One Year Post-Quake

One year has come and gone since the devastating earthquake of January 12, 2010.  Today was a day of remembrance throughout the country.  I don't want to remember the days after the quake but I do want to remember the hundreds of thousands of people that lost family and friends.  It is a sad situation to see how little progress has taken place in the rebuilding process.  Hundreds of thousands of people...yes people...not just Haitians...not just 'refugees'...not just poverty stricken masses...they are people...with hearts, and needs, and emotions, and psychological scars, and fears, and dreams, and heart aches...and they are living in tents made of year old tarps and they are waiting for the government to come to their aid...the Haitian government.  Sit and think for a minute that your only source of hope is for one of the most incompetent and corrupt governments in the world to come to meet your most basic of needs.  So that is where we come in.  We have the chance to offer them true hope.  Hope in eternity as well as hope for today and tomorrow.  The crazy thing for us now is that because of this past year many of these 'people' have become friends of our family.  We have seen babies born in the refugee camps and others die.  We don't know what the next year holds but we pray we can see deliverance from bondage for many of the people that we know.  We have the chance to give mommies hope that their baby will be able to get medicine when they are sick.  We are able to give hard working fisherman hope that they will be able to send their kids to school so that they can have a better opportunity for providing for their families.  We are able to help elderly women see to sort their own beans again for the first time in years.  We are able to help hundreds of kids believe that someone actually sees them.  And we are able to help dying souls believe that once it is time for them to "cross over" they can actually enter into eternity with peace by having a relationship with the one true God.

It has not been an easy year since the quake for anyone but we are grateful for the progress God has given us in the ministry of many lives here.  We believe we were here for a reason and that God has a plan for us bigger than ourselves.  Thanks to all of you back home who make it possible for us to keep on course here.  Thanks for your prayers and your on going support.

(I have to link you to a blog for a friend that visited last week.  He is the running back for Texas Tech and came down to work here the day after their Cotton Bowl game.  He is an amazing photographer and took some pictures that are just awesome and he is helping with our child sponsorship program. He also took the picture at the beginning of this blog.  Here is the link to his blog.  Thanks so much Baron Batch!)

www.baronbatch.blogspot.com

Beyond 2010

What a year 2010 turned out to be for our family.  I can't believe it has been almost a year since the January 12th earthquake.  It seems like just yesterday when I think of the experiences of the weeks following the disaster but yet in a way it seems like years have passed.  It seems strange that everything we have seen happen here has all taken place in just one year.  It was a year that we got to really see people at their darkest moments and most desperate.  But at the same time I feel that I personally grew more in 2010 than in any other year of my life.  I have learned so much about myself and about the things in life that really matter.  I don't have time to share all of those lessons here and much of it is too personal to publish.  I know that the things I have learned are just part of God continueing to prepare us to be used to meet people's needs as we invest ourselves in others.

Here's a breif update of what's been going on lately:

 "I'll NEVER go to Haiti...I can tell you that right now"- Logan commented through tear filled eyes days before we moved here in 2009.  He felt he was losing his mom and his family.  He did not see how it could be part of a 'good' plan from God.  In December he made his first trip back since he was here the day of the earthquake.  He spent 3 weeks helping with projects and getting to know his little Haitian sister Justice.  It was a sweet time and a gift to Joy through the holidays.

Cool Hand Luke-  "What we have here...is a failure...to communicate..."  I love that movie...and Luke has proven that is not a problem for him.  He is already learning the language well and loves helping the guys in the fishing ministry and working at the mission.  He is home schooling with Jacy Klaire and doing well.  He is truly a missionary in every sense of the word.

 Escaline - or Callie as we call her- lost her mom to an infection 2 months after her birth.  She was left with a father along with 7 other children. The father was unable to care for her and brought her down the mountain for us to take.  She is doing great and is one of the sweetest little angels you have ever seen.

 For Christmas we took the family and our guys to Saut d'eau falls.  A sacred site to catholics and voodooists.  It is a huge cascading water fall that makes you forget you are in the desolate country of Haiti.  Here you see Luke and Wesner at the foot of one of the falls.

