Urgent Care (Rose's Broken Leg)

Thursday, April 18th, 2013

Yesterday, we were in Port au Prince for an appointment for both girls.  Before leaving our hotel, Rose was playing on a couple of low stairs.  I had taken her down once and when she climbed back up I chided her to get back down and began walking toward her.  Before I could get there, she giggled with the pleasure of her own disobedience and hurriedly turned to go down the two stairs.  As she turned she lost her balance and fell.  At first I did not get why she was crying so  much for an injury she usually recovers from so quickly, and felt a little angry that she was carrying on so, but when I tried to set her down she would not put weight on her left leg.  She acted "shock-y" the rest of the afternoon, sleeping a lot and not wanting to eat.  She whimpered when her leg was moved.  At that point I was pretty sure she had some kind of break or serious injury.  At the advice of a friend we splinted it once we were home and Rose slept for most of the night.

I have written about going to the Dr. once before, but the experience of accessing medical care here in Haiti is so unlike home, I thought I'd share another encounter with healthcare, Haiti style.  

Let me start by saying that there are truly some lovely people to meet along the way.  Despite the hardship Haitians face both in their work and in getting care, in general, I encounter patience, warmth, and friendliness along the way.  This is one of the marks of goodness I so enjoy about this culture.

The morning begins just before 7.  My cell phone sounds the "rise and shine", I get myself dressed and ready and then wake Rose.  

I leave our place at Manna and walk over to COTP.  Noah has decided to come along to help out and join in the adventure. After tracking down John, we get into the red pick-up and bump and jostle down the dirt road, until we get to the tar road that leads to Milot.  I have been to Milot often enough to know my way around a bit, so I leave John at the vehicle and enter the front gate.  He agrees to find me in about an hour to check in.  The security guards ask nothing of me as I enter.  

I am not entirely sure where to go for emergency care, so first I check out the pediatric clinic.  The nurse tells me there is no doctor there and points across the courtyard.  Not knowing exactly what she says I walk back across the yard and up the stairs to the second level to an entrance for hospital admissions.  There I ask a guard where I can see a doctor for my daughter's leg.  He shrugs and indicates I need to go back downstairs, so I do.  

I walk to the peds unit.  There the nurse points me to Urgent Care, which I have not before noticed, tucked in a corner of the wide courtyard.  

The door has a padlock which hangs open and a nondescript door with a curtained window and a sign that reads Urgent/ Emergency.  I knock lightly and then enter, squeezing in next to the others in the cramped entry.  The area immediately within the door is a combined med room/ administration desk/ nurse's station/ waiting area all within approximately 10 x 10 space.   I tell the young man behind the desk that I my daughter has had an accident and I believe she has a broken leg.  He attends to a couple of other tasks while I share a single chair with Noah and Rose on my lap.  

While I wait, I take notice of the room  The rest of the space is sectioned off with curtains which fall too short to cover the areas they seek to divide.  There are 5 spaces with beds, 4 of which are occupied with people in varying degrees of injury and/or pain.  Two appear to be moto accidents with painfully abraded skin peeking through gaps in the curtains.  Family members crowd beside beds to help attend to the injured.  One large-breasted woman lays in her bed, topless, and while Noah is at the age to feel both curious and embarrassed by such nudity, in this setting he seems largely unfazed.

Back at the desk the young man writes out an order for radiology.  Having been here before I know I must go and have the price of the procedure written on the form and then pay for it prior to accessing the service.  

Noah and I leave the room, with me carrying Rose, back across the courtyard, down a narrow two-way sidewalk to the front entrance.  I go to the information booth.  No one is there.  In the past when this has happened, pharmacy seems to fill in for the job, so I walk over to the pharmacy, which is in the same general area near the front gate.  I wait in line behind 4 others until it is my turn at the plexiglass window.  I pass my paper under the small arched opening.  Cool, air conditioned air seeps out into the muggy hallway.  The person inside informs me that the information attendant is now on duty.  

I return to the information booth, wait my turn behind 2 others and then present my paper there.  For some reason unknown to me, radiology fees need to be assessed in Archives (Records/ HIMS).  I walk to the doorway next to the pharmacy and walk in.  After waiting for one other to be served I present my paper.  The man writes 500 and I leave.  Next go to the Cashier to pay for the service.  There are 5 people in line.  I wait.  Again.  Rose's weight is wearing on my right shoulder muscles but she remains in a relatively good mood, and Noah is holding up remarkably well with all the waiting and searching, so I am thankful for that.  I make it to the window, pass the attendant my 1000 Gould bill, ignore the flirtation, and return to the courtyard to find radiology.

