Home

The beautiful soul written about in yesterday's post, as well as here and here - left her tired and weak earthly body this afternoon shortly after 4pm.

In the final weeks of her life many visitors came and sang with her and spent time at her side. Multiple people were touched by her life and the joyful spirit with which she battled disease. While AIDS ultimately stole her health from her, it did not steal her faith or her spunk. She did not die alone or unloved and she now is Home where her suffering is no more.

Please pray for her sister (18) and her mother and their family. 

K. R.

Born in September 1992

Went home February 20, 2012

I’ve been feeling kind of restless 

I’ve been feeling out of place 

I can hear a distant singing 

A song that I can’t write 

And it echoes of what I’m always trying to say 

There’s a feeling I can’t capture 

It’s always just a prayer away 

I want to know the ending 

Things hoped for but not seen 

But I guess that’s the point of hoping anyway 

I’m confined by my senses 

To really know what you are like 

You are more than I can fathom 

And more than I can guess 

And more than I can see with human sight 

But I have felt you with my spirit 

I have felt you fill this room 

And this is just an invitation 

Just a sample of the whole 

And I cannot wait to be going home 

Going home, I’ll meet you at the table 

Going home, I’ll meet you in the air 

And you are never too young to think about it 

Oh, I cannot wait to be going, to be going home 

Face to face, how can it be 

Face to face, how can it be 

Face to face, how can it be 

"Going Home" by Sara Groves

today's highs ...

Down on my knees

Praying please, have mercy now

Christ my shelter, in a world that tries to drag me down.

Open your mind.

Open your heart.

Open up your soul.

Jesus come in,

and make a broken man whole.

Carried the cross.

Carried the pain.

Carried the love.

We don’t belong here, 

but to the Father above.

Jesus in heaven and

Jesus in hell below.

Paid for our sin,

broken body with the red blood flow.

Rise up in glory,

raise your hands to the risen King.

He’s God almighty, listen to his children sing.

Let em sing. 

Hallelujah to our King.

Hallelujah, ruler over everything.

The children sing.

Hallelujah to our King.

Hallelujah, ruler over everything.

In this world you will have trouble.

But Jesus overcame the world.

And our body is His Temple.

And we will worship forever more.

Mama T Prayer

"Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work." 

Mother Teresa

(Photo post earthquake at Handicap Int'l, Troy Livesay)

Sweet Faphane

Melissa & Faphane

We are usually a bit nervous and uncertain about Harbor House decisions. It is difficult to know if we ever have a full picture/understanding of the stories of the young moms we meet. Getting to the place of knowing every angle of the story is a time-consuming thing. It is very much like peeling layer after layer off of an onion. As you peel slowly new things are revealed. We never want to play god with people's lives or get to a place where we don't take time to pray through decisions. It is complicated, and the more we learn the more complicated it all feels.

Thankfully, we have been reassured that the decision to invite Faphane to the Harbor House has ultimately been the right one. She has a great, involved, loving Momma of her own and she won't stay at Harbor House past the initial time of helping her get breast-feeding established and settling into motherhood.

Her Mom was struggling to make enough with her water business (selling bags of water outside of Port au Prince) to feed everyone well and really loved the idea of Faphane being in a place (temporarily) that could provide better for her in this critical time of pregnancy. She liked that Faphane wouldn't need to travel so far on Thursdays.

The timing is great for Faphane to be very nearby at the Harbor House as she has been having some pretty serious health issues that Melissa is addressing and treating  --- if she still lived in the tent out in the camp she lives in she would have been too far away to get the treatment she has needed.

She's been pretty scared lately about labor and delivery and her future (and why wouldn't she be?!) and could sure use prayers.  Faphane turned 15 in October, her first baby is due in April.

This weekend her Mom will come visit her, we are hoping that the visit lifts her spirits.

