Feeling at Home in Haiti

We love Haiti. I mean we absolutely LOVE Haiti and it feels like home to us and has for many years. Moving here has not changed that fact. Haiti is the homeland for five of our children and we have been involved in missions here for many years. On the other hand, it still feels like home in Oregon and probably always will.  Even after leaving North Carolina close to 10 years ago, it still feels like home there as well. Our definition of home has changed over the years. When I was younger, I had a dream of a "home" that was basically a farm house with a wrap around porch on some land.

It was a dream of a place where I guess I thought we would live forever. A place where all the kids would come home to for Christmas and grandchildren would play on the land with the animals. I have realized though that the dream was not about a certain kind of home, it was about the friends and family that we surround ourselves with. The Lord has brought us so far from that original dream to an even greater vision that spans continents and incorporates family from many countries and cultures.

It has not always been easy, but it has always been an adventure. Tonight we were doing devotions as a family and the verse was:

"He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more (NLT) ~John 15:2

We certainly have felt a bit of pruning over the years in a range of circumstances and moving to Haiti is no exception. Just going to immigration has been a challenge all by itself. This residency process has been a pruning process. I think I wrote a post about sitting in a doctor's office for hours upon hours watching the ants crawl across the wall. Well, those medical certificates expired and we had to go back once again to get them re-done. We also had to have copies of our birth certificates translated into French, which in itself is not a big deal. The challenge was that we needed a court order to have the translations done and then needed the judge to stamp the translations as being official.

As we were leaving the doctor's office, my phone was buzzing over a text regarding (hopefully) meeting the translator to pick up the official copies. BUT...I pulled out my phone and a street kid that looked to be 7 or 8 years old grabbed my phone and took off with it. At which point, I sprinted after him. Thankfully, Ron was already at the car which was parked ahead and the kid was running his direction, so we both were running towards the kid from different directions. Just before we caught him, he dropped the phone. I'm sure it was a funny sight to see the white people chasing after some kid in the busy streets of Port au Prince. Praise the Lord that the phone was not broken and only was scratched a little. Ron was thankful that I had not caught the kid because I'm mightier then my 4'10" height. I think all my kids will agree that you don't mess with mom.

We had our passport photos done, but for some reason were told there was something wrong with my ear. That's all I could understand. No good: Ears. Hmm....Maybe they were not showing enough or something, so we had to get them re-done. After we left immigration for the second time, we redid my passport photos with my hair up this time and also sought out a color copy of the ministry's license. Apparently they would not accept the black and white copies we had. Just getting to and from the immigration office is a challenge all on its own. It can be a whole day process. The streets are congested with millions of people walking as well as too many cars without sufficient roads or really any sense of traffic laws. You certainly need to be an aggressive driver in Haiti, but I kinda like it. I don't mind parking on the sidewalk and I don't really miss traffic lights.



When we went back again for the 3rd time to immigration, they accepted the original passport photos anyway. Who knows? I'm just thankful they finally accepted all the documents we had. After going up and down the stairs three times in the office getting various documents photo copied, paying someone, bringing them back down, going to get another photo copy, and paying someone else, we really felt like we were making progress and maybe they would not send us away again to come back the next day! We finally were able to get our fingerprints done and submitted our documents plus received a number and little slip of paper showing we have submitted for residency. Yeah!! This should help us (hopefully) if we were ever pulled over driving in Haiti. Now we have to wait two months (or so) to receive the actual approval of temporary residency.

We are so thankful to the Haitian government for all that they do. It is really not a small thing to process really anything under the conditions of sporadic electricity and limited infrastructure. For those in the field of adoptions in Haiti (and around the world), thank you, thank you, thank you!! Your job is beyond challenging. I have assisted in the process of hundreds (or many even thousands) of adoptions around the world, but I never fully understood the challenges those on the ground in country faced. They would say that they could not get this document printed or they were waiting on paper or ink or whatever else they were waiting on. I would need to pass along this information to families and I felt their frustration and sadness because they simply wanted to bring their children home. I really had no idea of the logistics of those challenges. In the states, you simply go to Office Max and pick up what you need. For those in adoption, please think about thanking those on the ground advocating for the children. I wish we could do more ourselves!

We are continually being pruned from the residency process to the electrical issues in our home (we received a bill for over 2K us dollars) even though we rarely ever even have city power. Apparently there is no rhyme or reason to the bill at times. We still do not have running water, but I think we're actually fine with that for the duration. We've figured out a system that works. But with the power issues, our batteries are not always being recharged which causes a bigger issue then lack of running water. We did buy a small generator because the large ones are 10K or more. Unfortunately it does not have the power to re-charge our 16 pack battery system and run the house. Ron is working on separating it out so that we can charge the batteries, run the house, or run the water pump. The pump then could potentially give us running water in the future. We had a slight tragedy with our washing machine. The machine has not really worked exactly like a washing machine in the states, but it was a huge blessing to be able to spin our clothes ever other day or so. If we heard the pump go on (which means city power turned on) we could put on our little head lamps and spin the clothes in the washer. Thank you to our Canada friends/team member who gave us a few more little head lamps! The benefit to at least spinning the clothes is that they actually dry in a reasonable amount of time compared to days upon days of damp clothes hanging on the line.

BUT....it appears that our washing machine received a power surge and has basically blown up. Ron is hopeful that he may be able to fix it, but we'll need a part from the states which we'll have to get someone to bring in maybe in March. It's funny how that little thing of no longer being able to spin clothes can feel like such a tragedy, but again, we need to remember that this is a pruning process and in the grand scheme of things, it is a minor bump in the road.

We appreciate everyone's prayers!! We love you all and miss you!