Home Again?

As I am processing this past week in Haiti I will be posting parts of my journey entries.Fragments bits of thoughts and insites mostly from the rooftop of the Haitian Children's Home.

Easter AM April 12th, 2009, Jacmel, Haiti

Up with the roosters. It's not just for farmers anymore.

On that first Eater morning was it the roosters that first awakened Mary? Had she slept at all that night? The sounds of the goats and the chickens and even the sounds of the people who had gathered in Jersualm for the Passover.Had they made impossible to sleep as her mind filled with all she had recently seen, and heard and felt?
When Jesus gathered with His discipiles on the roof top that Maundy Thrusday did He look out on the roof tops of the surrounding homes and into the lives of those who lived there? People who so desperatly needed Him but had rejected Him because they did not understand who He was and why He had come? Did His heart break as He looked upon their poverty?
I imagine that modern Haiti is for more like Bibical Isreal than I could have imagined. Windows without glass. Sitting on the roof to catch a cool breeze. Noises all night long and then a different noise.The rooster hearlding a new day. Skinny dogs scavanger the streets. Piegons roosting. The sound of an early morning hammer. Women carrying heavy burdens on their heads.
This is a proud people who I watch.Sweeping in front of their homes.I can see so much from my perch on this roof top.

I Left My Heart In Haiti

(Spell check is not working so fogive my unedited post.)
Oh I actually didn't leave yet but tomorrow take off for Port Au Prince. The elections may cause some traffic problems so we want to be close to the airport for our Sunday flight.
Seriously, I do miss Steve and the rest of the family but I love Haiti. I love it's people and I am digesting it's culture. It is definately way different from what I know in America but diffirent is not bad. Danny and Leanne's kids at the Haitian Children's Home are a wonderful delight. Seeing the way they interact with each other is so refreshing. There are also five young men who live in the team housing who I would love to marry a daughter or two off to but I don't have any more to marry off. They work so hard and are so cheeerful and helpful.
I don't know that I would ever want to drive here, that is a bit hairy. I made a decision to leave fear at the border and God has honored that decision.A few times I would have expected to be scared in the natural but I was not.
I've had two visits from deaf boys in the community this week.What fun it was to get to know Haitian locals without a language barrier.
God has been so faithful. Today was bitter sweet seeing Gwenn hang up persona items thus making her house a home. I cried more than once as reality is setting in. But I am so blessed to know where she is and who is here to help her and Nick. Nixon a Haitian local who works for HCH told me not to worry because he would take good care of Gwenn. His wife Sandra is an cheerful, beautiful woman whom I know will be a good friend to Gwenn. Danny and Leanne are here to offer an amazing support and I as so thankful for all of these people.
So as I pack up I pray God's peace and blessing on this place. All of my heart will not fit in my carry on so I guess I will just have to come back for it.

Haiti update.

Tonight I was standing on the roof top porch and heard "BonJou" (sp??) Madame Denise. A young teenage girl I had met on my way to church saw me as she passed by. It felt so strange and so good to hear my name called out in this wonderful, busy, loud city of Jacmel. Shortly after one of the wonderful young men who live downstairs came to the gate ( we don't really have doors we have gates) and said that there was someone asking for me downstairs. I went down to find a young deaf man waiting on the front stup. We just stood and visited for several minutes. It was just a nice little friendly visit. I have been here for a half of a week and I am already feeling welcome and comfortable.
Today Danny took me and my daughters Gretchen and Gwenn to visit the deaf school. Jean Claude the teacher for the younger deaf children introduces us to the the director and we sat and talked for a while. JeanClaud speaks very good english so that was great. It is very interesting to me that even though I can not speak to most of the Haitian people I can talk with the deaf Haitians. It is very cool. It broke my heart to see how very little the teachers here have to work with. Steve from Manteo Booksellers donated some beautiful sign language books for our trip and these were such a blessing to give to this teacher. The only teaching aides he had in his classroom were two posters with hand drawn signs illistrated on them. I asked "What would you like to have for your class?" He said "I would really like to have sign language flash cards. Then I could copy them and send them home with the students."Flash cards! He didn't ask for some fancy computers or some high tech equipment. The man needs flash cards! It makes me cry just to write this here. The older classes also need visual aides like posters and maps and well everything. It is interesting to me that his students do so well. I was very impressed with them when I meet them in church.If any teachers are reading this PLEASE when you change out things in your classroom don't throw teaching posters away. Send them to me and I will sent them to Haiti.
In other news the home project is going very well. I think there may be pictures posted on Gwenn's blog. You can connect from mine. It is a beautiful big house that is right behind the house that rapper Wycliff ( I think that's his name) uses when he is in town for meetings.He is a very big deal here in Haiti.
We did some serious hiking on Monday to see the land for the Haitian Children's Home and I was seriously sore afterward. But it really is beautiful and worth the pain.
God is doing awesome things. Thank you for your continued prayer. Hope to post pictures soon.

