On the Grid!

The last two months have been a whirlwind. We left the states with suitcases in tow the beginning of June, went to LaGonave a few days and then headed to Monwi on the mainland for bootcamp. It was a great learning experience for improving our Creole (although we have a lot to work on yet), learning more about the culture, and applying what we learned in actual scenarios. We met and got to know people in the community, sang and prayed at the prison in St. Marc, prayed with patients at the hospital in St. Marc, listened to a Haitian folktale and bought food by bartering at the market for dinner one night to provide some examples. It was a welcoming environment as the leaders have a strong Christian faith. Everyone in bootcamp was so nice and it was great getting to know about others’ organizations and their hearts for Haiti. Click here for a video of  Bootcamp.

After bootcamp we arrived at our new home. Our friend, Allison, provided a water gallon for us so we would have water and she and Renee welcomed us to the island. Our kids found it much more fun to go play with Renee’s kids than to help unpack…and we were on our way to getting settled in. We quickly learned that our home only had half of the windows screened, that we needed to buy propane tanks on the mainland and that the neighbors didn’t like how loud our generator was (we only ran it at night, they complained the next day). As frustrating as it is to not have lights on after 6:30pm (too many moths for my liking), more mosquitos than I could count, couldn’t use the stove, nor use the refrigerator, we adapted. I truly believe we would not have met the people that we have or gotten to know them as well as we have if it was not for our adjustment period. Starfysh had a team at the guesthouse when we arrived. They came over with open hands willing to do what they could to help. It was appreciated more than they will ever know! Shortly after they left we were blessed with another group at Starfysh. They provided moral support that was much needed at that time. Local missionaries were also quick to help us. There was a team at the Wesleyan mission that had a group of people skilled in construction / building. They came over and put screens on most of the openings. Our moth and mosquito population quickly decreased after that and I could turn on lights after dark. Bruce and I took a couple visits to Port-au-Prince in between teams while the girls stayed back at Ortlip (Wesleyan guesthouse and wharf in Monwi) and helped watch another missionary family’s kids. We left with solar purchased, propane tanks, and food for a month (when we left the island we were down to a cracker diet as we couldn’t find much on the island as we were limited without fridge or stove and didn’t know where else to get food but a couple places with limited items at the time). We promptly got the propane going and we could make our food on the stove. Several local missionaries came and helped with the solar and we finally got electricity during the day about a week ago so our fridge is functioning! We ended up having issues with our wifi due to the sim card we were provided. Another missionary knew what was wrong and helped us get our wifi up and running which we have had since this past Sunday. These items are quick fixes state side but a whole different story in Haiti. I am proud to say we have endured and so thankful for the extended family we have in Haiti.

Aside from the house, we have been busy with teams, staff, and navigating our new community. Our first Sunday we were invited to lunch with the Wesleyan and WISH missionaries. It was great getting to know everyone. The next day was July 4^th, we met with them for an evening of fellowship consisting of a picnic, sparklers and even six fireworks! Later that week we joined and assisted a team that was working on obtaining pictures and information on the students in Makochon so they could set up sponsorships for them. We also had the opportunity one evening to talk with a couple people about how Jesus is free, there is no need to pay for someone to pray for you. We prayed for his daughter with him. 

We also helped with a team at the childrens’ village, Okipe. In the morning they put on a camp that talked about the world and then took the boys swimming one afternoon and the girls the next afternoon. In the evening we were in meetings with the principals and teachers discussing partnering to learn new skill sets. We have discovered new roads, stores, and food, met some of our neighbors, and learned that you wait 2 hours to be helped at the desk at the bank but only wait an hour or less if you want a teller. We have been following up with staff whose kids are sick as several of them have not been feeling well. Two were admitted to the hospital but both are now out. One lady came to us as her eyelids are healed together. We have been trying to find help for her but unfortunately nothing in Haiti so far. We got a puppy last week and it died three days later from Parvo. Last Sunday our key broke in the lock of our house and it was quite the adventure to get back in. Through it though we met our neighbor, and local carpenter, as he offered us his hammer and saw. Today he gave us a watermelon from his garden. No day is the same but we are enjoying getting to know our neighbors and others in the community better.

What I have learned and been reminded of over the past 2 months:

1.       God has this! We just need to follow. He continues to provide during situations that seem impossible at times.

2.       God can take a difficult situation and use it for His glory.

3.       Don’t take your electricity, water, gas, A/C, or conveniences for granted.

4.       Sometimes I need to ask for help and that is okay. I can’t do everything myself and God uses others to show me His love.

