Haitian Cooking Lesson

We have officially been in Haiti for 3 months and 3 days!  Trey & I along with the other missionaries here at BHM eat dinner together every night.  Each night we eat fresh bread!  This bread is made by one of our sweet cooks, Nadine.  Since we have arrived I have wanted to learn to make this homemade bread.  For the past few weeks I have done quite a bit of "desk" work collecting stories for our BHM newsletter.  I passed Nadine this morning and asked her if she would be making bread today and she said yes at 2:00 p.m.  The plan was made and I was so excited.

It was a lot of fun working with her and I think she really enjoyed getting to teach me.  She only speaks Creole so it was a great hands-on Creole lesson for me as well.  I brought a book with a Creole dictionary in the back for some added assistance.  As she made the dough she would explain each step to me and wait for me to write it down.  I would write the explanation in English first and then write it in Creole to make sure I got it correct.

At different steps in the baking process we would have to wait for the bread to "monte" rise.  I learned a lot about Nadine today, I have had brief conversations with her here and there but it was nice to spend some time together this afternoon.  Nadine is 42, she is a single mom of three girls, 19, 16, and 15.  She loves the Lord and is truly a joy to be around.  We talked about a variety of things this afternoon.  She told me how much she loved Jesus and that He was everything to her!

We discussed wearing skirts "jip." We talked about her daughters.  She asked me all about my parents and family.  We exchanged smiles and laughter and struggled through sentences at times.  It was definitely an enjoyable afternoon.  I told her I would be making bread soon and I would let her know how it goes!  Today Nadine was my Creole teacher, Baking instructor, and girlfriend.  Say a prayer for Nadine today and the other precious single mom's of Haiti who are working oh so hard for their families each day.