Radiology is marked with a sign above the door, painted in green letters, like all the other offices.  It sits on the far right end of a plaza of sorts, along with special services to the left, and OBGYN beyond that.  There is a large outdoor waiting area with wooden benches witch are all occupied beyond capacity.  I quickly scan the hands of those seated to see how many others hold papers like mine.  Seeing none I am assuming and hoping that most of these people are here for "special services" or OBGYN.  I mentally check off all of those with pregnant bellies and add a few extra to the tally as their friends and family, and am pleasantly surprised to see only a handful of others.  We might get through this whole deal quickly! 

It is difficult for me to tell what the proper procedure is for knowing when to enter an office or room, but sitting around doesn't answer it for me, so I go up to the door, squeezing around a man in a wheelchair with open skin.  He was in urgent care with us a little while ago, and his attendant stands behind him with a paper like mine.  I knock on the door and open it.  An official looking man with properly trimmed hair and dress clothes, looks at my paper and tells me, "just a moment".  I leave the room and prepare to wait as "moments" vary a great deal based on interpretation!  

Waiting is a big part of accessing care, and of many other aspects of life here, and since I am now waiting, while still holding my chunky toddler in my weakening arms I decide to people watch.  Though I have not yet specifically mentioned it, I should say that all the while I am at Milot I am being watched -- and talked to, and talked about, but mostly watched, so I feel less shame in openly staring as well.

There are improvements being made to landscaping in the grounds outside our seated area, and men are working on the landscaping.  I find it somewhat amusing that one of the guys is dressed entirely normally in shorts, t-shirt, and baseball cap, but has somehow found it appropriate to wear over the knee toe socks.  They have a red back-ground with a pink heart pattern for the majority of the socks with teal back-ground and white hearts from the ankle down, and flip flops between his conveniently separated toes.  He works seriously and is not at all hindered in his diligence by being dressed ever so slightly like a circus clown.  Noah does not even double take.  His new normal has set in.

After 15 minutes or so, the gentleman I saw inside the radiology room pokes his head out searching the crowd.  I lock my eyes on his, hoping he will notice and summon me with my white paper in hand, and he does.

Once inside I place Rose on the 1950's style x-ray apparatus, after the x-ray tech cleans the fresh blood off the table left by the previous patient.  The gentleman gives me a lead gown, positions Rose as one might expect, goes behind a plywood wall and takes the x-rays.  He then goes into a room labeled "dark room", processes the film, places the x-rays in a large envelope labeled "spine" and motions for us to exit the room.  We leave and return to Urgent Care.

Once back inside the Urgent Care room, the young man behind the desk takes the x-rays looks at them without registering any concern.  He gives them to a Dr.  who tells me in English, "the bone is broken. We need to cast."  I can see from the Dr.'s indicating that there are breaks in both the tibia and fibula.  

At this point another piece of paper is written with a request for Rose's medical record. I need to return to Archives to get it.  Back across the courtyard, down the narrow sidewalk, around the corner to Archives with Rose on my hip and Noah following behind. 

Again we wait our turn for being served.   I pass along the chart request along with her hospital card number. One problem.  We don't seem to have the right number.  Sigh.  We are being helped by a most  wonderful man, slight in stature, with Gandhi- like kind eyes.  I happen to have a copy of Rose's birth certificate along, so after some precursory searching for the chart, Gandhi sends me away to an office with a computer to see if her birth day shows up. 

ONCE again, back around the corner, down the narrow sidewalk single file, across the courtyards to accounting.  There they look in the computer, but are unable to help.  I follow my route back to the Archives office to tell them we have no luck.  Gandhi tells me without the chart I cannot return to  Urgent Care.  I tell him I will go to the waiting area outside to sit until our driver returns.  My cell phone died a few days ago and Kirk had texted the chart number to John when we could not find Rose's ID card that morning.  So we wait.  Noah goes outside the gate to buy some street food from the daily vendors.  Rose and I entertain the other hospital patrons simply with our "white mama, haitian baby" routine.  A man asks if her mother is dead.  Not wanting to get into a long discussion, I tell him "yes".  He asks me if I am her mother.  I tell him I am.  He then proceeds to explain to those around us, that the baby's mother is dead and I am now her mother.  There are nods and murmurs.  They watch me feed the baby.  They watch me get her sippy cup out the backpack and hand it to her.  They comment that the baby drinks.  They comment that I give her a doll.  They comment that she throws the doll on the dirty ground and that I give it back to her.  Just when I am becoming quite weary of the fishbowl, Gandhi returns with wonderful news -- there had been a misspelling of her last name, but he has found the missing chart!  I want to kiss him on his shiny forehead, but resist, and instead thank him profusely.  

