A Day In Our Haitian Life

Several of you all have asked what a typical day is like here at the mission in Haiti.  In an effort to capture what this looks like, we have compiled a typical day's schedule to share with you.  It's nothing super-awesome or earth shattering, but it is interesting in some ways.  Hope you enjoy!

5:00  Wake to the sound of roosters, goats, pigs and dogs.  Haitians are waking up now and starting their day.  We hear the voices of people that live nearby.  Try to go back to sleep.

6:30  Light is streaming in the window and K and J are waking up.  We start to get moving.  Do we have electricity?  If so, turn on shower because the water will be warm.  If not, wait 20 minutes and try again.

7:00 Breakfast together.  Hear a Haitian man belting out "How Great Thou Art" in Creole while he works down the hill.  He's pretty good!  Prepare list of needed items from the market: Lettuce, Mangoes, Potatoes, Eggs, and Tomatoes.  Wash and bleach dirty dishes.

8:00 Scott heads to work.  Takes list of market items to Haitian BHM driver to pick up on his daily route.  (So thankful for this since I have no driver's license here yet!)

8:30ish Start school with Kilee.  Try to keep Josiah occupied and entertaining himself for the first half of the morning.

9:30ish Reading time with kiddos.  We read several books in Kilee's curriculum and Josiah joins in.

9:45  Run down hill to see if laundry facility is being used.  It's available!  Run back up hill to gather laundry and start a load.

10:00 Snack time for kiddos.  Decide what to make for lunch.  After snack, do math and science work with the kiddos. 

11:00  The house is a wreck!  "Everybody pick up your stuff!"  After pick up time, go outside and play.  I run down the hill and throw laundry in the dryer.

12:00  Daddy walks home for lunch.  Eat together and then put Josiah down for a nap.  Kilee goes outside to play with the other MKs.  Wash and bleach dishes.

1:00 Our Creole Lesson with Hassan

2:00 Scott goes to his office to have another hour of Creole study with Hassan.  I go inside to do housework, read email if internet is working, or just sit down and loaf a minute before Josiah wakes up.  Go get laundry from dryer.

3:00  Josiah's up.  All kids go outside to play some more.

3:15 Oops!  Tropical rain shower is coming!  Kids come inside and watch a movie instead.

4:30  Pick up stuff around house.  Bust up fight between kiddos.  Start to cook dinner.  Bust up another fight between kiddos.  (It's just that time of day, you know mommas?)

6:00  Eat dinner together.  Skype family. 

7:00  It's dark.  Wash and bleach dishes.  Hang out as a family for a bit.

7:30 Get the kids ready for bed.  Get filtered water from kitchen for brushing teeth.  Read story, pray.  Good night, kiddos!

8:00  Pick up stuff around house.  Work on blog, answer emails, put laundry away.  "Josiah, get back in bed!"  Work on lesson plans for homeschool tomorrow.  Read, study and/or watch a DVD.

After 9 but sometime before 11 : Good night!

 

Kouri Deye

Last Thursday, the kids and I got to visit an exciting new project that Baptist Haiti Mission is using to strengthen the church and Haitian families.  It's called Kouri Deye.  My friend Chelsea Salter has headed it up here at BHM.  Here's a brief description of the ministry from her blog:

Kouri Deye, a Creole phrase that means Pursue, is an organization designed to assist women in the churches of Haiti as they pursue trades that will provide financial assistance for their families.

The name of this organization developed from Proverbs 31:27, "She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness."

Every story is different for the women who are a part of the work of Kouri Deye. However, the women share a love for the Lord and for their families.

The jewelry made by Kouri Deye is made of recycled cereal boxes. These beautiful pieces come in a variety of colors and each is unique in its own way.

 

The women come faithfullly to cut the cereal boxes and fashion the jewelry by hand.

 

Here we are in front of several hundred of the finished products ready for sale!

 

 

Josiah's Birthday

It's been about a week since we've been able to blog.  Things have been a flurry of activity around here!  One exciting thing that has happened in the last couple of weeks has been Josiah's 3rd birthday!  His day started with a big surprise!  Scott had decided that the boy likes to dig so much, he needed a sandbox.  Scott and a few Haitian workers cranked out a sandbox in no-time-flat and we gave it to Josiah as soon as he woke up.  I think he loves it!



