• There were no new admits this week, although we did have some busy days with lots of visitors. On Tuesday alone, we met 13 babies and their caregivers for the first time. Many of these came with breastfeeding moms, so we encouraged them to continue. Some came for a medical consult and did not ask for anything else. Others were admitted to outpatient programs and some had families who asked us to keep them. We will follow up with these babies, but will try hard to keep them with their biological families.

Discharges

• N/A this week

Medical 

• Last week, a visiting team of ophthalmologists ran an eye clinic at COTP.  In the morning they saw all our kiddos and employees free of charge.  In the afternoon they saw the general public for a small fee.

Nutrition Program

Mamba Program

• Chelie, who used to live here, was admitted to our medika mamba program. She is still doing fairly well in her mama’s care, but is somewhat malnourished. We want to make sure she continues to thrive in her family, so we will see her every two weeks while she is in the program and continue to encourage her mom, who is doing a great job with her two kiddos!
• Judeline and Junior are both doing really well. They are gaining weight and love eating their mamba.

Formula Program

• Fleura, Wisterly, Milandie and Jimmy were all admitted to the formula program recently. All of them are only a few months old and will be in our program until they are about six months old.
• Wideline and Widelande are struggling to gain weight at home and have missed several program days. Their aunt has a hard time bringing them out every two weeks, so we will give them more formula each time and have them come back every four weeks instead.
• Several other babies are close to graduating the program and will finish within a month.

Preschool

• This week in preschool we talked a lot about families. With Mother’s Day Sunday and many families coming to take their children home, it fit so well. We did art projects for our families, talked about how they can be different, read some books about families, and talked about what will happen before they get to go home to their families.
• The kids all still love reading books and reciting songs/words along with their favorites. We got to play with babies in relation to families and they got to enjoy the doctor kits with baby play. We brought out puzzles again after a few weeks of not doing them and the kids all get better at doing them each time we have them out.

Haitian Staff

• Three nannies went on maternity leave this week with at least two of them working up until the day they had their baby- Nene and Mme. Cerdieu.  We are still waiting to hear if Suzette has had her baby yet after starting her maternity leave on Thursday.  This makes four and possibly five new babies already this year just from our nannies with the possibility of at least three or four more yet this year.
• Last week all of our staff participated in an eye clinic that took place at COTP in which they were given one gratis (free) eye check/exam.  If they didn’t need the eye exam then they could bring a family member to receive the free one.  Between checking our children, staff/family, and locals from Lagossette, Pont Gracie, Desplantes and Carrefour Pe- the ophthalmologist team saw more than 300 people starting at 9am and going until almost 2:00pm.  It was a great day as most received a free pair of sunglasses, prescription glasses if they needed them, and referrals to Milot or if there were signs of glaucoma or more imminent eye needs.

International Staff

• The Vande Lune’s celebrated Gracie’s 8th birthday on Thursday with a trip to town for some late afternoon swimming and cheese pizza at La Kay before returning to COTP to share in birthday cake with all of our international staff.  Gracie was excited to make her own cake Wednesday and then cut it and serve to everyone on her birthday.
• The Wilis’ have experienced their first full week with baby house children and nannies in the Grace House.  Of course this also had to be the week that most of the Willis crew had to come down with various ailments from fevers to stomach stuff.  We are hoping that week number two isn’t quite as eventful next week in terms of sickness!
• Everyone has been busy with the adoptive families here from trip details, transition details, medical paperwork, adoption paperwork, family visits and outings.  It’s been exciting to see how this team all takes care of their parts to make the whole.  It’s also exciting to see so many adoptive children united with their forever families.

Projects

• We held off on Construction this week due to so much going on with adoptive families being at COTP and Christina and Natalie needing to be in PAP for 3 days and Kirk for 1 this past week.
• Thursday and Friday we had two guys come and clean up the construction site and do a few odds and ends to get ready for things to continue on Monday
• The VPs have moved into the whole first floor at Manna.  There are still a few odds and ends things like bathroom doors to be installed, but they are really enjoying the additional space!

