Sleep-Over Beach Day by Samuel

[Dad's note: Samuel wrote ten days ago and asked me to help him post the pictures, but I forgot!  Sorry!  Here's his post from December 21st - a bit belated.]

Yesterday our family rode to Dhaloo Beach with the Heckmans, Johnny, Mikenn, and Ruysdael.

The Heckmans brought a red Kayak.  The Night before that Ethan had come for a sleep over.  In the morning we all got together at my house.  Caleb and I got to open our first present because it was a snorkeling set.

When we got to the beach we found some cliffs to jump off.  One was a five foot drop and the other one was about a ten foot drop.

My mom enjoys relaxing at the beach!

 

I enjoy paddling around in the Kayak!



Ruysdael, Mikenn, and Johnny played their first game of pool.

We got to eat hamburgers with fries on the beach.  It was delicious.



We all had a exellant day at the beach.  The coolest part was that it was the first day of winter, and we were swimming.

Thank You, Forshees

The Forshees sent us a package full of stuff like candy, snacks, and a couple of things for baby Sammy. The Forshees are a family in Pensacola, Florida. I, Caleb, took my first steps as a toddler in their house. They wanted us to email them what each of us kids' favorite snack was, but we thought it would be more fun to put on the blog.

 

 

 

Caleb
Thank you for the blow pop minis. They were my favorite. I enjoy the gum inside them. I'm eating some right now! Thank you for all the other stuff too. I also enjoyed the Oreos and everything else.



Samuel
My favorite snack was the double stuff Oreos.  I've never had one before!



Hannah: My favorite actually wasn't the candy. It was the cheese crackers! I love having them at snack at school. The animal crackers were my second favorite.




Sarah - I loved the M&Ms!



(Steve here - sneaking onto the kids' blog.  I apologize for taking so long to post this.  The older kids did a good job at getting their thoughts recorded, but I kept forgetting to get Sarah's two cents.  If you're wondering why Sarah is not in any of the pictures, it was because she was having a little after-school meltdown that day and was in no mood to have a camera in her face.  Melissa wanted you to know how much she enjoyed the corn chips - as you can see in the picture above!  As for me, I am in agreement with Sarah about the M&Ms.  I love having that bag in the freezer and taking out a little handful each evening to get my chocolate fix.  We love you guys and appreciate your thoughtfulness so much.  Hope you're enjoying your time with the grandbaby.  I know this Christmas will be an extra special one for you all.  We think of you often!)

GOD SPEAKS TO ME - by Caleb

This is a story I haven't told nearly anybody about, a time that God spoke to me. Maybe you have seen my posts from a couple of months ago about Cross Training.

 

A boy named Ethan Heckman was at a table at the beginning of Cross Training before we were going to eat dinner for the first time in Greenwood, Indiana.  Cross Training is a thing that missionaries do before going to wherever they have been called, to prepare them for the field.

I didn't know Ethan at that time. When I walked by him I looked at him and God said that we would be friends. I answered, "How? There are only three weeks of Cross Training, then we go different ways, to maybe be on different continents." He directed me to a seat directly across from Ethan and we instantly liked each other. By the end of dinner we were laughing, playing, and sharing stories with each other.

He even had a sister, Haylie, who my sisters liked to hang out with.

 I remember the first night, on the OMS campus, getting ready for bed and looking out the window seeing Ethan riding his Ripstik. I love playing on my Ripstik. A Ripstik is kind of like a two wheeled skateboard.

The next three weeks our freetime was spent Ripstiking and playing four square. Today, I live in Haiti, I bet you would never believe this, but Ethan lives only 15 minutes away, driving, so I think God planned this for us. God told me the truth and knew my future even when I said it was impossible.

What are the odds that out of every country and city we would end up so close to each other? I think this made Ethan feel better about moving to Haiti, it did for me!

 

 

 

Sammy

By Hannah

Sammy is the cutest two-year-old I've ever seen. 

Whenever we baby-sit him, he strolls right over to the soccer ball and yelps, "BALL!"

When I swing him onto my hip, I sing, "Do you like pie?" And he grins, "Pie!"

 

And when he wobbles into the kitchen we switch on music and he dances, hopping and shaking his hips.  Then when he starts bawling because Aunt Jane isn't there, I do peek-a-boo and get him to laugh.  Then he does his own peek-a-boo eyes. 

