The low down

I know that many of you were wondering what my plans were when I came home from Haiti at the end of March.  I also know that many of you were surprised to find out that I was not going back to Faith Hope Love Infant Rescue.  To be completely honest, I didn't want to write about it at the time because I didn't know how to explain the situation to people who have never been to Haiti or been there with me to know what it was like.  I don't mean that in a bad way, just simply that it would be hard for you to understand my decisions or what I was going through.  Also, I did not know what my future plans were.  I was back in the states to try and figure that out, and I didn't want to write about it until I did just that.

During my last few weeks in Haiti, God spoke to my heart.  I realized that I was not meant to be at FHLIR at that point in time.  I have no doubt that God wanted me there for a time, and for a very specific reason, but sadly that time had ended.  I did not want to have to leave my kids, or let Dorothy down, but I knew that I could not stay.  It was a very emotion goodbye: not knowing if or when I would return.  So, I packed up all my belongings (including my puppy) and I came home to my parents house.

After I got home so many people were asking about my plans and whether or not I would go back.  If I am going to be completely truthful with you, I need to tell you that when I got home, I really did not want to go back to Haiti and I was unsure if I ever would.  I was tired...tired of being sick, tired of being away from my family, tired of being away from my friends, tired of being away from my church, and just plain tired from the difficult lifestyle and hardships of Haiti.  It was easier for me to think about staying here in the United States, but when did God ever tell us that life would be easy?

About a week after coming home, I got an e-mail from Dottie, a friend in Haiti.  She runs a guesthouse and a school in my neighborhood of Delmas 75.  She wrote to tell me that her kindergarten and pre-k teacher, a Haitian man, quit his job out of the blue and just simply did not show up for work.  There were still two more months until the end of the school year and she was in desperate need of a new teacher.  She asked if I would go back to Haiti to teach for her.  I could sense how badly she wanted the help, and I was intrigued by the idea of teaching in a school in Haiti.  But, I was still exhausted, and I was maybe even a little bit bitter towards Haiti (for reasons that I truly can't even put my finger on).  I was not ready to go back.  I knew that if I went then, my heart would not be in it.  So, I asked Dottie if I could take time to pray about starting in the fall.  Thankfully, she agreed.

A month here in the states did the trick, and I felt rested and rejuvenated again.  Along with that, I began thinking and praying about Haiti with a longing to go back.  I once again felt discontent here, and knew that I had to go back to Haiti.  One day, I got a facebook message from another friend in Haiti, LauraLynn.  She is a nurse and the principle of a school in the slums of the northern city of Gonaives.  She wrote to remind me that they are in need of teachers for the fall.  Would I be interested in teaching kindergarten for them?

Great.  I am finally ready to go back to Haiti and now I am faced with a choice.  I hate having to make big decisions, and in my eyes this was a big decision.  The two schools were vastly different and each had various pros and cons.  One school is in walking distance of Dorothy's house and other is a long three hour drive over Haitian roads.  Each day, I found myself leaning towards going to a different school.

A couple weeks ago, I got some emails from Dorothy saying that Rosa was not doing well.  If you remember from previous posts, Rosa was the child that I most connected with during my time at Dorothy's.  I guess several days in a row she had breakdowns before school.  She was crying, not eating, not speaking much, and complaining of a stomach ache.  She missed several days of school.  In hopes that I could cheer her up, I recorded a short video of myself speaking to her in Creole telling her that I love her, miss her, and I am praying for her each day.  Dorothy showed her the video before school and after watching it, she had another breakdown.  It was just too much for her.  Hearing that she was having such a hard time and knowing that I was powerless to help her hit me like a rock.  I felt as if I had abandoned the kids.

That day I decided to take the dog for a walk.  I had a lot on my mind and I needed to get out of the house.  I had tears in my eyes as I walked and thought about the kids at Dorothy's, and my two options for teaching.  I had no idea which of the two schools God wanted me to go to, and I felt like I needed to make a decision soon.

I ended up walking by a friend's house and on a whim stopped to see if she was home.  Thankfully she was, and she invited me in to talk.  Mostly, she let me talk and cry while she listened.  It was just what I needed.  She did not try to impose her opinions or tell me what I should do.  She simply listened and repeated back to me what I was telling her.  It might sound silly, but it worked.  I know that God had a hand in that appointment.  I left feeling calm and feeling as if I knew the choice that I should make.