' V' is for Valentine and IV

Today's haps in speedy-report bullet format:

• Up early - receive gifts from Joanna in MN for Valentine's Day - very fun surprise
• Send kids to school earlier because they missed Monday due to chaos and illness
• Leave for Maternity Center for planned IV class taught by Dr. Jen and Melissa
• Act as patient for Beth to practice IVs 
• Practice placing IV on Beth, Jen, and Troy - triple fun (What truer love than this, that a man should lay down his vein for his wife)
• Pose for dorky thumbs up photos and celebrate successful IV placement
• Tuesday - Early Childhood Development Class with many curveballs thrown in ... the curve balls and unexpected stuff is three posts that won't ever make it to print - Carol had a scare that required quick action - Etrenne had her baby Monday and things didn't go as we hoped but it is such a long story I cannot go there for the sake of her privacy - Faphane (15 - new at Harbor House) is struggling a bit (emotionally and physically) - Olina's baby is losing weight .... 
• Come home and make heart shaped cookies with little girls - feel that the making of those cookies MUST happen - represents having some control over  being able to make a plan and execute a plan - feel victorious upon successful baking session
• Kids get home from school
• Frost cookies with Hope and Phoebe (while Isaac gives dogs baths and Lydie cheers) 
• Make dinner, eat dinner 
• Homework, baths, bedtime routine, etc, etc.  (Troy says he "doesn't want to see Lydia's toys in our room anymore", Lydia says, "Okay. Can you close your eyes?) 
• Jen, Troy, Tara, Isaac work on Peanut and Hazelnut (our Mastiffs) - give meds and dig around to determine if a wound is serious and if there are fleas  - wound not serious, yes there are fleas
• 9:42p -  feel bad about not answering emails  -  but not bad enough to stay awake very much longer

Some words I read on the interweb that I give a boisterous, even obnoxious "AMEN" to tonight -

"Neither your worth nor someone else's love can be measured by something bought today (or any day). That is the ultimate lie of consumer culture and an offense to the true nature of love. Feeling entitled is not just a poor substitute for feeling love, it actually keeps you from feeling love - and from feeling loved. More than making you look bratty, it robs you of the joy hidden in this discovery: your life itself is both the proof you are loved and the currency of your love. Be grateful you received that gift, and be glad to give it away."
- Thad Norvell) 

Happy Valentine's Day Tara

Tara - I love you.

This song expresses my feelings quite well...and I wanted to sing it to you. Upon reviewing the lyrics, I realized that it was technically a worship song so in an effort to be less idolatrous and sacrilegious I changed the words and re-wrote the second verse. (Apologies to the original author Phil Wickham, others, and God.)

Always Forever...

-Troy

february 14 greetings

It reads:
"Happy Valentine's Day Lydia you are the best little white sister i ever had and you sweat and beautifull."

'Sweat' probably means sweet - but in truth Lydia does sweat a lot more than your average little girl. (Cursed genetics!) She cannot be the best little sister. (Phoebe!) She is clearly the best (only) little white sister.

This card was crafted in a very hurried fashion, compliments of Hope Livesay. Other people got hastily written cards indicating what made them the best too.

Our house is FAR too chaotic for romantic candle lit rice and bean dinners. We didn't get the time to grab treats for our kiddos. Getting flowers of any quality would require a TON of time in traffic. Most of the greeting cards in our area are in French, a language we don't speak or read. Even Haiti itself proved to be too chaotic to pull off a simple plan of baking sugar cookies in the shape of hearts with the little girls yesterday. All that to say, Troy and I woke up and exchanged verbal Valentine greetings. Since neither of us are morning people the greetings lacked in wordiness and romantic prose.

None of that matters because when we choose to focus on the God of love and the love in our house RATHER THAN the insane circumstances swirling around us  - it makes every day feel like a day to celebrate. 

wishing love for all people of all varieties and colors,

happy valentine's day!

laboring

5pm Update - This giant baby boy arrived mid afternoon ...

Carol (40) is in labor with her first child this morning.

linking you

photo: lee cohen

We've had less to say in this space lately ... Haitian proverbs and old photos replace original words of depth, substance, or news.  In the ups and downs of life most of us (speaking for ourselves and our co-workers/friends working here) feel like this is a bit of a down time.  I think the churchy way we say this is: "a season of discouragement".  I always find it harder to write in these 'blah' times. It hasn't even been that things are so terrible really. That is not it. It has just been sort of a time of facing an extra/unexpected stressor, followed by recovering, followed immediately by a new stressor. Repeat. Repeat.

I think we're just slightly weary of the repeat repeat part.

