Dried Soup Mix and Dried Apple Anyone?

When the team under the leadership of 'Bob The Builder' Comeau came down last month so did 7 or 8 suitcases filled with a lot of nutritious soup mix and some bags of dried apples. This food was Donated In The Name of Jesus Christ through the Ontario Christian Gleaners. Our thanks go to Rich Huisman for making arrangements for all this to come with the team. Rich, while here, had told me there was some dried apple in the bags along with the soup mix. I, however, had forgotten that part.

Thank you Rich for bringing all this with you.

I took some bags to Luckner's to distribute to needy familes, telling him it was soup but that we were using it in various ways here onsite. Luckner made arrangements for several people to go to his house and receive some of the soup mix. He did not himself distribute. He told people it would also be good cooked along with rice or pitimi, etc. A few days later someone came to see Luckner telling him that soup mix sure helped. It had made their daily small amount of rice go a lot further and it gave them delicious sweet rice. His hungry children loved it and wanted more. Sweet? Not possible! How could the soup mix make anything sweet? The man insisted it was sweet and so he again returned to Luckner's with the bag he had received. He had been given a bag of dried apple as soup mix. I had told Luckner it was soup mix, and it was given out as such. Too funny. I then remembered Rich telling me there were some bags of dried fruit there too. Mariah and I quickly checked into what was left on site and indeed found some dried apple. My kids eat the soup but let me tell you that dried apple is a huge hit. I opened a bag while outside in the yard with all the children and passed it around. Our little Sandra, 1-yr-old, decided she should hold it, eat it, and share with others as she saw fit. Anne pranced up and held out her hands for the bag of dried soup mix I had with me. She sat down and stuffed her little face with the soup. Too cute.

Official distributor of the dried apple - Sandra

Sandra willing to share the apple, Anne not so much her soup

Jonathan 7 months says thank you, too

This nutritious food is helping children onsite, at the school, but especially so with families throughout this area. Thank you Ontario Christian Gleaners and thank you, Rich.

Our precious little Sandra is not yet walking on her own. After 2-3 steps she is scared and crawls away. This week we saw our three muskateers holding the hands of Sandra and walking/sometimes dragging her around the compound. It won't be much longer before the little handholding group will be four instead of three. Will include a photo of the four of them and a couple of other cute photos of the kids.

Anne -  going to devotions in morning

Baby Jonathan

Ti Fi

Within a couple of months our 3 muskateers may become 4 muskateers

Tomorrow morning Luckner and I are heading to Port au Prince airport to pick up my brother Don aka Misye Komic and his team from Newfoundland. How sweet it is going to be!! Let the Newfie friendly spirit and fun fill this compound, the school compound, Luckner's place and the Radio Station, and bless people throughout the area. Our own Jennifer and Jocelyn Barnes from Deer Lake are returning. They are nieces of mine and cousins of Mariah. Pastor Catherine from Springdale United Church (Springdale being my 'home' town) is coming for the first time, Emma who is very involved in the same church, is being called into ministry, and who has been helping HATS and wanting to come for a few years also coming for the first time, Alycia, also from Springdale, (daughter of a special lady Lisa who came a couple of years ago) is coming for the first time too. That leaves four other first timers to HATS who I have not yet had the privilege of meeting. Their names will make the blog this week. They are students from the Social Justice Class at Memorial University in St. John's. Their professor has been in contact with me for a couple of years and I believe the class has been doing some fundraising for HATS. Now four of that class are actually going to spend time here with us. All other team members arriving tomorrow too, like people on other teams who come down, have been busy fundraising so the work here can go on.

Again I close with thanks. Thank you so very much for all the help in any and every way.

I am here because of the children. I am here for the children. You provide lots of help for the children. IT IS ALL ABOUT THE CHILDREN

Please stay tuned all this week for blog updates from the team.
Karen