Flashback

Today's post, a blast from the not so recent past ... A lot has changed since this crazy Jack Baueresque adrenaline filled day. Any 24 fans out there? Holla! Loved that show and Jack Bauer. Proud owners of six seasons. Back to the changes - Mainly, Paige is no longer 11 and now confidently flies the friendly skies alone without any drama from her Mama. Also, this part of the airport that I wrote about is condemned and now sits unused due to the earthquake. Lastly, Preval is no longer the President of this country.  

To read about the significance and history of Haiti's Flag Day go here .

"Security Breach at PAP Airport" Written 5/18/2006

Happy Flag Day!

Thursday, May 18, 2006 is Flag Day in Haiti. Flag Day is tantamount to the 4th of July in the States. It is not technically the celebration of Haiti's independence, but it is very important.



The photo to the left was taken yesterday, the 17th of May at the Toussaint L'Ouverture International Airport in Port au Prince, Haiti. They had some pre-flag day events going on there on Wednesday.

The day started out fairly normal ... or as normal as a day can be when you plan to put an 11 year old on a plane by herself for an entire day of travel. 

Ugh. Horrible. 


Paige was headed to Minnesota to visit her other family. Troy dropped Paige and I off at the door at 11am, and left with Pastor Rony to go get his blood work done again. We made our plan that Troy would return in two and a half hours to get me. I did not want to leave the building until I knew the plane was in the air.


Paige and I had forced help with our bags, try as you might to authoritatively say - "no mesi, no mesi"  - sometimes "no mesi" must mean "sure, yes, help me please".  Once we had our helper we didn't need we stood in line, stood in line, stood in line. All very normal. When we got to the front of the correct line we filled out all the papers for a minor to fly unaccompanied. I tried hard not to vomit. It was 11:30.

The ever so pleasant AA employee told us to come back at 12:30 to the ticket counter to meet Pagie's AA escort.


We went to a little airport restaurant that was upstairs, it is only for people who have not gone through security and into the holding area for flights. I never knew it existed prior to today. We had a terribly gross piece of pizza and worked on some math together and chatted.


At 12:30 we went back to the ticketing line to find our lady again. She assigned "Marcel" to walk us to the gate. When we got to the first checkpoint Marcel told me I could not come with them. This was surprising to us since we had been told by American Airlines that I would be able to sit at the gate with her until she took off. Paige started crying, which made me cry. We pulled off to the side to pray together and then I sent her on her way with Marcel and told her I would not leave the airport until her plane was in the air.


As I walked away I felt that sinking cruddy feeling a mom feels when she knows her kid is disappointed and sad. I decided that I should try and figure out if there was a way to see Paige one more time.


I went back up the stairs to the restaurant. I noticed a hallway leading towards daylight. I followed it, it took me to a flight of stairs where a door had been left cracked open. I peeked around and did not see anyone so I quietly tip-toed in past the door. The stairs led me up to another hallway. In that hallway there was one office with windows at hip level that had blinds on them. I ducked down low to pass the office windows so no one would tell me to leave. 


Five steps past the office was a corridor that led to open air. I stepped out to find myself on a cat-walk type thing that overlooked the tarmac. It was on the back side of that black fence you see in the photo that we took from the front of the airport.


I won't lie. My heart was pounding out of my chest because I knew I was not supposed to be up there. I also knew that no one had seen me and that it was my chance to see Paige one more time.


I stood in the shadow of a cement beam so the guys in the air-traffic control booth right next to me would not see me. I stood back and very still so the guys on the ground working on loading planes would not see me or notice motion.


There was a lot of commotion on the tarmac. They were rolling out red carpet (for real - actual red carpet!) and there was a huge marching band standing lined up and ready to play. Five black Suburban's pulled up, all in a row. Out stepped a ton of secret service type guys, and then President Preval! The band played for him, he shook six hands and they all jumped back in their Suburbans and left. There were UN with machine guns and police all over the place. I could have thrown a rock and hit Preval or the air traffic control tower. I was that close.


Once that excitement ended and I had still not been caught I settled in with my eyes focused on the plane I guessed would be Paige's plane. Sure enough, about ten minutes later they brought out the grannies in the wheelchair's and right after that came Paige. 

The engines were running on the plane so I wondered if she would hear me. I yelled "Paige Paige" she looked all around and had a hard time finding me. When she did, she smiled and waved. She climbed the steps to the plane, turning around and smiling and waving every few steps. 


My cover was blown so I waited until she was out of sight and gave the "up-nod" to the guy on the ground who was staring at me in shock and awe and utter horror. I bolted off the roof and retraced my steps back out and down. 


When I got back to the office with the glass windows I met a lady who told me I could be in very big, big trouble. I smiled and wished her a good day and ran past her before she decided to do something about me.


The lesson and a free tip I'll offer to the UnitedNations and the Haitian Police force and the President's secret service team is this:  Do not focus so much on one area of the airport. The tarmac is just a small piece of your airport. Beware of more than just regular run-of-the-mill predictable foes.  Listen up now, key point: Watch out for moms who want to make their kids happy. They are dangerous.