 I decided....drum roll please....that I am going to teach at TLC Barefoot School in Port-au-Prince!  As much as I wanted a "new adventure" and could picture myself teaching in the slums of Jubilee with my friends, I knew that right now my heart is in Port-au-Prince.  Now that the actual decision is made, I feel very confident and excited about my choice.  I cannot wait to get there!  I should say that it is not exactly "official" yet.  I still need to sign several contracts and familiarize myself with the curriculum that they use before I make my final decision.

If all goes as planned, I will be teaching kindergarten and/or pre-k.  I will be living next-door to the school in a small apartment by myself.  As I think about the situation, it is almost as if God knew exactly what I wanted and needed and he has provided the perfect opportunity!  Isn't He great?!

As things progress, I will be sure to post updates!  The video below features Dottie and Nickson talking about TLC.

growing like weeds

I often hate to think about all that I am missing while I'm here in the U.S.  I know that the kids are growing like weeds and changing every day.  Here are some things that Dorothy has told me about the kids since I left:

Rosa lost the first of her baby teeth and is having a hard time with me being away.  Recently, she made play-doh food for me, and she drew me a pretty pink picture (Dorothy scanned it and posted it on facebook for me to see).

Rosa and Claudine both got medals at school for doing so well!  I am so very proud of them.  Dorothy tells me that they were all smiles when they got home.  The school even gave them 50 goudes (around $1.25 USD)!  When I skyped them, they proudly held up their money to show me.

Tamara, our little two year old girl with OI, broke one of her arms.  It is hard to say how because it could have been from rolling over, being picked up, or even just playing on the floor.  Sonson has casts on both legs and doctors cut his Achilles tendons in hopes that it will help his clubbed feet.  That poor boy, has had lots of pain recently!

Chacha finished kindergarten and will be starting 1st grade in the fall at TLC Barefoot School.  My favorite update on him is a funny one (no surprise there).  Dorothy told me that she took the kids out for pizza and ice cream to celebrate Rosa's birthday.  While they were at Epi'dor, the restaurant, Chacha had to use the restroom.  Apparently he was afraid of the hand blow dryer so it took a little coaxing from Dorothy to get him to go in alone.  Dorothy said that as she waited for him, she realized the men in the bathroom must have taught Chacha how to use a urinal because she heard a flush and then a cheer of men's voices saying, "Bravo!!"

Rose Mitchel, our 1.5 year old malnourished no longer baby with AIDS, learned to walk, and she finally got some teeth!  I can't believe that I missed her first steps...but thank you Lord for this blessing and miracle of not just surviving but thriving!

Youvendjy has dealt with TB, severe malnutrition, sickle cell anemia, and two broken legs BUT GOD, reached out in love to this little boy of only three years old...and he is now not only walking for the first time, but running and learning how to climb a ladder! Praise God!

I am not in Haiti, but my heart is there.  The struggles and disappointments in Haiti are great.  The trials and tribulations are often, but at the end of the day God's amazing love always outshines the hardships.

Prayer Request

 Psalm 72:12-14

He will rescue the poor when they cry to Him; He will help the oppressed, who have no one to defend them.  He feels pity for the weak and needy, and He will rescue them.  He will redeem them from their oppression and violence, for their lives are precious to Him. 

Friends, please pray for the tent cities in Delmas.  If you do not know, tent cities were meant to be temporary housing for victims displaced after the earthquake.  Unfortunately because of the extreme poverty and terrible conditions, they have turned into permanent homes for many Haitian families.  Dilapidated tents, poor sanitation, and close living quarters are characteristic of the "tent cities" that are located all over Port au Prince.  

I just read on Dorothy's facebook that the mayor of Delmas has ordered tent cities to be destroyed by force/violence.  During the middle of the day while many Haitians were away from home in search of work, police officers stormed tent cities and leveled them to the ground.  I understand that tent cities are not sanitary, safe, or pretty to look at.  But excuse me, Mayor Jeudy, please tell me what you are accomplishing by destroying the only homes and possessions that these families have left??  Where are they expected to go now?

