Friday, April 18, 2014

Homeschool Easter Event in Haiti

After 8 months in Haiti, we've finally made it to a homeschool function. There is a group that (I believe) meets every month, but it had yet to fit in with our schedule. We have found it very difficult to connect with other missionary families for a range of reasons. Each missionary is generally VERY busy with the specific role in the ministry they are involved in. Coordinating schedules is challenging! Transportation is another stumbling block.  The logistics of getting anywhere is a mess. It can take over 2 hours to travel a mere 12 miles. We hope some of the logistical challenges will be reduced when we finally purchase a vehicle that can transport our whole family.
Making Resurrection Rolls

The kids had a great time at the group. We met at a ministry which is located quite a distance from us, but thankfully there was very little traffic due to it being Good Friday. All of the schools were closed. Many of the businesses were closed as well. 
David helping Naomi color eggs
Roseminique
Everyone had a great time learning more about the story of Jesus, making resurrection rolls, painting eggs, doing an Easter egg hunt, and getting to know some new people.
Christelle

Naomi


David
Thank you Becky and Jimmy Burton as well as Heartline Ministries for hosting the event!
 
Talitha
Melissa


Jordan

   
Billy
Julia
Steevenson

Monday, April 14, 2014

Happy 4th Birthday Naomi!

Four years ago today, I was rushed via emergency transport from Tuality Hospital in Hillsboro to Emanuel Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Within minutes, Naomi Grace was born weighing 2 lbs 6 oz. 


Born nearly three months early, Naomi came very close to being born in Haiti. I had organized a group and was leading a medical team into the country. Since I still had three months to go with no complications, my doctor was ok with me traveling, but he asked me to come in the Friday before travel just to be sure. 


At the last minute, the doctor informed me that I could not travel due to developing what they thought was pre-eclampsia. Thankfully, the doctor's wisdom (and God's grace and guidance) prevented me from traveling on that trip. Naomi was born the day after the team arrived in Haiti. 


Naomi would not have survived had she been born in Haiti and I very likely would not have survived either. It turns out that I had HELLP syndrome which is a life threatening complication that requires immediate birth of the baby in order for the mother to survive.


Today, Naomi is a happy, healthy 4 year old little girl. She had heart surgery at 18 months and since then has had really no medical concerns whatsoever.

Naomi right before heart surgery 

She was at the medical clinic today helping out and then she walked back down the mountain with us. Last time, she walked the whole way up all by herself, but today she talked Dad into carrying her part of the way.  After all, she is the birthday girl! She is shown below styling with her new shades as we take a break on the walk home. Naomi picked out her clothes this morning and of course chose to wear something pink!  She LOVES pink.


Later in the evening, we went to the guest house and celebrated Naomi's birthday with the medical team. David and I made cupcakes- chocolate and also pink ones that were made with grenadine. Before we went to the guest house, Naomi ran to her room to put on her "party" dress.

Naomi waiting patiently while the team sings Happy Birthday! 

Naomi is our miracle snowflake baby. She was adopted as a frozen embryo from an amazing family in the Midwest. We have an open adoption with her family and are blessed to call them friends!

Naomi, Linda, Melissa, and Talitha

It's always a complicated math question when people ask us how many children we have adopted and how many we gave birth to. Well.....12 of our 14 children joined our family through the miracle of adoption, but I gave birth to three of them. It is always confusing to people. Please share the news about embryo adoption with friends and family: http://www.embryoadoption.org
There are an estimated 600,000 frozen embryos in storage.  Please pray for these little ones that are waiting for a chance of life on this earth.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Oregon Medical Team, Preschool Crafts, Goats on the Trail, and Hammock Days!

The weather in Haiti is amazing! I don't miss the dreary Oregon days. We miss our friends, but not the overcast skies. We have another medical team this week from Oregon. It's nice to see old friends from "home" and meet new friends from the Portland area. It is incredibly busy at the clinic this week, but we have a strong team with many helpers.  We were able to enter in all of the inventory on the first day of clinic. Yeah!!

