melancholy and photos

To say that I love being back in Haiti would be an understatement. This place, to which I have traveled for over half of my life, has really and truly become home.

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That's as far as I got with attempting to blog while I was in Haiti back in May, and I just now rediscovered this beginning to the-post-that-never-was, as I'm again trying to figure out how to put into words some of my thoughts, some of my experiences, some of my feelings about my Haiti home.

I've been back one month so far, this go around, with a mere 10.5 days left. Some people (Paul) might say it's premature, but yes, I am already getting slightly panicky at the thought of leaving again so soon. Yes, I know it's necessary -- I have to go back, to attempt to survive my fourth semester of nursing school, to go back to brewing coffee to make money and drinking coffee to maintain (achieve?) my sanity -- but oh, how I dread that moment when I have to pack up my bags, to say goodbye (just for now!) to my Haiti friends...to Christina... Because yes, Haiti has my heart. Has had it since the moment I first set foot on Haitian soil nearly 15 years ago.

But, enough of the melancholy for now. I may only have ten days left, but still, I am so thankful for ten more days. That's longer than I had when I was here over Spring Break, and just a little shorter than the time I spent here at Christmas, and a lot can happen in a week-and-a-half. May I make the most of and be grateful for each moment! And speaking of gratitude -- thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who are praying for me, for Heartline, and for the women and babies in the maternity program and in this community. I cannot overemphasize how much your prayers are needed and how much they are appreciated. Thank you, too, for those of you who have made it possible for me to be here this summer. I am so grateful.

I'm thinking this is going to be a bit of a cop-out post, resorting to posting pictures rather than actually saying much at this point, but...let's start with this, and hopefully soon I'll be ready to share more in words. So, here's a quick* photo summary of the past month (in no particular order):

making cookies with Wini and Nirva

Agathe, Ana, Cherline, and Beth

with baby Richard

Guernise and Alexander

Mama E and Emmanuel

twins! with Mom and Grandma

self-defense class at the OK

miss you, Melissa!

Taylor with just-born baby Richard

Jude and Christina

Shelly and Taylor, about to give blood at MSF

lunchtime at Notre Maison 

Jonathan and Christina

TJ and Christine

Taylor and Christina

Beth and Tara - love these two!

horse therapy!

Jephte

back in the same country!

Michael

Lernie and Woodson

Schnieder

the Big Latch On - representing Haiti

Guernise, sharing her story with Yolande

Fabienne and Lochemie

Yolande and Schnieder

excited about her positive pregnancy test

*Just kidding, not so quick. It's hard to narrow down a month's worth of pictures, especially when so many of them contain cute babies!

spring break 2013

Well, here I am again...on the heading-back-to-Texas end of an incredible week (well, 9 days) in Haiti. Seems like it's gotten harder and harder for me to leave Haiti over the past several years, and this time is no exception. There's just something about that country...those people...that I love so dearly--crazy traffic, psycho roosters, and constant dust notwithstanding. Ayiti se yon bel peyi e se la mwen vle pou m ye.

However, rather than thinking about how terribly non-thrilled I am to be back in the States (and, especially, to be hanging out at the Fort Lauderdale airport for the night), how about a quick recap of some favorite moments from this past week:

* Spending time at Notre Maison. I love, love, love those kids, and it was so good to get to see them again (and yes, especially my Christina). I was able to make the taptap trek over to the orphanage on five different days while I was there, and it was great getting to spend time with the kids and see how well they're doing. There is some sad news, though -- Mickey, one of the older boys who grew up at the orphanage, passed away last Monday. He had been sick for awhile. I saw him the Saturday before he died, and I'm so thankful to have been able to spend time talking with him that day. He will be very missed. Prayers would be greatly appreciated for Gertrude and for the staff and kids at the orphanage.

* Dinner with Melissa and Guepson, my favorite newlyweds :) These two make me happy; they're super cute together. He's an OB, she's a nurse-midwife. He's Haitian, she's lived in Haiti for ten years. They're both great, and I'm so very, very thankful for Melissa--for many reasons, not the least of which is the role she played in convincing me that I should go to nursing school after all :) I've learned a lot from this girl, and I'm going to miss seeing her in Haiti now that she and Guepson are moving to the States. Guess I'll just have to make some trips to Kansas now!

* House[er, apartment]sitting for my friends Ryan and Melissa while they were in the States. Such a blessing to get to use their apartment while they were away! And, even better, they got back to Haiti a few days before I left, so I also still got to spend time with them :) Pray for them and their ministry at the Heartline Guesthouse!