In addition, the mayor paid a visit to Dorothy's house.  He threatened to knock down the house because our landlord did not demolish the concrete wall surrounding our house (an order that was given by the mayor before the earthquake).  That may sound like an extreme threat, but based on Mayor Jeudy's track record, I think he is quite capable of doing just that.  Please pray for the thousands of Haitians in tent cities as well as Dorothy and all the children.

Papa Steve

While my dad was visiting me in Haiti, the kids fell in love with him.  All week long I heard them calling him Dad, Daddy, Papa, and Papa Steve.  This is a video of Papa Steve letting the kids be wild and crazy on my bunk bed.

Dancin' Fools

If there are two things that my kids like,they are brownies and making a mess in Miss Katie's room dancing and music.  Here is another video that I found of the kids having a dance party in my bedroom...one of MANY dance parties in my bedroom.  Also, this video was not filmed at Christmas time.  The boys just LOVE Barbra Streisand's version of Jingle Bells and requested it often, haha!

Scerenaded

Tonight I rediscovered my video camera.  I found several videos of the kids that I never uploaded.  I had so much fun seeing their happy faces and hearing their voices again.  I'm sure that no one else will appreciate these videos as much as I do, but I hope you enjoy them none the less.

This video is of Mich singing along with Veggie Tales "The Bunny Song".

Article -- Sad but True: Haiti still ailing from child slavery epidemic

By Karen Keller, Jennifer Weis
Haiti still ailing from child 'slavery' epidemic



Fourteen-year-old Rose Manette Sully lives a twisted Cinderella tale. She works from dawn to dusk as a maid for her master. She sleeps on the floor of a tent.

The lanky teen is far from an isolated case in Haiti. She's just one among tens of thousands of child servants in Haiti who endure what the United Nations calls a modern form of slavery.

Underaged domestic help is everywhere in Port-au-Prince's tent cities, which formed after last year's devastating earthquake and remain because of the glacial pace of reconstruction. The January 2010 quake caused many more of these young indentured servants to be put to work. And now, their lives are harder
than ever before, experts said.

Click here to view a slideshow of 'restaveks' -- one of Haiti's horrors. Before the earthquake, child servants lived and worked in Port-au-Prince's homes. Today, many, like Rose Manette, serve their masters in tents.

With the nation's entire infrastructure in disrepair -- schools and neighborhoods destroyed -- fewer of these children are going to school, and neighbors less frequently look out for their welfare, according to Nicole Muller

César, founder of the Institute for Human and Community Development, a school in Port-au-Prince for slave children.

The children also face higher risks of being neglected and abused. "Now, because of the tent situation, they are more exposed," she said. "Anybody can do anything to them, without having someone say 'Stop! You cannot do that.'" With the birth rate tripling after the quake, according to the United Nations Population Fund, the number of these children, known as restaveks (from the French "to stay with"), could grow in the coming years as more families struggle to feed their children.

Haiti's president-elect Michel Martelly, the right-wing pop star who takes office this weekend, has pledged to make public education free in Haiti, but so far he has made no promise to otherwise help these child servants.
The children haven't received much attention from international aid groups, either.They are everywhere, and nowhere, in a sense: They may as well be invisible.

Some never reunite with their mothers, and they often don't get loving physical contact from the adults they live with. 'Owners' are often unaffectionate, even if the host family is the child's aunt or other biological relative, César said. "They don't have a life," she said. "And nobody seems to care because it's okay, it's no problem, we're used to the system." Restaveks often eat different food from other children in a household, wear cheaper clothes and are often not allowed to play with their peers.

In Haiti, "there's nothing lower than a 'restavek' child except a dog," said Glenn Smucker, a cultural anthropologist and consultant.Haiti's 'restavek' system is rooted in colonial times, when slavery was a way of
life.

Rebels kicked out the French in 1804 and created the world's first independent black republic. Sadly, the system that revolutionaries worked so hard to crush lives on today. Nearly a quarter million children were working as child slaves even before the earthquake left more orphans in the shattered capital, a November 2009 report by the Pan American Development Foundation and USAID found. While Unicef has
estimated 300,000 restaveks, the children are difficult to count and recent numbers are hard to come by.

Restaveks are typically unpaid -- instead receiving schooling, food and shelter for their work. But the promise of education is often not kept, or the 'school' may last just two hours a day. Rose Manette worked out a somewhat unusual arrangement with her cousin involving a small stipend of less than a dollar a day, with most of that money going back to her mother, who lives in poverty in the countryside.