Child Homes

• This has been an exciting week at the Grace House.  Our babies have moved in full time and our “aunts”, as we are calling the Haitian staff in our home, are here full time also.  We have enjoyed getting to know our babies better and their individual personalities.  Despite our difficulty in communication due to our limited Creole, we have also enjoyed getting to know our aunts and beginning our relationship with them.  We have laughed together, cared for children together, cooked together, and worshipped together.

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Discharges

• N/A this week

Medical

• We have several kids going home with their Forever Families very soon. They will all be treated for worms, parasites, and scabies as they transition out of the baby house.

Nutrition Program

Mamba Program

• Dave, Devensly’s brother, graduated the mamba program today. He did not quite reach his goal weight, but he did gain almost 2 kg while on the mamba program.

Formula Program

• Six month old, Rolanda, passed away last weekend. She lived with us for a weekend in December and has been in our formula program ever since. She became sick about a week ago and was even hospitalized, but still passed away. She was cared for by her grandma and mother and was a well-loved little baby.

• Fredlyn was admitted to the formula program when he was just three days old. His mama passed away in childbirth, as did his twin. We are still working on a plan for his future, but for now, we will provide the family with formula for baby Fredlyn.

Preschool

• This week we learned about the story of Jonah and the Whale in many different ways. We read a few different versions of the story as well as the teacher’s own rendition. One day we acted out the story while playing on the playground, another day we built a boat and a whale with blocks and told the story. During snack time on Wednesday the kids retold the story– guided with questions. Thursday was a fun day that included water play. After a while we added soap to the water to make suds but of course the water did not stay in the tub and ended up all over the floor, so we slid around on the ground and talked about how Jonah probably did the same thing in the belly of the fish but it would have smelled way worse. Today we are going to act out the story transforming out table into a whale and our chairs into a boat.

Haitian Staff

• Changes are happening by the handful as we have hired and shifted nannies permanently to working in the Grace House, found subs to fill their days, and planned for closing the Lyon room in the next week. This means that current nannies in the Lyon room and the children in that room will be shifting to primarily the Elephant Room and Bato Room with one child moving to the Zandolite Room.

• We are working on assigning laundry ladies to specific rooms as children are getting new clothes starting on Monday with their names on each article of clothing. A laundry lady will be expected to wash all the clothes, blankets and items for that specific room as well as sort and return the clothing to that room. Unfortunately, with the closing of a room we will also be downsizing our laundry team to five ladies and possibly even just 4 by the end of May.

International Staff

• Last Friday night we had a bonfire complete with s’mores with friends from Second Mile, Kids Alive and Meds Foods for Kids (makes our Medika Mamba) and other guests that were with COTP and their organizations. Many of them stayed overnight as we had room in the volunteer house and hung around for a game of capture the flag and some lunch afterwards.

• Dan and Nick have laid out ground for a mini- baseball diamond next to the next child home and across the road from the Grace House. If you didn’t know, Dan love’s baseball and thus has inspired a love of baseball into all of his kids. They enjoy playing catch and having quick games on the back property and now there will hopefully even be a small place to play!

• The ladies’ apartment along with Nikki and Erin have been running regularly in what has been referred to as the couch to 5K plan that is an actual training program that Tori has on her iPod. They’ve been diligent about running together at 7:00am every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Projects

• Work continues on Child Home #2. By the end of the next week all the walls should be up and the concrete bond beam poured on top of all the walls! We will crepe and ronde the week after that. We are still waiting on engineered trusses for the roof. Hopefully those will come soon!

Next Child Home

Child Homes

• Yesterday at 4pm we held the dedication ceremony for the Grace House. Five nannies have been “hired/shifted” to staff it, the Willis’ have been planning with the two head nannies at the Grace House with food schedules and gone to market together, the four children who will be the first to move in have been spending additional time with the Willis’ and beginning yesterday have been eating one meal at the GH and napping there in the afternoons.

• Monday morning after breakfast those four children will make the whole shift to the Grace House!

• We are finishing up shelving for the two baby rooms in the Grace House. Each shelving unit includes a small space for nannies to hang/store clothes there as well.

•Wilson and his brother Emilio did a great job of making a sign for the house in both Creole and English.