5.       Take time every single day to talk to God. For us it is morning and night and everywhere in between. He is there ALL the time but we need to stop and listen.

***Still have a donor who will match up to $1000 a month for a monthly donations for two years. Please help us meet this match!***

Prayer items:

1.       Praise as we have a new renter for our home.

2.       Health for us and also the Starfysh employees and their families.

3.       That the Lord leads us each day and it is clear how He wants us to be His hands and feet.

Just Breathe

What is going on with the Kulfans? We are trying to master juggling. Juggling our work schedules, school, preparing our house in Michigan for renters, preparing our home in Haiti while state side, getting ready for bootcamp, farewell parties, providing some sort of "normalcy" for the kids, etc. There are so many moving parts right now!

Here are some of the hi-lights:

In early March we (well, friends of ours on the island) found a rental home by the Starfysh guesthouse and the lease was signed in April. "It just so happened" that some of the people on the dental team that went down in April also were professional painters. So not only did we get a rental house but they were able to paint the majority of the house. While painting, they also taught some of the locals their painting skills. This will help the locals become more marketable. Our house is not done yet as there are finishing touches that need to be completed. We were recently informed that we now have a water cistern and a water pump!

Next on the list was to find a renter for our home here in Michigan. We were planning on renting furnished to someone we knew. Unfortunately it did not work out. We then decided to reach out to a property manager. He informed us that we could not rent our house furnished. "It just so happened" that a friend of ours recently got married and recently purchased a home and needed to furnish it! "It just so happened" that friends of ours have a large pole barn and offered to store any bins we have.

We were still in need of finding transportation (i.e. quads) for on the island. "It just so happened" that our friend's husband came from the ATV business. He reached out and found the exact type of quads we were looking for at the price we were thinking of!

A few friends and family have reminded me that God likes to do things last minute to remind us He is in control. Well, He is definitely proving that!

I need to remind myself to just breathe and leave the "Just so happened's" up to God.

How do You Eat an Elephant?

We have a donor that will match up to $1000 each month for on-going monthly donations starting in June. Please prayerfully consider partnering with us. Let's "eat" this elephant one bite at a time and make it disappear! This match is 20% met. Please contact Starfysh, Bruce, or Amy and we can provide a form to set up the auto debit. You can select when you would like it to start and how much.

MESI ANPIL! Thank you very much!

A HUGE thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and providing funding! We are beyond humbled as we see God working through you. We could not do this without you! The prayers are felt and the funding is growing as we now have 75% of the first year! A wise friend told us a year and a half ago, when we were looking more seriously at moving overseas, "if God wants you to go, He will provide the funding." Indeed He is!

A sermon at New Life Fellowship not too long ago was about the WOW versus the HOW which sums up our journey well. Let God do the WOW by putting Him in the driver's seat of your life. As He is driving, He will take care of the HOW. Our journey is like a roller coaster ride where we put our hands up and watch God take full control. We wouldn't want it any other way. As soon as I try to grab the wheel I get anxious about everything that needs to happen before June. I then stop and remind myself that He is taking us to this and through this. When I step back and hand God the steering wheel I am at peace again. 

Please help us meet our two year funding goal. When we look at the full two years, we are just shy of half of our funding. Please prayerfully consider partnering with us. Monthly payments can be set up by auto debit (contact us for information), with Paypal through Starfysh or GoFundMe. If you intend on providing funding starting in June, could you please let us know of your intent? or join the 700 club, 700 people to provide $100. Any other dollar amount is more than welcome too! It takes a team to make this happen!

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

BONN ANE! (Happy New Year!)

About this time last January we were finishing coffee while having our initial conversation with Steve.  As we were saying goodbye, Steve with a big smile on his face, said, " I think God is up to something here." God was up to a BIG something!! Many prayers, a lot of texts and more coffee chats brought us to La Gonave in June so the family could check out Starfysh and their projects. It felt good to be back in Haiti. One of the villages we stopped at was Dub Saline, meaning two salt flats. Located only 7 miles from Starfysh, it takes 2 hours to get there by truck or a quad. The beauty of being on the ocean was amazing. What can be wrong with having the peaceful and calming blues and greens of the Caribbean Sea in your front yard?  Well, being at sea level your only drinking water is.....sea water!  We were able to see one of Starfysh's main projects, water filters, in a home.  Though it cannot take out the saltiness, it can eliminate deadly viruses and bacteria.  Another project we were able to see was the village latrine being dug.  As the picture shows the water table is very high right at the sea.  The second picture shows the latrine completed.  This is huge as disease prevention/education is also a main focus of Starfysh.  When the picture was posted on Starfysh's Facebook page Amy and I both said AWESOME loud enough that the girls came running in to see what we were excited about...they were just as happy.

