Hi!
 These last 2 weeks have just flown by!!! We have had some internet problems so I have not been able to update! Sorry! We have been keeping busy, learning new rules and structures set in place these last 3 months!! Gretchen has been doing a great job with the children, and it has been so much fun working with her. It will be hard to see her go. I know she will have a hard time leaving, as she loves the children at Grace Village. Please pray for here as she goes back home and adjusts back to America!!!

We have been making new contacts with other ministries and orphanages nearby, which has been good! We are all here to support and encourage each other, and meeting new friends nearby has been fun. We visited Mission of Hopes other 2 facilities about 20 minutes away. It is exciting to see what others are doing to further the kingdom.

Our little Joseph has been doing so well in adjusting here at Grace Village!! He loves going to school, and playing on the swings. Andy has stayed close to him, helping him with dressing, bathing and getting to meals on time. Seeing him raise his little hands in worship for the first time brought us all smiles!

We are have the worship team here this week and tomorrow they will baptize 37 young children. What a exciting day that will be!!!

We have a new girl interpreter here at Grace Village! She will be a great help to us when Fan Fan is away at school!! Of course we will also use her to help us in learning Creole!!!

I pray you all have a wonderful blessed week!!!

Mickey and Jewel

Back in Haiti!

We are back home again in Grace Village!!!

These last 2 ½ months of preparation with packing up our apartment, giving notice to our jobs, raising monthly support, and the hardest saying good-bye to family and friends came to an end on Wednesday!

We are so excited for this new journey and chapter in our lives here in Haiti!!

When we arrived in Haiti on Thursday we drove right out to Grace Village!!! What an exciting and joyous time it was to have all the children run out screaming and then hugging us!!! We sure missed them!!! We settled in unpacking, and just resting a little as we were really tired!!

We met Gretchen, who has been here these last 2 ½ months! What a sweet and hard working woman she has been!!! She has done a great job in enforcing rules, and discipline!! ( and a lot more) To hear her speak Creole is amazing in such a short amount of time!!!

We will all work together these next 10 days to keep things flowing smoothly. She will then fly home and Jewel and I will be here to continue to oversee Grace Village!!

Please pray for us that Creole will come easy like it seemed to have for Gretchen!!

Today we brought a new little boy to Grace Village! His name is Joseph and he is 5 years old. ( He looks about 3) Both of his parents have died, and he was living with his Grandparents. It was so apparent he was not eating daily meals. So when we fed him, he ate more food than I have ever seen a little 5 year old eat!!! They will eat lots of food at first until he realizes he will always be eating 3 meals a day!!! Is that not so sad!! It is so easy to take for granted our daily food, our electricity, our water, our instant internet, our transportation, our schools, restaurants, the list goes on and on!! God has blessed us and for that we should be to grateful and thankful!!! But the majority of the world and Haiti does not live the way we do in the states!!! We are so close in distance to the states but yet so very far apart in our daily conveniences.

Love to all of you at home! Mickey and Jewel

If God puts it on your heart...

If God puts on your heart the desire to sponsor Jewel and I in a one-time donation or a monthly commitment, you can write out a check to:

Healing Haiti

P.O. Box 265

Champlin, MN 55316

Write Michelle Soderlund/Jewel Hernandez in the Memo Line on your check.

Thank you!

Preparing for a year in Haiti

Whew! We are so busy packing up our apartment!  I'm sure you all have had to move, so the sorting through everything, deciding what can go, what to keep, what to give away, is familiar to you all. But we  also have the drastic climate change from Minnesota to Haiti to think about, won't need those winter coats and boots for a long time! It's just cool clothes and sandals for us.

We will be leaving Minnesota on April 12th to return to Grace Village.  We are excited to see all the children at the orphange, we have missed them terribly since leaving at the beginning of February.

God has been faithful to provide the majority of our monthly support needs and a group of friends here in Minnesota to make sure we have all the things we can't purchase in Haiti.  We hope to blog as often as possible and hope you will follow the blog.  Days start early and end late and internet connections are spoty.

Please keep Jewel, the children and myself in your prayers.