He walks me back to Urgent Care with our chart, where we are now able to receive services.  We have now been at Milot hospital for 2 hours.  Though others stand in the crowded room, we are ushered to a back corner. The Dr. asks a nurse to get a clean sheet which she places over the sheet on the exam table.  I set Rose down.  My bicep  murmurs a weak thank you with a twitch.  

The Dr.'s name tag indicates that he is the medical director.  He demonstrates casting Rose's leg to 3 nursing students and two other young men in the room.  The other patients and their visitors watch as well.  Rose cries as sad wet tears roll off her cheeks into her ears and then it is over.  She is casted from toe to thigh and we can go.  

Almost.

John has not returned but Papito arrives.  The nurse is happy to talk to him instead of me assuming he will translate, which he does.  I have not yet been given a bill for the Dr. or casting so I ask if I owe something.  The nurse leaves and returns with a piece of paper.  250 is written on it.  I need to go back to the Cashier to pay and then return to Urgent Care with the stamped paper indicating I have paid. 

Noah and Rose and I wait in line once again.  There are 6, then 5, then 4, then 3, then 2 people ahead of us, when someone from Urgent Care comes out to the line to find us.  He says, "the nurse says you can return".  "Can?"  So it's optional.  I would rather stay and pay and then check what is needed, but he clarifies that we need to leave the line now, so I do, reluctantly saying good-bye to my almost- to- the-window spot in the cue, and follow the man back to urgent care.  

The nurse in urgent care tells me they have given me the wrong price.  It is too high.  Too high I do not care about if I means we can leave, but then she looks at something else and says it is too low.  She hands me a new paper with 600 on it.  

We return to the line.  We are once again waiting when a nurse from Urgent Care appears.  I think this cannot possibly be a good sign, but she simply gives us Rose's x-ray.  I smile say thank you, pay my bill and we can leave!  Whew.

I find Papito in the front waiting area and ask where the vehicle is.  He tells me he is on a moto.  At this point I do not care how we get how home and Noah is practically giddy that we get to ride home on a moto so Papito gets on the moto, Noah snugs up behind him with the x-ray tucked between then, I throw a skirted leg over over the back and squeeze Rose in between Noah's back and me, and with back-pack on back we leave.

Urgent care at Milot is not the same as at home, but for $25 American, Rose has been seen and cared for and we are headed home.  I think I need a nap!!!

Rose with her new cast - day 1.

The Most Peaceful Place. Ever.

For literature, Noah and I have been studying Robert Frost poetry, and trying to put ourselves in the place of the poet, with his eye for nature and nuance.  Last week on the way back over to our place from COTP, Noah got "lost" for 15 minutes.  Not the kind of lost that worries, me, but the kind where I wonder with great annoyance gentle bemusement, "huh, I wonder where he's staying?"

He came walking into the house with emotion filled voice, and said, "I was walking home and noticed a beautiful orange tree not far off and had to get closer to see it".  He had cantaloupe-colored, blooms in his hand, and his eyes were shining as he pressed one into my palm.

I did smile at that.  In our years of raising kids in the states, I often felt sad, or wistful maybe, for the things our kids were not getting that I treasure from my childhood, one of them being, a sense of wonder and curiosity about nature.

As a kid I lived in a place where rolling hills, woods, and streams were my play places.  Building forts with hay-lined floors, laying near the pond on my stomach watching tadpoles, jumping off the bluffs into snow chest-deep, enjoying the crunch of leaves on the forest floor or the crackle of ice on the pond, standing in a clearing in the woods and noticing the slant of sun, the musty ground, the sound of birds.... these were the treasures I valued from my youth that my kids did not know.  I had gotten lazy in my parenting and "visits" to the woods or fields were not fun for the kids - they're eyes and ears were not trained to love or notice the richness there.  They found those places boring.

