SHARING THE GOSPEL - Caleb

Two weeks ago, I went with a visiting team to do radio distribution on a Saturday morning. 



We left at about 8:30 am.  The ride to the church was about 20 minutes long. 



We all went together in this church building and prayed. 





Then, we set out into the village. 



We were all in groups.  My group had our translator, Mr. Reggie (who happens to work at Cowman School), and three team members who were named Richard, Nathan, and Mark. 

The first person we visited accepted Christ.  She even invited us into her house to pray.  I noticed a little girl hiding behind a curtain and peeking out. We were all holding hands for the prayer so I invited her in too.

 

 

This is the first person I spoke to. I think I did a good job speaking with the second person I talked to. I froze up at first, but Richard told me I could share about how I became a Christian. So I did. I talked about how I came down to the basement one evening when I was about seven or eight.

 

This is when I felt the Holy Spirit, because I was afraid my story wasn't going anywhere, but all of the sudden I started getting ideas and they immediately became words. I said that I accepted Christ into my heart because I knew he loved me and told her that I know he loves her too. She said she planned on going down to a Baptist church to accept Christ someday. Mr. Reggie took over and told her maybe this was the day. She didn't want to accept, but she let us pray with her. I learned a lot throughout the day. God taught me much. I want to do that more often because it is a great experience.

 

(I have to say thanks for the photos in this post - the first five photos were taken by Kylee Cox and the last one was taken by Richard Clingerman.)

RETREAT IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Caleb

Two weeks ago I went on a trip to the Dominican Republic for four days for our spring break. It was awesome! We stayed at a resort called Sosua on the Beach. Here are some pictures...

This is my dad and I eating icecream at a little shop right inside the border of the Dominican Republic. It took a few hours to drive across the border.



This is us at the breakfast table. All of the missionaries came to the resort.



These are some rocks  right next to the beach. A few of us M.K.s were walking along this spot.



This is Hannah and Samuel playing in the water of the beach.





 This picture is of the kids playing in the waves on the beach. The waves were really tall sometimes! We had a lot of fun diving through the waves. Once, I remember Brianna getting slammed by a wave. She got up and I yelled," Brianna!" to warn her about another wave about to slam her. When she got up she had only lost her goggles which Mr.Bundy found quickly. We had lots of fun trying different tricks on the waves. If I had to choose my favorite part of the resort it would be that. By the way, the person doing the goofy jump over the wave is my friend Ethan.

 

This is Samuel eating a snack.
 

I made a kite during a class one of the days and it worked. I'm going to have to tape it up a little bit because it made a deadly trip to my closet.



These are some pictures of me sitting over some of the rocks on the beach.



This is all the M.K.s in the tie dye shirts we made at the class we were taking at the resort.



Last day on the beach.

Hannah on the beach.
 

Me with a puppet that I made in class.
 

Action shot of Jake jumping into the pool.
 



Our favorite thing to do when it got dark was to play pool. I am not very good, but it was fun to learn and get better.

 

The resort was a lot of fun. We all enjoyed it. I look forward to maybe going next year.



Caleb- Sunday

Last Sunday, we took a team to church. The team was from Erie, Pennsylvania, the home church of a few missionaries in Haiti. Mr.James, Samuel's teacher, translated for them. It was a good service and was two and a half hours long. After that we took the team back to the compound to get their swimsuits. We went Villa cana, a restaurant with a pool. The Ayars and Heckmans, two missionary families from the seminary, came too. I had a cheeseburger and fries for lunch. We swam in the pool for a long time. We played games like colors, go-go-ghost, which is a game where you try not to fall in the pool if somebody yells anything other than "go" and if somebody says "go" you have to jump in the pool before everyone else and try not to be last, and we played snakeheads, which is a game where one person is "It" and he has to tag the other players before they cross the pool. For dinner we had lasagna and our friends, the Bundys, came over to eat. I had a great Sunday.

 

This is the church we went  to.

 

The team at the service.



 

Samuel with his teacher, Mr.James.

 

A team member with a Haitian child.

The pool that we went to.

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.