 Street services with our bus have become one of our primary ways of interacting with the community.  We pull the bus up to a spot beside the road and hang a sheet of plywood on the back rack.  We open the handicap ramp and roll out 2- 400 watt speakers and set up a projector and show videos and worship songs and have services.  This picture is of us showing the Jesus Film in Creole at a refugee camp of people displaced from the quake.  It was a fun time with a team from Joy's home town of Maiden, NC.  Thanks pastor Jonathan for all the help you guys were to us. 

 We have been working at The Mission to make a parking lot.  Here is Luke and the guys spreading gravel.

 Fidelo showed up at the mission in very serious condition.  He had gone to a hospital 8 days earlier with an eye infection but the hospital just gave him a drop and sent him away.  By the time he came to us he could not talk or see and could barely stand up.  He had a very high fever with neurological symptoms.  And as you see a more than slightly swollen right eye.  I took him immediately to a little mission hospital where we could start I.V. antibiotics.   After a couple of days the neurological symptoms began to subside and his fever was down.  This picture is after a week.  The eye is still an issue but we were able to save his life.

 Michelet is one of our fisherman and Dedette helps us in processessing the fish.  Their mom is very sick and near death so Joy and I were going to visit her with a group visiting from Operation Hope out of Lubbock, TX.  As we were going through the village by the river, Joy came upon a naked baby covered in sores and flies and gnats.  Open wounds and scabies covered most of her body.  The mother was near by but she was not in much better condition and could not open her eyes due to a horrible eye infection.  Joy picked up the baby and took her to the mission to clean and medicate her.  We also took the mother to the eye clinic and started her on medication as well.  As we were returning, the mother begged us to take the baby and let her live with us.  We tried to tell the mom we could not take it and so we returned them home.  In the trip back home as I talked to the mom, I learned she was not mentally able to understand.  We found family members and discovered the girl was first pregnant at 13 and this is her third child and she is 18 years old.  She is not mentally competant and does not know who the father is for 2 of the children.  No family is able to take the children in so they live in a shack on the dirt floor with a mother that is mentally unable to care for them.  After having the entire family and practically everyone in the village tell us that the mother truly can't care for them and wants to give them up, we took little Jefnica and her 4 year old sister Gatina to live at the mission.  That was just 3 days ago and they are doing great.  I went to visit the mom today and her family and they are so thankful for us being able to help them.  If we ever move back to the states, someone needs to give Joy an honorary social workers license.  She spends much of her day in that role!

 The day we discharged Fidelo from the hospital we were going to visit some women in a village that had tried to get us to take their 4 children.  We wanted to see how they were living and if the mothers were able to care for the babies if we helped them with food and supplies.  As we drove up we saw that an accident had occured.  A far too frequent event since the new road has been finished.  As we were parking the bus we saw one of the girls we were going to visit running up the road with a pillow.  She ran to me and told me that her mom had just been ran over.  We rushed to the scene and found the mother conscious but with injuries to her head and lower body.  We loaded her into the bus and took her to the mission hospital.  We assisted in getting her calf sown up and her other injuries 'briefly' checked and then took her to The Mission to take care of her for a few days.  She is doing better now and the picture above is from Tuesday this week when we took her back to her house.  We also decided not to take the babies fom that village but we are going to help teach the girls to be mothers and care for their babies without having more.

 Kitleen went into hidding after she refused to give her babies to the man that had tried to bribe her.  We originally heard she had given in and let him have them.  Later we discovered she could not do it at the last minute but was afraid of what he might do.  Her twins were Joy's first babies that Joy helped to rescue.  Today I went to visit them in their new house.  The little boy is still struggling.  He is 14 months old and still has no teeth, can't sit or talk, and weighs barely 10 pounds.  We are going to start him on a program available for malnourished children and see if we can't get him on track.  The mom is pregnant again and lives with her 18 year old sister who has a 3 month old baby too. 