Tara

this school-house rocks

Above is a photo of the building currently under construction on the new Heartline property. The inside will be divided into three sections. There will be windows and a bathroom. Paige is begging and pleading for A/C. That request is being taken under advisement. 

This building was donated to us by a sweet couple that worked in Haiti in 2010. They gave it to Heartline earlier this year as their generous parting gift.  It just recently came out of customs and the work to put it up began.  We will be using this building as our schoolhouse for seven remarkable students. In the future three younger siblings will join the party. The teachers can be thankful it is not time for that yet. Once Lydia Livesay and Hudson Hendrick combine their powers and capitalize on the strength of so much alliteration and evil spunk we'll all be served notice and begin sleeping with one eye open.

Over Memorial Day weekend we hope to finalize our search process and make plans with their teacher(s) for the 2011-2012 school year.  God help those poor souls those BRAVE souls. 

We are super pumped to paint and decorate and make it off the hook schoolish looking ... Because everybody knows you cannot learn unless you are surrounded by bulletin boards and maps and giant alphabets and lots of primary colors. 

We haven't officially named the school. 'Heartline's School for lard MKs'(HS4LMK)has been pitched.  

Better ideas?

more new life

After losing her first baby in the 7th month of pregnancy, on Friday Yolette welcomed her healthy baby boy into the world.  

Jonna wrote about it here.

Swiftly Flow the Days, Swiftly Fly the Years

baby Paige

Paige went to prom last night.  Surreal is an overused word, but ask me if I care... It felt surreal on three or four levels.

First of all, prom in Haiti. Who knew?

Second of all, Paige was a little girl a few days ago. 

Third, she.was.just.born.  

Fourth, how can we prevent future sunrises and sunsets and trap her for eternity at sixteen?  Troy has got his fiddle and he's headed to the roof to lament. I will join him the minute I hit publish on this post.

 

Practicing before prom at the Hendrick's house

At 1am driving through the pot-hole filled streets of Port au Prince on our way home from picking Paige up after prom, Troy and I sang our own special rendition of this to Paige while she rolled her eyes:

Fiddler on the Roof
(tevye)

Is this the little girl I carried,

Is this the little boy at play?

(golde)

I don't remember growing older,

When did they?

(tevye)

When did she get to be a beauty,

When did he grow to be so tall?

(golde)

Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?

Sunrise, sunset (x2),

Swiftly flow the days.

Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers,

Blossoming even as we gaze.

Sunrise, sunset (x2),

Swiftly fly the years,

One season following another,

Laden with happiness and tears.

recreation haiti style

In the incredibly slow-moving year of 2010 ... The year we beat our heads against walls trying to secure straight and legitimate answers from the State Dept ... The year best described as the "Year of DACWIEE"  (Don't Assume Conspiracies When Incompetence Explains Everything)  ... All that aside we were able to enjoy all that the USA has to offer. We were discontent, home-sick, whiny, jerks about it at times but even so we managed to take advantage of the multiple opportunities for fantastical recreation.

We had a bajillion choices. We tried half of them, including playgrounds, parks, water parks, big swimming pools, little swimming pools, vortex pools, wave pools, lakes, lazy rivers, sprinkler parks, and more. There were church groups, play dates, school events, shopping, and summer camps. We never ever lacked entertainment options.

Quite frankly there were multiple times when we wished our kids had no idea about all the things there were to do do do do do outside of the house. We were less than fond of how quickly they caught on to the go-spend-do lifestyle.

In stark contrast - here in Haiti we are almost always home every late afternoon and every evening. We are frequently home on weekends. The choices for recreation are near nil. We are not being tricked into handing over cash in exchange for entertainment at every turn. It is a good thing because here all our cash is reserved for car repairs. neverendingcarrepairs.

We make our own recreation, and we have fun doing it.  We love our nights in and we enjoy time together. We make fun when fun cannot be found.

Here are a just few of the ways we entertain ourselves at home:   Sunbathing pool baptismal-side after swimming

Acrobatics by Noah

front yard sun time - Lydie, Isaac, Noah, Peanut

Making up games such as, "Toss the Stuffed Animals into high dusty window"

Stuffed Animal purgatory

Shooting rats on the bird-neighbors roof at dusk - a family favorite!

pellet gun + good eye = dead rat

• BeachBodyInsanity workout where we laugh our butts off doing our own lard version of Shaun T's workout ... even with all that laughing, some of us still have a big butt.
  

  

  Morning workouts with the three youngest

  

  
  

  
  
  • WWF style wrestling matches that almost never end well

  

  WWF - weird white freaks

  • Internet Cafe on the Smack Talk Porch (this is the place where everyone brings an internet device and we chat talk smack while sipping on a beverage and surfing the web)

  

  The Smack Talk Porch

  •  Impromptu dance parties
    
     
  • Hoola Hoop contests, soccer, biking around perimeter of walled in property, treadmill time, and more general tom-foolery
  
  
  
  
  You can see we have no shortage of things to do, and we never even have to leave home.
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~
  When we moved to Port au Prince almost three years ago we had a little serious marital spat. 
  Troy said we could not rent the house two blocks from Heartline because it was "too nice" and "too new". He made us look at horribly dank and depressing places miles and miles from Heartline, and all for less than a difference of $200 a month in rent. Truth be told, Troy's apprehension was less about the rent money and more about appearances. 
  
