And then there were four.

At the time of our last post, we had only one baby living with us in our temporary apartment.  A lot has happened since then!

We moved into the Hope House.

This was taken on our porch about a week before we moved in.

Kitchen/Dining Area

Main bathroom

Main bathroom - changing station

Master suite

Master suite - room for entertaining and relaxing

Our next two boys moved in with us at the beginning of October.

Our fourth boy moved in with us last week.

Baby M tripled in weight and somehow got even cuter.

5 weeks old

Almost four months old

Taking advantage of these bubble baths before he outgrows the sink  :)

As a followup to our last post, we have not yet found all of Baby M's sponsors.  You can read our last post for more details about how to sign up.


And finally... this guy turned 30!  Check him out with his only birthday present he was given on his big day.  Our neighbor rode her moto over to our house the night of his birthday, came inside and said she had a present, and pulled this out.

Introducing Baby M

We have been in Haiti just over a month now.  I could use this time to update you on the construction of our house and tell you stories of how we are learning to do life here in Haiti, but I would rather focus on something more important:  our first foster baby.

I will keep this short and sweet, but I would like to introduce Baby M.  Roni and I learned of Baby M the night of July 28, and we went to the hospital to bring him home on July 29.  We both knew we were bringing home a baby boy, but I was surprised when a staff member helped me pick out clothes and diapers that were for preemies.  In my mind, I was picturing a baby close to 8-10 months.  I guess we didn’t ask any questions—we just said “yes, we’re ready.”  We had three weeks to settle in, and we were ready to start what we came here to do.

 

We have quickly fallen in love with this little guy.  He really is a great baby, and we think he is pretty cute!  He has become a great eater and gained a full pound in the first week we’ve lived with him. 

As you can imagine, he is using a lot of formula and diapers.  Finding 12 sponsors at $35/month will fully cover his expenses to live here with us.  We have already found one sponsor, so we only need 11 more.  Can you be one of Baby M’s 12?

To sign up for child sponsorship for Baby M or any child at COTP, click HERE.

We hope to post pictures of the Hope House soon.  In the meantime, please pray that Baby M continues to adjust well, remain healthy, and gain weight.

Children of the Promise has given explicit permission for the posting of photos on this site.  Photos taken of children in the care of Children of the Promise are not to be posted publicly without explicit permission given by Children of the Promise.

I apologize for letting two months pass without another blog post.  People have been asking us if we were going to send out an update, but I don’t think either of us have had the energy or motivation to do it.  Please bear with us during this crazy time of transition.

May 22 was my last day of work.  This was a hard day because I had to walk away from a job that I loved and the best coworkers anyone could ask for.  This day was most difficult because late that night we got a phone call with news that my brother, Mike, had died.  We had a lot of tough goodbyes, but saying goodbye to Mike was by far the toughest.  This is the main reason we got backed up on thank you cards/emails, blog writing, and well—everything else.  Even though we postponed our move to Haiti by a couple weeks, we still left a lot of loose ends.  If we didn’t get to say goodbye to you, it wasn’t because we didn’t want to see you, but life got pretty hard for those weeks leading up to our move.  We were dealing with the loss of a brother on top of leaving jobs, saying goodbye to friends, leaving our home of six years, saying goodbye to our church family, shopping, packing, fitting our entire lives into one vehicle, traveling, saying goodbye to family, selecting new health insurance, getting vaccinations, buying medication, and all the other time consuming tasks that go along with moving to a third world country.  Grief is hard.  Moving to another country is hard.  Experiencing both of these at the same time is really, really hard!

Despite the really hard stuff, we had a great sendoff for our move.  Old friends and new friends in Nashville made sure our bellies were so full of good food and drinks and that we got plenty of encouragement during our last two weeks there.  Leaving Nashville was much harder than we ever could imagine.

We then spent two weeks in Pennsylvania trying our best to relax but also see family and friends.  Despite the loss of a brother, my side of the family still gathered as planned to make a week of memories together.  It was very healing for us to all be together, but it certainly made it much more difficult to say goodbye.  I think we ran out of tears by the end of our month-long goodbyes.

We had one last night of fun spent in Pittsburgh with family and friends and ate everything we wanted to.  I was having a high anxiety moment just before we got to the airport, and my brother, Chris, comforted me by saying I could just back out and he could turn around and go home.  These were the same comforting words he gave me as the music began playing at our wedding.  :)  Obviously I do not always take his advice.

We have been in Haiti for a full week now, and we have lots to share.  Stay tuned for another update soon.  If you are praying with us, please continue to pray for energy and peace as we are transitioning and grieving on many levels.