Whenever I get to feeling like things are overwhelming or too tough God sends me a reminder that things could be worse.  We came by after this bus ran off of the road in a bad place on the way from St. Marc.  God is always there and we are grateful to be used to touch so many lives.  It seems lately that God is just putting us in the right place at the right time to be a tool to rescue people from dire situations.  We are grateful.  Although we have seen some lost, we rejoice for the ones we get to have a part in their deliverance.  We look forward to 2011.  Earthquakes, colera, riots, hurricanes, and dead friends were not on our radar as we entered 2010.  But neither were-

Kristi and Krista- Colleen's twins that Joy found dying of malnutrition

Kitreen's Twins that Joy also rescued

Niaca and Kimberly- sisters we found in a tent village and now live in the mission

Jean Moi- orphan living on the beach

Jean Patrick- orphan who's parents were murdered

Justice- our baby we are adopting that was abandoned at 3 weeks

Kobe- handicapped teenage orphan that was a street kid

Adelson- street kid orphan

Wilna- nearly blind orphan that had never been to school and now is top of her class

Kevin- Cerebral palsey 3 year old orphan that was going to be thrown into the sea

Michelet- handicapped 3 year old orphan with megalocephally that is finally being taught to sit up and speak

Jefnica and Gatina- sisters found in the fishing village

Callie- 2 month old baby from the mountains whose mother died of complications from birth

All of the ones we have been able to help with dire medical needs

The fisherman in our group that now have an income and are changing the economic landscape of Montrouis

The one's like Nabal, and Charles, and Louis, and Mireille that have accepted Christ and received the hope He offers.

You see the circumstances were only used to teach us that the only things that really matter are people.  Our highlights from 2010 are the people that we got to invest our lives into.  In return, they have enriched our lives in ways we never would have dreamed.  God has shown us that people are our inheritance in the promised land and we are grateful for such revelation. 

A Good Plan

Logan- our oldest- got to town yesterday.  After the rigors of getting him here and fighting customs to get our some boxes through- which didn't happen- I had a rare day of rest planned. We were going to spend today with Logan and the kids.  I thought maybe we could load up the car and take a picnic on an abandoned beach about 15 minutes down the road.  What a fun time...

I got a call early to say that Daphne, the sweet 20 year old that was blinded from diabetes, (click here to read about her)  had gotten sicker through the night so I decided to go and get her to take her to the hospital.  As I pulled our of our gate I was met by a guy that told me that a lady that was living in the refugee camp from the earthquake was pregnant but was having trouble with the delivery because of high blood pressure and no medication at the little clinic next door.  She did not have the $60 usd to pay to have the baby at the hospital.  I went and checked on her and decided to take her to the hospital with me too.

Daphne was sick for a couple of days and then her blood sugar was elevated and we could not get it back down.  We gave her an IV of fluids yesterday for dehydration and I had Alexandra, a nurse friend, come and spend the day with her and she was looking better last night.  But when I got to the mission this morning she was non-responsive.  I picked her up and put her in the car with the lady having the baby and headed to the hospital.

Once at the hospital we got Daphne in a little room. I paid the fees for the room and the IV and fluids and a nurse tried for 30 minutes to start an IV.  She finally called another nurse and she seemed to get the IV started and we got Madame Charles settled in the delivery room and paid them the $60 usd to deliver the baby.

I worked my way back through the crowd to Daphne's room and the IV was going good.  Robins was there with me and things seemed okay.  The nurse left the room to go find the doctor and all of a sudden I realized Daphne stopped breathing.  I checked and she had no pulse.  There were no machines hooked to her to beep or flat line or anything it was just like things were in slow motion.  I started mouth to mouth and chest compressions.  As I gave the breaths, the putrid air that had built up in her lungs during the infection was exhaled into my mouth and I nearly vomitted.  I regained my composure and continued the breaths and compressions while Robins called for the doctor or someone to come.  I cried out to God for Him to save her.  Still no pulse.  After several minutes the doctor showed up and stopped me from trying to continue to revive her.  It was too late.  She was gone.  Just like that.  I stood there with the taste of death on my lips.  I have grown accustomed to the smell of death, but this was the first time for me to taste it.  It was worse than I would have imagined.  I have spent all day washing my face and trying to get rid of the smell and taste...I read that you don't smell in your sleep, I will be glad to pillow my head tonight.

I had to call Daphne's mom and the people at the clinic that helped us find her originally and tell them the news.  I would have to put her in the car and take her to Port au Prince to a morgue and meet with the family.  We would be responsible for the funeral and burial. 