All that to say, instead of writing, we are linking:

Jen Hatmaker  -  Thoughts and observations on the state of the western church ...
Excerpt: 
I'm thinking it's time to unpack what Paul meant when he said, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ" (1 Corinthians 11:1). In a culture where Christianese has lost all meaning and we've forfeited our right to be heard after decades of turning a blind eye to a suffering world, I'm afraid the only way back is to actually live out the gospel. Right in front of people. With our real hands and real time and real money and resources and gifts in our real homes and real neighborhoods, serving real people who are sad and lonely and sick and hungry. If Jesus was right, then the literal goodness of the Good News is compelling, so maybe we better figure out how to get the "good" back into our story.


Sarah Bessey -  Lean Into It
Excerpt One:
I know nothing for sure. Is God even real? What about my Bible? church? people? life? meaning? loss? grief? disillusionment? soul-weariness? goodness? evil? tragedy? suffering? I know nothing, nothing,nothing. And it’s not because I didn’t have “answers,” oh, no, I had all of the photocopied apologetics cheat sheets lined up in a neatly labeled three-ring binder, paragraphs highlighted to respond to the questions of the ages in three lines or less. I clung tighter and tighter, the sand of answers spilling out of clenched fists like rain.

Excerpt Two:

Lean into the pain. Stay there in the questions, in the doubts, in the wonderings and loneliness, the tension of now-and-not-yet until you are satisfied that God is there, too. You will not find your answers by ignoring, by living a life of intellectual or spiritual dishonesty. Your fear will try to hold you back, your tension will increase, the pain will become intense and it will be tempting to keep clinging tight.  So be gentle with yourself. Be gentle. Lean in. Stay there. And then the release will come.

waxing nostalgic

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, 
for beauty is God's handwriting.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Confucius

(Photos 2006/2007, LaDigue, Haiti)

degaje

firearm or bottle opener?

both.

laboring

Update 3:45p -  Fanie delivered a healthy baby boy at 3:05pm.  Mom and baby are both doing okay. (6lbs 13ounces) Resting in postpartum room.


9am - Fanie is in early labor this morning.
We are praying Fanie safely delivers a healthy baby, will you pray with us today? 

Listen up Grandma and Grandpa

Becky wrote to say she'd be willing to do a pre-school/Kindergarten trial run with Phoebe and Lydia for a few weeks until baby Burton appears on the scene. Specifically she was offering to do Thursday because Thursday is a complicated day of juggling a lot of schedules.

We've learned the hard way that the two busiest days of the week when Troy and I are both gone a long time - can equal destruction in our home AND discord in our marriage.  For example, last Thursday the girls hand washed their clean clothes in the bathroom sink and experimented with baby powder and bug spray. Their experiment yielded many results, all being carefully charted and graphed by the mad scientists. Mainly it taught us that mixed together, those two items are not that fun to clean up.

It could be kindly stated that Geronne is fairly 'laid back' in her child-watching style and if Phoebe and Lydia are not fighting, she figures they are being good.

That's an uber nice idea; except it is not true. 

I called Troy yesterday to discuss the amazing offer that Becky had made. As I was telling him about it from the back of the car came the voice of Lydia emphatically stating, "Yeah, I'm not going to pre-school. I am staying with you."

Today we have ONE BRAND NEW STUDENT going to school for the first time EV-AH!  She is both willing and excited. (Video was made for G & G x2 last night.)

We also have one single-minded and stubborn four year old that is going to be deferring pre-school entry until such a time that it better suits her needs and desires.

Haitian Proverb

Lanne pase toujou pi bon.
Past years are always better.

I have been looking through 2006 and 2007 photos while dramatically lamenting the passage of time.  You can be thankful you're not here to see it.  


I did want you to see my very favorite photo of 2006 though. That is our oldest daughter hugging a lady from the village after they'd finished working together to get a wound to heal. 

haitian proverb

Ou we sa ou genyen, ou pa konn sa ou rete.

You know what you've got, but you don't know what's coming.

new ladies, new opportunities to love

If you are one of the people invested in our programs through prayer, I wanted to let you know that we updated the "prayers for pregos" tab at the top of the blog. Twenty new women were added. A few more will be added later this week. I also added a section with names and faces of the year-round staff members.

