darthjedi

Help needed for HIS Home for Children Orphanage

I typically do not like to do anything like this; but I realized that when we don’t know of needs, then there is no way we can help if we are able, and if we aren’t able to help financially, prayers are always sought on behalf of the Children and directors and staff of HIS Home.

As you all know, our family is in the process of adopting two children from an Orphanage in Haiti. This Orphanage – HIS Home For Children – has been down significantly in their financial giving this year, and as a result, they are currently at risk of losing one of their two children’s homes.

The result of losing their boys home will cause them to combine approximately 130 children (teenage boys and teenage girls and all the toddlers and babies) into one house which is barely big enough for the just the girls toddlers and babies. While there are some natural potential adverse reactions to combining teenage boys and teenage girls into a single home, there are also concerns for the health and stability of having so many children under one roof.

Additionally, the boys house which is in jeopardy of closing is where the school for the orphanage is too – so that will be a significant loss to the children as well.

In response to a final notice for rent, HIS Home has written a post-dated check for 8600$ (the remaining balance of this year’s rent) for next Wednesday, and have placed their trust in the Lord that if it is His will that he will provide for this great need. However, good Stewarts know that prayer is only one piece of the arsenal that God has given us to accomplish His will on this earth; God works through the hands and hearts of His people.

A couple donators have offered to match dollar for dollar up to $2,000 for donations that are received prior to next Wednesday November 4^th. This means that if you are able to donate $25, then it will become $50 towards the necessary goal.

Donations are tax deductible, and as you all know me, I can attest that I have seen firsthand this money being used in service to God and the families and children of Haiti.

For information on Donations, you can visit the His Home Website – http://www.hishomeforchildren.com/ – under the Donations link. Donations can be sent through PayPal from that site, or you can send donations to the Lima OH address listed under the Contact Us page. However, donations must be received by Nov 4^th to take advantage of the generosity of the matching fund.

Above all please take a few moments in prayer, routine prayer, that God will continue to bless the work that Chris and Hal are doing to help the families and children of Haiti, and that His name will be honored in everything that they do.

Jediah Logiodice

(Jas 1:27) Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Getting closer to starting our adoption

It’s unbelievable in one respect; after almost 11 months, our adoption hasn’t officially started yet… It just seems unacceptable… it took us 4 months to get our paperwork done, it took another 6 months to get the children’s paperwork done. However, rather than asking ‘why’, now it’s just time to be thankful that we’re almost to the starting line.

Our lawyer has a copy of the children’s paperwork and is doing a final review on it. If it meets with his approval (please, please!), then it will go to the MOFA to be authenticated, will be combined with our Dossier, and will be submitted to IBESR. This is where the real work begins!

Braeden has been very preoccupied with the health and safety of Christella and Jeddie (David) lately; I’m very happy, but I’m not sure why. Even in his sleep the other night he said to Amanda: “Don’t worry mamma Christella will be home soon” (He sleep walks worse than I do).

So anyway; this week or next we’ll hear back from our Lawyer and we’ll get an idea of when the triathlon officially starts!

doubleplus doublethink from minitrue!

An interesting exercise in doublethink.

Nothing is true. Because we know that nothing is true cannot be true unless it is false, we can state that nothing is true is false. The opposite of untruth is truth; therefore to find the truth, we must find the opposite of the untruth. Because pure and base untruth cannot contain any truth, and because there is nothing more devoid of everything than nothing, in order to find the most pregnant opposite of nothing, we must find a word that incorporates nothing less than the total opposite of nothing, which is everything. Therefore because everything is the completed opposite of nothing, and because the most truth must be a complete opposite of the most untruth – then the truth to counteract the untruth that nothing is true is to argue that everything is true. Therefore, because we know that nothing is true is false, then everything is true is true.

Trusting & Working

Today in Church we were talking about “trusting in the Lord” and “not worrying”; but understanding the biblical idea of trust: trust with works.

Jesus said:

"Consider the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?" (Matt. 6:26).

Take for example our adoption. Some people we know love their children as much as we do, and want their children to come home as much as we do; and yet, they have chosen to sit back and let the Lord do all the work – in His time and in His way.

On the surface, that seems to be the more ‘spiritual’ approach – trusting the Lord in everything; however, when I read Matt 6:26 – I think the bible is expecting a lot more out of us than just trust.

Consider the birds of the air’ they don’t plant, they don’t store up, and yet God feeds them. However, it’s not as if God brings them breakfast in their nest – they have to go out and work and gather to survive. God expects them to work for what He has promised them.