That's one happy birthday boy!

 

Later on that night, we were surprised and blessed by our missionary staff with a surprise party for Josiah!  They had decorated the entire dining hall with balloons and banners.  After we ate pizza together, we ate a birthday cake I had made for Josiah.  Then, they even presented our little 3 year old man with a few gifts!  After Josiah opened presents, all of the children went outside where they swung at a pinata made by our friends' eldest daughter, Naomi.  They were studying Mexico in homeschool that week and Naomi decided that she wanted to do a pinata for her unit craft, just for Josiah's birthday!  So sweet.  We were completely humbled and thankful.  It was a fun time!

 



The kids' party table

Even in Haiti, we can still crank out a birthday cake.  Nothin' fancy, but it sure was tasty!

Blowing out 3 candles

A few of the partiers: from left (Ms. Elsa, Mr. Sandy, Ms. Connie, and Ms. Darlene)

Thomas train tracks!

 

Time for a Laugh: Top 10 Things We've Learned in the Past Three Weeks

So, in the spirit of trying to laugh in the midst of an intense season of adjustment for our family, we thought we would compile a top ten list.  This list contains a few of the most notable things we've learned since moving to Haiti.  Enjoy!

10. In a tropical climate, paint takes a really long time to dry.  Watch where you lean.

9. If you ask one of your Haitian friends to pick up some potatoes at the market for you, they will bring back a trash bag filled with 25 lbs. of tiny potatoes.

8. The local Baptist church uses a slightly stouter form of grape juice when serving the Lord's Supper.  Evidently, the way our eyes bugged out when we took the first sip was priceless!

7. Remember to use the high altitude setting when baking or you will not be pleased with the results.

6. Creole is a language full of exceptions and double meanings.  For instance, if you use the word "po" it could mean skin, flat, a pot, or an animal's shell.  It can make for some pretty interesting conversations!

5. Make sure your laundry has had time to finish in the dryer before 5:30 comes around -- the generator power will be AWOL until 8 the next morning!

4. Look up before venturing into the shower.  Showers are just never the same after an enormous waterbug falls on you while you're washing your hair.

3. If you see something you like in the local supermarket, you had better buy it right then.  They may not ever carry it again.  When it's gone, it's gone!

2. Haitian spiders can jump!

1. We often cook whole chickens in our crock pot and make two meals out of it.  Upon purchasing a Haitian fryer chicken, I discovered that the "giblet bag" is not a concept that has come to the nation of Haiti yet.  When you reach inside the cavity of a Haitian chicken, you will come out with a surprise!  See picture below.

I can't look at them!

Despite all of these opportunities to sarcastically laugh about the circumstances in which the Lord has placed us, we really love Haiti and trust that God has things to accomplish in us and through us! 

Mountains Beyond Mountains

Founder of Partners in Health (in the US) and Zanmi Lasante (in Haiti), Docter Paul Farmer has been serving the least of these in Haiti since the early 1980s. With his very modest upbringing, it is amazing how he persevered to become one of the foremost experts at treating TB in the world.  Kidder did an excellent job making Paul Farmer come alive to the reader by including great detail about his family's many misfortunes and many of his quirky sayings-his extreme use of abbreviations, his use of the word Comma (usually in place of an expletive)  etc. Overall, Farmer is a fascinating man who is pig-committed beyond belief to helping those who most desperately need it.   One of the most sobering thoughts for me throughout the book was when Paul stated that, “we are fighting the long defeat.”  He recognizes that ultimately that he is a treating a fraction of the people in Haiti who need the treatment, but he also correctly concludes that “he is winning some battles.” Unfortunately, while Farmer spends a great deal of time treating patients in Haiti and many other places around the world, he completely misses the fact that while someone's body can be healed for a time, ultimately they will still at some point die and without a relationship with Jesus Christ be separated from Him  for eternity.  I pray that I would be as motivated as Farmer to care for people the way that he does, because I do have a relationship with Christ and I understand that I'm called to make disciples of all nations.  While I enjoyed this book I do want to make mention of the frequent coarse language throughout the book.
Buy the book here: Amazon.com

From Amazon.com
Tracy Kidder is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the author of the bestsellers The Soul of a New Machine, House, Among Schoolchildren, and Home Town. He has been described by the Baltimore Sun as the “master of the non-fiction narrative.” This powerful and inspiring new book shows how one person can make a difference, as Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it.