I ran by our house to get some cash for the trip and the preparations.  As we were pulling out of our drive way, we met pastor Remy.  He was walking with a man and carrying a baby all dressed up and wrapped in a towel.  I stopped and got out and greeted them.  The baby's mom died last week and the 2 month old was too much for the dad to handle along with the other 7 kids in the family.  He had asked if we could take the baby.  They were coming to drop her off.  I told pastor the situation and sent him on to the house to meet with Joy.  We continued on to PaP.

We met the mother and the representative from the funeral home on a side road in PaP.  The mother came to me screaming and wailing.  She said she wanted to see her baby.  As the morgue workers put her into the body bag I pulled back the sheet and let the mother see her face.  She was hysterical as I just held her and tried to comfort her by reminding her that God's child had died too.  I did not know what else to say.  A large crowd gathered to gawk at the spectacle.  Not a fun time.

After the mom got back in her car and left, we finished up with the morgue representatives and started the planning for the funeral.  They are anticipating riots starting Monday night following re-release of the re-recount of the election results so we want to have the funeral before then.  Hopefully Saturday.

We left the morgue representatives and headed to customs to try to convince them to give us our Christmas gifts for the kids- ours kids and at the mission- and Christmas tree we had shipped in.  I did not agree with the fees the customs agent told me I had to pay but I was too tired to fight about it.  I once swore under my breath that I hated this country.  I regretted saying it because Wesner and Robbins were there.  I tried to take it back by saying it was the government and the injustice that I hate.  But I actually don't know what all it is that I hate.  I learned today that I hate the taste of death.  I hate corruption that oppresses the poor and helpless.  But I am sure there are some things that I hate that God would have me to love and some things that I love that God would have me to hate.  I just have to pray He reveals to me which is which. 

God was good and we were able to get everything out of customs without having to pay TOO much more than it was worth.  Then we headed back to Montrouis.

As we entered Montrouis we went by the refugee camp to check on Madame Charles and her baby.  She had a boy.  It was easy to tell  it was a boy because of the pink blanket and pink flannel gown and pink booties he was wearing.  Baby and mother are fine.  He's beautiful.  Lying in a hut in a temporary refugee camp surrounded by desperate people that were eager to beg me to bring them more fish this week, he was blessed to be alive.  He is blessed because He has a future.  It may not be what we as American's would call a future but Jeremiah says God has a plan for ALL of our lives and that it is a good plan.  I don't see how Daphne growing up in Cite Soleil- hell on earth- then going blind at 19 and dying at 20 is a good plan.  But I trust God is good.  I am glad I got to know her.  I am glad I got to help her for a few short months and that she died in a hospital not in a shack in a slum and being buried in a dump.  I miss her already but she had asked God to forgive her of her sins and be her savior.  She can see again tonight.  She is not sick.  She is not lying in bed crying with pain in her legs.  She is seeing Jesus- and that is a good plan!

Happy Thanksgiving

The holidays are a time with family and friends.  It is a time for eating our favorite foods and catching up with news and events that have transpired over the past year in our families and lives of our loved ones. 

On Thanksgiving specifically, many of us try to take a moment to reflect and give thanks to God for the blessings of the past year.  This year we decided to have a big feast with all of our new family and Haitian friends. We will have about 50 people at the mission for lunch. 

We had a ministry give us a free turkey for our family.  What a huge blessing that is.  Turkeys here are hard to come by and very expensive to buy.  So early this morning I put the turkey in the oven and prepared the green beans and corn.  We will also bake a cake.  Very few Haitians have eaten cake and if so it is for a special occassion.  Ovens are very rare and it is hard to cook a cake on a fire with three rocks like they cook their rice and beans. 

We are also having rice and beans, fried plantains, haitian beet salad, potato salad, and fresh fruit.  It is going to be quite a spread.  I am going to explain our American Thanksgiving heritage and give each person a chance to share what they are thankful for.  I have heard many Haitians tell me that the reason we have turkey on Thanksgiving is because the first American's did not have anything to eat so they prayed and turkeys started falling out of the sky everywhere.  Sounds like a good story to me. 