But here in Haiti, in the countryside near Cap Haitian, with all the pain and hardship in lives around us, I have watched them re-awaken boyhood and discover joy in creation.  I have seen them begin to delight in the part of God who creates with such care and detail as to dress a distant tree in nothing but orange flowers for a brief season, a God who delights in designing the dizzying array of grasses that fill the fields and ditches with variety and texture, the God who broods over the deep shades of purple that tint the mountains around us in the afternoon light, the God who chuckles along with the comical vocalizations of the giant black crows, and He who patiently formed the tiny, perfect, fingernails of a fragile baby.  I love that my kids are in a place that peaks their affection and curiosity for such things, so when the boys asked if they could take me for a walk to "the most peaceful place ever" I said "yes!".

For the first part of the walk they held my hands like younger versions of themselves and were chatted excitedly while showing me the way.

We walked out the front gate and then to the left, behind the Manna compound, always with our eye on the tall orange tree...

... until we found ourselves standing right under it.

  The boys collected the blossoms that rained down from the tree and carpeted the ground, holding them to their noses, expressing appreciation for their beauty.

After a bit we continued on, past the bounds of the property, beyond the sugarcane, to a place where the plain opened.  There was a small farm plot to the right.  Tidy, hand-tooled, mounded rows were planted with sweet potato and squash vines, and a dry stream bed lay cracking on the left.  Lazy palms were scattered across the plain, standing tall among scrubby brush, and the gentle mountains rose hazily in the distance on all sides.





Noah put his palm to Elijah's chest stopping him mid-step.  "This is the place".

"Shhh.  Don't say anything, Mom."  Elijah demanded.  After some silence, he whispered, "it's so peaceful here."  And without a doubt it was.  So quiet, except for an occasional cow bawling somewhere far off, the sounds of birds in nearby trees, and the hushed voice of the breeze through sugarcane and coconut palm fronds.

Noah agreed saying, "we should come here every day to enjoy the peace.  Isn't it perfect?".

Not long ago this moment would have been impossible.  In my rushed world with schedules and appointments and practices and programs and meetings and... well, you know all too well what I mean.  No one in our family had time for a quieted soul or a place to soak in the loveliness God had created.  Our lives were filled with the white noise of media, busyness, consumerism-- you name it, and I was allowing it to numb and bore my children.

God invites us to come and rest in him but often we are anesthetized to the beauty he has created around us; beauty meant to restore and renew like Psalm 23 talks about, beauty meant to balm hurts and discontent, beauty not just meant for vacations, but for our lives.  Might David, the Psalmist have known something about coming near the Lord in such moments?

I am in a land deemed the poorest in the entire world where starvation and unemployment and worst of all, hopelessness are real.  Garbage often fills ditches and pollution chokes water and air in many places.  Yet even here, there is so much beauty to be found.

Is your life too full for solitude and beauty?  Is there too much static noise to stand in a still, silent place and enjoy all that God has created for his and our pleasure?

I invite you to consider what gets in the way of experiencing the creation God blessed us to care for -- it may be the same thing that gets in the way of deeper relationship with God period.

A Day Trip to Paradise

This might just be down right mean to be sharing a tale with my northern friends of a beach day in Paradise but there have to be a few perks with living and working in the poorest country on earth, don't you think?

So here's my spoiler alert: if it's just going to make you cranky to see tropical blue waters and happy sand-filled faces, then turn back now!  If not, share in our day of rest, away from the usual pressure of day to day, and catch just a glimpse of God's glory right here in Haiti - we did!  Oh.  And there's a picture of raw meat, too.  You've been warned.


Our trip to paradise begins with a less than glamourous ride in COTP's tap-tap.  It is the only working vehicle available and I am willing to travel by nearly any means necessary to get to the beach.  Kirk and two of the kids are up front, and the rest of us sit in the back, jostling, bumping, and creaking, through diesel smoke, and road dust.  The ride is rough, but with the open back of the tap-tap, I am able to get some great pics of the trip.

Not long into our trip, a woman walking down the road with a large load on her head motions for a ride.  Kirk stops, I help her take her load down, and she climbs in.  She asks if we can give her some money.  I say "no" but we that we can give her a ride and conversation.  She thanks us for the ride and wishes us a good day.

As we get into Cap Haitian traffic begins to thicken.  Often I am grateful our vehicle is not as heavily loaded as other vehicles are!  The one above was full of people in addition to bags of rice and goods.  A few observant folks might also note the sign for the local Haitian beer above the tap-tap.