Maintenance

• The Manna Duplex was rewired this week. The rewiring allowed for an electrical room to be relocated to the exterior which gave the Moxon’s an additional room and cleans up several other problems.

• The Cubbies were finished this week in the baby house.

Just over 2 years ago, we were discussing how we were caring for children at COTP.  We praised God for where He had led us!  However, we also felt Him tugging our hearts to go further, to explore how we may be able to provide even better care for these precious creations whom He had entrusted to us.

So we looked into the areas where we still struggled, specifically where our children still struggled.  We looked for opportunities to improve.  We compared our model to God’s child care model of the family, and it was clear to see that we could improve on our model and approach.  The first time God spoke life into COTP, he laid it on the hearts of Jan Bonnema and Robin Knight (Bonnema).  It was somewhat appropriate that this new direction for COTP was again laid on their hearts.  Essentially, the shift was to move from a large-scale, institutional approach to child care, towards a decentralized, family approach to child care.  Click here to read more about our shift.

Over the past 2 years, we saw an incredible number of people rally around this calling.  Several individuals and churches gave generously to support the building.  Volunteers came from all over to serve in whatever way they could.  Former adoptive parents spread the word about the need for this shift.  Couples and families stepped forward to offer themselves as House Parents.  And our Haitian Partners rallied around the idea of the shift, stating that family was the most important thing in the lives of these children.

Last Thursday, we officially opened the first child home, the Grace House.  The first set of House Parents, Dan and Holly Willis, has been working with their house team of Haitian Partners to make all the preparations for the first 4 children to now begin their transition.  With grateful hearts, our international staff, Haitian partners, volunteers, and children gathered together to dedicate the home this past Thursday.  The home was dedicated with scripture and lifted with prayer, in both English and Creole.

Praise God for all that He has done and continues to do through COTP!

Thank you for joining with us to make this vision a reality.

Grace House Family

Dedication

More to come:  The second child home is being built just across the road from the Grace House.

Child Home #2

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Discharges

• N/A this week

Nutrition Program

Mamba Program

• Judeline and Junior are new twins in the Mamba program. Both are severely malnourished, but Junior is already eating mamba well. Judeline wasn’t so sure, but will hopefully eat it more willingly when she is at home and with her mama.

Formula Program

• Naika and Cendie both graduated from the formula program. They are both blessed with mamas who love them and are taking great care of them!

Preschool

• This week we talked more about the body and the five senses. We also talked about colors and letters. The kids are noticing the wind blowing and each time we see the windsocks they made during weather week blowing they tell me.

• Their new favorite thing to play with are some little animals and counting bears. They like to line them up, count them, tell me what animals they are and what sounds they make, and make up stories about them.

International Staff

• We hosted a bon fire on Friday with our North American friends! It was a fun evening complete with s’mores!

• Bon fire night was followed by Capture the Flag saturday morning! Great fun was had by all!

Projects

• All 4,100 blocks have been made on site and are curing nicely for the 2nd child home. 2,100 8″ blocks for the exterior walls of the home and 2,000 4″ blocks for the interior walls.

• Today we have started setting the first row of blocks for the walls!

• Work continues in the Manna long term housing duplex. The Moxens have relocated upstairs and the 1st floor is getting some work finished before the Vander Pols move in such as kitchen shelving, some painting, and replacing a completely shot kitchen faucet.

Maintenance

• The red Hilux is broke down until we can install a new clutch. That will likely happen the end of next week. The auto budget was depleted this month with the new tires that the Jeep Needed. The white truck also needs new front tires, we have had several flats recently and it is no longer reliable.

• We have been discussing the need for additional work stations at COTP. Hopefully within the next few months we will see several new computers at COTP. We can always use older equipment. If anyone ever would be willing to donate a computer, monitor, iPad, or even mice and keyboards let me know. We likely could use them.