Here are a few things I will be sharing that I am thankful for:

My family that I moved here with 18 months ago- Joy, Jacy, Judah, Josie, and Jaxon

For Luke being able to come and join us here this year

For Justice Kacia and the privilege to adopt her

For all of the kids that we have been able to give a home to- Kobe, Jeanmoi, Adelson, Uvensia, Jean Patrick, Wilna, Naica, and Kimberlie

For Daphne's diabetes getting controlled and doors beginning to open to get her to America for her eye surgery

For others that live and help at the mission like Colleen and her two twins Kristi and Krista, along with Grann- the little widow whose house was washed away in the flood

For our team of guys Dago, Wesner, Paul, Robbins, and Bazaleis and the girls that help us Mirlande, Mireille, Oranie, Joanne, Claredonge, and Dedette

For all our fisherman and the work God is doing in their lives and the changes we are seeing in their village

For all the over 70 kids we got to put in school this year 

For the many many friends that God has sent to visit us here from so many places in the US and Brazil

For the people back home that love us and continue to pray for us and let us know they are supportive of what we are doing down here

For God beginning a new work in my life to change me from being so selfish and unloving to beginning to see people the way He sees them- I have a LONG way to go though...but I am thankful for the journey

For brightness of the future and the great opportunities we know lie ahead and the grace we can trust in to help with the difficulties that come

I could go on and on.  I have so much to be grateful for here.  But we also have our precious older two children Logan and Megan in the US.  It is harder to say Thank you Lord for them being there when I want them with me here.  But we know God does all things well.

It is hard to say thank you Lord for my parents that are getting older and my dad having complications from diabetes and I am not there to help him.  I am not there to just sit and talk to him today on Thanksgiving after we get back from deer hunting like we used to do.  I won't have my mom's mashed potatoes or Joy's mom's banana pudding but we still say Thank you Lord because He does all things well. 

All of us have to make a choice today- we can choose to focus on the things we DON'T have or have lost this past year or we can allow our minds to meditate on our many blessings and be overwhelmed by the "goodness" of God.  I choose the latter.  I pray you will too.

Hurricanes, Snow Storms, and Lost Friends

Cold Feet-
What a crazy day.  I spent 16 hours yesterday getting from Montrouis to Indianapolis for a conference where I will be speaking and taking continueing education classes for my optometry license.  It turns out I lost, gave away, or in some other fashion disposed of any warm weather clothes I had in Haiti so I got to Indiana and discovered they are expecting snow and 20 degree nights and I have a Caribbean Joe t-shirt as my warmest clothes.  But in typical provisional manner, a good Christian friend who happens to live in Indiana hooked me up with a bunch of warm clothes so I am good. 

I will be in IN for the weekend with my 20 year old daughter Megan.  I had not seen her since last November so it was great meeting her in the airport here last night.  She flew over from GA to be with me at the conference this weekend.  Then I fly to NC for a few days for some meetings and finish up my CE at a meeting in Asheville next weekend.

Unfriendly Tomas-
Tomas strengthened to a tropical storm again last night and is projected to pass over Haiti as a hurricane tomorrow.  Joy and the kids are there and we live right on the coast.  It looks like Joy is going to close up the doors and windows and leave the house to go and spend a couple of days in the missionary team rooms at The Mission.  It will be cool to be there with the mission kids but also tough with Justice, Jaxon, Josie, Judah, Jacy, Jamoy, Jean Patrick, and the two special needs boys Kevin and Michelet all getting moved over there and set up.  We have been praying for a person to come and live at the mission to take care of Kevin and Michelet there since it is technically the children's home and we can have someone caring for them 24 hours each day even when we are not in town.  So Joy is working on getting them moved permanantly during this transition time.  Pray about that.