A filthy tidal river runs through Cap Haitian.  In this picture you can see the houses built right on the riverfront.  The ocean is just beyond the bend in the river.

On the bridge heading into Cap Haitian, someone has temporarily abandoned their freshly cut beef.  It will continue it's journey for about another mile before it makes it to the open air market... hopefully sooner rather than later!

A view through the front window of the tap-tap of bustling Cap Haitian.  Saturday morning doesn't look too much different than any time - busy, chaotic, and always interesting!  I "let" Kirk drive.

Once through Cap the traffic starts to thin a bit, and we start the climb up and over the mountain.  The first part is quite smooth as there are improved roads thanks to the recent Carnival (Marti Gras) celebration in Cap a couple of weeks ago.  The later part is nothing short of painful.  Kirk said later there were parts of the road he wasn't sure the tap-tap would make.  He could have told me this when we got home instead of at the beach, but obviously we did make it!




























Labadee is the spot where the cruise ships come into port and enjoy the beauty of the island.  It is an exclusive fenced off area with zip lines, piles of water crafts, beaches and more!  But just to the side of it runs a little road down to the ocean where small, roofed boats await local traffic.  Kirk negotiats very briefly with "Titoto" and then for $50 round trip we pile into the little boat for a small open ocean excursion of our own!  We are paying too much but it is worth it not to have to haggle.

Rose isn't wild about the trip and seems to think that she can't sit independently with a life jacket on, but everyone else loves the ride.  The ocean sparkles with all the aquamarine favorites of blue and green while the sun glistens on the gentle waves and swells.  It starts to feel a bit more like an actual trip to paradise.

We pass local fisherman and divers.  Many have homemade lobster traps with pop bottle floats.  This man spearfishes with googles and flippers.  Later I see him carrying a prepared conch to sell.

After sailing around a couple of points the boat heads into a quiet bay.  There is a yacht parked in the shallows aways from shore, along with a few other boats like ours who have carried other "getaway" folks, but the beach is still quite remotely populated.

The bay has a gentle sloping sandy beach with areas of coral farther out.  An enthusiastic freshwater spring runs close to the shore creating a fast, cold river that leads into the ocean.  Crabs dart between the river and ocean water and small schools of fish swim skittishly in the shallows of the beach.

It is paradise!

The girls take a snack break on the beach.

My view from the beach.  The "kids" have a fun time diverting the stream and creating new canals to the bay.

Our peaceful bay for the day.

By 3:00 PM the sun is already beginning to sink behind the steep mountain range, and shadows are falling on the bay.  The mosquitoes show up for their evening rampage and it is time to go.  We all agree this is a spot we certainly wish to return to soon!

Yes friends, it has been a beautiful day in paradise!

And Then We Were 6

My foot presses against the cool tile floor, arches, and springs rhythmically, not to the cadence of music, or to the tree frog croaking his love on the louvers outside the window, but to the bend of the creaking chair in which I rock.  After screams and arching, babbling, sighs and yielding, Rose nestles against the side of my neck, her small puffs of moist air warming my neck.  The peace we've both longed for comes as she battles her way into rest and she no longer resists the heaviness of sleep.  She is over whatever fears and rage she felt such a short time ago and has decided to trust me to still be there when she awakes.  It takes me a little while longer to be over the difficulty of the duel and settle into a place of enjoyment for the moment of stillness I am enjoying.  Some nights there is less of a fight.  But often there is an hour or more of resistance to the safe space for sleep she longs for, and then intermittent cries through the night demanding comfort and another round of creaking and rocking in the white chair.

Can I just say up front that this adoption thing is very hard?  Of course, I am committed to following through with that which God birthed in me, and a new love for my precious little girls is bursting into bloom in my heart, but oh, this is hard!  I have had moments this month of wondering what in the world we were thinking to start over with toddlers at age 40 and why two of them, and why, why, WHY would I want to deal with tantrums and poopy diapers, and being awake for too many hours during the night?  I'm tired.  They need SO much from me and the needs of our boys did not magically vanish when the girls arrived. I didn't have the luxury of their first years to have arrived at this point neatly bonded and ready to face challenges head on.  We have been thrown together instead of grown together and I cannot possible know what has shaped and molded their little minds and hearts.

To be honest, some moments I walk in obedience instead of love.  And some moments I fail entirely.  I hate that, but it's true.