• We have installed the new head gasket into the SDMO generator. We have also fixed the radiator and are getting the water pump fixed right now as well. Hopefully it will be online next week. I did fuel draw tests for the Kohler and Kubota generators on Monday. The Kubota drew 1.15 GPH while the Kohler drew 1.6 GPH under the same conditions. The difference of .5 GPH With the amount we are running our generator right now we will exceed our fuel budget by over 300 each month. This week I finished the draft for a 3 part upgrade of our power system. It is currently being reviewed by industry professionals and volunteers that have knowledge of our systems. Today we are re-wiring the Manna Duplex in an effort to remove 3 electrical panels from one room.

• We are working on a plan to paint nearly all the buildings at COTP this summer with the help of 3 groups.

• We recently installed an hour meter for our well pump. We are pumping an average of 11 gallons per minute and the pump runs about 8.5 hours per day. A large part of the compound is on our elevated tank which only stores 500 gallons.  We hope to intall a second 500 gallon tank next to it soon to increase our capacity.

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Discharges

• Marie Ange was officially reunited with her mom on Tuesday morning. Her mom was already staying with her at the hospital for several days prior to this and spent Monday night here at COTP with her before we discharged Marie Ange. She will be in the formula program and we will keep in close contact with mom to make sure Marie Ange is getting everything she needs to restore her health and finally gain some weight.

Medical

• We have officially scheduled a community eye clinic at COTP that will take place on May 10. The visiting ophthalmologists have adjusted their financial requirements so that we can decide what to charge for the consultation and all the money goes straight to COTP. It will be free for our kids and employees and outside participants will pay 100 goudes. We are excited to be able to provide this very affordable service to the community and to bless our employees as well.

Nutrition Program

Mamba Program

• Dieula, Dieuson and Diuenene, 18 month old triplets, graduated the mamba program on Thursday. They each gained over 2 pounds on the program and are doing well. Their dad and older sister have been doing a great job caring for them, and we are praying they will continue to do their very best in raising these sweet babies.

Formula Program

• Rose-Andrelle has been here a couple of times this week. She had a fairly high fever, as well as diarrhea and vomiting. We sent her to get labs done and had her come back with results so we had a better idea of what was going on. She is now on antibiotics and her fever seems to be coming down. Her family is doing a great job of following directions and making sure Rose-Andrelle gets everything she needs to get better!

Preschool

• We finished up weather week with a very fun filled snow day. This included having guava juice popsicles, a paper snowball fight, and painting snowflakes. My personal favorite (and I think the kid’s too) was shaving cream ice skating, that turned into full body play with shaving cream complete with a lot of smiles and laughs.

• We also began talking about senses and body parts. We used our ears to hear instruments, our eyes to see a lot of things, our mouths to taste snack, and our hands to feel sensory bags with food coloring and hair gel. The kids where also encouraged to draw a self-portrait as we talked about all the different parts of our bodies.

• The book favorite this weeks is “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” which fit perfectly with talking about senses. The kids can recite most of the book and enjoy doing the motions as well.

Haitian Staff

• All the rooms in the baby house now have new steel beds and foam mattresses that were moved over from the Manna volunteer space. This was long overdue as the wood beds were infested with cochroaches and many of the mattresses were in less than desirable shape as well. The guys from Orange City tackled this task on their last two days here and still felt like they were crawling with bugs when they left after breaking apart the wood frames and using several cans of bug spray to attempt to kill everything that was living in the joints. The nannies were excited to have these roach free beds and we were excited to get the old ones out!

• Another nanny had a baby last Saturday night- Ketli works in the Papiyon room and lives in Pont Gracia. Erin, Wilson and Papito actually went to her house to help get her to Milot at about 10:30pm but couldn’t make it all the way before the baby girl was delivered in the back bed of the Toyota. Erin quickly got out of the cab of the truck to assess the baby and Ketli before they hurried on to Milot. Ketli and baby girl are doing fine, we still haven’t heard a name for her yet, and they returned home within twelve hours of delivering last Sunday afternoon.

Projects

• We took Monday through Thursday off of new construction in part to let the concrete slab cure, and in part because Kirk was in Pap M-W.

• Today we started making block for the next child home. We need a total of about 4,000 blocks and should have about 700 of them finished today!

Maintenance

• We are installing a propane water heater and washing machine for the Grace House. Yesterday Nick and Wilson went to the Dominican and purchased both of these items.