Jolet Deus, 21, Rose Manette's 'master' and cousin, doesn't mince words when she talks about their relationship. "She's my possession. I do what I want with her," Deus said from within her tent in a camp run by actor turned activist Sean Penn, which sits on a golf course once reserved for the rich.

Jolet was herself a restavek when she was a girl, yet she treats Rose Manette every bit as her personal slave, once drinking a cold bottle of water given to the girl.


When asked what she likes most about Port-au-Prince, where she moved from the countryside in January, Rose Manette utters a heart-stopping response: "school." She, like many restavek children, had hoped to attend school in the city -- but says she has never been.  Rose Manette grew up in a one-room hut in the lush jungle outside of Lascahobas, a two-hour drive from Port-au-Prince.

Even though the capital city is full of misery, and the free food brought by aid groups is long gone in many camps, those in the countryside still see opportunity there. Children vanish into slavery all the time, local families say. But Rose Manette is not without dreams. She hopes to earn enough money to buy candy to sell on the street. From there, she would go to school at night.

When Rose Manette led reporters on the long journey to meet her mother, Sonia
Deus, the woman was shocked to see her. "My heart beat when I saw her," Sonia Deus said. "When you see people you're not supposed to see, you think it's news of a death." The mother of six became destitute when her husband died in 2009 and the cost of his funeral forced her to sell family property.

Before that, the family raised goat, pigs, chickens, corn, beans, yam, sugar, and fruit. Nicknamed "Rejected" by neighbors because of her extreme poverty, Sonia Deus now grows only corn, beans and coffee. She worries that something bad will happen to her adolescent daughter in the capital, but she doesn't see another way. "We are farmers. We work on the land. Sometimes our children can't wait for the land to give money," Rose Manette's mother said. "They have to go elsewhere."


Karen Keller and Jennifer Weiss are independent journalists. Keller's work has
appeared in Fortune, Esquire.com and other publications. Weiss' work has
appeared in WSJ.com and The New York Times, among other publications.

Tonight....

...I wish that I could close my eyes and be 1,500 miles away.  I wish that I was sweating while laying in a bed next to a single rattling oscillating fan (that may or may not have electricity all night long).  I wish that I was falling asleep trying to fall asleep to the sound of Haitian music and dozens of dogs barking tirelessly into the night.

I wish that tomorrow I could wake up bright and early to the hot tropical sunlight streaming into my window and roosters crowing nearby.  I wish that my day could be filled with countless "adventures" and the laughter of children.  I wish that tomorrow I could see Haitian children walking to school in their brightly colored uniforms.  I wish that tomorrow, I could hold the hands of my kids.

...but tonight, I am at home.  Then again, if "home is where the heart is," I don't know where I am.  Comfortable in my bed, yet uncomfortable with my life.  Unable to sleep because of the confusion in my head.  Fighting the tears that come from missing my kids.  Fighting the tears that come from knowing their struggles and being powerless to help them from so far away.  Hating this "limbo" that I'm in.  Wishing that I knew where I'm supposed to be.  Praying that I will know where I am supposed to go.  Not knowing which direction I should take.  Knowing that God's timing is always perfect but still impatiently waiting to hear God speak.  Missing Haiti...missing Haiti...missing Haiti.

Bondye, m' sonje Ayiti.  Mwen pa konnen kisa ou vle mwen fe.  M' pa konnen kote ou vle mwen ale pou ou.  Di m'.  Silvouple di m'.  M'ap fe anyen pou ou men ou bezwen pale.  Pale a mwen Jezi.  Kè mwen doulè pou Ayiti.  M' pa vle rete nan Etazini pou long tan.  Moun ki rete nan Ayiti bezwen lamou.  Yo bezwen we Ou.  Mwen bezwen montre yo.  Mwen sonje tout bagay twòp.  Mwen sonje tout moun twòp. Epi, mwen espesyalman sonje pitit mwen yo twòp.  Silvouple, Papa, pale a mwen.  M' vle ale kote ou vle mwen.  Montre mwen, Bondye.  M' panse mwen te kite kè mwen nan ayiti men m' selman vle ale si ou di "ale".  M' konnen m' bezwen tan.  Tande m' lè m' priyè.  Bondye m'ap tande.  Pale.  M'ap tande.