Obviously each of the ladies has a very detailed history; the prayer post only shares a small fraction of the story. The point of that post is to get each woman covered in prayer by name as her baby is growing and developing and her day to deliver draws near.

In the prenatal program we usually have 35 pregnant women.  As one woman delivers a spot opens up to take in another woman.  Our wait list is sometimes larger than the program.  We're working to serve more women with quality, respectful, loving prenatal care. Until the funds are all in place and the larger building can be constructed, we are limited by our space.

Ladies are chosen from the wait-list based mainly on risk factors.  We try to take young first time moms and older moms as first priority.  Statistically we know that a 16-year-old first-time mother and a 40+ year old 6th+ time mother both enter into their deliveries at higher risk of complication.

The decisions regarding who will get in are difficult to make.  Beth McHoul and Agathe Augustin make those decisions together each Friday.  Turning someone away is a heavy reality that we won't ever be able to fully avoid, even once we expand. The need for quality maternal health care in Port au Prince and all of Haiti is a huge.

Obviously, we strive to give each woman that enters the program excellent prenatal care and a safe, beautiful delivery.

Those of us on staff at Heartline all agree that our single greatest ability to "help" these women is simply to love and care about them as people.

We won't necessarily change their day to day lives. We cannot meet the vast majority of their material needs. We don't have answers to much of what they face. There are not systems to protect them from abuse. We cannot create permanent safety for them.

All that said, we DO have the ability to listen. We DO have the ability to hear about their lives. We DO have the ability to choose to be uncomfortable as we simply open our hearts to listening and trying to understand what they face; even if we're not in a position to fix anything.

Saint Augustine asked,  "What does love look like?"  His answer included, "Love has the eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sights and sorrows of men."

He didn't say love solves every want. He didn't say love fixed the misery or sorrow.

He said love saw it.
He said love heard it.

Henri Nouwen said: "The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing ... not healing, not curing ... that is a friend who cares."

Love sits with hurting people.

We care deeply about prenatal care and each woman's pregnancy and delivery.

We care even more about love.

We want our program and staff to client ratio to always allow us to get to know each woman fairly well by the time she is ready to deliver.

We want each Thursday to be seen as an opportunity to invest time  in their lives, their stories, their pain and struggle.

The very best and the very hardest part of the program is making time to truly hear from them and build relationships.

As you look over those photos please add to your prayers that we will be able to get to know and love each woman in a way that reminds her of her intrinsic value and of her Heavenly Father's great love for her. 

bondye ki tout fos nou

Se Bondye ki tout pwoteksyon nou, se li menm ki tout fòs nou. 

Li toujou pare pou ban nou sekou lè nou anba tray. 

Som 46:1  

Psalm 46:1 

Troy recently asked why I chose this photo for my current facebook profile. 

I said, "You know why. That photo is a metaphor for life here."  


Troy replied, "I knew it."


Most of the time the work and day to day life feels a lot like a boat that is taking on water. As it floats along some distance is covered, but just as you start to feel good about the distance covered  ...  you look down to see that you're taking on water.  


Life and work and relationship building feels like a constant battle ... But only because IT IS a constant battle. 


There comes a point where it is important to recognize that our focus can either be on the constant water leak and the ongoing struggle and the recurring hardships or the troubles faced 

- OR  - 

the focus can be on the fact that we have a boat, we have a bucket to bail it out with, we have friends and co-laborers rowing with us and for us when we get sick or tired. Even more mind-blowing is to soak ourselves in the reality that while we were not promised an easy journey, we serve a good God that promises not to leave us to face the storms alone. 

"Se Li menm ki tout fos nou" (it is Him that gives us strength). 

no longer hosting P. falciparum

The Malaria in the areas of Tabarre,  Santo, and the greater NE quadrant of P-au-P was expertly managed by tropical disease specialists Jen Halverson and Tara Livesay.  


(No longer open for business, not taking new customers.)

One of us has extensive and specific medical school training and one of us has a certificate in the school of hard-knock-haiti-life.


It is debatable which education produced a more vast knowledge of malaria, but one thing is clear ... Only one of us has massive student loans to pay off.


All of this training prepares us to identify Malaria at fifty paces.  In our free time this weekend we're planning to write a report and analysis of the genome sequence of the human malaria parasite P. falciparum  - and once we're done with that we'll probably invent a vaccination just for fun. 

