Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Welcome


Greetings in the name of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

We have set up this new blog as a means to keep friends, family and supporters up-to-date on the day-to-day activities of our ministry. For those of you who are not familiar, we, the Manasseros, are a missionary family who operate (by the grace of God) an orphanage for street kids, and homeless and at-risk children in Port Au Prince, Haiti. We have been in Haiti since 2004.

My family consists of Susette, my beautiful wife, who recently had cancer and is in remission. We were in the States for the last 9 months where she received treatment for Hodgskins Lymphoma. It was a trying time but the Lord used that season to draw us closed to Him, bring our family together and to experience His faithfulness and healing power. Praise the Lord for He is good!

Also, living here is my 16 year old daughter Ariana. You see, she is the reason we came to Haiti in the first place. When she was 9 years old, she felt a calling from God to come to Haiti to build an orphanage, school, church and hospital. Little did we know that her call applied not only to her but to her entire family.

Vienna is our 13 year old daughter. Vienna, like Ari, loves Haiti and is already fluent in the native language (Creole). She attends Quesqueya Christian School (QCS) and is doing very well. Prior to that, she was home schooled. Some of her favorite things to do is to explore Haiti, visit Jacmel, hang out with her friends and read.

Elijah is 8 years old and has lived in Haiti most of his life. He considers himself Haitian. He loves Haiti and also speaks Creole very well. He enjoys school and his best friend is Parker Lynch. Some of his favorite things include playing soccer, basketball, GameCube and reading his Bible.

Francesa is also 8 years old and attending QCS. She also loves school and has made many new friends. We are adopting Frankie and are praying that we can finalize our adoption before the end of 2009. She has been with us for three years. Frankie loves hanging out at our girls home, and especially playing with her best friend Katrina.

Kenson is 5 or 6 years old (we have conflicting birth certificates) but will eventually arrive at an accurate date. We are also adopting Kenson who has been with us over 2 years. He's our little comedian and always keeps us and our many visitors laughing. He loves playing with his best friend Ti-Bo and hanging out with his big brother Elijah.

i'm Bill Manassero, affectionately known as "mesta beel" (lol) by the local Haitians. Although i'm starting this blog, Susette and my kids will all be writing and contributing from time to time. It will be our little way of sharing this incredible adventure and our hearts with those of you who are interested.

God bless you.