It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone. It's harder still to realize that I've been back from Namibia for that long. It seems like yesterday I was in that unique country, surrounded by so many people I easily grew to love. I hope 2012 will provide an opportunity to return there for a visit. But first, I have another stop to make on my journey...

I leave for Haiti tomorrow. This will be my third trip since I first went down in August. You can read more details what I'll be doing in my previous entry from December. The short of it, I'll be managing the God's Planet guest house outside of Croix des Bouquets, about 10 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince. Currently, there are six groups of volunteers signed up to come down, with more possible after that. I will be managing the logistics to care for these teams, helping organize transportation, doing the grocery shopping, assisting the cook with meals, and so forth. I'm excited for this new challenge and looking forward to reuniting with friends in Haiti and making many new ones throughout the coming weeks.

I wanted to close with a sweet story. There is a man at my church named Lloyd Baker. He and his wife Eva are two of the nicest people you will ever meet. Before I left for Africa, he was making birdhouses and selling them for $5 each to raise money..."So you can eat over there," he would say. People later told me that after I left he would corner everyone at church to buy one. Some people ended up with several. Others joked that they began going in another entrance to avoid his fabulous sales pitch. All in all, he probably sent me over $250 just from selling those birdhouses alone! Yesterday at church, he told me he had a Christmas, birthday, and New Year's present for me. He handed me a gift bag and inside was a Jif peanut butter jar filled with bills and coins. He had asked me weeks before if I could use pennies, and I said that I can use anything anyone wanted to give. So as he gave me the jar he beamed, "You said you could use pennies!" He said he had found many of the coins in dryers he cleaned out and had been saving up the bills from different small jobs he had done. The total: $129.42! Mr. Baker is 85 years old, and such a constant blessing to my life. :)