diary – Page 9 – Jediah Logiodice's Blog

Haiti: Making Sense of suffering?

A powerful aftershock today resulted in the final determination that the buildings of the HIS Home Orphanage are no longer safe even to be around. The buildings had to be abandoned. The children have been moved to a local Church down the road.

This afternoon I found this article about a young 22 year old woman who was working with Orphans in Haiti; she was killed when the 7 story building she was staying in collapsed in a “blink of an eye”. Our hearts go out to her friends and family; this story hits very close to home.

I’m sure in the days and weeks to come there will be numerous tragedies like this discovered and reported on. There really is no answer to the question of “why” even when our entire lifespan is just a breath on a cold winters morning. I have to lean heavily on the trust that there is a reason; and all the senselessness of the destruction and death and chaos will someday make sense.

As you probably are; I have been really struggling over the last couple days in trying to make sense in my heart out of all the pain and suffering and destruction that is going on in Haiti right now. I can’t make any sense of it, no matter how I try.

I’m not really sure if there is any way to make sense of it, as we are looking through a small telescope at the vastness of the universe of time, we can only see one small moment in one small area of space.

I was reminded today, in the midst of this agony of heart something I read by C.S. (Jack) Lewis, regarding the problem of pain and suffering in his book, The Great Divorce. I thought I would share.

It really brings no consolation for a broken heart: but it at least can remind us, that there is a God-view that we cannot see – and we must remember to trust and have faith.

“‘That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences’: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.’ – C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34864920/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34879803/ns/world_news-haiti_earthquake/

http://mollyinhaiti.blogspot.com/

Update on our Children & Haiti

From what we have heard so far, both David and Christella are ok. The orphanage is ‘ok’, the buildings did not collapse, but they are unstable and everyone has been sleeping out on the ground. Adoptions are at a standstill (obviously), and it’s likely that our paperwork has been destroyed as it was just delivered to the IBESR right before the earthquake. At a time when the need couldn’t be greater to have these children safe & home, unless God will intervene on all of our behalves, things are looking very bleak.

We have written letters to Senator Snowe and Senator Collins and the Office of International Children’s Issues to ask for the possibility of Emergency Humanitarian or Refugee Visa’s – but we are not sure if that is even an option.

We know of so many buildings that have collapsed, and some of the people we know and have met are among the casualties – but we do not have much more information than that right now.

Due to the decrease in food, water, no electricity, likely no working sewage system, and the issues that will come with so much of the death and destruction – the worst is yet to come.

We are working on pulling together donations from local stores of non perishables and money, and we will be bringing them to Boston to fly out with the formula on Tuesday – Pray that we will be able to help make a difference in this endeavor.

l’Institut du Bien-être social et de recherches

As I was about to put down the computer for the night, I received a “blip blip” from our Lawyer on Skype who was down in Haiti working at l’Institut du Bien–être social et de recherches. l’Institut du Bien–être social et de recherches is also known in most adoption circles as IBESR, and is the “Social Services” of Haiti.

IBESR is the monumental first step of the adoption process – and we have just entered it!!!! Our journey has just officially begun; and our most worrisome point is still to come that is the Haitian National Palace where we shall petition to receive a waiver to adopt (despite the fact that we already have biological children, and we are under age 35).

Any parent reading this blog will perhaps understand what it might be like to have your children separated from you and be so far away, out of your loving arms and protection, but worse, that it is not within our power to bring them home. I’m not sure what it was, but in Church this Sunday both Amanda and I broke down as we started to sing “Knowing You”, we both almost had to leave the sanctuary as we had a hard time pulling ourselves back together.

So – we have just officially, after a full year of preparing with paperwork, started out on the long, long journey of adoption. Our daily family prayer is that God will empower and guide Clifford (our lawyer) to work efficiently in the legal system to bring our children home, and that God will strengthen Chris, Hal, Junior and HIS Home with the ability to provide the love and protection for our children while we are separated from each other.

And if you have it in your heart, for us, please bring this request before the throne of The Almighty.

Little and Big Miracles…

What Faith Can Do – Kutless

If you close your eyes when you walk the road of life; you may miss a lot of little miracles, sometimes overshadowed by the big ones!

From: HIShomeforchildren@yahoogroups.com [mailto:HIShomeforchildren@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of ******@comcast.net
Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2009 2:52 PM
To: HIShomeforchildren@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [HIShomeforchildren] double praises

I just wanted to share with everyone how GREAT our God is. I am sure as you watch the news you have seen the bomb attack on the airplane in Detriot? My cousin and his wife were on that plane. They were on their way home from Ethiopa with their new daughter they adopted! So God stopped the bomb and brought a new little girl into our family on CHRISTmas day. What a Blessing.