-- Steph

One Month

Hello Internet World,

Once again, we have neglected our blog.  Life has been very crazy for us lately as we are working as hard as we can and tying up loose ends before our move.  I feel like we had our first real weekend in a long time this week, and it was AMAZING to relax a bit.  We have been busy shopping, purging items we don't need, trying to see friends and family, working long hours, learning Creole, attending an attachment training and orphan care conference (awesome stuff!), meeting with and presenting at churches, fundraising, running a marathon (Roni), and just every day stuff.  Whew!  As a side note, I love to cook, but I don't think I've ever eaten so many meals at restaurants or from the freezer as I have in the last month.  :)

A friend from church asked us when we were headed out of Nashville this morning, and we told her June 10th.  She then proceeded to point out that we have exactly ONE MONTH left in Nashville.  We totally did not realize this, and it sounds so crazy to think about!  We are excited, nervous, scared, happy, sad, and probably lots of other things as well.  We will be leaving our jobs by the end of May, which will leave time for a mini vacation (two nights in a nearby city), packing, and seeing the friends and family we have lived with for the past five and a half years.

We have had so much encouragement along with some discouragement in the past couple of months.  Many of you have asked what we are still in need of right now.  Before I go into that, let me just take the time to say THANK YOU to all who continue to pray with us and have supported us in forms of verbal encouragement, financial support, pledging money towards Roni's Run for the Hope House, and helping us fill up a moving truck with baby supplies and household goods.

We can not do any of this without the support of others.  We are pretty far off from being fully funded for our first year.  We had a goal of 30 boxes of diapers, and we greatly exceeded this goal along with so many more supplies (gift cards, crib sheets, pack and plays, books, toys, kitchen supplies, etc.).  We then asked our supporters to help us raise $2,620 as Roni ran a marathon to raise funds for the building of our home.  We exceeded this goal with your help, raising $3,700.

Now we are asking for one clear thing in these final four weeks:  Can you help us reach our goal of 20 monthly supporters before we move?  Right now, we have seven supporters who have committed to giving on a monthly basis, ranging in amounts of $25 to $300 per month.  We do not have any specific expectations for dollar amounts, so if you can only give $10/month, or if you can give $1000/month, we will be blessed by your support.  Most donations for the marathon were $26.20, and added together, they totaled $3,700, which is a big number.  However, many of those donations were one-time, which will not carry us through our service in Haiti.  We need consistent partners who will continually remind us that people believe in the mission we are a part of.  Will you please prayerfully consider being a monthly supporter?  We will be happy to share specific numbers with you and would love to have a conversation with you in person or over the phone.  To give, you can click the tab above called "How can you help?"  Please be sure to put "Bhullars" in the designation box so funds are appropriately tracked.  Email us anytime with questions at the address listed in the "Contact Info" tab.

Steph and Roni

Minnesota Trip

We have really slacked on updated our blog, and I apologize.  Life has really been busy lately.  We have both been working quite a bit, and we also traveled to Minnesota to meet some important people with COTP and do some orientation over my spring break.  We were also able to bring a moving truck of baby supplies and household items so that they can be put on the shipping container soon.  To all of you who purchased items off our wish list, donated baby supplies, gave us cash to buy household items, or sent us gift cards, THANK YOU!!!  You all are so awesome and so generous.  It was so much fun to get items from family and close friends, friends we haven't talked to for a while, and people who don't even know us.

The two weeks leading up to Minnesota were rough.  We were worried about who to ask and how to ask for items for the supply drive.  We were also worried we didn't have enough time to get things donated. Mix this in with long hours at work and financial stress, and it is not a good combination.  Add to it all the emotions of moving to a foreign land and not knowing quite what to expect.  And then throw in the not so comforting thought of not having a store to buy things in Haiti, which leads to all kinds of lists and hours of browsing on Amazon, trying to think of everything we possibly can.  Seriously, we even ordered a laundry drying rack, which will hopefully get used a lot.  We kept justifying items by saying that our future selves would thank us.

In good Bhullar fashion, we woke up at 2:15 am to pack the morning of departure.  Thankfully, most items had been loaded onto the moving truek earlier that day, thanks to two of our good pals.  We were on the road by 4:30 am.  It took us eighteen hours, but the drive was beautiful most of the way.

We had no idea what to expect in Minnesota, and the orientation went exceptionally well.  We came back reassured that we will be working for the right organization in the right roles.  I'm not sure we were ever treated so well as guests.  We got to visit with the current stateside director and his family, the founders, a board member, the finance staff, former COTP missionaries, a new COTP missionary, seasoned missionaries from Africa, adoptive families, supporters, and so many more really great people.  I'm sorry to say that we didn't even take one picture in Minnesota.  We really tried not to use our phones much when we were there, so having no pictures is just a side effect of that.

Thanks again to all of you who made all our worrying seem like a waste of time.  You have already blessed all of us who will live in our home in Haiti soon.

Why am I moving to Haiti?

When someone hears we are moving to Haiti, one thing we are often asked is why we are going.  I think I usually keep my answer very vague and say something like “we are going to be house parents for orphaned and abandoned children with an organization called Children of the Promise.”  Yes, this is what we will be doing, and it is why we are moving to Haiti, but I think the real answer to the question is much deeper than this for me.

