Our sweet friends in Haiti...

UPDATE: Betty and Gersan have over 400 "refugees" on their church property. Their home-church, Grace Covenant, has updates on their story and here is an awesome article about them!!!! Thank you for your prayers!

I just wanted to ask yall to pray for our dear friends the Valcins (sounds like val-seen) who live in Port-au-Prince. Gersan (sounds like "ger" as in "germ" and "sawn") is a pastor and plants churches all over the country. He has the most beautiful sweet fun wife Betty and two teenage daughters, Deborah and Elizabeth. We know them because they stayed in our house with us for about 6 weeks when raising support in the U.S. and we have mutual friends because Gersan graduated from DTS many years ago. My husband and I love them so much and cannot think of anyone in the whole world whom we admire more...he is an amazing speaker and leader and a passionate kind person and he is always so hopeful and positive about the work God is doing in Haiti. I just start crying when I think about them being there right now without food, water or a home or anything and all the dangers they face in the coming aftermath. We have word from their mission agency that they are alive, but there is no way to communicate with them since there is no electricity and I am waiting to see if there is any way to help them through their mission agency. Please pray that God will protect them and give them wisdom and strength and use them as leaders during this time. I have this short trailer video of Gersan from 2007 about the work he does. Thanks! http://www.jointhestory.org/haitimedia.htm love, april

Merry Christmas-you have the swine flu, Happy New Year-your digital photos are no longer accessible

So, we (Jon and I...kids had vaccines thank heavens) had the swine flu over Christmas so we stayed here and didn't see any family. Anyway....if you have had the swine flu and took tamiflu...do the flu-like symptoms keep lingering on and on forever?

I do have great pics from the holidays, but our dad-blasted Adobe Photoshop has decided to retire with the end of 2009 so I'm having a difficult time "integrating" to our new MS Photo wizard or whatever it is...and I can't find older pics very easily at all. If anyone has a good system for downloading and storing their digital pics, please let me know!

Other than that, I've been organizing our family and trying to "get back to the basics" and keep the house clean and meals made....watch out for a white flag...these "mere basic" tasks are FAR more than I can handle with 3 kids at the same time....which brings me to...

My New Years "Resolution" (a term I use lightly) is to not spend any more money on our house which has become quite an expensive past-time as I continually "tweak" our decor....and I should also mention how time-consuming it is to constantly be scouring Craigslist, Ebay and consignment stores for a suitable affordable substitute for the things that I like. I could go on and on.... I really need to just let it go....but that's really hard when this one $125 mirror for the entry could change everything for the better and make our house look "perfect." It's such a vicious thing to always be "one thing away from perfection"...I have no idea how I got on this path....I need a hobby like I need a hole in my head...and an expensive one to boot!