With our home finally finished – last year was our first Christmas in the Mole. It was WONDERFUL! We did a big Thanksgiving meal with all our staff, had crafts and games with our orphans, a Christmas Celebration at Church, 10 days of Christmas Movies, special Christmas eve services, and just spent two festive months together with the people we love serving and doing life with.
We are SO excited for year two! Everyone knows I love to decorate for Christmas! I used to decorate our St. Louis Campus every October (yes just a few months early)!
I was sad when we cleared out our depot last year and all of our Christmas lights and decorations were gone. It might seem silly but it made me cry. I’ve been collecting those decorations for years. My family started the 10 days of Christmas Movies 14 years ago. The kids would come into an elaborately decorated courtyard, watch movies, eat popcorn, and for a few hours forget how difficult their childhood is. There’s something about light in darkness that just comforts the soul.
I wanted to do that for the kids in the Mole too and was disappointed I wasn’t able to. So I’m starting back at scratch right now. 🙁
My parents ship crates every August which means Santa has to shop early so that he can pack the gifts for my kids. My parents know my heart so well – and so for Christmas this year they bought me the nativity set to put in our courtyard! They are wire-figurines with lights. The wisemen are about 4 feet tall so that gives you an idea in this picture how big the set is.
We are trying to pack as many Christmas things as we can this year in the crates so we can decorate the campus! Now that we have a good generator and power to all of our buildings – we can really do some special stuff.
If you would like to donate some lights, decorations, or extension cords for us to pack in the crates please let us know! We have to have everything delivered to Kentucky by August 13th in order to make this shipment to Haiti.
I also wanted to give a special thanks to the Loyal Ladies at Bowling Green Christian Church! Thanks to their financial support I was able to buy a HUGE pile of toiletries and cleaning supplies for our orphanage to pack in the crates! One of the things that’s hard to get in Haiti is good-smelling supplies. And when soap is over 3.00 a bar, shampoo over 5.00, and toothpaste nearly 6.00 a tube – it’s hard to keep up with the demands of our orphans.
We don’t have a dryer – everything is hung up. But sometimes there’s a mildew smell – especially with the diapers. Did you know that you can take dryer sheets and put them in the drawers with the dry clothes and that makes the clothes smell good? You can also take Bounce dryer sheets and rub them all over your body and it helps repel mosquitos.
Trying to keep up with enough hair-gel to braid all of the girls hair is hard to do. They usually use Vaseline which really isn’t very good for your hair. I was able to buy several big jars and bottles of hair cream for braiding hair.
I know the ladies are going to be so happy for the supplies and the kids are going to be so grateful for the toiletries. We’re gonna have some great-smelling kids and facilities this fall!
