Category: friends

Today we started out with a standard typical Friday in Haiti – we were not going anywhere, we were just sitting around the Hotel, we swam a little, ate a little, etc.

Then this afternoon, we all decided to take a crazy trip.  I took my family out the guarded gate (big shot guns standing by the gates), down the street, around the main road, and way up the hill to a ‘fast-food’ restaurant.   Apart from the smells of sweat and rotten trash, and the murky water flowing by on the streets, and the crazy cars that would speed by and honk their horns to let you know that if you get hit, it’s your fault for not paying attention (that’s the way it works in Haiti, as long as a driver honks, it’s the pedestrians fault for getting hit), apart from all that, we made it safe out and back an hour or so later.

We had a lot of stares, ALOT of stares, some smiles, and a few requests for ‘dollar’.  One lady it was very hard to say no too; she was very, very skinny and was carrying a baby, on the way up, she said she was hungry, “Mwen grangou, Mwen dwè fè manje, Mwen grangou”, but we knew there was no way that we could hand her money; if we pulled out money and handed it to her, we ran the big risk of being overwhelmed with people, perhaps creating a pretty scary incident; and I had my wife and three little children to watch out for on the way there (on the way back, we had about 10 women, twice as many children, and one other guy besides myself).

On the way back out; she was still there, and she pulled out medical papers showing what looked to be a prescription and asking for money; I have no idea if the prescription was real, but I’m sure she could have used some money for her and her baby, but there was just no way I could risk handing her some.

We also got to spend some time with Ralph, one of the little boys we sponsor through Compassion.  He came with his mother and two compassion representatives.  He was so excited to meet us; and he had a blast playing fotbôul with Donovan and loved playing in the pool, although I asked him “Ralph, Ou nage byen?”, Ralph reponn, “Wi, mwen nage byen” he then proceeded to slip and fall into the pool and go under, we had to scramble to get him, he was down there for a good 15-20 seconds.  That’s the third child that has fallen into the pool so far this week, my daughter was the first… funny though, these children clear out their nostrils and climb right back in… they’re not scared at all.

Speaking of which, it’s also funny how the Haitian children are cold in 90 degree weather when they go swimming, they actually shiver…  Christella has been warming up to me over the last two days, today she wanted me to hold her, she wanted me to cuddle her, she wanted me to play with her, she talked with me a little too.  I’m so happy.  I miss my children at home, but I also have a growing sadness welling up as I look to our trip home next week, once again leaving my beautiful children behind for who knows how long. 

Anyway, we took so many pictures and printed out a whole bunch for Ralph and his mother.  I’ve decided to post some pictures tonight.

Donnie LOVES his little brother

Ralph and his mother Mary

Our baby girl Christella – she is Christella Bèl La!

Ralph loved the bubbles!

Donnie decided today that he could like football.

Baby goats and tons of fruit trees out near the hotel.

Ralph and his Mother

Our family that is in Haiti right now

Donnie and Ralph the Football players!

Me and Ralph together

Christella would not let me put her down tonight

Christella and Manman Christella

This was us stuck in the monkey cage during the down pour in the mountains at the Baptist Mission.

Pictures of our little man!

Donnie & Christella

Amanda and Ralph in the pool

So, I had to pay another 50$ today (I got a little bit of a discount) to drive the three miles to the Embassy.  The drive took almost 2 hours.  We took a little different road than yesterday too, because we had to cut down a lot of side roads to circumvent the stand still traffic.  The car wouldn’t stay started either, so we had to keep popping the clutch, and even had to be pushed once to get it started again.

And even after the 110$ price and a full day of embassy travel (between yesterday and today) and waiting we cannot file our I600a this time.  Christella’s parent’s are both dead, and DHS told Chris to have her Uncle make out her name with his last name instead of her father’s last name.  But the Embassy said that just won’t work.  So now we have to redo a bunch of Christella’s paperwork over, and we also have to get an amendment to our Homestudy stating that we can adopt a child with a disability (Heart Arrhythmia is considered a disability).  So we’re not close to being done – and I will probably have to find the money to come back down to Haiti to file sometime very soon in the future.  I guess, on the upside, we now know these things before we get our papers into the legal system; it should help us in the long run.