We also went up to Makochon where they will break ground in 2016 to build the new school. Education is a simple and effective way to break the poverty cycle and give kids a real chance at hope and having a future.

We also visited Jaden Lavi (Life Garden).  This agricultural center will be a game changer for the people of La Gonave.  The garden will allow the Moringa tree to be used as a much needed source of nutrition to those in Haiti.  Starfysh will also hold educational classes on farming practices so that families can grow the trees and other plants for food and as a cash crop.

July 28, 2015 we were officially announced as Starfysh's first appointed Field Directors. Since then we have been working on a budget, taking Creole lessons and fundraising.  Fundraising is like a second full time job!  The month of December we had an anonymous donor put a matching $15,000 donation on the table.   With two days left in December we were $3,900 short.  New Years Eve we started the day $300 shy of $15,000.  God showed us again how big He is...when the ball dropped we raised over $2,100. As we write this, we have 2/3 of our first year's budget committed.  

Next month Amy and I go to Haiti to look for a house and meet more of the staff.  

Prayer requests:

1- That we will be able to find a house that will meet our needs with reasonable rent. 

2- That we will get the full 2 year funding before we leave. 

3- That we will find a good renter for our house.

4- For spiritual guidance and protection.

Praises:

1- We matched the $15,000 in December.

2- Starfysh Market was launched on January 1st:  starfyshmarket.com.

**Donations can be made at: https://starfysh.worldsecuresystems.com/content/donate

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

When we tell people we are moving to Haiti we generally get one of two responses. They are either excited for us or they look at us like we need to check into a padded room. Either way, there are many questions. We would like to provide a bigger picture for you.

Who? Our family minus Oso. No worries, Oso will have many sleepovers at Uncle Joe and Aunt DeeDee’s.

Where? La Gonave, Haiti. This island sits at its closest point 12 miles from the mainland in the Gulf of Gonave and is the largest of Haiti’s islands measuring 37 miles long and 9.3 miles wide. Its population is over 100,000. We will be near the largest city on the island, Anse-a-Galets (on sa go lay), which contains about half the population of the island.

What? We will be the field directors for Starfysh (starfysh.org). They focus on education, agriculture, clean water, and provide awareness on basic nutrition, sanitation, and health. We will be overseeing these projects to ensure daily efficiency. These projects will provide the opportunity to share God’s love in a practical way and in turn present opportunities to spread God’s word. Our goal the first year is to build relationships with the locals, government officials, and other missionaries and organizations. We are trying to get a head start with this by taking basic Creole lessons this fall and intermediate this winter. We will be wrapping up the lessons by taking “Haitian Boot Camp” in June which consists of three weeks with three lessons a day of advanced Creole in Haiti while putting what we learn into practice by ministering to widows and prisoners, along with putting on a VBS.

Why? Because God calls us at different times to do different things. We are answering this call He has placed on us. He has made it clear in so many ways that this is the direction He wants us to be moving in. Our prior blog goes into more detail. Isaiah 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

How? With much preparation. Looking back we can see how God has been molding and shaping us for this next step. We volunteer as a family whether it is going on mission trips, assisting a refugee family from the Congo, serving at church, helping at Urban Family Ministries, or sponsoring children through Compassion, we unknowingly were being prepared for something more. Much time in prayer and daily Bible reflection has led us to this point. Going forward with preparation we have been reading many books, talking to missionaries who either currently are in Haiti or have been in Haiti, taking a preparation class, and learning Creole to name a few. We are currently fundraising and preparing our house to be rented.

When? Our goal is June. Of course that all depends on when we obtain our funding goal. That’s where you come in. Please prayerfully consider partnering with us as we need to move this mountain! Donations can be made at Starfysh.org (please mention: Kulfan support) or you can mail the payment to: Starfysh, 6757 Cascade Rd SE #207, Grand Rapids, MI 49546. (Please reference our name on a separate sheet of paper but do not put it on the check if you wish to make it tax deductible).

