training and will be on our way to Florida on Friday (Valentine’s Day)! We look forward to spending the weekend with Jessie and Jason (and hopefully we’ll get to spend some time at the beach:) and then we fly out on Monday. Can you believe it? WE ARE EXCITED!

Cross training has been pretty great. It has blown my expectations out of the water, to say the least. :) We have covered a lot of important cross-cultural topics in the past two weeks, but I have to say that my favorite part is getting to know the other missionaries here! And this training has allowed me to step out of my comfort zone in many different levels, which has been good for my wellbeing, even if there have been a few uncomfortable moments for as timid of a person as I am. Including (but not limited to) speaking in chapel on Tuesday. Which by the way, I survived - in case anyone is wondering. :)

It’s been a long, exciting three weeks of busyness filled with training activities, dinners, interviews and quite a bit of paperwork! But Friday morning we get commissioned as missionaries by OMS and then Ryan and I are hopping in the van and heading to Florida immediately after!

If you’d like to pray with us, there are a few different prayers we could use right now! Please pray for our health! Unfortunately, there have been a lot of sicknesses (cold and flu) going around during this cross training (pray for health of the other missionary families as well!) and I believe it has finally hit the Weaver household.
We leave in less than two days and this is not a very good time to be getting the flu!

Also, please pray for safe travels. We have been told there is a big storm that we might hit on our way to Florida so I hope that we get there safely! And then we will be flying to Haiti on Monday, Lord willing.

The day is finally here. It’s really, really here! It doesn’t feel real yet, but we are excited and praying that the transition will go smoothly.

We have been so blessed by all of the hard working guys at the seminary and all of the teams of people who have flown in just to work on the apartment we will be living in. Thank you – to all who have worked on what will become our home, and to all who have helped support and send many there! It has been no easy feat to turn a section of the dorm rooms into an apartment, but they have done such a wonderful, beautiful job. I cannot wait to move in soon after we arrive!

Here are a couple of not-so-lovely pictures of some really-very-amazing missionaries that we’ve gotten to know in the past three weeks!

Here is a very blurry picture of the ladies who are in cross training (minus Lonnie!):

And here is a photo of the entire cross training team (sadly, it’s the best one we got of the group!):

Wow... the day is nearing! In five days we'll go from freezing and snowy to high 80's and sunny. :) Thank you to all of you who have been praying for us daily, weekly, monthly. We love you!

SURPRISE!

On Friday (Jan 24^th), after a long week of “goodbyes,” we went to Jessie and Jason’s house to spend our last evening with them, Karly and Bryan. We ordered pizza and then the guys decided they wanted to go play ping-pong, so we headed to the church. (‘Cause, you know, that’s where all of the late-night underground ping-pong tournaments are usually held.. :)

We pulled into the dark parking lot where there was only one empty van waiting and ready to transport a group of men to Wichita the next day. Nothing unusual! However, as Ryan and I pulled into the parking lot, he had called both of his parents and both sisters to see where they were and tell them to meet at the church to pick up our car. No one answered, so we were both getting a little nervous that something bad had happened to them!

Then, still feeling a little uneasy about his family, we all went inside the dark building and headed down the hall on our way downstairs to play ping-pong. On our way there, Jason mentioned that someone had put up a new 6-foot TV in the fellowship hall and wanted to show it to us all.

Okay, sure. It sounds big!

 We proceeded to open the doors of the big, dark, empty room. Wait a minute - it wasn’t empty! When our eyes adjusted to the darkness we caught a glimpse of the silhouettes of some people who appeared to be standing in a circle.

A few seconds later, the lights flicked on and the room was filled in loud unison with: “SURPRISE!!!!!”

The next 30 seconds happened so quickly! I didn’t know it was possible for so much to happen in just a matter of a few seconds. Recalling that moment from both the perspectives of Ryan and myself is quite funny.

Our very first instinct was, “OH NO!” – my jaws dropped and I could tell that I had a look of pure shock on my face. We both pretty instantly backed up and tried running out of there.

Within those few seconds, we were so confused and didn’t know what to do. We both absolutely sure that we had just completely ruined a surprise party for someone’s birthday or some other big event, and one of my first thoughts was that I felt so horrible because these people were going to have to do it all over again when the guest of honor arrived!

We seriously couldn’t get out of the room fast enough! We had a crowd of Jessie, Jason, Bryan and Karly standing behind us, holding the door open, and they didn’t seem to get the drift that we needed to MOVE! Then, with myself still having that look of complete shock on my face (you know – eyes about to pop out of my head and my jaw down to the floor), I finally took a good look around the room FULL of people.