Praying for great adoption news for all of us this up coming year.

Happy new year,

Natalie

This is the house that Jed built…

This is the mouse that lived in the house that Jed built… but let me not get ahead of myself.

We built a house out in the country in the middle of a great big field – and needless to say we have been fighting the introduction of field mice into our house since we first moved in.

Our house is a two story ranch; the first floor is exposed on 3 out of the 4 sides, and we have always been able to contain the mice to the first floor (at least neither we nor our cat have found evidences of mice on the second floor).

However, over the last couple weeks we have been seeing indications from our cat Zia that there could be mice in the upstairs part of the house now.

As a quick aside, Zia is another animal all together; we warn all friends and family that come over that she is a little schizophrenic; she can be sweet and loving, and begging to be pet one second; and then the next second she will dig her claws into you and claw & bite. No one ever believes us; until after they have been hit. Zia is a royal pain in my rear – even though I’m the only person in the house she doesn’t dare to attack – however; she still has some value as a mouser apparently.

Anyway, yesterday was the first time we actually saw signs of the mice upstairs (mouse poop in a drawer) so the war began. While we believed there was more than one mouse, we only had one trap – and so we set it. Here is where the story really begins though.

This morning we were woken up to Braeden saying “Oh that’s cute, Zia has a toy mouse”; and it was then followed up with something to the effect of “Bella throw Zia her mouse” (I couldn’t quite hear, because I sleep with earplugs on mornings that I don’t want to wake up at 6 AM by our children).

Scrambling out of bed we found this:

That was the most lifelike toy mouse we have ever seen. We didn’t have the heart to tell Bella that she was tossing around a dead mouse though. 🙂

Are animals aware of their own mortality?

If you had asked me this a couple weeks ago, I would have said no. However, I also realize that most of the pets we have had over the last 10 years, we either did not have until they died, or they were too small to have much interaction with.

Today, our pet rat of two years died. She had cancerous growths that started earlier this summer; but over the last week we found that she was getting really, really bad; emaciated, loosing some hair, not moving much, not eating much. We started giving her crackers with peanut butter on it for the last two days, as she would actually eat it – but would eat nothing else.

Today, when I went to give her the food, she took it, put it aside, and then dragged, and pulled her tired body down one cage flight, out onto the door and up against my chest. She continued to start to climb up onto me, which she had no strength to do. She hasn’t tried to climb out onto me in a long time. But today, despite almost no strength she made the unbelievable effort, and she was determined.

I helped her up onto my shoulder which was her final aim; and she tried to climb into my shirt, as she had always done as a baby rat. I couldn’t let her into my shirt, because she was very sickly and it kind of grossed me out. However, I stood there for about 15 minutes petting her. And she started to brux – a sound rats make when they are very happy – they grind their teeth together. Eventually she stopped bruxing, until Donovan came back over, and started petting her, and she started bruxing again.

Donovan was upset because she seemed to be crying – he was right – either it was the amount of effort she put into climbing on me, or she was actually crying. After she got on my shoulder she sat there for a short while, and tears started to come from her eyes – but just a short while later, her eyes were dry again.

It was time for me to go back to work; but I knew she wasn’t going to last the rest of the day; Amanda held her for a while, and then let Donnie hold her. It was unbelievable to see how calm she was (apart from her very labored breathing) once she got into our arms.

I let Amanda know that she should have the kids say goodbye, and a short while later, stormy died in Donnie’s lap.

The kids of course are devastated; they have never experienced death for something they were very close to. Amanda told Braeden that we would bury her and she would turn into a flower. Braeden kept saying to me, “Papa, I don’t want a flower, I want stormy” – a couple times he said “Papa, can’t we pray to God and ask Him to give stormy back to us” – “I know God can bring stormy back, why don’t we just ask”.

Wow – it was really hard as a father to experience the sorrow of my children from their lost…

But Stormy’s death had a profound impact on me; she knew she was dying and she wanted to spend her last moments with her family – rather than in her cage… profound….

Christmas Irony

There is nothing that brings out my nature as a fallen human more than being dragged out shopping around Christmas time. If you want to cure a humanist – send them Christmas shopping with me. It becomes very obvious very quickly that I’m not “inherently good”.

And that’s the most ironic part of Christmas, I think. The weeks leading up to the celebration of the birth of our Lord, seems to make the most obvious, exactly why I need a savior.