  
  Troy was concerned that the nice, 4 bedroom, clean house with a little swimming pool would seem extravagant to our supporters. He worried our donors wouldn't approve. I attempted to reason with Troy that our kids would be so much more entertained and happy with the swimming pool option and I would be so much more happy without mold growing on the walls and for $200 a month he might be buying my sanity and longevity in Haiti. When all reasoning failed, I cried. 
  
  
  In the end Beth had to step in and tell John to tell Troy to pull his head out - and stat! 
  
  
  John renamed the pool a baptismal and all Troy's problems were solved. Now Troy is just doing the Lord's work. He stands ready to baptize believers at the drop of a hat.  Such a holy giver that guy. Suuuuch.a.giver.
  
  
  

  ~~~~~~~~~~~

We will live here at least one more year before we move to the new property. I really love our house, I even love the guy that rents it to us. I love his goofy little swimming pool baptismal he put in front. I love that it feels like a respite from the real world of Port au Prince. More than that, I love that Troy came to his ever livin senses  - because that swimming pool is the gift that keeps on giving and it saves our butts over and over again.


Mostly, I love that this is where life happens. This is where family time takes place. I love this spot because this is where my kids are growing up, this is where they play, this is where they fight, and this is where memories are being made.

Celebrating Dokte J

Wishing our friend Dr.Jen a very Happy Birthday today. Jen hates this fanfare, which is maybe what most motivates us. ;) We've been blessed by Jen's skills and love in so many ways. She saved our daughter one scary Friday night, she gives advice and care when she is in Haiti or in Minnesota. She loves the Haitian people and her respect for them is evident in every interaction. Please join us in wishing Jen a Happy Birthday today.

Jen amputates fingers and causes children to smile. She saves lives and loves well.  Jen is love!  Photo from after the earthquake.

I call em bananas

Because Isaac and Hope were Minnesotans for three full years, they came back to Haiti at age four - when we moved here full time - speaking no Kreyol/Creole.

When we arrived here Troy, Britt and Paige learned the quickest.  The younger kids and I stuck together and chickened out a lot. We rarely tried. (Fail!)  Isaac and Hope were teased and called white and that proved to be rather unmotivating to them.

Currently, I've got way more work to do. I have women's health Creole nailed  ... "When was your last period?" "How many times have you been pregnant?" and other equally personal lady questions are on the tip of my tongue with an acceptable accent. Giving directions to my house or negotiating my way out of a car accident is an entirely different story. I call Troy for that stuff.  As much as we've encouraged, Isaac and Hope and Noah have still learned very little Creole.

To the extent that they are each able, we're trying to begin to fix that this summer. We are planning scheduled time to work solely on language. I hope to report by August that we are all progressing and that the middle kids are able to communicate at some lowish level.

Coming to live here and not learning the language is not a good idea. I'll go further and say - it is a bad idea.  (I say that at the risk of putting lots of people on the defensive. The truth hurts. Seriously, we should not be lards and come here long-term and speak English only. I am saying this to myself as much as anyone.) It is not like you have to learn it over night, but learning should certainly be the goal.

Knowing the language shows concern, respect, care, and love. If we are going to live and work in another culture and want any shot at all of building deep trust with people, we need to be vulnerable and we need to speak to them in their own language.  Period. (The punctuation period not the lady kind.)

Additionally, using a translator means you never truly know that what you said was passed on correctly.  Over and over we see that translators add and subtract from what is being said.  They hear it a certain way and pass it along with their own slant. The only way to minimize the cultural misunderstanding that is bound to happen no matter what is to speak for yourself whenever possible.  Friends that have been in Haiti a long time all say they wish they had worked harder earlier at learning and using language. 

Every time Isaac needs a haircut we have a discussion about whether or not he can handle being the kid in Haiti that is Haitian but cannot speak the language.  We go round and round about it and sometimes it means he gets a bad Mom haircut in order to avoid the awkward situation of hoofing it down to the corner barber and trying to explain why he doesn't speak Creole.  It is totally uncool I tell you.

(But maybe not as uncool as this day of cultural awkwardness that Troy endured/created and later overcame last year. Hair and low-grade stress go hand in hand worldwide for us.)

There are so many ways to respect the people (even if you dislike things about their culture) and learning language and history are just a couple of the ways. Early in our time in Haiti we learned this truth from our boss of that time.  He lived in America but occasionally came down to Haiti. He tried less hard than anyone I've ever known to understand the culture or language or people.  I said "he tried less hard", what I mean is: I never ever saw him try once.  Because of his refusal to leave his 'American box' and try to learn from the people he became a source of much unkind mockery.

One time we were driving down a rural road near where we lived and worked. It is an area thick with Plantain tress. Our boss told someone in our car "See that there? All of those trees are banana trees."  (They don't taste alike, they are not prepared alike. They are two totally different fruits.) Wanting the guest to have good information, Troy said, "Actually, those are plantains. That is a major crop of this area." Our boss-guy shrugged Troy off and said,  "Yeah, well, I call em bananas."     