3 day-old baby Tamar

* Spending time at Heartline is always amazing :) I didn't get to be at any births this time (the only Heartline birth that happened while I was in Haiti was a very quick one, and I was over at the orphanage at the time), but I did get to help out at two family planning days (gave lots of injections of Depo-Provera!), child development day, and prenatal day. I always feel so privileged to get to be even a teensy part of the amazing work they're doing at Heartline. So grateful for the impact they're making on the lives of women and children in Haiti.

* Trying out a Haitian restaurant with Nick, the current driver at the Heartline Guesthouse. The guesthouse was surprisingly guest-free most of the week, so one evening we decided to be a bit adventurous and taptap to a nearby restaurant that had been recommended by a few friends. I can't remember the last time I've been to a restaurant in Haiti besides Epi d'Or, so it was fun to try something new.

* Girls night with Melissa and Mandi! Melissa made some fabulous pizza, and it was fun to hang out with these two :)

* Dinner with the wonderful Meadows family! So great to spend time with these Texas-and-now-Haiti friends! Such a neat family, and I'm pretty sure they have the politest kids on this earth :)

* St. Patrick's Day party (on Friday) at John and Beth's house! When Beth cooks, you want to be there; among her many, many other talents, she is amazing at putting together incredible meals and for massive amounts of people. She is the epitome of graciousness and hospitality.

* Seeing the new Haitian Creations shop...and, of course, making some purchases :) Chandler and the ladies are doing such a great job coming up with some fabulous purses and jewelry and various other products (one of my new favorites is a passport holder, which I used today)! It's always a bit dangerous for my bank account when I go by Haitian Creations; so much great stuff, and for such an incredible cause. Yet another Heartline program that is truly changing lives.

* Home church with the Meadows and the Livesays this morning. I love and admire both of these families so much, and I'm so glad I was able to join them for this time of worship and reflection on God's faithfulness. It was such a special time of talking about how the Lord has been faithful to us in the past (and how we need to remember that we can trust that He will continue to be faithful!) and of praying together. I can't think of a better way to have spent my last morning in Haiti.

I know I'm forgetting a lot of other fabulous moments from the past nine days (I've been up for nearly 24 hours now; I barely remember how to spell my name), but suffice it to say, I really enjoyed my time in Haiti. And, of course, I'm already counting down to my next trip...48 days, if I can get the time off work!

A la pwochen, Ayiti. Mwen sonje w!

catching up...

Oh hey, look; here I am again. Crazy that it's been nearly 8 months since I last posted. Even crazier, though, were those eight months... As a quick summary, from mid-May 2012 until now, I:

- Found out that I'd been accepted into the nursing program at a college here in town.
- Worked a lot. A whole lot. Good thing I love my job (well, most days).  :)

fun in the Smokies

- Traveled with Paul in July for a quick family reunion/camping trip in the Smoky Mountains.
- Attended the weddings of several former coworkers, one in June and the other in August (congrats, Brian & Emily and Jack & Anna). Fun fact: they all worked at Starbucks at one time or another.

Lina and Taylor

- Got to spend lots of time with my youngest sister, when she came to stay with me and Paul for a few weeks in July. We celebrated her 17th birthday while she was here (she has now had two birthdays in a row in Texas)!
- Received the sweetest birthday gift ever from my coworkers - a handmade card full of kind words, and money to go towards my next trip to Haiti.
- Said good-bye to free time ;) and started nursing school in August.

with Melissa at her wedding reception

- Studied. A lot. Most productive place I found to study? On the floor in the back room at Starbucks. Go figure.
- Made a quick trip to Kansas in October for Guepson and Melissa's wedding. Such a perfect, beautiful ceremony and reception, and it's always fun to see Haiti friends in the States :)
- Cooked many a crockpot meal at Starbucks. Besides this, I pretty much survived the semester on coffee and tortilla chips.
- Successfully completed my first semester of nursing school. 4 more to go...

loved, loved, loved being back in
Haiti and with these kids

- Traveled to Haiti with Paul and spent two gloriously wonderful weeks at Heartline and Notre Maison. More on this soon...
- Started running again for the first time in many months...and signed up for a half-marathon to help raise money to build a new maternity center for Heartline. Learn more about Run for Life Haiti here. More on this soon, too...

These past eight months have been busy and fun and challenging and stressful and exciting...pretty much the full gamut of adjectives/emotions. Through it all, the Lord has continually been teaching me about trusting Him, that His grace is (as the song says) greater than all my sin, and that I can work super hard and try my best until I'm absolutely exhausted...but if my focus isn't on Him, if I'm relying on my own strength to get things done, at the end of the day, I'm a mess. And being a mess is not fun. So here's to a new year, and to a renewed focus on the loving the Lord, celebrating His goodness, and living in a way that reflects His gospel message.

