Cati Goes to Haiti

With the Caribbean Sea sitting between me and the rest of the world, I've sat and watched.  I've watched the pandemonium spread across countries. I've watched posts on social media become more and more frantic. I've watched news of stores running out of things like toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I've watched while some make jokes to lighten the mood and sometimes disregarding the true concerns in front of us.  I listen to those around me as they all think that the coronavirus is just a joke and laughing at the rest of the world's response.  I've watched and I've prayed and I have many things weighing on my mind.  I 100% understand, more like 1000%, being concerned about the fact that you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even months from now.  Haiti gets it.  It's been really interesting to me as I've watched the parallels between the world being concerned and sometimes ignorant abou

We like to go on dates! Sometimes life carries you quickly and sometimes it seems to drag on. Sometimes it seems to do both at the same time. I saw numerous memes about how January had 15 years or 543 days in it, and I must say, I share the sentiment. It felt like a really loooooooong month. But when you have a long month, that means much can be accomplished? Right? I've never been one who was big on New Year's Resolutions. They seem heavy and nearly impossible to meet unless you have the grit and determination that seems so fleeting. So, I didn't really make resolutions persay. I did set some goals to be accomplished at any point during the year, so as not to put so much pressure on January 1 and really, the month of January as a whole.  Sure, some of those goals I started working towards straight away and will be continued through the whole year... >> Getting into a healthy routine {working out and *trying* to eat a better diet} >> Build and refres

I’m trying something new this year and that’s picking out a word for the year. The word I feel like the Lord kept putting in my heart was the word REST. If you know much about my life in Haiti, then you know that the last year of my life has been filled with lots of UNrest. 2019 might have been the hardest year that I have ever experienced and the word REST seems more than fitting as a mindset for 2020.  This morning, Matthew 11:28 was on my mind. “Come to Me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Weary is the word I would use to describe me the majority of the last six months. Maybe you’ve been feeling that way too. This is a fairly well known verse, but the thing that struck me this morning was that all we have to do is come. JUST COME. There’s no other strings attached. So often I know that I find myself putting non-existent expectations on myself. There’s nothing that I, or you, have to do to receive the rest that God so desperately wants to share with us.

We have a running joke in the Beauplan family. Wood's brother got married in August, also adding a Madame Beauplan to the family. So my sister-in-law and I joked about how we could differentiate for people. ((I'm now always Madame Wood or Madame Beauplan.)) We decided that in order to avoid confusion that she would be Madame BEAUplan and I would be Madame BELplan. This means that now in the family we have a good plan and a beautiful plan! But enough jokes...The moment that you all have waited for is here. WEDDING PICTURES HAVE ARRIVED! We are still waiting for our wedding video, but for now I have the pictures for you. We were blessed to have a local business, WeDo_Photography take our pictures. They did a great job despite all the changes that we threw their way with our wedding that made their job extra challenging. ((If you missed out on the story of our wedding, make sure to catch it here .))  After our wedding pictures make sure to catch a little bit about our