The biggest problem with a hurricane in Haiti is not just the wind.  The tents in PAP of course will be affected by the winds but the biggest issue is rain.  They are predicting as much as 15 inches of rain.  If that happens, there will be significant flooding and the risk of landslides.  The deforestation and subsequent silting in of the rivers has made flooding a major problem.  Our fisherman that we work with live near the river and many of them lost their homes in 2008 during Hannah.  At that time the river flooded all the way down past where we currently live and took away many homes and left hundreds with nothing.  The river flooded again a couple of months ago and washed away more homes.  We have several of our fisherman living in tents right now due to that flood.  It is a blessing that just before I left we were able to help Jean Beny rent a house and move out of his tent.  I am glad he will be in a house during this storm tomorrow and not a tent.  He loves Joy and is a precious part of our ministry.

Lost Friends-
Just when we starting thinking the cholera deal was pretty much behind us, we got a call this morning from one of our closest pastors and learned his wife died this morning.  She was working in the garden when the symptoms hit her and she died on the way down the mountain to the hospital.  Pastor Remy and his wife are the ones that came down the mountain with the gift of eggs to thank us for helping them get a horse.  Now he has all 7 of his children to care for alone.  He is trying to get her buried today.  Be praying for them.

The end of last week I got home to find one of our translators we use sitting in our yard crying.  He was holding a baby outfit in his hand.  Degraff's 18 month old baby had respiratory arrest and died and the family did not have the money to bury him.  We were able to help bury the baby but had very little means of consoling a hurting father.

So there is a quick update of what's happening.  We will keep you updated on the storm.  Thanks for your prayers and encouragement.  You can see updates on facebook

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?id=100001587051166

Who's Afraid of Frog Peepee?

It has been a while since I have had a good chance to sit down and blog and I don't really have one of those chances now but I wanted to update everyone on the cholera outbreak here.

We have had to stop buying fish from any of the guys in our group because of the fear of the people that the fish that live in the ocean go and drink the water that comes out of the rivers and so they can make you sick.  Our fisherman have just paid their money to put their kids all in school and now have no income because people are too afraid to buy fish. We do not have any cases here in Montrouis of contracted disease.  The little mission hospital where we have our eye clinic has had 4 die and have treated hundreds.  It is harder finding IV saline so keep that in your prayers. 

This is Haiti's first significant cholera outbreak in 50 years.  It is caused by a river in the Artibonite valley that became contaminated.  We have seen about 3000 cases reported with almost 300 deaths.  That is a terrible ratio even for a disease of this severity.  The lack of understanding by the people of the cause of the disease and even bigger...fear.  Fear killed many of the victims.  They were afraid to drink more water because they heard water is what made them sick...so they died of dehydration.  Tap tap drivers, local transportation, refused to carry passengers that were sick so they left them on the sides of the road to die...because they were afraid.  Many hospitals and workers were afraid to take in patients and work with them at the onset because they did not know the cause of the disease...so patients died outside the hospitals.  Fear is a powerful thing and a major part of life here in this little corner of reality.

People have some of the most irrational fears you can imagine.  They are so scared of frogs because if it peepees in your eyes you will go blind...tough one to disprove but they get so upset with me for picking up frogs.  Lucky for me, none have been able to pee in my eyes yet. 

People fear all sorts of things concerning the spirits and voodoo.  They fear many animals because it may be a lougau in disguise.  They fear zombies.  They fear witch doctors.  The fear upsetting the family spirits.  They fear dishonoring someone in power.  They fear the government due to past leaders indiscriminately killing dissenters.  They fear hunger.  They fear food they are not familiar with.  They fear a slight fever. 

But out of all the fears that affect the people here, the one that is the greatest risk for them is the fear that comfortable Americans have of being drawn out of their comfort zone.  The fear of millions of "Christians" that if they really give in to what God wants them to do to reach the world with His love, then He might send them to some crazy place like Haiti.  When the reality is that if we would just surrender fully to God, He is most likely to keep us exactly where He had already placed us, but use us more effectively to fullfill our deepest desires and impact the lives of people from our home town to the far reaches of the world's densest jungles.  But the fear that somehow God is going to demand something radical of us is a fear used by satan to keep us from really amounting to anything eternal.  The fear is so strong that it triggers our defense mechanisms in our minds that cause us to build up walls to reality.  We allow ourselves to be consumed by our surroundings in order to dull the sensation of reality.  The sensation that just possibly we have totally missed it.  Somehow we have convinced ourselves that our selfish, self serving, self helping, loveless, sacrificeless form of religion we inherited from our parents and perfected ourselves is somehow the Christianity described in the Bible. 