And so, I believe it is with our adoption. God has put it in our heart to help needy children; we met and have fallen in love with our son and daughter, and God has given us the direction that He wants us to open our hearts and homes (It’s amazing how easy this comes once you set down that path). Yet, God doesn’t want us ‘waiting around on Him’ – He wants us to recognize and realize that He is in control, and things work all in His timing; He wants us to rely on His love and mercy, and give Him the Glory – but He wants us out their working, toiling, committing and investing our hearts, our minds, our finances, and our abilities that He has given us to accomplish what He has directed us in.

So, for that reason, I wrote a quick verse during church today; I think it says everything that needs to be said:

A Call to Arms!

I trust in the Lord with all my might,

So I take up my armor to engage in the fight!

My day just became even happier!

It’s been two weeks since we have talked to our children in Haiti – we got the call today; the weather was really bad; so we weren’t able to talk very long, but it’s so great to see their little faces!

David’s ears are all better, and Christella has finally been able to move up with the big girls… she is growing up so fast!

The thing that I detest

I think everyone has something that they absolutely detest; something they find ugly, dirty, disgusting and abhorrent. For me – it’s door-to-door salesmen. I mean; I have low respect for salesmen to begin with; they prey, they con, they connive, the lie, they deceive; but to do it in MY home, I will not tolerate it.

That being said; I am usually just a few steps away from being out-right rude to people that show up on my door step and want to sell me something, however, the other day, a young man, whom I have known since he was born, and who has been struggling to get a job for a long, long time, called me to tell me that he was going to start selling Areus air sanitizer equipment, and asked if he could come to my house and show it to me.

My response to him was that I wasn’t interested in the product, but I would be willing for him to show up and give me a demo so that he would get credit for it and have a little practice. He didn’t give me an exact date and time, but said he would be calling.

On Thursday evening, he called, we were going to go out, but decided to stay around and let him come over and give his demo. My wife had changed into her pajamas, and we were expecting him to show up around 8:00, like we agreed.

When he showed up on my doorstep though, he had brought some other salesmen with him. Needless to say I was very angry – I wouldn’t let these sleazy people in my house to sell me something, ever. Don’t get me wrong, as a person, I’m sure this guy is great, he probably has a family that he wants to support, he probably is a great father, a son, a friend, but I would have more respect for him as a professional if he was a crack dealer. And here he was, standing at my door step, expecting to be let in.

I had to let him in, I already agreed to the demo; but I was quite cold, probably quite rude at that, and I calmly told this young man that I was going to have a talk with him after, because he knew that I stressed that I would never let anyone else in my house, he knew that I stressed that I was doing it only for HIS benefit, so he could practice, and yet, he failed to mention that he was going to be bringing a salesmen for the company with him.

So, this salesmen proceeded to (like most house-to-house salesmen) insult my intelligence, insult my home, insult my family, and just act like a regular all around prick. He informed me that the central circulation system I paid to have designed and installed into my brand new home was broken and he wouldn’t live in my house breathing the air in my house, “but if I didn’t care about what we breath, then that’s up to me”.

In the end, I was ready to throw him out, and throw this young man out too, as he proceeded to tell me that this 2-bit salesmen obviously new more than I did about the quality of my home and air, and knew more about the health and safety of my family then I did, and he proceeded to tell me that he felt so sure that it was all true because someone else had already bought one (great for someone else!) [here is where I roll my eyes].

Incidentally, my wife ran a few tests in between the regurgitation of made up and slanted statistics, and our system made a 200 point difference on my entire house in about 10 minutes, and his system made a 500 point difference in a small 9×12 room in about a half an hour – clearly, my system is designed well for my entire home. Additionally, he pointed out that he has seen houses that are 200 times ‘worse’ than mine, and my house was only a couple hundred points higher than outside, and yet he continued to proclaim that we were breathing in poisons that were going to KILL US – but that’s not the point; obviously these door-to-door salesmen hoc products that are cheap to make, and appear like great deals, but the audacity and priggish stupidity just amazes me.

And of course, the whole time he was running his mouth about how dangerous house hold air is; alls I kept thinking was that I wanted to send this guy to Haiti for just a few minutes. How vain and stuck on himself, as he is running around and trying to get people to spend 500$-1500$ on these air purifiers because there is tons of ‘dust mites’ in the air in people’s homes, when there are places in the world where breathing the air is like smoking 4 packs of cigarettes a day.

I will not, ever, allow one of these people into my house again.

As two born, not of flesh, but of heart and soul… a day to remember…

We arrived in Port-Au-Prince on Monday afternoon; almost completely without incident.

There were no mobs of people, we were able to get right through immigration and right through customs all by ourselves; and we only had to wait about 30 minutes for our ride; and it was a great sight to see our friends come pick us up!

Here is a road sign for the road the Crèche is on.

We spent the afternoon at the orphanage; and it was so amazing to see our children again!