You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto

(In the Creole language a plantain is called 'banann' - but he was not going there with it. He was literally refusing to know what the tree actually was. )

Ever since that day it has been our inside joke (now going niche Christian Haiti blog viral - making it less inside) to say "I call em bananas" to remind ourselves that leaving our comfort zone and our little boxed in mindset and entering into deeper understanding of the culture in which we live is important.  

Have any entertaining " I live in a small box" stories?  Please share! 
I call em plantains.

reviewing monday in photos

Kids with McGuire - the largest of the McHoul Mastiffs

With Annie and the pups

Britt, Tara, Gwenn, Nia, Beth, Jen

Monday Troy worked all day while the rest of us played. Life is rarely fair but sometimes the unfair benefits us (the kids and I) and lands on someone else (Troy). Yesterday most of his family larded out and had fun while he worked.  Thankfully he didn't care about missing our fun, he was much more obsessed with getting some things fixed over at the Harbor House. 

Britt and I worked out together, went to visit the fabulous Mangines over at Beth's house, and introduced the kids to the six puppies. (photos above) We came home and chatted with Jen and got caught up on the latest.

We fed the fab five some dinner and got them settled into bed and went out for a late date night with Britt, Paige, and Jen.  (photos below) Troy finds himself hanging out with all women frequently. Whether it is at the Harbor House or at home it is usually 'Troy and his ladies'.  His life is so very difficult that way. ;)

Troy and his ladies

Not to be forgotten ...

This groovy couple celebrated 41 years of marriage yesterday!  Happy Anniversary Dad and Mom!!

Today it is so humid it feels like someone has laid a steaming hot rag across our faces, and is now pushing the rag down our throats. We're off to early childhood development soon. Later we have an airport run to help some friends of ours that are new missionaries to Ferrier, Haiti - we will get them from the big airport to the little airport and hopefully be able to encourage and send them off with prayers.

Today is Britt's last day in Haiti :( so we're hoping the choking humidity also slows down the clock somehow.

happy

Lydia, Phoebe, Noah, Hope, Isaac, Paige, Brittany  - Mother's Day 2011

20 hours of many births

Nocelia with her oldest and youngest

Jonna multitasking with Junie shortly before the baby arrived

Nocelia's premie daughter was hospitalized today. Dr. Jen landed for a few weeks in Haiti and went right to work. She and Jonna got the baby admitted at Medishare.  Please be praying for Nocelia's baby named Esther.

Junie, pictured below delivered at 3:02am and also had a baby girl. They are doing well. Baby has not yet been named.

change subject to plan sort of saturday

Annie the Mastiff with six puppies

After four days without city power (EDH) - we got EDH in the night Friday which caused exuberant dancing (Troy) and much joy (the rest of us).  It is truly shocking how the moods of the expats are directly linked to the amount of electricity being provided.  Seems like we'd all be a little deeper than that.  But no. Not.

Our oldest daughter is visiting. We planned to arise early today and head to Jacmel to see our friends the Mangines and to maybe enjoy some swimming, beach, and Basin Bleu scenery.  We wanted Britt to see Basin Bleu because the one time we went there our faces hurt from smiling when we left; it was that much fun.

On Friday Gwenn wrote to say that much rain has been falling in Jacmel and Basin Bleu might not be very bleu - it might be Basin Brown and the river level might make it hard to get there.  We talked it over and decide to stick to our plan. Even if we had to skip getting to Basin Bleu we would get to hang with them and sit by the pool and enjoy a pretty drive.

Our kids started waking up at 5:30 this morning.  Why? Why? Why?  So dumb.  We have never convinced any of them that sleep is awesome and they should try it for longer stretches of time. As I made mental lists of what needed packing for our one night trip, at 6:30 Beth said:

The Jacmel plan went out the window and we went to Beth's house.  Britt and Paige stayed with Beth. I went with Jonna to help Nocelia with labor.  An hour later I switched and as Beth and Britt drove to the Maternity House, Paige kept watch over puppy labor.  In the five minutes that Beth and Britt were headed this way and I was headed that way, Paige was there alone for puppy number seven to be born.

Down the street Nocelia gave birth to a premature baby girl who is doing very well so far considering she is just shy of 36 weeks. Britt got to cut the cord at about the same time Paige was trying to revive a puppy just a half mile away.

All of this happened prior to 9am. The day has continued on in total unpredictability.  Another woman is in labor now but probably won't deliver until tomorrow.  Three more stillborn puppies were born. Some visitors from Korea showed up. Some visitors from Minnesota showed up.  In typical Haiti fashion, at bedtime last night we knew nothing of any of what took place today. 

Today was wild and fun. We have a new plan mapped out for family fun day again tomorrow.

We fully expect it to not happen. :)

Nocelia's baby girl ~ 5lbs

As of the writing of this post:

• Annie is the proud Mastiff Mama of 4 girls, 2 boys and sadly the last four of the pups were stillborn.

• Nocelia is the proud Mama to her seventh born child - a girl.

• Junie is in labor with her first child and will appreciate prayers throughout the night and tomorrow. (Beth and Jonna midwives over all sorts of creatures appreciate prayers too!)

A Happy Mama

Tara and our tribe