That fear is the most dangerous fear in the world.  More orphans, widows, homeless, starving, sick, helpless, and desperate souls die each year because of that fear than because of any fear I encounter here that we like to call "irrational".  You want to talk about irrational?  Is it rational to believe that a God who has ALL power in the universe and LOVES me more than I can comprehend could possibly devise a plan for me that is anything short of spectacularly amazing?  I wish the greatest fear of my friends back home was frog peepee.  Then maybe we could change the world.

Our greatest fear should be of the day we stand before a Holy God.  We will give account for every thought, every action, every dollar, and all of our skills.  I somehow don't think excuses like our kids are too small, our parents are aging now, when I get that raise we will give more, when we pay off some debt, if I could just hear from God, we're just waiting until we know for certain, I just don't feel "called", I just don't think this church is feeding me, I can't align myself with that pastor, that youth group is too culturally relevant, that church is not culturally relevant enough, etc. is going to pass when God asks why we would not obey the hundreds of instances in His word that He commands us to reach the world with His love.  If we all feared that day as much as the Haitians fear zombies we could take care of the millions of orphans in subsahara Africa that become prostitutes because we are not there to give them a home. Or the sick in India that die because they don't have access to antibiotics that cost 75 cents.  As I was typing this a man showed up from PAP crying.  He has interpreted for us before at crusades.  Degraff sat in my yard and cried as he explained that 3 days ago his 18 month old only son died of respiratory arrest and is in the morgue because he can't afford to have him buried.  At the same time Joy was walking and met a man from another village sitting by the road holding a dead baby.  The child died after leaving the hospital and the father had no money to get a tap tap to get back home.  The world is literally dying and we spend our days complaining about the lines in Walmart.


Update:


On a lighter note, Luke arrived here in Haiti 3 weeks ago.  He is doing great.  He is a 16 year old missionary and not just a missionary's kid.  He has already begun to have an impact on the people here.  He is working with the fisherman and has gotten involved in the basketball community here.  He is home schooling and doing well.  You can see the first episode of his video documentary by clicking the link below.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-Zrm31OkY

We will try to keep folks updated about the cholera as things change.

Stuck Between a Rock and a Mango Tree

Roger, Gary, and Lifrans got caught at sea in the stormy weather we have had this week.  They were trying to get their little wooden fishing canoes to the beach where they store them when the waves really kicked up. 

Roger and Gary made it to our house but could not get past the reef to the area down the coast where they were headed.  We managed to pull their canoes ashore and secure them in our yard.  Which Jaxon loved because he thinks he owns them anyway.  He climbs in everytime they come up with fish.  Then I have to pull him out screaming and covered in the tar they use to water proof them to try to cut down on some of the leaking...I can't tell that it helps any.  So we stored Roger and Gary's canoes for a couple of days until the storm passed.  Lifrans was not so lucky.

As he tried to manuever past a point through the shallow reef that he had passed hundreds of times before, a large wave caught him and crashed him into the rocks.  His little wooden canoe shattered into pieces.  All of his lines and jugs and fishing equipment was tossed into the crashing waves.  Lifrans was picked up by another fisherman trying to get his canoe to safety as well.  Everything was lost.  Two days before the fishing season officially begins and he is at ground zero. 

So that is the story I learned of yesterday as everyone gathered for our weekly meeting with our 12 fisherman and 1 scribe in our economic development program.  We wanted 12 fisherman but none of them could write so we had a scribe join the group.  I spent the meeting talking about the things were we doing and the challenges and the great things that were happening.  I thought everyone was really getting into the depth of the business potential and how this was going to change the economic stability of Montrouis and the overall quality of life for their families.  But at the end of my sharing I asked for questions.  Finally Roger asked when I was going to follow through on my promise I had made several weeks ago to start teaching them all how to write their names... They all agreed and wanted me to start this week so they could all learn to write and sign their names and asked if I thought they could be taught to read a few things.  I was humbled beyond words.  How do you say no to a group of friends asking if you could take the time to teach them to write their names?