I think I just heard an amen coming from at least one other person in the crowd… it must have been another Logiodice.

When they passed out the brains…

So this morning I awoke to a sound similar to the sound of someone dumping a bucket of legos down a set of stairs – very loud crashing, followed by very loud crying.

“Braeden, are you ok, are you ok Braeden?”

Well, I’ll save you the drama except to find out that Braeden had taken the whiteboard, put it on the top of the stairs and slid down on top of it (and rumor has it Bella was on it too – because I heard her say “I didn’t get hurt”, to which Braeden replied “that’s because you’re feet didn’t stick out”..

Amanda had decided to let them watch Dennis the Menace this morning without parental supervision.

I am so used to our children’s dangerous antics, that I lay in bed thinking:

“Well, if he is crying he is still alive. If Donnie isn’t screaming, then there is no blood”.

Braeden came wandering into the room crying:

“Donnie said it was safe. Donnie said I wouldn’t get hurt.”

So, I said to Braeden:

“Braeden, you have to learn to use your common sense.”

To which he replied:

“What is common sense?”

I said:

“Braeden, if Donnie told you it was safe to jump off the roof, would you do it?”

He replied, “No”, between sobs.

“And why not”, I asked?

“Because I would get hurt” (whimper).

“Well, that’s what common sense is”, I replied.

Braeden went quiet…

A few minutes later he said “But Pappa, how would I get on the roof anyway?”.

OMG! I thought, he sat there the last couple minutes thinking about jumping off the roof, and his only concern was how he would actually get up there. This boy is scary!

As my mother always used to say to me; “When they passed out the brains, Braeden thought they said drains and said ‘Give me a little one with a lot of holes in it’”!

The Christmas Gift…

In Haiti, a little girl died today, it happens every day, all around the world, and it leaves a feeling of sadness and emptiness and hurt, and pain, and often even anger. Why should children die, why should anyone die? This isn’t the way God began his creation, so why?

Rom 8:20-21 NIV
(20) For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope
(21) that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

But Jesus overcame death, and with His final triumph on the cross that began with a journey some 2000 years ago, with the incarnation of our God, comes the hope of victory.

1Co 15:55-57 NIV
(55) "Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"
(56) The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
(57) But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

So let my weeping heart be comforted, let me find rejoicing in the Lord, let me celebrate his great love, celebrate his birth.

For while this little girl has been separated from God’s creation, from her body, from those who love her, yet only for a little while, and with Jesus, she now has the hope and expectation that she shall come again to be reunited to all the things she was intended to enjoy from the beginning of creation.

The day in which she returns in the company of her Lord, she will be made new – all things will be made new, and this was all made possible by the gift from God that we celebrate every December 25th.

Isn’t that the greatest Christmas gift of all… Thank you Lord Jesus!

“Today was her second birthday, so I am sure that she is celebrating that as well! Just so you know, Schella’s real name is also Gaelle, and Baby Gaelle was her assigned little sister. Schella loved her SO much and spent a lot of her time rocking her on the balcony, helping her eat, and spoiling her. Baby Gaelle loved her! Baby Gaelle woke me up at 2AM, and I sat up with her. As sick as she was, I couldn’t understand why she would not give up, until Schella came up to say goodbye this morning. With Schella stroking her hands and tears running down Schella’s cheeks, Baby Gaelle finally was ready to go. What a touching scene! Such compassion and love! Please be praying for Schella, as she will miss Gaelle…

Gaelle went to Heaven to spend CHRISTmas with Jesus this morning around 7 A.M.”

The new Rubik cube…

My wife pointed me to a new Rubik cube that was recently released call the Rubik touch cube:

I have to admit that there is some “wow” factor in the having the technology (although the technology integrated into the iTouch devices is old, this is certainly a new use for it), however, how many people would say that they would be fulfilled by sliding their finger across the top of a device to move different colors into place?

For me the entire urge to play with a Rubik cube is the shifting, twisting, turning, spinning and strategizing that comes with touching a square box that has little interlocked pieces that slide around and making a “clicking sound”.

Additionally, part of the fun of the Rubik cube is to see how fast you can turn and spin and sift and twist, as it shows motor skill and hand eye coordination and the ability to think at so many different levels; it seems this new cube has completely lost that tactile experience.

And what about the cheats of taking it apart and the challenge of putting it back together right – that’s just completely gone.

So, while there is something kind of cool in this new use for this old technology, I would still have to say that I prefer the old fashion Rubik cube, do you?