Though many have asked "how are things going" with our adoption process, it has been hard to know what to put into words or when to write.  While our adoption is not complete, December 5th marked the day we knew we were through the Haitian social services arm of the process, and that there was little chance of anything disrupting their adoptions, so we decided to bring them home with rejoicing and solemn realization of what we were ready to embark upon.

It was a rough start; maybe part of it simply being the adjustment back to relating to toddlers.  I had a resolute will to take the spotlight off of myself and my own needs and shine it on the girls like my good attachment parenting training has taught me.  But my flesh is weak and I am sometimes selfish and at 2 and 3 and 4 AM, my spotlight stubbornly focuses on me, refusing to budge from my bent toward sleep, even if some little person is feeling unsettled with a new bed and home.

I realize not everyone who has adopted has this level of challenge, and we can face challenges with our biological kids that strain and stress us, but adopting an older child or a child from an orphanage/creche setting certainly raises the chances of struggle.

I am being completely honest here, lest anyone with a hero mentality decides adoption might be a cute, hip thing to do to have some extra kids in your life.  I'm not trying to scare off adoptive families who have a love for orphans and a will bent towards God's call for orphan care, but know this is not light parenting.  If you like to keep it all together and maintain a healthy sense of status quo, then run, run, run people, and don't look back!  But if you want to be used and stretched and grown for the sake of a child, adoption might be for you.

Already in this first month, beyond the moments of frustration, I have noticed the feeling of deep satisfaction in seeing my beautiful family of 6 all around one table, had the first inklings of love well up in my heart when Natalie or Rose has grabbed my face and planted wet kisses on my lips, observed a quiet pride watching Daddy paint his little girl's toe nails too red, and felt the rush of joy at hearing my 4 kids giggling and playing a tickle game on the bed.  I have noticed new ways in which I am able to be both humbled and strengthened, a new place of contentment with smaller things and slower movement, and the ability to tame my tongue and anger when I'd really like to blow. This is not a "got it all together" speech to be sure!  My mistakes have brought me, ashamed, before my God asking for forgiveness and for strength when mine is gone, but I am grateful for how God chooses to grow me instead of toss me aside, and how this time of trial is being used to refine my character and heart.  How I long to reflect that loving nature of my Heavenly Father to each of the children he has entrusted to my care!

So yes, this moment in time is hard and real, but so is my joy and contentment.  Our old family is becoming a new one, bumpy though the road be, and my adoptive Papa is patiently shaping me to allow me to better reflect Him.

Emanuel - God With Us

It is some time around 4 AM and I am walking home under a blaze of white stars, after my "shift" in our isolation unit, where nearly 1/3 of our babies are currently housed.  Since I am spending most of my time home with the girls (as we brought them into our home  December 05), I am working some of the overnight shifts when the girls are sleeping and won't be upset with my being gone.
Just past midnight as I was leaning over a crib changing yet another runny diaper, Nick Stolberg called out a "Merry Christmas", joking that the first package I opened for Christmas was filled with poop.   Nice.
Now I am heading back through the dark with my little LED flashlight to sleep for a few hours before the girls wake and need my full attention.  My feet crunch on the gravel beneath and as I allow my eyes to leave their tarantula scanning to glance up, I am awed at the expanse above.  I stand still for a moment, turn off my flashlight, and soak in the grandeur.  One delicious moment before fatigue (and maybe a teeny tiny bit of fear of what could be creeping in the dark) pulls me back to the ground I stand on.
I walk on thinking about how unlike "Christmas" this day and the ones leading up to it have felt.  I have had moments in the chaos this past week of feeling sorry for myself wondering when we will have a window of time as a family to open our few presents, or feeling sad that I have not had enough room to really decorate for Christmas, and maybe a little miffed that the lights I ordered never showed up in the mail.  No time for Christmas baking, no parties, no programs, no cheery gatherings with the family.  No glitter, tinsel, sparkle, or cold, clean snow.  Only the gritty, hard world of Haiti pressing so near the compound gate and now smothering us with babies sick with Cholera.  Christmas does not feel sparkly or special this year.  It feels raw.
I was reading first John 1 - Jesus took on fleshly form and decided to dwell with us.  God in his eternal, brilliant, perfection decided to stoop into the grit of the world he created and become one of us -- how raw and unimportant his birth was to poor, unpolished, broken people in broken times, not in a comfortable home decorated for the season, but likely in a feeding trough with the smell of dung and warm animals around.  Not too glamourous a start...
I have found myself aware of "missing Christmas" the past few weeks and thought about what exactly I am missing.  Family, friends, beauty?  Yes, all of that, but Christmas?  I have started to think I am closer to Christmas than any other time or place in my life.  Here, in Haiti, where hope of new creation and rebirth are not tidy theological thoughts I find God, oh SO present; Emanuel - God with us, so real.
My need for fullness becomes greater with each passing day of struggle, and as I walk through a million cricket chorus I can imagine the angels suddenly illuminating the night sky with glorious truth to some simple guys hanging out with their dozing herds.  In this moment I realize I am celebrating Christmas in my heart, with the cry of fragile life fresh in my ears.  I know beyond all understanding that God is present in this mess, and here with me and these sick kids and weary staff, and has come to bring hope and joy. and usher in his kingdom of peace!