After the meeting was over the discussion turned back to Lifrans.  Everyone was disappointed to hear about the loss because they all could relate and they knew the implications.  But Lifrans, one of the most likable and hard working guys in the group, already had a plan.  He had found a guy who had a piece of wood for sale and had negotiated a good price of $1300 haitian (or $165 USD) for the wood and talked to Pierre who was not a "boss" canoe builder but had dug out canoes for several of our guys in the group in the past.  Pierre agreed to "dig" the canoe for $1000 haitian ($125 USD)  So nearly $300 was going to be needed just to get the canoe.  Then Lifrans has to find jugs and buy lines and hooks and everything else to get ready to fish.  And due  to bad weather, no one has been able to catch any fish in over 2 weeks.  So that is where I came into the picture.  As Lifrans was telling his tale, eventually all eyes turned to me.  They all wondered what I was going to do to help Lifrans get his fishing business back in the water.  Finally, Lifrans asked if I would at least go with him to look at the wood.

Today we had all of the guys in our group meet me at The Mission to pick out shoes for all of their kids that start school Monday.  These 31 kids are not in our sponsorship program because I know their fathers now have an income.  Instead I am just helping them get everything done on enrolling and buying the books and uniforms.  It was a great time.  After the shoe fitting party, the entire group joins in on our trip to see the wood. 

I had in my mind a little guy sitting in front of his little haitian shack on a big piece of mango log in his front yard ready to argue over a price.  Instead, Pierre, the carver, takes us into one of the few remaining patches of forest left in our zone.  After a brief walk through a familiar area of woods, he stops and points to a large mango tree and says "that's it".  That was not what I wanted to see.  One of the 2% of mango trees left standing in the entire country and now they are asking me to buy it so they can make a canoe.  The alternative is to say no and explain how mango trees are precious to the Haitian ecosystem and that conservation efforts are never going to succeed without making sacrifices...

Now let me tell you...to all of you tree hugger hyper-conservationists reading this...I ain't into that.  I can get on board with saving babies but not baby seals or spotted owls.  I never have been the activist type.  I would actually love watching the guy cut down the tree with a machete and then meticulously carve out a canoe day after day.  It is not about the "karma" or the feelings of the mango tree or making the spirits of nature angry. 

This was different.  I see the huge importance of mangoes to this culture.  You don't dare steal someone's mango.  It's like a capital offense.  Mangoes are called God's gift to poor people.  People plan their lives around the mango seasons.  But they have not seen that cutting down the mango trees is bad.  I have tried to fight the cutting of the trees to make charcoal.  That is the  main reason the trees are cut down and the roots dug up.  It is to make charcoal for cooking.  That is the main issue.  Not cutting down a few trees per year for canoes.  BUT, now that most have been cut down for charcoal, the canoe issue becomes more relevant.

In my gut I want to buy the mango tree... don't let them cut it down... then lend Lifrans the money to buy a fiberglass canoe- through my contacts in the U.S. and ship it down on the next container that comes in.  But there are several problems with that plan.  First, then EVERY guy in our group wants a fiberglass canoe.  Second, the container has weeks before it gets here and the season starts now.  Third, every person in Montrouis will try to sell me their mango tree that they are about to cut down if someone doesn't buy it quickly.  I could see me ending up with a whole forest of mango trees with little brass plaques that show the date they were saved from destruction.  I would be known as the nut case doctor with the mango tree sponsorship program. 

So as I sit here tonight trying to come up with the best plan for tomorrow, I think I will try to find someone who has a wooden canoe for sale and help Lifrans get it.  That at least buys me some time.  Then maybe we do try to start a system of getting canoes shipped down for the fisherman here.  Each mango tree canoe only lasts 5-6 seasons if it is a good one.  Many only last 2-3.  Who knows.  But I am glad that I am here to get to help Lifrans figure it out.  He is my friend.  He is a quiet guy with a firm handshake and I know that tonight he is thinking that tomorrow I will have the answers to help him out of this dilema.  That is where my faith comes in.  I don't have all the answers that these guys think I have.  I don't always know what to do.  But I know my God has a plan and that He is never confused by rocks and mango trees.