• Yesterday the parts came in to replace the Outback inverter!!

• The head gasket arrived so we can repair the SDMO generator. It should be put back together by next week!

• Nick will be doing fuel tests on each of the generators to see which one performs the best and uses the least amount of fuel.

• The steel frames have been built and most are painted for new awnings! They will be installed next week on the long term staff house and the grace house.

• We are currently doing our annual painting of all the metal at the compound. This is slow tedious work and will take several weeks to complete.

• Jackson and Christelle came to COTP on Wednesday. They were both abandoned at Justinien Hospital in Cap Haitien and have been cared for by one of our nannies for the last few weeks. Jackson is two years old and has cerebral palsy. He is a content little boy with the cutest smile. Christelle is a two month old little girl who is already well loved by her nannies.

Discharges

• N/A this week

Nutrition Program

Mamba Program

• Stevenson and Vanessa are new admits to the mamba program. Please pray that they both gain weight and become healthy again.

Formula Program

• Four kids have recently graduated the formula program. Two of these are twins, Dacheley and Dacheline, who each gained over 6 pounds while on the program!

• Cendie, Schneider, Naika and Fadelin all came out this past week and are doing great. Cendie and Naika will soon graduate the program!

• Venise and Vedelin (twins) and Nikenson have been admitted to formula program in the last couple weeks because their moms are unable to provide all the milk they need.

Preschool

• Our theme this week was weather and we focused on wind, rain, clouds, sun, hot/cold, and will finish with snow on Friday. There was a lot of hands on sensory. These included seeing how far a fan would blow different objects, blowing bubbles, squirting each other with spray bottles, having water play, cracking small toys out of an “ice burg”, and shaving cream clouds. We did some fun out of the norm crafts too like making windsocks, painting with ice cube paint, and making suns by painting fork tines and stamping the rays. We also got to look at the clouds in the sky and talk about the differences between the sun being up and it being dark out. Books have continued to be a favorite and when I ask them to choose one they usually want to choose three or more to read.

Haitian Staff

• Last weekend saw heavy rains hit Northern Haiti which specifically impacted many of our employees, specifically those close to the river in Cap. For three days the back bridge between OdiCap and Lory was impassable because of the high water so the tap-tap had to go all the way around by the airport. This also wreaked havoc on many families’ homes as those in low-lying areas were severely flooded. We didn’t hear any reports of deaths or injuries but it definitely was a lot of water for 48 hours.

International Staff

• If you haven’t heard the big news then you aren’t on Facebook! Wilson proposed to Sheila last Friday night in her apartment with help from every staff member to pull the proposal night off. Wilson’s mom had made him a new dress shirt and vest that he changed into while Erin distracted Sheila to the baby house for some fictitious medical question. We all celebrated in the volunteer house afterwards . . . oh, and she did say YES!

Birthdays

• Robert and Rodner celebrated their 3rd birthday together last Friday with friends from the Bato room.

• Lysette celebrated her 2nd birthday last Saturday with friends from the Zandolite room.

Projects

•Next Child Home:  This week we finished up the PVC drain rough-in (thanks to the OC group) and on Wednesday had 17 guys here and poured the concrete slab. The guys did a really good job of getting it smooth so that we would not have to re-coat the slab before installing ceramic tile. The guys are now finishing up rebar so it’s ready to put in the concrete cap beam once the walls are up. Because Kirk will be gone to PAP for three days next week we will be taking those days off and letting the concrete cure, and then Thursday morning we will start making the approximately 4,000 block we need to construct the interior and exterior house walls.

Check out this video:

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How to Support Partnership

Internet

•In March, we downloaded a total of 173.6 GB and uploaded 31.7 GB. In comparison when we were on Hughes new we were limited to roughly 13.5 GB per month. The system is operating very well, we generally have very reliable internet now. Hainet typically has several small outages each day, but with the backup of Vsat, nobody realizes it!

New VSAT System

Water

•The well that we drilled over a year ago is continuing to produce great clean water. An interesting fact is that our well is artesian, meaning that if we are not pumping water, it is literally flowing out the top. We are so blessed to have an abundance of water here and we really use it. Last month we used an average of 4997 gallons of water per day.