Come quickly Lord Jesus!

One House, One Dream

Ternicille is our laundry lady.

Monday through Saturday she makes her way from the outskirts of Cap Haitian and comes at 8:30 AM, rain or shine, to gather our dirty clothes and linens, and anything else we want washed.  She sets up her work area on the concrete steps of the volunteer house at Manna, by getting a garden hose and filling kivets (large tubs) with soap and water and rinse water.  She can remove nearly any stain and has a way with whites that makes them practically shine as they bleach in the bright sunlight that falls upon our back porch in the afternoon.  When the clothes have dried she folds them and places them in a clean kivet and sets them by the front door with our clean laundry hamper.  It is the same most every day.

She is fiercely protective of what is entrusted to her and does not tolerate theft.  Ternicille says, "Rad pa kapab mache"(clothes can't walk) if something goes missing.  Sometimes this ethic has gotten her in trouble with those less scrupulous.

She is quick and diligent in her work.  If she finishes early she looks for more to do until her normal work day is over and does not leave early if her responsibilities run long.  She does not believe in waste, and would rather clean something well and use it again, than throw it away; she can clean practically anything.  Sometimes I have wondered what a marvel her home must be.

Last month the northern part of Haiti was inundated by rain that poured hour after hour through the night and then continued  the next day, too.  Low lying area were quickly saturated and then flooded with dirty, sewage-filled water, as drainage ditches and latrines spilled over their swollen banks.

Ternicille's house was in an area that was badly flooded.  She was late for work that day, but she came nonetheless.  She told me her house had flooded with a couple of feet of water during the night.  In the morning she had gotten her kids into a part of Cap Haitian that was not under water so they could be safe with her extended family.  She told me her house was a mess and the water had reached up to her beds which already stood on cinder blocks.

She washed my clothes the day her house stood in deep water.

A couple of days later she invited me to go to her home to see the flood damage.  I took the boys along, too.  Rikerns drove us in our biggest vehicle to make it through water and deep mud holes that remained on the roadway.  When we could drive no further, we walked on foot through mud-filled paths and up along a cement cannel wall for about a quarter of mile, then wove our way through some tin clad shacks with stick walls, through a narrow alley, on a mud path, to Ternicille's house.

Ternicille in front of her house.

The side of her house with water near the base.

The view from the front door looking into the first "bedroom".
The water stains can be seen 1/3 of the way up the wall.

Mud remaining on her dirt floor under the bed.  Algae has started to grow in the damp dirt.

Looking in the back door into the second room
of the house -- an old microwave is used as a stand
for her suitcase "dresser".

Ternicille has hopes for a better home and has been building a new house next door.  It's cement foundation is 4 feet higher than the house she lives in and has cinder block walls.  It only needs a roof for her to be able to move into it and have a safer, dryer place for herself and her children.  There will be no running water or indoor toilet, but she would be proud of her improved living situation.

Ternicille standing by the "front door" of her new house.

Looking from the first room into the second.
Although this house would still be just a
two room home, it would be dry and more sanitary
for her family.

I tell you Ternicille's story to let you know of one individual life in a personal way.  Her life interacts with mine on a daily basis, and she blesses me.

Would you pray for me as I face the daily challenge of how to serve and bless those God has placed around me?

Wall of Shame

After many months of waiting for our shipping container to arrive we received word that a truck carrying our beloved cargo had left Port au Prince and would be arriving Wednesday morning.

I remembered back to the stressful feelings of packing to move to Haiti.  It happened in two shifts, first to gather items we wanted to ship down to Haiti and after that was done, the remaining items for storage and/or giveaway.  I brought load after load to the thrift store,  had a huge garage sale, gave away items to friends and family, and finally pared down to what could fit in the boxes for Haiti and what could fit in a storage trailer to leave sitting until we return stateside.  What seemed like such difficult choices then, such as whether to pack the food processor or blender, feels a bit ridiculous now.