I picked out a few familiar, yet very out-of-place faces in the crowd. One by one, I started picking a few people out that I recognized. I noticed one of my best friends who I haven’t seen in YEARS (Ky’Lee!), and then I noticed a cousin who lives far away that I don’t see very often (Marv!), and then another of my best friends (Liz!). And then, there was Ryan’s family! Thank God, THEY WERE OKAY! In fact, oddly enough, they made it to the church before we even told them to meet us there.

And then, again, I just kind of stood there – frozen! Within these 30 seconds of  complete CRAZY, it finally dawned on me; we weren’t at the wrong place at the wrong time. This was a surprise party for US!

Wait a minute, WHAT?! What are these people thinking?! Why are they here?! I’m seeing all of these faces that I haven’t seen in way too long and I know that they must have driven from hundreds of miles away – why did they drive all this way?!

What were they THINKING?!

And then, after a few more seconds of disarray, I calmed down. Instead of worrying about how far these people must have had to drive just to see us, I realized something pretty special and profound:

These people came all this way to throw a surprise party for us, to say their goodbyes, because they LOVE us.

I didn’t need to feel guilty because I realized that I hadn’t invited them; I hadn’t made them feel obligated to come. In fact, that is quite far from the truth! In fact, I had NO IDEA these people were coming! Oh my – God knows that I sincerely thought we were coming to NorthRidge to play PING PONG! (I mean seriously - I would have, at the very LEAST, not worn jeans and white socks with black sandals!)

They came because they love us.

They came to let us know that we are important to them and that they are going to miss us.

And after I realized all of that, you can just imagine…. I got just a *little bit* emotional!

After those moments of complete shock and confusion, I found myself feeling so BLESSED and so THANKFUL. I was overwhelmed at the thought of how much love was surrounding us in that moment, and all I could think to do was just go around the room and hug everyone and thank them for being there, thank them for being people who have made such a huge impact on our lives.

It was amazing. Extraordinary. Humbling. Exciting.

In those moments, I realized the importance of knowing just how many people truly support us. In those moments, I realized how much love surrounds us and how many people there are that we care so much about.

Inevitably, I cried. How could I possibly hold those tears back? At such an emotional time with this big transition in our lives, I was crying tears of pure joy and happiness, as well as tears of sadness. Inside of this enormous room, I was able to clearly see just how much we are leaving behind.

However, I truly saw much more than just how much we are leaving behind. I also saw how much support we have behind us in this exciting, scary journey. 

That evening, I felt so intensely the presence of the Holy Spirit. It was undeniable that this room full of God-loving people was completely filled with the Spirit.

I know the words don’t do any justice, but I am just so incredibly thankful for that evening. I’m so thankful for everyone who came, and for everyone who did all the hard work to prepare for such a beautiful party. I’m so blessed to have such thoughtful, caring friends.

I’m so blessed by Jessie and Karly – who were the masterminds behind all of this. Those girls worked so diligently to plan the entire party and they definitely struggled to have to keep it all a secret! (Which, by the way, I am SO impressed that everyone was able to keep it a secret from Ryan and me! You guys are so sneaky!:) Not to mention, HAD I known about even an inkling of this plan, they surely knew that I would veto it in a second because I wouldn’t want to feel like coming to say goodbye to us was some sort of burden that people had to do.

Which is why the entire surprise party was so humbling for me. I knew that every single person that was there chose to be there simply because they love us. An area in my life where I seem to allow Satan to continually creep in is when he tells me that I’m not good enough, or I don’t deserve this; I’m not worthy.

But, I am a child of God. And perhaps in these finals moments of “goodbyes,” God knew how much I needed to be reassured of the love that really does surround me (and Ryan). God is clearly aware of my needs, and he used my closest friends and family to give me that reassurance that we are not in this alone.

Jessie and Karly

It was an unforgettable evening that I continue to replay in my mind, smiling over and over again about all the memories made.

Thank you, to everyone who came and to everyone who wanted to be there but wasn’t able to make it. We love you all so dearly and you all are by far the hardest to leave behind.

Ky'Lee, Karly and Bailey

Karly

Duane and Amanda

Ryan's family: Todd, Pam, Cheyanne and Chelsey

Jessie, Jason, Macey and Kaden

You all continue to bless our lives each day, and we love you so much.