And once when Aunt Jane stopped by to take him home, she peeked at his butt and announced, "Cute butt" and he stated, "Cute butt" and then repeated "butt" and started screaming with laughter.  And when he has to go to bed, he hugs me and pats me on the back and I blow him kisses and cry, "Bye-bye." And he blows me kisses and waves goodbye.

Skype

  Hey everybody. Today I , Hannah , decided to blog. The past 6 weeks have been a blast! I've been playing outside a lot and with the Bundys , who are our neighbors. They have 4 children ( 3 girls and 1 boy). Brianna is 12, Jake is 11, Alanna is 9, and Kristina is 6. We play a lot of things outside like sardines ( Which is like hide-and-go-seek but one person hides and everyone else goes and seeks ) and other fun games in the dark. We even walk up trees!

Here's Brianna running up the tree:

 

       I even got a chance to get my hair done Haitian- style!

       Today we skyped with Mrs. Prestel's class at Southside Elementary in Indiana, my old school.

       I got to see my friend Katrina and some other kids from my classes last year. We are thinking about doing a community service project between our two schools. We might also do pen pals which I think would be really fun. I hope we do pen pals because I really want to get in touch with my old friends.

Caleb- Thank you Southside!

A few months ago, my classmates in Indiana at Southside Elementary and the whole school helped raise money for The Potter's House, an orphanage in Haiti. We raised $499.18.
This is my thank you to my school and all my classmates who helped put the fundraiser together and who gave so generously.

I've got some exciting news about how that money is going to help the orphans. Jane Dennington, who found out about the orphanage last November and took me there when I visited Haiti this past February, told me that the money could be used for the kids to have lunch at their school. They haven't been able to afford to take lunch to their school. Each day they would sit hungry while other students ate lunch.

We raised enough money for each orphan to have a nice lunch with a peanut butter sandwich every school day for this entire school year!

Again, thank you to all my classmates!

Caleb-Haiti

We arrived last Tuesday. It was funny how Jake, our friend, one of the Bundys, greeted Samuel. Jake put his hands around Samuel's neck like he was going to choke him and then put them down.  ( It was probably a hug; I wasn't around last time Samuel saw Jake.) We did a lot of talking on the ride to our new house.

 

Here is our house and one of the goats. Actually we had a different house before this one, but we switched because this one is better.

This is us eating in our new house.

This is where we play a lot of the time. We play soccer and a game called Grounders there. Grounders is a game where if the person who is "it" says "grounders" while you are on the ground you are "it." That person has to have his eyes closed too.

This was the church we went to. It was two hours long, so it was short for a service in Haiti.

We had movie night at our house last Sunday and we watched Wreck-It-Ralph. Everybody loved it.

Caleb- Cross Training

Here are some of the things we did at Cross Training over the last three weeks...

My hand was painted so I could put a handprint on the wall in the MK center. (MK stands for Missionary Kid.)

Everybody loved the slip and slide at the carnival!

My friend Ethan and I in Indianapolis.

Luke in his Mr. Incredible costume.

My friend Matthew and I playing four square with the Chandlers, a family that lives in Greenwood

Samuel, Ethan, Me, Matthew

My old friend from Columbus, Matthew, got to meet my new friend from New Jersey, Ethan.

Samuel, Ethan, and Me sticking our tongues out for this picture with two of the younger MKs, Eli and Hunter

Samuel- crosstraining

My family started cross training in Greenwood, Indiana a week ago. Last Sunday night we arrived at the OMS headquarters to go to a picnic to start it off.  We met the Heckmans there. They are going to Haiti and were participating in cross training with us. 

We have made friends with their kids, Ethan and Haylie, and played with them all week long.  We've played four-square, signs, basketball, biking, and ultimate Frisbee together over the week.  They will make good friends in Haiti.

 

This is Caleb and I in our apartment

 

This is us playing with the Heckman kids (badminton)

 

This is the Heckmans and us at the OMS leader's house (Ethan Heckman being sat on by Sarah, Haylie Heckman standing by.)

 

Caleb and I eating with Ethan

The fourth day we were there was Ethan's thirteenth birthday!  We celebrated with him at Incredible Pizza company.  We bowled, go karted, lazer tagged, ate, bumper carred, and mini golfed!

 

Incredible Pizza Company

Bowling

 

On the fifth day we went out for frozen yogurt then left for home.

 

We got a weekend break of cross training to go home and I'm already missing the Heckmans.  We get to see them again tonight though!