Anyone who is reading this blog, please pray for our little girl that the Arrhythmia isn’t very bad, or perhaps not even there.  She is going for an echo cardiogram next week, and will see a cardiologist in June.

David is one amazing little boy, he is so full of laughs and talks he doesn’t complain at all except when he is hungry or he wants to be held – otherwise, he is content with everything!  Not like an American children we’re used to spending time with, they have almost no complaints at all, most of them are just happy to have a belly full and a place to sleep… 

Christella seems to be coming out of her shell, just as we’re getting ready to leave (in 3 days) – today she kept asking to hold my hand, she wanted to sit with me; we even had a couple short conversations.  This morning she even laughed when I tickled her, although she hid her smiles, she didn’t want me to see it.

And yet, her happiness is clouded with tears.  At least once a day she breaks down into full shoulder-shaking sobs.  We don’t know why, she won’t tell us.  She has gotten used to us now, so we wonder if she is remembering her parents.  Christella lost her mom at 2.5 years old, and lost her father a year later at 3.5 years old, and she came to the orphanage starving, at 4.5 years old and 24 pounds.  She has had a unbelievably rough life.  I hope the time for healing has begun, I hope she can come home as soon as humanly possible, and pray that God will reach down and have mercy on her and bring her into our family rapide.

On another note, Haiti continues to amaze me in the things I learn.  As we were driving down the road today I saw two firsts… first first was a traffic light – in fact there are a couple of them in Port-Au-Prince.  While the driving is still crazy (someone hit us today on their motorcycle) there are actually traffic lights once in a while.

Second first was a trash truck.  Yesterday while driving through the town I saw trash ‘cans’ that were at one time full of trash, but all the trash had been pulled out and strewn all over the ground, and there were people with plastic bags picking through the trash and filling up their plastic bags – I can only assume that is where they got their meals from, and we’re not talking about a few people; there were so many people picking through the trash.  And all around them where people with small blankets spread on the ground with corn and onions and mangos trying to sell them. 

We went to the Baptist mission today, Donnie was quite perturbed at the street vendors that were down the road that we went to visit.  They were so pushy, they wanted us to buy from them, they asked, and basically begged, they wanted nothing more to sell something.  We bought quite a few carvings (Have I mentioned how AMAZING the Haitian people are in their crafts and arts); but we only had so much money to spend, and there were so many people that we didn’t buy from, but they continued to follow us back into the compound, asking over and over for us to buy from them. 

I had to explain to Donnie that they have families to feed, and this is the only way they have to do it.  On the way back down he saw people climbing up the mountain with huge baskets on their head full of artisan products to sell, for what little money they make, they do this day in and day out… not a very simple life, but they do what they have to do.

While at the mission it started a torrential down pouring, and we ended up getting stuck inside of an unused monkey cage for almost 30 minutes.  I drove back in the trunk of the jeep – the trunk leaked… What a day.

Tomorrow we should be spending a little time with one of the compassion boys we sponsor.  I’m also looking forward to staying put for a day. 

While here I fixed one desktop, donated one laptop that I brought with me, and picked up two laptops to bring back to the states to try and fix.  I guess even my skills can be useful to help in Haiti.

Another day, another 30 minutes past.  I miss my Brae Brae and Bella, but I’m starting to to feel the sadness that is going to be overwhelming having to leave my two beautiful and wonderful Haitian children, and having no idea when we will be back again, and how they will fare in our absence.

Signing off once again from the town of Pètion-Ville.  Bondye Beni Ou, Bondye Beni la Haitians.

So I went much further into the interior of Port-Au-Prince today – with a guy I met this morning named Enock.  He was a very nice guy; he spoke Creole, and French and a little bit of English.  It’s surprising how much language that you have studied comes to you in a situation like that.  We were able to communicate quite well… only once did I need help from Alix (our hotel manager who found Enock for me) – when I needed to find out how long until Enock got back.  It actually wasn’t as scary as I imagined, I ended up driving with my windows down, mixing with the people – sometimes even talking with them at stops (mostly to say “No I don’t want to buy <whatever they were selling>”.  There are people standing on the streets selling everything in Haiti – even Air.  We had to stop to have a guy start up an old rickety generator to pump air into the tires of the car I was riding in.