Water filtration system (recently updated)

Power

• Our power system is one of our weak links right now. This past week, a team from Tri County Air, was here and worked on our generator wiring, well controls, installed solar powered exhaust fans in the solar panel control room, and added some street lights in Lagossette. The power system we have, was built around the old COTP grounds from 2 1/2 years ago when we did not have Manna or the two soon to be back houses. Hopefully, by the end of this year, we will be able to install more inverters and solar panels!

• We are also working on better monitoring our power usage. I am working with a software developer, Tim, from the states who went on a mission trip to Zambia and saw a power system very similar to ours and their similar struggles to monitor, track, record and analyze its performance. I met Tim while talking about some of my desires to better monitor our systems performance on Outback Forums. There are a few devices out there that will do this but they are all very expensive systems. He is working on developing a system that is much simpler and cheaper. We have had the device in Haiti now for about 4 weeks. This next week we should start being able to see some of the rough data, and in a few more months we will have a very useful screen and data that will help us better determine how our system is doing, where it is struggling, and what we can expect if we add more. Tim is doing all of this free of charge for COTP! The device uploads data online every 5 minutes, so it can be seen and analyzed remotely.

Generators

•COTP now has 3 generators that we can choose from in the event that one is not working properly. We have mostly relied on the BLUE SDMO as our most faithful generator for a very long time. As was reported a week ago, it is down until we find a new head gasket for it.

•The orange 16 kw, that was acquired when we purchased Manna, was only producing 113 volts. This past week, we were able to find the control board to adjust that and it is now producing power that matches our system much better.

•The tan Kohler generator that was donated by friends of Tri County Air has several problems. The latest problem is a faulty AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator). We were able to replace that on Tuesday and now the generator is functioning very well. We still need one small (50 cent) part for connecting the alternator that is not available here. Tri County will be sending that to us next week and hopefully we can finally start using that generator as well.

Fixing the blue generator

Future Expansion

•I spent the majority of Wednesday working with Billy, the owner of Tri County Air and an engineer. We discussed current and future electrical and water needs. We talked about the infrastructure that we need to develop as the COTP compound continues to grow and expand. Over the next week or two, I am going to be putting together a detailed plan of changes that need to be made to meet our electrical and water needs. Roughly, we are talking about putting the power generation station (generators and solar panels) in the center of the compound, digging another well, building a water tower in the back, more than doubling the size of our inverters, and more than doubling the amount of solar panels we have!

How can you help?

Are you an electrician, plumber, carpenter, mechanic, welder, or a jack of all trades?   If so we could use your services.  We would also love to find a handy person to come down for several months.  If this might be you let us know!

Do you like shopping?   We have 9 Engines that need air filters, oil filters, fuel filters etc.. Check out the link below to see all the different filters that we need.  Most of them can be found at your local auto parts store or online.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhfHD9cM1peMdDAtQjFrb3gycU1QQzBDeGZTdnAtTlE#gid=0

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Discharges

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Medical

• Marie Ange has gained a little bit of weight in our care, but not as much as we would have hoped.  Please continue to pray for her!

Preschool

• This week in preschool we talked more about Easter and Jesus’ love for us. We are now learning our third Bible verse and the kids are already catching on. We brought out some sensory play and read a lot of books. This week the kids enjoyed a toddler Bible and kept asking to read more stories so I gladly did so. We have also continued working on letter recognition and had fun painting and singing as well.

Haitian Staff

• One of our nannies, from the Bato room, Julienne, had a healthy baby boy at her house in Pont Gracia on Monday night. Julienne is doing well as is the little guy who stopped by for check-up with Erin on Wednesday morning.

• We have many changes coming down the road for various areas of employment for our staff at COTP as the Grace House officially comes online. Cooking staff, laundry staff and nanny staff will all start to look different as we make this transition. We ask that you pray for wisdom as we seek to make these changes in light of the long term benefit and changes that are happening and not simply from the easiest change at present.

International Staff

• We enjoyed a wonderful Easter Sunday with over 50 international people all gathered in the prenatal space to eat, worship and celebrate communion. These 50 people represented 7 different organizations all operating and serving in Haiti.