Our daughter is getting so big; she is finally starting to look like a 5 year old (perhaps even a bit older) – our son has fallen in love with me; at one point, after playing and roughing around, and squirming and fidgeting, he just turned around and gave me this gigantic hug, and he just kept hugging me.

He has become so attached that when his biological mother Nathalie was holding him; he kept reaching for me; it was bitter sweet…

And it took Christella ALOT less time to warm up to us as well…

but I’m getting ahead of myself…

Last night we arrived from the Orphanage around 5:30 I crashed hard – I couldn’t stay awake; I couldn’t get up; I could barely even move… I have no idea what was wrong with me… but apparently I really needed sleep.

Around 5:30 this morning our son woke us up – he wanted his second bottle of the morning – his cry started very docile and weak; but rose to a wail that was both loud and soft at the same time; he settled down for awhile, except; he was soon standing in his pack-n-play, he really wanted attention – he is so used to having 15 other babies to play with… did I mention he is both crawling and standing now… (Oh and eating everything he can get his hands on – I had to save this poor plant).

What we didn’t know was that morning at 5:30; his mother showed up at the Crèche just as she had promised she would; and she just sat there and waited until 1:00 o’clock when we were finally able to get back to the house… but again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We were supposed to be to the Embassy at 11:00 and were supposed to be picked up at 10:30; however, when I called Chris to ask how her hectic morning was going – she was in a big rush and said she’d have to get back to me; a child had taken ill and was unresponsive (the child turned out to be ok in the end; just had a very high temperature) – but that made the already hectic morning even more hectic.

So we arrive at the Embassy around 20 minutes late (no pictures; you can’t bring anything in with you but papers basically) – and the Embassy went amazingly smoothly. We were able to file our i600 (this was the third attempt) – we were able to file both the i600 and our Adjudicate Orphan First advance processing. This AOF paperwork will allow the Embassy to research the children’s eligibility for immigration long before the final court decree in Parquet – it will keep us from having to worry about adopting our children who then can’t legally im to the U.S. and will help speed up the process as well, because that research can be done while we’re doing a lot of the other court work; there are some potential pitfalls for this approach too – but I won’t go into them here… as I think we’re going to be all set.

So, that took us until almost 12:30; we had our Interview with the Embassy, paid our additional fees, signed papers, and we were back out the door.

When we got to the Orphanage, we met Mamma David (Nathalie) and Christella’s Uncle Bernier (we talked a lot during the day; but it was always SO noisy) at the Orphanage.

Our lawyer did an amazing job in setting up an interview with the judge in just one afternoon; he had all the papers ready and waiting for us to sign them. The ride was amazingly eye opening – like always, but I couldn’t take pictures, because I was busy holding on for dear life… I’ll try and get some pictures from the back of the box truck tomorrow…

After talking with the Judge we found there was a slight problem; the Judge was fairly new to his post; and he wasn’t sure if he could allow us to sign the papers – because we are under 35 and thus can’t legally adopt in Haiti – we know we need a presidential waiver to adopt; but he was thinking perhaps that he couldn’t allow us to sign with the parents until after the presidential waiver. Our lawyer pulled out his law book and showed the judge that we could get a waiver after the signing, because we were more than 20 years older than our children we are adopting, and were married for over 10 years. The judge graciously agreed to allow us to sign today; and he was going to research and have our lawyer provide evidences to confirm our ability to adopt tomorrow.

However, after we were all done; and we thought we were complete, and we were just waiting to sign documents; our friend Junior realized that they had recently changed addresses at the Crèche, and the new address put the Crèche in a new district not overseen by this judge.

While we were waiting, a policeman that towered over me, holding what looked to be a sawed off pump action shotgun and escorting a prisoner came and stood in my face and yelled “An Fom” – I had no idea what he said; so I said “Sa k’ Pase” (What’s up) – and he said “An fom” and I said “Myen Pa Konnprann” (I don’t understand you) so he responded “Komo ye” (How are you), and I responded (Bon anpil). He then proceeded to ask me my name, my wife’s name and Chris’ name. He then told me to have a good day and walked out the door. Junior came in from outside laughing, because the guards were outside laughing about it – I guess the Policeman was trying to intimidate me, and was just messing with me. I guess I’m too dumb to be intimidated.

So after it was confirmed that we were at the wrong judge, our lawyer once again went into overdrive and instantly got in touch with the new judge we were supposed to see – and got us an immediate audience – I was amazed!

So, we got back in the box truck and went for another drive. When we got to the new court house; we met the judge; the first thing he said to me in Kreyole was “If you weren’t with him (my lawyer) – there is no way I would let you into my court house wearing shorts”… I felt really bad, because I knew that in Haiti it is very important how you dress, however, I had told our Lawyer that I had no long pants, because I couldn’t survive the heat in them – and he said it was ok for me to dress in pants… My lawyer told me after the judge was kidding – but the judge never let on that he was….