He was supposed to wait for me at the Embassy, but he received a call and had to leave – at least he got me a note telling me that.  When he came back though, he seemed very anxious, and his car was stuttering and it appeared to be out of gas.  I asked him, “Ou bwenzen Gaz?”, and he (knowing that i could speak more French than Creole) rattled off a few paragraphs in French – I didn’t understand him, so I just said a quick prayer – a warrior prayer.  I made it back ok.

The trip into Port-Au-Prince was heart-wrenching… so many times I almost lost it.  These people are so beautiful, not only in physical appearance, but in their spirits.  The air is so thick with poisons, burning plastic, rubber, most cars pouring out black smoke, it makes your lungs burn and ache, you feel like you are suffocating, not only under the heat itself, but under the weight of the noxious fumes.  You try to breath light, which only makes your oxygen starved body cry out for more and make you breath all the harder.  My lungs are in pain… how can these people live like this?

Everywhere there were school children, going to school, uniformed, playing, laughing, while all around them were hungry bellies, and putridity.  Trash heaps piled everywhere, people emptying what looked like slop water out into the streets.  All around were colorful signs painted on the walls, painted on billboards, i don’t think i ever saw a single bare wall, the murals were amazing; and yet, what kind of hope is there for these people? 

A life expectancy of 50; breathing in constant poisons, scrapping to feed families on a little less than a dollar a day.  I couldn’t imagine eating the food being sold and prepared in the market places.  I saw people filling old gas cans and bleach bottles with water – I wonder if they would drink it… something makes me think so.

The buildings were unbelievable, as you drove down the road, you could look over the ‘cliff’ of the road, and see two-three stories of buildings that went down into the ground and two or three stories that went up into the air… knowing that when storms come in Haiti there is massive flooding, it’s no wonder so many people die, in a town with millions of people, many living below grade…

I ache to save my children from their future here in Haiti…  I ache to help those left behind in anyway I can… I also had to spend a small fortune to get into the embassy ($60 US dollars for a 3 mile drive) – and I have to go back tomorrow… so I’m paying about $10 US a mile….  I didn’t have all the paperwork I needed…  into the belly of the whale again tomorrow, but Junior and Chris are going with me this time…

The trip to the beach was just as scary… sometimes reaching 70 miles per hour in a 14 seat van that had 28 people in it, no buckles, roads that were for the most part dilapidated and falling apart (although there was ALOT of rebuilding since the last time we were here from the hurricane the previous year).  Sometimes there were pits and ravines on either side, the roads crumbling into them, and we would swerve around going 60 mph.  Quite a few times we went head on to an oncoming car, at 60-70 mph, and the driver would swerve just at the last second.  Haitians are AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING drivers… American would likely die quickly on the roads over here… I SWEAR we grazed so many pedestrians, and they didn’t even blink…

Imagine, driving through your town at 70 MPH while 2-3 year old children play in and on the street, and they just blink and eye and slide out of the way of the vehicles that do not even attempt to slow down.

Apart from the noxious and poisonous fumes, I saw dead donkeys and dead cows along the road… 

The ocean, however, was beautiful.  Mountains in the panoply surrounding the ocean, mist, bright blue ocean, sandy beach, wildlife everywhere… but it took us 2 hours to get out far enough that the OCEAN was safe enough to play in…

On another note, we found out that our daughter has a heart arrhythmia,  please pray for her that it is not very dangerous – she is going to go for tests in a couple weeks, and then will go for a second opinion in a few weeks after that.  We also found out that our beautiful baby boy not only had malaria, but his GI infection was causing him to have bloody stools and he had dropped so dangerously low in weight, that they had to give him a feeding tube… after a second round of antibiotics he finally seems to be getting better…  Chris and Hal and the HIS Home staff, are amazing people!  Chris was so worried about our son that she used skin contact therapy to keep him with us… 

It makes me weep; I want them to come home with us … I want them safe…  Please pray for our children, please pray for this country, please stand up and do what you can to help.  I don’t care how these people look on the outside, and how well they seem to be taking their “lot in life” – these people HAVE to be hurting on the inside; they HAVE to know that this isn’t how life is supposed to be.  Why should they have to wait to die to taste the riches of life that God has given?  Why?  My 16$ pizza would feed a family of 6 for half of a month…  God, send your warriors!