The Journey

Overseas has been appearing in our lives for several years but for a while we never knew in what capacity. Yesterday I was reminiscing about where we have come over the last few years. About eight years ago I had a tug on my heart for overseas. Haiti held a great interest but I wasn’t sure what it all meant. I started praying that if God truly meant for my family and I to pack up and move to a third world country He was going to need to make it crystal clear. If it was to serve in another capacity to also make that obvious. We had several conversations with many people, as at the time we were also trying to determine if Bruce was supposed to become a youth pastor, if we should do foster care or if we were supposed to do mission work state side. Our search slowly became narrowed as some doors closed and yet others opened.

There are many ways God spoke to us but I would like to share a few as God never ceases to amaze me. About four years ago Bruce and I had been tossing around the idea of taking the family on a mission trip. We started talking about it more when, on a Wednesday night, our small group Bible study was talking about discipling during biblical times. We went home that night and just for kicks started looking up mission agencies that allow children. As soon as we started looking at Adventures in Missions (AIM) the song, “Send Me Out” by Fee played on Pandora (we had never heard the song before). The following evening we had conferences and Bri’s teacher was talking about her personality and said “Wouldn’t it be neat if she became a missionary some day?” If she only knew what we were trying to figure out! That night we looked at other mission agencies and immediately Pandora played “Here I am” by Downhere. We ended up deciding to go with AIM but there was a hurdle. We figured if we were supposed to be going, AIM would allow an exception for Riley to go at age 5 as the minimum age was 6. They answered with a YES!  We went to Washington DC that first year and then to Chicago the following year. God and I had another conversation in Chicago. “Lord, if we are supposed to go into the mission field please let someone call me a missionary as I surely don’t feel like one (whatever that feels like J ).  The last day in Chicago a little girl came up to me and said, “Thank you missionary”. Be still my heart!

But yet the doubting Thomas I am….” Lord, surely you don’t mean overseas. Maybe you mean staying in the states and helping internationally in some capacity.” While we enjoy serving in the states there was no deep peace even with sponsoring two children through Compassion International and assisting a refugee family. “Okay Lord, maybe you want me to take a new job?”  I evaluated my strengths, passions, and overseas and came up with the assistant to the president for Women At Risk (WAR). So, I went onto Ada Bible’s job board (like that specific position would be there, sarcasm intended) and it was! Well, I guess I better apply. I went in for the interview and it required a good full 40 hours a week and on call 24/7. That door shut as the expectations were more than I would be able to meet.

As Haiti continued pressing on my heart my friend and I decided to plan a mission trip to Haiti as we had been discussing it for a few years. She ended up not being able to go so I asked Bruce if he would want to come as I really did not want to navigate O’Hare’s airport alone (I was okay with going to Haiti by myself). I was positive we were supposed to be going to Haiti so I bought the plane tickets. A month prior AIM cancelled the trip as not enough people signed up. “Well, Lord, if we are supposed to be going you will open a door.” Our Missions pastor was overseas and unreachable, Starfysh was booked until 2015, another organization was in the states fundraising and another never responded. When we reached out to Haiti Foundation Against Poverty (HFAP) I explained that my husband has a medical background and I love working with kids and we have plane tickets for this specific week. They responded, “This is totally a God thing”, they have room for us and it was their medical kids week! We were on our way. When we landed in Haiti we both felt like we had arrived home even though we had never been there before. Many people told me that I would want to take a baby home but my heart broke and all I wanted to do was make things better so the mommas and poppas could take care of their kids and not feel like they needed to set them up for adoption. Bruce could easily see how his paramedic experience could help in Haiti. During our visit it was mentioned to us that HFAP was looking for missionaries. We followed this lead and we brought the girls with us to HFAP in October. As we continued praying for guidance it became clear and as difficult as it was we needed to end this path.

On our way to church one Saturday night, I had another conversation with God. “Lord, are you SURE you want us going to Haiti?” I asked God to give me a sign. At church, friends of ours who had moved to Battle Creek, happened to be visiting. Once the service began, she reached over and handed me a check to be used for our mission work in Haiti. Got it Lord!

A mutual friend introduced us to Steve Edmondson, the president of Starfysh, as we were interested in hearing what his experiences have been in Haiti. During our conversation Steve asked Bruce and I what we do, both times his response was “I could use you”. I didn’t think much of it as we were still looking at HFAP. Once we received confirmation from God not to continue with HFAP, Steve’s comments had still stuck with me. We reached out to him to find out exactly what he meant by, “I could use you”. We discussed this at length at a local coffee shop last January. From there we continued to pray over it and ended up going to the island of La Gonave with our family in June to see the projects Starfysh are involved in and to meet the board. As the saying goes, the rest is history. Our new journey begins!