I remember the feeling of mental exhaustion as I itemized every item for each numbered box, 40 in all.  Forty boxes of important things to make it tolerable to live in Haiti for 2 years, or so I thought.

The first few weeks of living here "the container" came up quite a bit.  Someone would say something like, I wish I had a ruler, or bread maker, or soup ladle and Erin or I would undoubtedly say, "Oh we have one of those on the container".  "The container" could very well have been filled with milk and honey for how I glorified it's contents in my mind.  When the container comes I will have __________- fill in the blank with any treasures you can imagine!

But at the same time, other thoughts about the "stuff" were turning in my mind.  Within a couple of days of being here we had moved into our 600 square foot apartment and despite the tight quarters I began to realize how very blessed we were compared to so many around us.  Even though we had no couch or hot water and our home and school was happening on the end of the multi-leveled twin beds Kirk and I claimed as our sleeping space, we were safe and clean, well fed and disease free, comfortable and entertained in our little space -- far better than our best paid employees.

The woman we hire to wash our clothes (by hand) lives in small, paper thin (literally) shack with a patchwork tin roof and cardboard and newspaper filling the cracks in the sides of her stick walls.  Even when days of rain brought over a foot of water to her home and left her dirt floor pocked with mud, Ternicielle came in to work, to wash my sweaty clothes so I could neatly hang them back in tidy rows of skirts and coordinating tops.  Her children went to stay with family when the waters began to soak the bottom of their mattresses, while mine slept in bug-free comfort aside mechanical breezes, atop the crisp white sheets she had blued, and then bleached, on the roof with the hot Haitian sun.

I saw her home a couple of days after the rain had subsided.  The boys came with me.  Her living conditions deeply troubled Noah.  At first he was glib and made comments  about her "cute little house" and how much fun it would be to camp there like in a fort, but later that night he lay in bed with questions of a just God.  How could one person have so much another so little?  What is the cause of poverty?  It has been a good place from which to talk about what God wants of us as believers and fellow image-bearers, what the true cost of our comfortable wealth is, how to be grateful for what we have without always wanting more, and how to bless others who have so much less.

A lot has happened in our lives to change my perspective on "need" since I packed those forty boxes, so when the container arrived I felt less joy than I had hoped I would in that moment.  While I was deeply grateful to have my comfortable king size bed and to unpack linens that smelled of home, I also felt a sense of embarrassment as the 4 young men loaded box after box, all 40 of them, into my small space.  How foolish it must have seemed to them.  It did to me.  Sure, there are some things that are useful and good.  I  regret neither the boxes of toiletries with 2 years worth of deodorant nor the shelves of books to grow the minds of my kids, but I do regret the excess with which I packed.  I regret even more that I allowed myself to believe the mis-truth that my "paring down" for missions was of some marvelous sacrifice on my part.

My boxes stack around me in burden, like a wall of shame.  They show me how gluttonous I had become in my consumption of all things sparkly, shiny, and new.  I had laid prostrate before the American god of consumerism, even when in my self-righteousness I tried to think otherwise.  I tried to justify my consumption by "saving" money at garage sales and thrift stores.  Though my budget allowed primarily for second hand vehicles and used clothes, I wasted time on "important" decisions standing in an isle at Target deliberating between a plastic or stainless steel garbage can. I frittered away the money God entrusted to me that could have been used to grow and bless his kingdom and those he directly calls us to serve.  I was so immersed in my culture of consumption I could not even see the reality of my own addiction to self-serving, self-pleasuring life, and how that life disabled me from fully participating in God's kingdom work and the pleasure of deep relationship with him.  Lord forgive me!  I am stuck here!

I don't yet know what I will do with all of the stuff I don't need. Ternicielle is grateful to take the plastic I used to protect my mattress to fortify her roof against the next rains and the cardboard boxes to replace the damp ones that insulate her walls.  I don't need 12 coordinated bath towels and I might be able to go on quite happily without 6 mixing bowls.  I want to find some way to reverse my gluttony and bless others.  I want to take joy in my relationship with Christ and those he has planted around me, and not in the fluff that can momentarily seem so important.

Please pray for me and Kirk and the boys that we will remain content with little and discontent with a lot.