An early mother's day tribute to my amazing bride and the wonderful mother of these great kids. We love you so much and know we don't take enough time to appreciate you for all that you do and all that you are...thank you for loving us and caring for us and keeping this crazy boat afloat. We are blessed.
No words could ever be equal to the task of describing our feelings for you. You are loved. By many.
And you deserve it.

-Troy

By Beth McHoul

Heartline Maternity Program Battling Forces of Darkness

Lots of birth going on around here.  As I write this, a very pregnant mastiff dog is sitting at my side – she will deliver any day now.  Several missionary homes are waiting for her offspring to provide protection and fun for their families.

Our maternity center is full of pregnant women and post-partum women and babies.  A woman calls us when she starts labor and we spring into action. 

Occasionally this even happens in the daytime.  Many births go perfectly and women put into action the things they have learned in class.  Sometimes it doesn’t go perfectly.
Women in the US have their birth plans, their birth bag all packed and most likely they have been to childbirth classes and have their methods of coping (or not feeling) pain all arranged.  We try to prepare our ladies as well, through months of prenatal care, healthy food, vitamins and iron supplements and education.  It’s the education that gets sticky.

A woman comes into labor with her belief system.  Some feel they are cursed if they haven’t gone into labor on their “due date”.  They might take herbs or potions to remedy this.  What they meant to start labor might kill their baby.  Others come in filled with fear and apprehension and can’t get beyond it.  Their fear stalls their labor and won’t allow them to progress.  Some think if they drink too much water their babies may drown  therefore our instructions for hydration go unheeded.   Our women come into the program with lots of cultural baggage.  Some wives tales are silly, some are downright deadly.  All countries have them, all families have them.  Most won’t kill your baby but some do.

We fight against these wives tales.  We teach truth.  We teach breast feeding, family bonding, and mother/child attachment.  Most of our ladies hear us, they respond, they try to do what we tell them.  Sometimes families interfere and take over and our lady is caught between two loyalties.   Her mother or mother-in-law may be the person of power in the household and our woman must give over the parenting  to them.  That  means bottles of canned milk, sugar water, bean sauce, flour and water and an assortment of other things that don’t provide complete nutrition and cost money.  These babies often come back to us sick and near death.   We ask, “have you been breast feeding?”  Most often the answer is, “yes, but I don’t have enough milk”.  They are surrounded by voices that tell them they don’t have enough, it’s not good for the baby and only bad mothers breast feed.

We battle this.  Almost daily.  We battle the forces of darkness that want to kill these babies.  We send them home after birth doing well.  They come back starving.  Our hearts break.  This is why we are building a post-partum wing. 

We will keep moms and babies for several days.  We will teach the families who come to visit and work on getting grandmas and aunties on board with us.  If they are the bosses of the house (or tent) we’ll teach them to be the breast feeding boss!  We’ll get them on our side ordering new mom to rest and feed her baby.

More and more we see to be successful we have to target the whole family.  We have to expose and break harmful traditions and superstitions.  We have to bring light into darkness.   Our women don’t have to be victims of ignorance – they can be successful mothers.  They can win – their babies can live!

Christ came to give us life more abundantly.  This includes mothers and babies.

Your prayers and support do matter and are making a difference. 
HELP US HELP OTHERS
SUPPORT HEARTLINE!
Beth

Baby Book Entry 4

Being a mom to this tribe is still my favorite job.  We laugh often every day with so many fabulous and interesting questions and comments being directed our way.

I vowed to try to do three to four specifically kid focused posts per year. It is time again. I said in a previous post:  

"I am not that Mom that scrapbooks, fills in baby-books, keeps artwork tucked away for years, or writes beautiful letters to my children. In my mind I am that mom, but in reality I am a total slacker. It is not that I don't find these children and their changing lives and personalities 100% entertaining and exciting ... that is not it at all. I simply lack the attention to detail and time it takes for long-term documentation projects.  (Baby books) I could never be a statistician."   

(This is really for me and the grandparents - anyone else choosing to read has been served notice. This could be a real snore for you.)

In an effort to keep this information in one place ...

Official Entry One

Entry Two

Entry Three

Livesay Kids Baby Book Entry Four - Being written four months after returning to PAP post earthquake after their year in America.  In no particular order ...  

Isaac - (9.5 now) I really worried he would not be okay back in Port au Prince. He digs America a lot. Thankfully the worries were wasted. He is doing great. He has new good friends in the Hendrick boys and loves spending time with them. Not to say he is not still dreaming of Sonic and playgrounds and amusement parks, but in spite of those things he is content here. He has the type of personality that makes it hard even for mean kids to dislike him ... he's almost so nice and innocent that he becomes unaware of how sinister much of the world around him is. It is one reason I really want him in a more innocent and friendly environment than any school system anywhere can ever provide. Kids his age know a lot of stuff. They are happy to teach him.  It would kill me to see his innocence taken from him too soon. His life is mainly unicorns and rainbows and we like it that way.  There is plenty of time for him to figure out the gross and depressing things of the world. For now we all thoroughly enjoy his curious mind and never ending questions and especially his ability to see the good in everything. He genuinely cares about encouraging others.  Last night he asked me how in the world I made the noodles so delicious? Did I have a secret?  He wasn't even being an Eddie Haskell  -  that is just who he is.  (and yes, I am totally awesome at boiling water and dumping noodles in)

