May the Lord bless, keep you, and make his face shine upon each and every one of you, throughout this new year.

I want to thank all of our HATS family and friends for all your help and support during the past year.  Some of you I have not yet had the privilege of meeting, other than by email, or I have seen your names on our donors list.  I do know about you and more importantly God knows your heart and your kindness towards the Haitian people through this mission.  THANK YOU.

Being able to celebrate Christmas together with my two daughters, and my seven grandchildren from Canada, here with my Haitian children, was a tremendous blessing this year.  Seeing Dana, Jared, Ronel and Alexa leave for Canada on December 27th was difficult .  Then yesterday seeing Liette, Mariah, Josiah, Ariane and Tevan off at the airport was again difficult.  I am missing them all but thanking God for the time we had together.  While here Dana and Liette were a tremendous help to me.  Sooooo thankful!!!  Our children were thrilled to have them here too.  A lot of fun and laughter was had by all.  The bonding continues to strengthen between my Canadian and my Haitian family members.

Dana and Liette, as well as doing lots of office and computer work, were goat herders, chicken chasers, and photographers for many who received goats and chickens from you.  Liette will soon be posting photos for you the donors to send to your family and friends.  She just arrived back in Calgary late last night so we need to give her a little time to be able to get this done. The people who came to the mission and picked them up were extremely thankful.  I pass this thankfulness on to you who sent in the funds to bless the people here.  My girls did lots besides office/computer work, goats and chickens work.

Dana really knew how to take care of chickens

tying, retying, lengthening the strings on the chickens

JJ helping Liette with the chickens that tried to escape

They prepared and distributed, with the help of their children, approx 200 gifts for people who attended our Christmas service on Sunday 22nd.  Liette did the message on Sunday, 22nd and again on 29th which was a blessed break for me.

Our Christmas service Dec 22nd

Liette sharing a message with us at our Christmas service

On 26th we had a fun time of mummering here on the compound.  It did not take long for the children to relax and jump into it with us.  I don’t think the two house mothers on duty were quite sure about it.  Jonathan kept his distance – standing close to or behind the housemothers.  My four older children are already looking forward to next Christmas.  They have asked to be allowed to dress up with Mama Karen and be the first ones mummering instead of joining in later on
as they did this year.

Mummering at HATS

My girls have left and now I am looking forward to Keith returning to help.  He is always a huge help in many areas.  Every day something that needs doing/repaired (but is not an emergency) is reported to me.  I always respond “Keith is coming soon.  It needs to wait for Keith. ”   Our blog followers know that Keith is also an excellent blogger, and while he is here I like for him to do it.

Too, this month we will be blessed with David, Brooks, and others from the Texas group returning again.  It is always good to have that part of our HATS family with us.  While here no doubt they will do blogging to keep you informed about their time here.

The last time we saw Vladimy at the hospital in PAP we saw improvements.  It was obvious to both Luckner and I that he had been eating well as he had put on some needed weight.  We hope to be able to see him again next week.  Thank you for continuing to pray for Vladimy.

Thank you again one and all for all the support for the past year.  May we all pull together again this next year to help and to bless even more children who are in need.

I T    I S     A L L     A B O U T    T H E     C H I L D R E N

~Karen for all of us at HATS