About Us

Chris:

A graduate of Western Washington University (Industrial Technology), he came to Haiti because he wanted to help people in a practical way. He started working with Clean Water for Haiti in January 2003 and the following year took over as full time director. He never thought he would find a wife that would want to stay in Haiti with him. Good thing God had other plans. He’s good at what he does, is a great husband and a fabulous dad.

Chris is the technical brain in the family. He likes to tinker with things, especially cars, and especially Volkswagens. He’s also taken to gardening since moving to Haiti and has a very active banana garden and has grown the first ever fruit producing Dragon Fruit plant in Haiti. It’s nice when hobbies can provide deliciousness.

After so many years in the country Chris has lots of stories to tell and a very different perspective than me. He’s finally started writing some of that down on the blog.

Leslie:

Being a missionary was the last thing on the “to do” list. As in never. gonna. happen. Even after graduating from Prairie Bible College missions work just wasn’t on the radar. While working as a Student Ministries pastor at Vernon Alliance Church I came to Haiti with a group of my students to work with Clean Water for Haiti for a couple of weeks.

God had other plans for me and after two years of trying to figure out what those were I moved to Haiti (Oct. 2005) “long term” which I would have said was 3-4 years. I didn’t ever think I would be a “lifer”. Chris and I got married in July of 2006 and now here we are. We’ve been described as “anything but normal” and we like that. Missionary, wife, mom. It could be worse.

I love to cook so having guests around out table is part of my ministry. I discovered I like to build things with wood too. I’ve become a knitter too, which is a nice relaxing break from life here, but not the most practical hobby considering it’s above 80 degrees here most days.

I started writing the blog in my first year, mostly as a way to write down some of the things I was experiencing. I didn’t even tell people about it for the first several months. Now we have a regular stalker base that like to let me know how long it’s been since our last post. You know who you are. I’m the main blogger in the family.

Olivia:

Olivia is our “ti syklon” as they say in Creole. We brought her home and into our family in February 2008. She was 15 days old and 5 lbs, 4 oz.  She has non-stop energy. Just watching her will wear a person out. She’s also very charming and hasn’t met a person yet that she hasn’t been able to wrap around her little finger.

She’s a great kid and we often find ourselves wondering how we got so lucky. Our adoption finalized in September of 2010. Olivia is now in grade one, losing teeth and doing math and reading things. I have NO idea where the past few years have gone!

Alex:

Alex joined our family in July of 2011. He’s a big boy and will probably pass his sister in height and weight in the next year. He learned how to climb before he learned how to walk, and now likes to put those skills to use extensively. You know, things like climbing on the car, climbing on the motorcycles, climbing on…

He’s a funny little man who has already figured out how to bat his eyelashes and use the same expressions that Daddy does to make Mommy laugh. He’s also inherited a certain amount of stubbornness that we like to call determination. We haven’t decided which one of us he gets that from. Having an older sister means he has to be okay with things like necklaces and princess crowns. He can rock both at the same time as driving a Hot Wheels car. He loves trying to do everything that us big people do, and succeeds most days. He already speaks three languages – English, Creole, and gibberish.