Paige - (16.4 now)

We are amazed again this year at how Paige rolls with the punches and even seems to lead the rest of us with her ability to shrug and move on when things get hard. Since we got back to Haiti she had a major allergic reaction and then a battle with MRSA that caused a lot of trouble but she finally beat all of that. She will finish 10th grade at QCS in late May. She has her travel plans all set for the summer and will be enjoying time with family and friends in Texas and Minnesota. Probably most exciting to her is the visit to Haiti that is planned in early July of her best friend, Julia. We are all very excited for her to get to show someone so close to her this life. It is hard to be 16 anyway, but feeling like nobody cares to understand your life can be hard.  Julia gave Paige a beautiful gift when she announced she wanted to come this summer. Right now we're enjoying Paige's joy and friendship and growth. She is a treasure. 

Lydia - (3.5 now) Lydia prefers sugar above any other single substance on earth. She would live on suckers and chocolate if it were allowed. When it comes to "real food" she will choose rice and beans over anything else ever time. She is having less crazy bad days lately and only occasionally goes bananas on us. When she goes all nutty-bananas we stand back in awe of such impressive rage. Really. It is quite something. She still demands more time and attention than any other child and we work hard to give her what she wants and minimize her melt-downs. Thankfully she is 100% at ease here in Haiti. We have our textbook third-culture-kid in the making in Lydia. She danced to Kompa music at a neighbors party and didn't discriminate against strangers as she danced around table to table entertaining everyone. She grabs a flashlight, cannot get it to turn on and asks, "We don't have EDH right now?" She squashes bugs with her bare hands. :) Because she is always around new moms, at church on Sunday she lifted her dress to nurse her baby doll during the service. She is observing and misses nothing.

Phoebe - (4.5 now) Phoebe has done really well with the transition back to Haiti too. We worried about her and Isaac the most. Every ounce of Phoebe is introverted. We know this about her and allow her more time at home and away from unknown social situations. She enjoys going to the Harbor House or the Maternity House because they are familiar to her.  She likes the guest house when it is just the Heartline staff.  If we take her somewhere new she instantly responds by burying her face in our legs and wishing the new people away. If a stranger asks her what her name is she shuts them down with the blank stare. She plays for hours with her dolls and never gets bored with time to play alone. Her voice is still Elmo-like and we love listening to her chat with Lydia or her dolls. One bump we've not yet figured out is her fear of water. She will not have anything to do with swimming pools or seas. Having her hair washed upsets her a lot. She gets very panicky even if we are holding her in our arms in the water. Emotionally she seems younger than four and a half. For that reason we won't start her in Kindergarten this fall. 

Hope (9.3 now) -

Another sugar lover ...  only this sugar lover is always so sweet herself.  Hope loves to write letters and sweet notes. Almost every day I get some drawing with a kind word on it.  Tonight I got a heart drawing that said "Best mom and cool mom in the world". We know she has tons of athletic ability but lately she is most interested in hours and hours of Little House in the Prairie DVD's.  Sometimes we have to force the DVD player off and tell her to get out and move her bod.  We wish there was some way to get her involved in track and field ... she has an amazing untapped sprinter trapped inside that compact little body.  She grew the least of all the kids in Texas but has grown a lot since we got home and I just bought new clothes because everything that fit in January is now getting small.  Hope has loved school at QCS but is very excited for summer and is more of a homebody like Phoebe.  It is hard to believe we met her 9 years ago last month.  She loves to swim with her brothers but also enjoys just hanging out with Paige pretending to be older and hipper like Paige.

Noah (7 now) -

We're not sure if Noah has more teeth missing or in his mouth. There is currently a three tooth gap across the front. This photo was taken right before he lost the one on the right. He eats like a horse in spite of his lack of choppers. His speech problem corrected itself over the last three months. We actually hadn't noticed until we posted his video on Good Friday. He says his L and R sounds perfectly now.  He still comes to climb in the middle of our bed at least three nights a week.  We have a love-hate relationship with that habit of his. It is so sweet and cute that he wants to cuddle us.  But it is so stinking hot and humid and that makes it less sweet and cute. Swimming is his favorite activity. Rough-housing or wrestling is his second favorite activity.  Troy did not grow up wrestling and being rowdy -  I did. My sister and Dad and I gave each other "the typewriter" regularly.  I am the main wrestler and I am the one slamming him on the bed to tickle him to death while he begs for more and gets mad when I am tired of it. I'm really excited to not have him gone so many hours every week. He is a great conversationalist and I miss the time talking with him.

