FLOURISHING TREE BY THE LAKE

Friday, April 12, 2013

Oh my goodness. So much has happened from the last time I posted so I feel a need to update ALOT of things :-). We now have an additional member to our family. Our second son Brent joined us on 16th November, 2010. He brings so much additional joy to our lives. We have moved from Germany to Crestview, Florida which is home for now. We miss Germany and it gave us a wonderful German experience. We got to visit a lot of countries while we were there like France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxemburg and we did the whole Germany from East to West, North to South. We are grateful for the opportunity we were given and now we welcome a new adventure here in Florida. We will be here for 3 years. We love it here especially the beach. We have swam in their rivers too. Don't worry no alligators around us at least to our knowledge..:-) We went back to Fiji to visit with Family and we had a wonderful time. The boys had a blast. It was their first visit too. We hadn't been back for 4yrs so this trip was long overdue. Glad we made it. William got to play soccer for the local YMCA here in Crestview and Jacob volunteered to be their coach. It was a wonderful experience. We got to meet some lovely people. Jacob speaks fluent Arabic now. He loves it and studies it a lot. He loves foreign languages and he's very blessed to pick them up very easily. He's wanting to pick up Indonesian when he finds the time. Anyway, so here is a glimpse of what is happening now for us. I will try and update it more frequently. Until next time. Love from me.

WELCOME AND HOPE THIS PAGE FINDS YOU WELL

We are the Haines Family and are currently stationed in Rheinland Phalz Region - Ramstein Base , Germany under the United States Air Force.

Jacob and Lavenia Haines. Proud Parents of William and Brent and we have a wonderful dog, Sofi.

Jacob is originally from Kentucky, U.S.A and Lavenia is from the Fiji Islands in the Pacific Region.

William and Brent are both born here in Germany.

We have had paperworks to do. There is always a section where it asks for their nationality and we came up with "Gerijicans".( a mixture of the 3)

Ha!Ha! if only there was such word.

The name "Flourishing Tree By The Lake"!!

I had been thinking of making a blog but jst couldn't find a name to define who we were.During our afternoon walks,i would ask Jacob if he had a special name to describe our Family.He came up with an "Adventurous Family" since we are always out doing something as a family..I stood still and said,Honey..that's too general.He replied well that's what i got babe.So that night i stayed up late reading a book called Daily Inspiration by Rick Wareen.What struck me was a picture of a tree on the coverpage.And boom that name just came into my head,"Flourishing Tree By the Lake".I thought of it and it sure was a perfect name.Living lives is just like a tree,when we take good care of it..it blooms out and flourishes but if we don't ,it withers and dies away.Sometimes we fall but that shouldn't be a barrier..stand up, pull yourself together and move forward knowing that you are stronger than that obstacle that you had just faced.Are we perfect,No...because we are just human beings.Do we have the courage and capability to try...Yes.We have come a long way..still striving,still flourishing and will always continue to flourish no matter what the circumstances may be.We remember vivdly when we used to struggle,living paycheck to paycheck..life was hard but it made us appreciate life more which helped improve us to become better people.We had so much faith (still do) in ourselves,in each other and most importantly in God that nothing is impossible.