At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life’s calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results.

Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is humanity" - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. He enlists the help of the Gates Foundation, George Soros, the U.N.’s World Health Organization, and others in his quest to cure the world. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb “Beyond mountains there are mountains”: as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

“Mountains Beyond Mountains unfolds with the force of a gathering revelation,” says Annie Dillard, and Jonathan Harr says, “[Farmer] wants to change the world. Certainly this luminous and powerful book will change the way you see it.”

Bruchko

Bruce Olson's radical obedience to God's call on his life to go to minister to the Otilone Indian tribe was both convicting and encouraging.  Bruce spends a significant amount of time explaining how he finally began to minister to this tribe and I think he captured a truth that I needed to be reminded of-I should not judge whether or not God is calling me to do something if all of the "doors are opening" or not, because the fact is many times God calls us to do things that are very difficult and often times do not seem to make sense.  While reading this book we were in the thick of trying to get moved to Haiti, but there was one major obstacle standing in the way-selling our house.  We were convinced that we were supposed to move to Haiti but we were both concerned by how we would pay for and/or take care of a house from a plane ride away.  Strangely enough, our house did not sell. It still isn't sold! But we are trusting the Lord for that and in the meantime he provided someone to rent our house.  Praise the Lord!

 
Buy this book at Amazon.com

Bruce Olson, born in Minnesota and now a citizen of Colombia, is a linguist and graduate of sociology from a South American university. He has won the friendship of four Colombian presidents and appeared before the United Nations. His first book, Bruchko, has sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide. He lives in the jungle on the border of Colombia and Venezuela.

What happens when a nineteen-year-old boy leaves home and heads into the jungles to evangelize a murderous tribe of South American Indians? For Bruce Olson, it meant capture, disease, terror, loneliness, and torture. But what he discovered by trial and error has revolutionized then world of missions.
Bruchko, which has sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide, has been called “more fantastic and harrowing than anything Hollywood could concoct.” Living with the Motilone Indians since 1961, Olson has won the friendship of four presidents of Colombia and has made appearances before the United Nations because of his efforts. Bruchko includes the story of his 1988 kidnapping by communist guerrillas and the nine months of captivity that followed. This revised version of Olson’s story will amaze you and remind you that simple faith in Christ can make anything possible. “[Bruchko is] an all-time missionary classic. Bruce Olson is a modern missionary hero who has modeled for us in our time the reaching of the unreached tribes.” —Loren Cunningham Co-founder, Youth With A Mission

Show More

Show Less

In Pictures: A Sunny Day in Fermathe, Haiti

Looking down the mountain from our front porch.  Port-au-Prince is at the bottom of the mountain.
 

Josiah and his new buddy!

The whole missionary kid gang.

Kilee and an MK friend.

The missionary kids' playhouse!  It's so cute. :)

Our home sweet Haiti home!  We live on the bottom floor.

Hidden in the Rubble: A Haitian Pilgrimage to Compassion and Resurrection - Gerry Straub

From Gerry Straub's Blog
http://gerrystraub.wordpress.com/books/

Orbis Books has published Mr. Straub’s book, Hidden in the Rubble: A Haitian Pilgrimage to Compassion and Resurrection. Mr. Straub was in Port-au-Prince just weeks before the earthquake, and returned just days after the earthquake. The experience had a profound and lasting impact on his life. During Holy Week of 2010, Mr. Straub returned to Haiti for a third time in order to try to better understand widespread death and the massive destruction in the context of the death and resurrection of Christ, and that week became, for him, the heart and soul of the book.