Britt & Chris (too grown up to worry about age now) -

The adorable Bernards are enjoying being homeowners and college graduates in Waco, TX. Chris got promoted at the YMCA and is very well loved there. He works hard and continues as a youth pastor part time as well as the full time YMCA management job.  Britt was accepted into at Master's program at Baylor's School of Public Health and will begin grad school this fall.  She will be going for almost no tuition cost thanks to an "assistantship" position she earned where she will teach a few hours a week.  

We are most excited that she arrived yesterday to spend seven nights with us in Haiti.  We are planning a few fun weekend activities.  The last time she was here was one week before the earthquake.  Chris cannot get time off of work but we are hoping that Christmas with them somewhere on this island might be an option.  It has become clear that it won't stop being/feeling weird having a grown up adult kid.  How did this even happen?  Our friends are now teasing us about becoming grandparents so it was probably good timing to let go of thinking it will ever feel "normal".   (And no - this is not an announcement of any sort. thankyouverymuch.)

Britt and Lydia snoozing together last night

For the next six glorious days I have all seven of my precious babies in one country.  I am so SO excited to be together.  These investments matter more to me than I can express.  They are precious, precious gifts that I do not deserve. I wish I could protect them and guarantee no hurt or hardship for them ... but since I cannot  ... I guarantee them my unending love and unceasing prayers .

Baby Book Entry 5 is penciled in for August. 

Moments

There are multiple times each week when in a brief moment of uninterrupted eye contact or a conversation while passing one another in the kitchen or driveway that we say to one another with our eyes or our mouths "this life is so weird"! (See party invitation post.)

And while it is weird, it is also good (and hard) and interesting and fun and never boring.

Last week Troy described a  moment to me. He talked about having Isaac's (first) Dad, Mom, and little brother in our truck, driving to show them a house that was built for them just outside of Port au Prince, and getting stuck in deep mud.

He talked about the very peculiar feeling of watching our son in the joyful, bouncy, carefree attitude of his first father and also observing his rarely seen sad side in the much more morose disposition of his mother.

Troy wondered if working along side Isaac's 57 year old biological dad to pull a truck out of the deep mud was not one of the weirder moments of 2011 ever. 

Isaac is understandably concerned for his family and occasionally asks if they could maybe just come live with us. Hopefully getting them out of their tent in a very crowded PAP tent city and into this much better house will put Isaac a little bit at ease.

We're doing everything in our power to honor these precious people (and Isaac) ... but we're stopping just shy of attempting to create the elusive utopia that exists only in our sweet and innocent son's mind. :)

This situation raises a lot of questions and issues in our minds. We definitely want to help them, but without creating dependency. We wonder if we would have done things differently had we known back then that Isaac's parents were still (kind of) together and only placed him at an orphanage due to economic reasons. (Isaac's Dad left his Mom for a time when she was pregnant and shortly after he was born and that is why she decided to place him in an orphanage and sign papers. We did not learn this until years later. They are back together again.) These are hard things to consider, but important ones.

How amazing is it to even be given such opportunities to know this family?

Please join us in prayer for the Antoine family as they move and transition to a new life outside of Port au Prince - for wisdom as we seek to help without hurting - and for the hundreds of thousands of people that are still living under sheets and tarps without advocates or opportunities to move elsewhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

travel habits & debt

On Saturday at the Teen Challenge event someone said,  "You are missing a bunch of kids aren't you?"

The first five -  April 2006

We were indeed.  We only had Lydia on Saturday.  (We have to take her because she is the hard one and rarely does Paige sign up to baby-sit her.  We understand. We accept. We love. We lament.)

Here's the deal: Right around child number five a dramatic shift occurred.

No, I'm not talking about when we we got lackluster with personal grooming or stopped consistently getting sufficient rest at night.

I'm talking about when we stopped going places as an entire family unit. This necessary change took place long before we moved to Haiti and long before the 6th and 7th child arrived  - it was somewhere in the middle of the memorable year of aught four.

I can tell some people don't like our practice of dividing up the fam.  Why? I mean, the President and Vice President of the United States never travel together. Does that stress you? Our entire family will never parish at once. Surely that is a good thing.

Our reasons for this are many. It is less for concerns of national security and more for a deep longing and unending quest for personal sanity and marital bliss.

Because of this, it is likely you will never meet all of our children at once. You may be subjected to some combination of three or four of them, but you may never lay eyes on the entire lot of them.  Not at church. Not at Beth's house.  Not in the USA.  Not in Haiti.  People seem kind of stressed out by this habit of ours and I'm taking this opportunity to say "Sorry?" and "You're welcome!!".

Approximately one time per month we all leave our house to go somewhere together as a unified and whole tribe. Maybe you'll catch it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Debt.