Amazing lab team members organizing their station
Today, Naomi, Roseminique, and Julia came up to the clinic to help. Naomi was actually sitting at the window in the pharmacy "helping" Micka put the medications in the bag and hand to the patients. It's so funny because she would give Naomi instructions in creole and Naomi would actually follow her instructions.  I am such a slacker with the language. Someone was asking me today about my Creole and it's sad to say, but I know very little Creole. I am in a role with the ministry where I am working almost exclusively with US teams and then doing administrative elements, which is all in English. The kids are picking up the language quite easily, but now it has become far too easy to simply ask one of the kids, "What are they saying?" and they translate for me. Ugh..ugh....We need to simply dedicate more time to learn the language. Easier said then done!

Naomi in the pharmacy "helping"
We were able to do crafts again with the preschoolers. It was a ton of fun. I think we've figured what kinds of crafts work better with the kids and the length of time we can expect to do a craft.


Roseminique helping preschool students

On the way to the clinic, we of course saw more goats. Naomi walked up this morning (or we packed her part of the way), but she walk down later this afternoon. She stops to talk to people, pick flowers, and talk to every goat that we see. It takes forever, but it makes the walk much more enjoyable. Sometimes we are in far too big of a hurry to really stop and look around us. Naomi does not have that trouble! Plus, she was stalling because she knew when we got home, she would need to talk a nap.





I'm still plugging away (slowly) on my dissertation. I'm continually trying to find a quiet place to really focus on getting work done. This seems to be next to impossible. Last week I put the little coffee table (that Ron made) out on the balcony and sat in the mini chair that we bought the other day. I spent a good hour working, but next thing you know I had company sitting in the hammock next to me.


I decided to take a break and sit in the hammock myself. It is much more enjoyable then reading research articles! Our family would appreciate your prayers that I actually finish my dissertation. I think everyone is good and tired of mom being a 12 year student.


Sunday, April 6, 2014

Confusing Things....

There are many confusing things about our life in Haiti and about life in general...

There really seems to be no "middle class" in Haiti. I suppose missionaries may equate to a small percentage of people that may technically be "middle class" in Haiti, but they (we) are also in a drastically different position then the masses who live on less then $2 a day. Most missionaries live on a tight budget (as we do as well), but most also actually live in a home vs. living in a shack with a dirt floor or on the streets. It is confusing to me how one person is born into privilege and another person is born into completely different circumstances. In America, for the most part, many of us are in that category of born into privilege even if we have credit issues, do not own a home, have a hard time maintaining employment, or a range of other challenges that we may face. For the most part, we have access to a range of services (not always adequate services), but something nonetheless. That's not to say there isn't poverty in the USA. It's simply a different kind of poverty that often damages the mind.

I was not raised in a Christian home although I come from a long line of Christians and even missionaries. I remember hearing my mom talk about her time growing up on the mission field and it was always confusing to me. I did not understand her anger towards the Lord and her resentment of her life on the mission field. I did not understand the trauma she faced. I had absolutely no idea or comprehension of what it was like to grow up in World War II China smack dab in the middle of the Japanese invasion. I had no understanding of the civil unrest/war that was going on around her. I was never held at gunpoint as a child. I was never "captured" during unrest. I did not suffer the loss of my mother or brother on the mission field. As a child, it seemed like the telling of an action packed movie to hear about the planes coming down all around her and listening for bombing and actually counting in between to judge how much time you had to flee. I had absolutely no concept of war other then what I had seen on TV or in movies.

I didn't understand "house servants" and how or why missionary families would hire house servants. My mom would explain to me that her parents had mission work to do evangelizing throughout the land. The people in the community needed jobs therefore they had various people that worked for them. Somehow it seemed degrading or wrong that a person would go into another country and have servants. I had no concept of the logistics of the generation (1930-1950).

It did not make sense to me to need help in the home. After all, her parents only had two kids. I also was raised with one sibling and two working parents. We managed just fine without servants.  I suppose it was the term "servants" that turned me off. Maybe if she had called them employees it would have been different. It never dawned on me that I was born into an environment of running water, electricity, and many other modern conveniences that really replaced help in the home to a great extent. I did not understand the amount of time it took to simply get water, food, and keep a home functioning without electricity, running water, refrigeration,  preservatives to make food last longer, washing machines, dryers, wash and wear clothing, iron free types of materials, etc. Just the basic living necessities can be an everyday (all day) task. We have "some" of the same challenges here in Haiti. We do not have "servants", but we have help in the home. We have an amazing lady LiAnn who has quickly become a part of our family. She goes to the market for us twice a week and helps us cook some of the meals throughout the week. Without her, we would not be able to serve others in the community the way we are able to.