Buy this book from Amazon.com

From Amazon.com
In January 2010 a devastating earthquake struck the impoverished island of Haiti, killing over 100,000 people and causing unimaginable suffering. But even before the earthquake, as the photos and reflections in this book make clear, Haiti was already a disaster zone. Filmmaker Gerry Straub was there weeks before the earthquake, and he returned soon after, to continue his project: to capture in words and images the reality of Haiti s poor both their sufferings and their spirit and to find in this reality the face of God.

Straub takes us into Cité Soleil, one of the most wretched slums on earth, where kids play amidst the stench of open sewers, where people eat pies made of clay. After the earthquake, he follows exhausted doctors and aid workers working desperately to relieve the suffering. Hidden in the Rubble opens a window on a scene of desperate crisis, but it is ultimately a powerful and haunting challenge to enter into compassionate solidarity with the poor at our doorstep.

Gerard Thomas Straub, an award-winning author, photographer, and filmmaker, is founder and president of the San Damiano Foundation. After leaving behind a lucrative career producing daytime television, he chose to document the plight of poor people around the world. His films include When Did I see You Hungry? and his books include Sun and Moon over Assisi and Thoughts of a Blind Beggar.

First Day of Kindergarten

We had not intended to start school this soon because we wanted to spend some relaxed time getting adjusted to life in Haiti.  However, the kids (and their mama) needed some structure to our days so that we would have a little bit of normalcy amid the abnormal.  So, since Haiti does not celebrate Labor Day and everyone was going about their normal daily business, we decided to start school this past Monday!  The night before, Kilee picked out her outfit and made sure all of her crayons and pencils were where they should be.  She is growing up so fast!!

Kilee Anne - 1st Day of Kindergarten

Haiti: The Tumultuous History-From Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation

 This book was an incredible overview from the revolution and creation of Haiti to its current state.  Girard does not hold back in placing the blame for Haiti's current situation squarely on the backs of Haiti's failed governmental leadership.  He spends much time detailing also how the US "invasion" of Haiti was less than beneficial.  I felt like this was a great introduction to the history of Haiti and I was shocked to hear in detail about the brutality of prior dictators.  Also, I was shocked to read about how Haiti was incredibly prosperous early in its history.  I would definitely recommend this book for anyone wanting to gain a good understanding of the history of Haiti and how it effects the current culture of Haiti today.

Buy this book at Amazon.com

From Amazon.com
Why has Haiti been plagued by so many woes? Why have multiple U.S. efforts to create a stable democracy in Haiti failed so spectacularly? Philippe Girard answers these and other questions, examining how colonialism and slavery have left a legacy of racial tension, both within Haiti and internationally; Haitians remain deeply suspicious of white foriegners' motives, many of whom doubt Hatians' ability to govern themselves. He also examines how Haiti's current political instability is merely a continuation of political strife that began during the War of Independence (1791-1804). Finally, Girard explores poverty's devastating impact on contemporary Haiti and argues that Haitians--particularly home-grown dictators--bear a big share of the responsibility for their nation's troubles.

Praise for Clinton in Haiti by Philippe Girard:

"An engaging and wonderfully readable account of the circumstances leading up to the U.S. invasion of Haiti in 1994, and its restoration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as Haitian president."--Elizabeth Abbott, Trinity College, University of Toronto

"This is an extraordinarily well written account that places Clinton's Haitian foreign policy in historical perspective. Linguistic wit and analytical sophistication prevail as Girard skillfully weaves readers through the complexities and tragedy of Haiti's history and the highly touted, but unsuccessful aftermath of the 1994 "invasion" by U.S. troops to restore Aristide and democracy to this Caribbean republic. Until Clinton administration classified documents become available this will remain the standard account and an object lesson for all future American cut-and-run attempts at peace-keeping and nation-building."--Joan Hoff, Montana State University, Bozeman

"Written by an outstanding young French scholar of recent American history, this examination of U.S. intervention in Haiti under Bill Clinton probes the motivations behind an unnecessary military action and explains the ways in which objective failure is translated into political success. The author's finely-calibrated sense of irony makes his work as entertaining as it is instructive."--Alonzo L. Hamby, Ohio University, and author of For the Survival of Democracy: Franklin Roosevelt and the World Crisis of the 1930s

About the Author

Philippe Girard is an Assistant Professor of Caribbean History, McNeese State University of Louisiana.