Anyway, this new judge accepted our request; and we got the family council done, the Adoption Decree done, and the PVA done, all in a single swoop!

Below are pictures of Amanda and I accepting the parental rights of David and Christella, whom their guardians had just previously relinquished to us; this is kind of akin to standing before a judge and saying “I do” during a wedding; it was amazing, and hard all at the same time…

When asked if there was anything Nathalie would like to know about us, she replied, that she knew all she needed to know – that we loved David, and we would provide a good home for him. She also said that she would pray for us. She asked one thing of us, and that is if David could come to Haiti and visit her when he turns 18 – we have already begun preparing for the day, and we have already told each other that we would support our children wanting to learn and know their roots – so this was an easy answer; but it was a sad question to answer too.

(Although it’s gross – you can see that I was SOAKED in sweat!)

It was also sobering, as always – to get a glimpse into the life of this country. Christella’s uncle told me a lot about her family, and his. He is a builder by trade, but he is no longer working; he has 7 children to care for, and can’t afford to send them to school. As we were running around from place to place today; Amanda bought some water for us out of a bag from a bucket from on top of a street vendor’s head – while reluctant to drink; i was exhausted and dehydrated, and hadn’t eaten anything but a few crackers since 7 o’clock this morning. But then I realized that Christella’s uncle and David’s mom probably hadn’t eaten hardly anything that day either; but at the end of the day I was going to climb back into the bed at the hotel, have a full meal, air condition, and all the water I could drink.

There was so much I want to do to help them; but, there isn’t much I can do for many different reasons – more than I can go into here… at least for now… I don’t know about the future…

So now; there is still a big long list of things that our lawyer needs to accomplish before we can even get into the IBESR (Haitian Social Services) – but we are amazed (and Chris the Crèche director also seemed amazed) at how much we were able to get accomplished today.

At this point; I owe gratitude to our lawyer, Cliff, the orphanage director and assistant director Chris and Junior, and the H.I.S. Home staff; Gary, Richmond, Jude, Marlene, and Hal – and so many other people that I don’t even know by name that made today go as well as it did.

And of course, without question, God. I was sitting and praying for most of the time in the judge’s office today. Once again, He has shown Himself to be strong when rescuing us from some of the most impossible situations.

It is now storming horribly outside right now, the internet keeps going up and down; the MagicJack is working on and off; i have dust caked to my body, covered in sweat, I smell – I can’t smell from the burning left in my lungs from the days air intake, my body aches, I have a headache… I’m suffering some of the left over effects of dehydration, and the left over effects that I have when my blood sugar gets low after I go so long without eating but in the end; I would have to say, that this is a day that I never want to forget…

Today, I witnessed the birth of Christella Logiodice, and Jediah Logiodice II; and like the other three births before them; it brought me to humble appreciation and love for the God that is.

Leaving for Haiti

Too tired to say much else; exhausted and excited all at the same time…

Don’t tase me!

LoL @ That!

What does a Code of Ethics Assume?

One primary assumption that needs to be made when defining a Code of Ethics is an assumption that people strive to find ways to agree about what is right or wrong, thus by implication, an assumption that there is a universal morality (either broadly or narrowly defined). This week, we can bring our course discussions full circle to where we started almost 8 weeks ago – that is, the idea behind a universal or moral framework.

A Code of Ethics is a set of core values set forth describing a series of appropriate or inappropriate actions one should or should not take towards another human being. As I discussed in an earlier post in this course, like the ideas put forth by C.S. Lewis in his books Mere Christianity and the Abolition of Man, appealing to someone’s sense of right or wrong in a code of ethics assumes that there is a standard in which people can agree upon what is indeed right and wrong, disagreeing on what is right or wrong shows with even stronger veracity an external standard being appealed to.

When I write a Code of Ethics that states “It is wrong to steal”, I am asserting, not only that I think that it is wrong to steal something that doesn’t belong to me, but I am asserting it is wrong for anyone to steal something that doesn’t belong to them, and I am appealing (if not just recommending) that the world would be a better place if everyone agreed.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone is going to agree that “it is wrong to steal”, some might feel that it is right to steal only in certain situations, or right to steal all the time, however, once again, to take a position of opposition, is ipso facto to assume that there is a universal moral framework that can be appealed to.

Whether formalized or not, all human beings have a Code of Ethics – How they believe they should treat people, and how they believe people should treat them. Thus, I posit this provides a safe assumption that deep down inside, all human beings understand there to be a true sense of right and wrong; otherwise to write a Code of Ethics is like a breath taken outside on a cold winter day: it may be there for everyone to see, but it’ll last but a second, and have no impact on affecting the surrounding world.