At Home in Haiti

I love it! The people are free and colorful. I have so much to say but not enough time to really do a full blog. I am sitting in Haitian Children's Home living room. There are beautiful children everywhere! One is snuggled up by my side.
Easter worship was amazing and I got to intrepert for a large deaf population there.
The poverty can not be fully understood in a short blog or in a long lifetime.
The thing that has taken me by surprise is that there in NEVER quiet here. Even in the village of Jacmel we hear people in the streets, goats bleating,roosters, dogs and babies crying.
Today as I sat on the roof early in the morning I saw a rainbow. God is so evident here in this amazing place. Will share more when I have the time. Thank you for your continued prayers. Tomorrow is beach day as the children are off from school. Then on to work on Gwenn and Nick's wonderful new home Tuesday!

Next Stop Haiti

I am posting this 24 hrs. before we are on the plane for Haiti! I will try to post from there at least a few times this week. Pray for us that God would use us and that we will be useable.

Manteo..First Friday

Manteo,NC on a warm Spring evening. First Friday. There is a Jazz band playing on the steps of the old Court House. Kaite and I dance a little. I'm sitting on a park bench next to Abbie eating her hot dog. It is possible to dance and sit. Katie stood of course how else could I twrill her? Steve and I strolled down by the docks. There are a lot more sailboats here than there used to be. And a house boat so big it could be a ferry. The ElizabethII across Shallowbag Bay shines on the water painting a quiet picture of our local history. A lone kayak's paddle breaks the surface of the water as it glides past the docks. You can hear the sound of the breeze blowing the sailboat rigging against it's mast and a little bluegrass music floating over from the old boat house. A little girl calls out to her mother on the playground "Mommy! Mommy! Look at me!" Someone is barbecuing a steak somewhere reminding us of summer and making us a little hungry.We greet neighbors and tourists as we walk. A photographer with a very large lens on his camera waits for a seagull to move off of a piling so that he can get a perfect photograph of the recreated lighthouse.This is perfect camera light in the nearly setting sun.We walk with the kids first to listen to yet another band. This one is singing Johnny Cash cover and Katie says "More Jazz." no Katie not jazz but you can dance to it. In the coffee shop we get ice cream cones. Abbie's sherbet matches her tyedye shirt.Grandad and Jon take the kids to the playground as I browse the bookstore. I talk to the shop owner Steve about my upcoming trip to Haiti. He is going to send some books along with me.
We walk back to the car. The daylight has surrendered. Moonlight Manteo. Small town on it's best behaviour.

Isn't she Lovely

Stevie Wonder had a hit song in 1977 "Isn't she Lovely?" I sang it to my precious baby Gwenn. She was such a sweet baby. From infancy I told people "She is so sensitive." She was always easy to laugh and easy to cry. Her feeling were hurt easily and she was the first to care about the feelings of others.
Uncle Digger named her "Motor Mouth". The child talked early and continuously. If she wasn't talking she was sleeping and her thumb was in her mouth or she would have been talking then.
Gretchen's first reaction to her was "Oh...she has such tiny little fingers!" Only 20 months older than her baby sister she helped me to care for her and loved her so very much. They played and the fought and they have loved each other dearly.
When Melody was born Gwenn's kindergarten teacher said in all her many years of teaching she had never seen a child so excited about a new baby in the family.
At nine years old Gwenn gave her tender heart to Jesus.
Gwenn made health insurance a very important thing to have. She was "that one" that every family seems to have. She had to go to a sport's doctor when she fell getting out of the bathtub. She broke her toe chopping wood. She had a weird kind of asthma that required lots of ER visits.Lyme's disease caused her to pull her hair out. Lots of weird stuff. During her long weeks out of school she learned to play the guitar. She was also a big Michael Jackson fan and would often sing Michael's song with the aide of a hairbrush microphone.
In high school Gwenn came into herself in the FFA.She won just about every kind of AG contest out there from public speaking ( The Incredible Egg) to weed identification.
When it came time for college the Professors were calling her at home and inviting her for personal interviews. Who would know that Ag Sciences would be such a big thing? In college she took welding and artificially inseminated a pig! She killed a chicken and butchered it. And then she met a boy.
I say boy because she was a junior and she met this freshman who was her "friend". Only she couldn't stop talking about this Nick guy. She would go to talk to John and call him Nick. She was in love....
And here it is the eve of her 32nd birthday. Wife of Nick and mother of Nia, Nico and Josiah. In less than one month she will set out to start the next stage of her life in Haiti. All of these things have brought her to this place. Her sensitive spirit. Her ability to communicate.Her illnesses teaching her compassion. Even her AG Sciences. All of this will fit into this new stage in her life. She will tell you that moving to Haiti is what she was born for. And I can see that. Everything until now has been preparation for now. And as I sent her out to kindergarten, and as I sent her off to college I must now send her out to be the woman God has created her to be.Knowing this does make it somewhat easier. Happy Birthday my lovely child.