And please, while you’re at it, heal my lungs, because I feel pain at each breath, and I can’t get the smell of poisons out of my nostrils.

Signing off in Haiti on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009.

So, I’m driving into the city of Port-Au-Prince tomorrow, by myself, with a fella by the name of Enoch that I’ve never met yet, and he doesn’t speak any English…  This is definitely a first for me, and I’m feeling a bit nervous (ok, quite a bit), for more than a few reasons which I will blog about tomorrow night (hopefully).

Alix, the really great manager of the Hotel we’re staying at says Enoch is one of the only guys that he trusts… hopefully that means I’ll be safe…  In a foreign city, by myself and can barely speak any understandable Creole…  … … …

(Psa 37:3)  Trust in the LORD and do good;
    dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.

(Psa 37:3)  Mete konfyans ou nan Seyè a, fè sa ki byen! Pran peyi a fè kay ou, viv ak kè poze!

On another note, it was sobering tonight to realize that the price we pay for one dominos pizza (16 US) is a little more than half a months pay for the majority of people in Haiti – boy do we take a lot for granted!

And on that same note, I MISS my refrigerator with the built in ice and water.  It’s been in the 90’s with 90% humidity and each bottle of water costs us 1.50$  and we’ve been drinking a very large amount each day (between the 5 of us).

Here are a few pictures…

It’s amazing how the Lord uses unsuspecting people to help Him accomplish His purpose!

A little story for those that aren’t aware: When we went down to Haiti in Feb, we had just had the little girl we were about to start the adoption process with (Julia) taken home by her mother; we knew we wanted to adopt two children (we were adopting Christella too), but we were unsure of who else…

A little girl Fabienne had caught my eye on the sponsorship page from the very beginning and we knew we were going to sponsor her… Chris had told us a little about her and her story was very sad… her parents were both dead, and she had been waiting for almost two years for a grandfather who had said he was going to adopt her, but had then never followed through.

We spent the week with Fabienne and Christella. You’ve already probably heard how much we fell in love with our daughter Christella, so I won’t go into those details here. Fabienne was a lovely, precious little girl, friendly and rambunctious… but as much as we felt love for her, the Lord seemed to be whispering into Amanda’s heart "she is not your little girl"… and it tore us apart, to have to make the decision, but it just didn’t seem right… but we had faith that God had someone out there for her.

In the mean time Chris had already let Fabienne’s grandmother and Aunt know that someone was interested in possibly adopting her, and either way, it was time to make a decision as she could not sit in limbo for the rest of her life.

The family weekend came and went and Fabienne’s grandmother never showed up to make the decision, and we were very sad and frustrated for her.

In the mean time, Amanda called Chris and asked her about Fabienne’s grandmothers response, and also about little David, because she had taken pictures of David, and wanted to give them to his adoptive family. We saw the website which said that David already had an adoptive family. Chris said that David still didn’t have an adoptive family, and the silent little whisper that had been going on, filtered out by the background noise of life sprang to a pounding heart beat… almost immediately it became obvious that He was our second child!

And then, talking to Chris today about her trip to the states for Ronald, Amanda found out what God had been doing all along with Fabienne. Fabienne’s grandmother showed up this morning with the other family members and took her home to live with them!!!

It is amazing how God works and moves! Apparently our heart-beat for Fabienne was just a tool of His to give her grandmother a little push. He put the love in our hearts, and then softly spoke to Amanda and said "she is not your baby"; and then used that opportunity of our interest to show her grandmother how much she wanted her to come home. It’s funny sometimes to see how things are being directed…

We have no idea how things will turn out in the end, but it’s reassuring to sometimes get those small little glimpse of the plan that God has that He works out for the good of "all those who love him"…

Amen!