I have also never understood how it can "appear" like missionaries live so far above the general population and how they can really be of service in that capacity. Sometimes I would travel to other countries and visit missionaries.  It would "appear" like many of the missionaries lived actually better in a third world country then we ourselves lived in the USA. This is still a struggle for me and it is something I am confronted with on a continual basis. There really is no middle class in many other countries. When you go and seek out a place to live it seems there are either these big huge houses (that are mostly a facade - a shell of a home that looks like a mansion) or the opposite end of the spectrum which is a shack with a dirt floor. I see the patients coming into the clinic that are sleeping on a dirt floor and cockroaches have crawled into their ear and wrapped around their eardrum to where we cannot remove them. I've seen the patients that come in with illness, disease, and a range of conditions directly associated with poor/inadequate living conditions. I know that we would not be as effective in serving if we lived in the conditions that the bulk of the population lives in. We would likely be sick all the time and would need to be patients ourselves in a clinic that would not exist without others that live in a more stable situation operating those clinics. On the other hand, I wonder, what kind of example does it set to live the way that we do?

Yes, for us Americans it is a bit of a sacrifice to not have consistent electricity, running water, to hand wash all our clothes, to not be able to access conveniences, etc. But...in comparison to the population here in Haiti, we certainly get by just fine. We have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. We are hardly "roughing it" and there are times when I feel bad about that or I suppose I simply feel bad about the contrast.

There are many things in life that I do not understand, but I am confident that God has a plan greater then our own. Sometimes it is easy to get caught up in despair and feeling helpless not only with our lot in life, but in seeing other people suffer and struggle in life. I realize that God may just give us one brick and ask us to carry that one brick instead of building the whole wall, but sometimes it is hard to see the walls that are not built and the work that is not done.

We are assisting in the village of Gramothe by providing medical care, education, spiritual care and evangelism of a community. There is suffering around us and that is hard to see. I continually want to do more. I want bring all the orphan children in and do more and more and more. After all, we do have this big house, but I have to remember that God is in control and has called us to this one small piece. We have seen God provide abundantly. We have been called to parent 14 children from all over the world. It has never made any logical sense. We have never had the resources to do so, but God has shown us time and time again that it does not have to make sense. We simply have to follow.  Please join us in prayer that all of us will continue to take the narrow road, which is the one and only road. It will not always make sense and some things may be confusing along the way, but we can be confident that if we are following the Lord, we are going in the right direction!

Friday, April 4, 2014

Rats and Little Chairs

It seems the weather also brings the rodents indoors. The other day, Julia opened one of the draws in the kitchen and a rat jumped out. We typically expect cockroaches and make sure to turn the lights on and make some noise before going into the kitchen, but we don't usually see rats in the drawers in the middle of the day. LiAnne had gone to the market for us, so she was in the kitchen for the commotion. Ron heard what was going on and both Leanne and Ron were trying to smash the rat with a broom. Ron apparently smashed the rat and life moved on (at least for all of us except the rat). I wish we had a video of the whole production. The things we experience here in Haiti are interesting to say the least!


We also asked LiAnne to try to barter for some chairs that we saw on the road. She ended up getting us seven chairs, but it's the funniest thing. They are "little people" chairs made out of straw. They are actually really cute little chairs and fit me just fine, but they are too low for the standard size table we made. Ron has been taking scrap blocks attaching them to the bottom of each leg in order to make the chairs taller.

There are a million simple things in life that we used to take for granted in the USA. One of those things is just the ability to purchase cheap stuff at the Goodwill, Walmart, or various discount stores. Here in Haiti, everything is incredibly expensive. We're figuring out how to find reasonable items and how to use what is less expensive, but it's a learning process!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

More Kite Flying Days

Today was another kite flying day! It's nice to have a break in between medical teams and just hang out with the kids and interact with the community. During the school day, we try to keep our kids inside the compound (of our house) simply because 1) we homeschool and "try" to keep school hours to keep us on task and 2) we want to encourage the village kids to go to school and possibly us being out and about during school hours might be confusing. BUT......in the afternoons (after school hours) the kids enjoy flying kites with the kids in the area.