As a kid, I can remember feeling sad about children who didn’t have parents or a place to live.  I can remember feeling sad about the other kids my age who rode my bus and couldn’t afford warm socks or properly fitting jackets and pants when it was cold outside.  I can also remember feeling sad when I saw commercials on TV that showed the faces of hungry orphans in third world (majority world) nations.  I think a lot of us, as kids or adults, feel saddened by these things when we are exposed to them.  Usually we get over our sadness when we do something as simple as change the channel on TV.  It is easier to go on about life when we are not feeling sad.

I was able to redirect my thoughts of sadness pretty well until one particular trip to Haiti in 2010.  It was my second trip to Haiti and my first trip with Roni.  A few days into the trip, our short term missions team helped to fund and prepare a hot meal for a prison out in the country.  If you know anything about Haitian prisons, you know that this was extremely emotional and eye opening to experience firsthand.  But I was able to compartmentalize and handled it pretty well.

Then I walked through the prison courtyard and across the street to the place where the other half of our team was.  The place is called an “azil,” meaning “haven.”  I can tell you it is not what I picture at all when I hear the word “haven.”  The way I would describe it is a filthy cement structure where the elderly go when no one is able to care for them.  It is kind of like a nursing home, but it lacks basic essentials such as food, clean water, and mattresses most of the time.  Our team was there to visit with the people who were currently living there and provide them with a hot meal.  We had a short devotional and sang some worship songs with them in their language.  Some members of the team even helped to bathe the residents who could not bathe themselves.  The Haitian teenagers who volunteered

with us helped to give haircuts.

I did okay emotionally until I saw the kids.  They were dirty, skinny, and smelled like they had not bathed in weeks.  Some of them didn't have clothes of their own and were wearing oversized men's buttoned shirts.  I kept wondering what their stories were and what would cause them to live in such a horrid place with no one to keep them safe.  I was able to play with them and give them some toys, but things changed when it was meal time.  The folks living at the azil told us they hadn’t eaten in days and were extremely hungry.  This was made clear when Tabitha, the Haitian woman who headed up the cooking, had to raise her voice to keep people away from the table until all the food was dished out.  We again saw how hungry the people were when we watched an elderly man smack one of the children with his cane for trying to get food before him.  This was also made clear when a little boy filled his shirt with uncooked rice that had spilled on the floor for a later time and when one kid was so thirsty she drank out of a bowl that a dog from the street had been lapping juice out of.  I was very observant and finally stepped outside to have a few minutes to cry.  For those of you who know me, you know I am not a big crier, at least not in front of others in public places.

                         

I never saw kids who were in such a desperate position before.  Sure, I saw them on TV, but I could erase any feeling of sadness by simply changing the channel or choosing to think of something else.  In Haiti, I had no choice but to sit there with my feelings and experience the reality of their situation.  This has gnawed at me since that trip, and I can’t go on choosing to do nothing to help the children who go to bed hungry or have no one to comfort them when they are scared.  God has opened my eyes and gave me the choice to ignore my feelings and go on about my own life or to act on them.  I am blessed with the health and flexibility to move to Haiti, so I am choosing to answer this call and play a very small part in helping to care for orphans.

     





















I do not think everyone should sell what they own and move to another country, but I am asking all of you to simply keep your eyes opened to the brokenness of our world instead of choosing to change the channel or push those feelings aside so that life is easier and happier without extra burdens.  We are supposed to carry each other's burdens.  Everyone can do something to help someone, whether it be in your own neighborhood or in Haiti.  God will reveal these people to you as long as you are willing to see and feel their brokenness.

-- Steph

I have visited this particular azil several times, but this visit was particularly special because it was with my mom and sister, Alex, in 2013.

Seeming Real

Now that it is 2015, we can officially say we are moving to Haiti THIS YEAR.  It is seeming more and more real with each week that passes.  Some of you have been wondering what we are currently doing to prepare for the move.  Here are a few things we can share:

1.  We are heavy in the fundraising process.  We would love to come speak with your church or have coffee with anyone in the Nashville area who wants to know more about COTP and our role as house parents.  We are seeking to raise $62,000 per year.  We know this is a lofty goal, but we also know God will help us in the process.

2.  We hope to take "Creole 102," an eight-week course offered at a local church, this spring.  It is taught by Haitians, and we really enjoyed the first course we took last year.  I know our language skills will not take off until we get to Haiti, but we can do our best to learn a little bit of the basics before then.

3.  We made our first two "Haiti purchases."  We got razor blades for a year, as well as some moisture wicking clothing to help with the heat.  I also got a dress, and those who know me well know that this is a rare purchase.  We are trying to purchase personal items slowly so that it is not such a big hit right before we move.  We will likely be making an Amazon wish list soon with personal items, as we have had some of you very kind folks ask what we currently need.

Please continue to pray with us and encourage us as we prepare for the move over these next six months.  We have been so blown away by the encouragement and generosity from friends, family, and even strangers.  You do not know how much it means to us just to be asked a question about Haiti and why we are going.