In the end our friends the Salvants, Geronne, Paige, Troy, Lydia, Jimmy and Becky all took a knee to the dreaded Plasmodium Falciparum parasite.  The experts of the house were left unscathed and available to help the weak. 

Thanks to the mad skillz of Dr. Jen and I (self appreciation alert) none of these "hosts" were too welcoming for very long. We caught most of the cases before the high fevers took hold. Lydia won the great fever contest of January 2012 with a 104.8 temperature about two hours after first showing symptoms.  

Scratch that.

Isaac found a faulty thermometer - for the win! 

Once all the Malaria was treated and conquered Phoebe decided she needed a little bit of attention.  Tuesday morning as I was about to leave for Women's Program I decided to check on her and make sure her "cold" hadn't caused a fever.  She was napping in my bed.  I went over to her and noticed flaring nostrils and a heaving chest.  


I don't ever want to be the garden-variety spazzy parent but something told me I should ask the good Doctor about what I saw.  Jen looked at her and confirmed we had a real problem on our hands.   The next 24 hours brought little sleep as we gave Phoebe breathing treatments, placed her on oxygen occasionally and steroids, and watched her O2 levels drop into the low eighties at times.  It seems that she has mostly kicked the virus that attacked her lungs at this point. We're very grateful.  We're also very done with drama. 

light reading for our favorite five year old, and yes, the treadmill doubles as a child's bed

Since Wednesday as my children have individually come to me with new ailments,  I look at them and say, "SERIOUSLY?!?"  This is the response of a truly loving and concerned mother.  

So far Isaac's "neck ache", Hope's "cannot sleep" and Noah's "warm and sweaty back" have not required rushing them down to Jennifer. As it turns out, wrestling causes "warm and sweaty back" and upon googling that ailment we learned that no medical intervention is required. 


After women's program today we're taking a few of these newly healthy children to get their teeth cleaned ... after that we're hoping and praying for a drama and illness-free weekend.


In other news:

• Faphane (15 years old) moved into the Harbor House yesterday. Her baby is due in April. A full HH update is coming soon.
• ALL 12 January babies are doing well. All the Mamas were at Early Childhood Development class on Tuesday. What a blessing and answer to prayer to see everyone doing okay. Your prayers matter to these ladies! 
• Marvena took her 7th child home yesterday afternoon after spending a night in the postpartum "wing".  (It is two beds in a newly remodeled room but when you call it a wing it sounds pretty darn impressive, does it not?) 
• There are 16 women not pictured in the 'Prayers for Pregos' post. We got photos yesterday and the new ladies will be added soon if you're willing to pray for them please check that tab at the top of the blog.
• A friend of Haiti was shot last Thursday (while at a bank in PAP) and passed away yesterday. Please pray for the friends and family of "Big Dave" as they mourn the loss of a great and loving man. Pray that the increased incidents of armed robbery will end and that the perpetrators will be stopped in their tracks and transformed. 

A girl for Marvena

Marvena gave birth to a baby girl just before 1pm today.  Today was the 8th time in her life she'd given birth.

Marvena is 40 years old and lost her first child when she was very young. Her second child was born to her when she was 18. As of this afternoon she has seven living children ranging in age from 21 (born in March 1990) down to her newborn daughter.

As a mom of seven that is less than one year older than me, I couldn't help but notice that we both had  babies within a month or two of one another on three different occasions.  We both have almost 22 year olds, we both have 17 year olds, we both have almost 8 year olds.

Marvena delivered without any drama today. She kind of waved her hand occasionally when the pain was intense, but she didn't bother much with screaming or even raising her voice.  There is no need for noise when you're such an old pro.

I thought about all of the things we have in common in contrast to all of the things we don't.

I cannot easily comprehend what it is like for her raising seven children with limited access to things that I consider so basic. Whether she's trying to provide food and shelter, or find a Doctor for a sick child, I know her ability to do those things is immeasurably more challenging than what I can imagine from my place of privilege and material blessing.

I'm praying God provides food, water, shelter, healthcare, and a solid circle of love and support for Marvena as she returns to her humble home to care for her family.

Two More posts you should read today:
By Beth McHoul
By Barry and Rebecca McDonald