I'm sure we make a funny sight! In fact, people walk by and say, "gade blan" or look at the white people basically.  Many of our kids blend right in since they are Haitian, but the rest of us stand out like anything. Especially while balancing on a ledge flying a kite with all the Haitian kids.



It was a beautiful day after the storm last night. I absolutely LOVE the weather in Haiti! We are so blessed to be here and especially in being up in the mountains where it is not so unbearably hot.


Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Spring in Haiti- Thunderstorms, Blustery Days, and Flooding

We finally have rain again in Haiti! It's been a long, dry winter and now we're into springtime weather. We're starting to experience impressive thunderstorms throughout the night. Hopefully our cistern is filling up quickly. 

Melissa in the entryway watching the kites

The kids are having fun watching kids in the community fly homemade kites. Joan (our amazing tutor) has helped the kids make kites out of rice sacks, twigs, and plastic bags. We're trying to find some fun things for the kids to do with limited areas to run around.

Steevenson flying a kite
Billy's kite

We are blessed to have an amazing home that we are renting. The home has no yard and literally goes straight up with just a concrete walkway around the house (and razor wire around the perimeter). The first floor is basically an above ground cistern that holds our water. The main floor has 1 bedroom, the kitchen and living room. The top floor has a little balcony, an area for homeschooling, and 3 bedrooms. We're able to hang our clothes out to dry off the balcony and also apparently fly kites.

I went to town today with Beth (co-founder of Mountain Top Ministries) in search of large quantities of medications. We hope to begin purchasing many of our prescription medications locally if possible. We saw over 800 patients last week and go through a TON of medications. We are trying to do some price comparisons when we have time between medical teams. We have a few days to run around and try to figure out some of these details before the next team arrives. I also stopped and bought more plastic bins and various storage containers for the pharmacy. We're so thankful to have amazing help in the home. Joan is a huge blessing to our family and has just jumped right in with the bulk of the homeschooling so that Ron and I can dedicate time to other tasks within the ministry.

Christelle's homemade kite
Billy's homemade kite
                                                           

The Lord has been good throughout this whole process of moving our family to the mission field. We expected to move into a 3 bedroom house, but were blessed with this amazing rental. Although it has some logistical challenges with water, electricity, etc., it is an incredible blessing to our family. We're thankful to have the extra space with 12 of us living here. Only 10 of the kids are with us here in Haiti. It's hard to believe that we have 4 children that are grown and out of the home. David will soon be out on his own as well (moving to China in the fall) and we'll be down to only 9 kids. It seems like a small family in some ways.

Rain draining off the roof and coming into the house                                        

We seem to have struggled with water in various ways for the past 7 months. Figuring out the whole water system was a bit challenging. We were boiling our water to drink, but thankfully an amazing young woman stepped forward to sponsor our water. We are now able to buy 5 gallon jugs of drinking water which saves us time and also the expense of propane to run the stove and boil water. But...for months and months we have been hauling buckets of water for everything in the house (dishes, toilets, laundry, hand washing, etc) because we haven't had running water. Then there were times where we would get a burst of water and it would be EVERYWHERE. Well.....we're back into that challenge. We finally have "kinda sorta" running water (still flush toilets with a bucket, dishes, and laundry with a bucket due to no water pressure), but we do have some water coming out of the pipes to wash hands at least. 

Ron, David, and Julia sweeping water out of the room
But now, we have the rain pouring in throughout the house. In fact, I think I've heard it more then once, "You keep saying you want water Linda. Well...we have water!"  We now have water up to our ears.  The rain has flooded the kitchen consistently over the last few days and is now coming into the upper floor as well. We're not sure what's going on, but the pipes running off the roof must be plugged. OR it may simply be raining harder and faster then the drains are equipped to handle. Rain water should be draining down into our cistern instead of onto the porch and into the house. We've been sweeping the water out and using buckets to catch water in different areas before it comes into the house. We had various school supplies in the path of water, but most of them were in plastic bins thankfully!