• Carla returned yesterday afternoon, after spending a few weeks at home in Canada, and was greeted by her roommates at the airport who were singing loudly and obnoxiously for everyone to hear while she walked from the plane into the airport. It definitely was a warm welcome back.

Birthdays

• Chedeline celebrated her 11th birthday last Sunday with all the older international kids (Willis’, Vander Pol’s and Vande Lune’s) at Manna.

Projects

• The foundation on child home #2 is finished and we are ready to pour the cement for the back porch. In the next days we will have the PVC drains roughed in and begin wiring rebar to pour the cement floor of the house. We hope to have this one done in such a way that we do not have to skim coat it before we install tile. After that we will let the concrete cure for a while and then begin on the walls.

• In the next month we will get shelving up in the child bedrooms of the Grace House and hopefully get a hot water heater installed!

• In both the Grace house and the long term staff house we really need to get some awnings up so that they don’t have to mop up gallons of water when the rain comes from certain directions. We hope to re-use roofing from the Office remodel so that we really only need to purchase some angle iron and paint to get this done.

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Discharges

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Medical

• All of our kids one year and older were treated for worms this week. We do this as a preventative measure every 3-4 months.

• The virus in the baby house continued this week, but we did not have any more kids requiring IVs and most of them seem to be recovering quickly.

• All of our papiyon babies are healthy again. It has been a while since none of them had diarrhea, so we are very excited!

• Marie Ange was starting to gain weight with her special formula but dropped back down to her admit weight. We have been consulting with doctors in the states regarding her case but there are not any clear answers yet. We will add Medika Mamba to her diet today to see if it was not being administered correctly by mom the first time.

Preschool

• This week in preschool have been talking about Easter and God’s love for us. We will continue this a little after Easter as I would like the kids to see/hear this on several different levels so they can begin to learn it in their own way. The highlight of the week was making tie dye paper Easter eggs with shaving cream and food coloring. The kids loved mixing colors and then seeing what happened to the egg when we wiped the shaving cream off. It has been a weird week with rain and other events taking place, but I think the kids are starting to realize that God really does love them. Reading books and singing songs have continued to be favorites. Playing with blocks is always requested as they are learning that they can build more than just towers. Their favorite thing to build is “bel kay” or a beautiful house, they also like to make airplanes, people, and other things. It is so much fun to watch their creativity emerge.

Haitian Staff

• We have a growing number of nannies that are currently pregnant, at least five and counting. Please pray for these ladies as they continue to work while pregnant and as we determine their sub while on maternity leave.

• We are also in the process of determining the two main nannies for the Grace House as well as the nannies that will work with them. We have been having some great discussions about what this looks like, what nannies might work best in that house, as well as how to structure the times. Continue to pray for wisdom as we flush out these details and potentially promote nannies to this new role.

International Staff

• Carla is enjoying her last week with family and friends back in Calgary before returning next Thursday.

• Teri Guinink (Finances) is gearing up for her first round of payroll starting Monday with Rob. She has brought some great ideas to improve how we handle the money at COTP.

Birthdays

• Jackson celebrated his 2nd birthday on Tuesday with his friends from the Bato room. We had a great time at a table behind the volunteer house eating cake and taking pictures.

• Christella celebrated her 3rd birthday today with a princess castle cake complete with pink frosting, sugar cones, and a draw bridge made of candy. We think a certain someone who has cakes might have put some extra work into this one!

Projects

• Raymond CRC (Raymond, MN) group is here and they have been working on getting some curtains mounted, clothes line up, shelving up, and a few other items at the Grace House. We continue to have some issues with the refrigerator. After some hard rain we are more aware of the need for some awnings on both the Grace House and long term staff house (Nick and Nikki’s).

• The Raymond volunteers are working on forming up for the foundation of the new child home. Rain has now delayed this for two days as well. Upon laying out for the foundation we needed to add a bit of area to the gravel pad, so this work was begun as well.

• The Raymond group also installed new shelving and desk space in the new office! We are excited to start using that new space!

• The Kubota generator is now on it’s new cement pad.