We are rapidly approaching middle life. I am in my late 30's for crying in the sink. I entered higher education two decades ago  and finally finished in a sucktacular anticlimactic way in May of '98 when I received a bachelors degree from a little known Christian Liberal Arts College called Crown.  In the mailbox one spring day I found my diploma and my first gargantuan bill from the Dept of Education.

That was the beginning of a long, complicated, and mainly dysfunctional relationship with student loan debt. At times I deferred, at others I begged my way to forbearance. Rarely did I know what any of it meant for the life of my loans, I just knew I wanted to be unusually skilled and especially excellent at finding ways out of paying. I'd say I succeeded. At one point I pompily declared to a friend "I plan to die with that student loan debt."

In December I watched my oldest child march across the stage to receive her college diploma ... All the while sitting on the reality that I, at such an advanced age, still had not paid off my own stinkin college education.

I chip away at it . year.after.year.after.stupid.year.

guess what?





wait for it.




Student loan has been paid off.  Gone. Finished. 成品. Færdig. Klaar. Päättynyt. Terminado. Fini. Baigta.

This means for the first time since I was 17 years old I carry zero debt.  That's right.  Saturate yourself in that.

So - I am receiving congratulations while basking in that glorious fact today.  

Are you debt free?  Does it feel good every day, or just for the first few hours?

Invitation

Last night we were invited to a party at our neighbors house.  These are the neighbors that once threatened to take us to court because our generator is too loud. The same neighbors that occasionally mention that our gate is noisy too. Oh, the irony.  For the first year we lived here the lady wouldn't even greet me when I said hello. It wasn't until the earthquake that I ever really got to have a friendly exchange with her. We don't know when the switch took place, but something changed and there has been much more warmth between us this year.  They love when we bring the little girls to their bakery across the street to help buy bread.


Being invited to that party was pretty big.  Maybe that sounds dorky or dramatic, and maybe it is both.  But here is the thing, we recognize we're outsiders and there are plenty of reasons to question our presence in their hood and to be skeptical of why we are in their country.  There is some animosity at times as people wonder why we have Haitian children and make their own decisions about what that means about us. Kids are exploited frequently in this culture. Why would we automatically be given the benefit of the doubt?

When we lived out in the country village we used to be invited to go to social events much more frequently. Knowing our neighbors in the city presents the same challenge that it does in any other urban setting.  It just seems (real or imagined) easier to make friends out in the boonies where people are more relaxed. 

For the party last night, they specifically asked us to bring all the kids. We also brought a cake and a bottle of wine and hoped we were not breaking unknown cultural party rules.

The party was in the backyard underneath swooping pigeons and florescent light.  When you walked in you were seated at a table similar to if you were at a restaurant.  We tried to mingle but they told us to sit. The music was loud and included Celine Dion, The Eagles, Aaron Neville, Chris DeBurgh, Elton John, and lots of Haitian Kompa.  The Haitian Kompa made perfect sense.  Chris deBurgh, not so much.  As former peeps in "the biz" Troy and I took copious notes about the play-list* - should we ourselves ever attempt to host a culturally appropriate Par-Tay in our neighborhood.  All that to say, we can spin* some records with confidence now.


(*Well hidden fact: we were cheesy wedding DJ's when we met one another. The chicken-dance is a part of our dna.)

For us of course there was a bit of awkwardness being the entire representation of expats at the party. We people watched and speculated much the way everyone at the party was speculating about us. Geronne kept being asked what we wanted, she giggled and said it was okay to ask us directly. We speak when spoken to!

We laughed at the amount of cork in my wine and marveled at the variety and volume of deep fried meats. Our kids took full advantage of the free flowing King Cola. They're no dummies. We used Lydia as social lubricant as she enthusiastically shook her butt to the Haitian Kompa music by 'Tropicana' while everyone laughed at her inhibition and cuteness.

We stayed three hours, ate many deep fried items and waited for others to leave before us to be sure we weren't being rude. We enjoyed that the husband was dressed to the nines when we arrived but the wife wore a raggedy house dress with a missing bosom button until about 7:30, then she went inside to change and get spiffy mid-party. :)

The music rose to a deafening crescendo by 8:30. By that time we were ready to tuck kids into bed even if it was too loud to sleep.

We recognized more than a few of our neighbors in the sea of new faces. Dr. Sajous is the neighborhood family practice doc. He came in mid party with an entourage. He seems popular. They ushered him to a prime table. We've known him since before we lived in this neighborhood because back in 2006 he was the one that declared Troy "needed a hospital" when Troy was experiencing the nasty/scary combination of symptoms that Dengue Fever and a panic attack rolled together in one can bring. 

Dr Sajous said last night, "You came to our party. Now you are Haitian."


I'm thinking he doesn't have the authority to unilaterally declare that - But we'll take it as a nice compliment and prepare for numerous future invitations to hear Lady in Red blasted from loud speakers while eating deep fried everything.