The gospel teaches us that instead of focusing on ourselves and our closely clinging sin, we've got to focus on, to consider, Jesus. We've got to look away from our sin, whether because it's alluring and drawing us toward it or because it's condemning and pushing us into ourselves and away from our Savior. We must patiently focus all our attention on him. We've got to think on, ponder, or consider, Jesus. Every aspect of the gospel is meant to encourage us in our war against sin. Of course, we should be aware enough of our sin that we seek to repent of it and are grateful for the cross, but that's not where our thoughts should settle.  Our thoughts should be steadfastly riveted on what Jesus has done.  (Elyse M. Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross) 

photo update

Roseline

Agathe teaching on introducing solids

Mickey

Melissa and her newest namesake

Jude and Jean Daniel

my Christina

Lovely and her doll from Carly :)

Agathe and Beth welcoming new women
to the prenatal program

what I looked like after my first trek
through Clercine "lake"

the first few days

we're in Haiti! together!

I have a ridiculous problem when it comes to blogging about ongoing events/trips: I tend to start writing, go way too in-depth, get overwhelmed with how much [I think] is still left to write about, give up for awhile, try again the next day (by which time I'm even farther behind), give up again, try again (again), etc, etc.  Sometimes I manage to finish and get these posts up on the blog...sometimes not so much.  The latter appears to be the case for the post that I started writing on Friday...continued on Saturday and Sunday...looked at on Monday...and am giving up on today.  If anyone really cares about all the little details of our journey to Haiti, I'll email it to you.  But for everyone else (and so that I actually post something), how about a much shorter (yes, believe it or not, this is shorter), less detailed update:

thursday/friday

shortly after arriving in FLL

- Paul and I left CS around 3pm and arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 1am ET.  We "slept" (ha) for the next 4 hours on benches in a freezing cold baggage claim.  Shortly after 5am, we headed over to another terminal to re-check our bags for our flight to Haiti...only to be told that we were too late; check-in had closed for that flight.  Yes, we did indeed manage to miss a flight when we'd already been at the airport for multiple hours. Embarrassing, and rather disappointing, to say the least.  We were then put on stand-by for the next flight, which was at 1:45pm.  Fortunately, that was a pretty empty flight, so we didn't have any trouble getting seats.
- We landed in Haiti at 3:30 and actually had a very easy airport experience, for Port au Prince.  Immigration and customs were both easy, we found our bags quickly, and we didn't have much trouble with red caps wanting to "help".  And as soon as we got out of the airport and made it down the long walkway, we saw Asher (Heartline's current driver) waiting for us.  All in all, one of the most painless PAP airport experiences I've ever had.
- When we got to Heartline's guesthouse (run by the fantastic Ryan and Melissa), we discovered that we were the only guests for the night (for the next several nights, actually). We spent that evening at Ryan and Melissa's new apartment playing a hilarious game with several other Heartline-associated people, which was a lot of fun.

saturday

Petionville (this photo's for you, Everly!)

- Paul and I met up with our friend Jenny, who was kind enough to come into Port from Grand Goave so that we could see her.  We didn't really have any sort of plan for what we'd do once we met up, but after a bit of discussion we decided to taptap up toward Petionville and find somewhere for lunch.  We ended up at Muncheez and had just enough time to enjoy some pizza before heading back down to the place where Jenny was meeting up with another friend to go back out to Grand Goave.  Though we spent most of our time together in transit, it was fun to get to see Jenny again and catch up a bit.
- After we left Jenny with her friend, Paul and I decided to walk over to Notre Maison.  Normal people probably would have taptapped, but we walked.  It really wasn't that far, and it didn't really seem worth the hassle to take three different taptaps just to go a couple of miles.  Plus it was fairly overcast and relatively cool, so it wasn't bad.

with my Ti Nina

- We were able to spend about an hour at the orphanage before we needed to head back to the guesthouse.  It was so good to see the kids again!  I may or may not have held my Ti Nina the entire time (while visiting with the other kids, too, of course)!  It was kind of strange to be there for such a short time and then leave, but at least I knew I would be back.
- The most exciting adventure of the day occurred right before we got back to the guesthouse...  Clercine Road, which leads to the neighborhood where the guesthouse is, has some major flooding going on, especially right around the neighborhood entrance.  This means that getting in and out is rather difficult, as going through on foot is not ideal, and a lot of vehicles are too low to successfully make it through the "lake" (maybe "river" would be more accurate--it has a current, after all).  So I wasn't sure if we'd be able to get a ride into the neighborhood.  I ended up asking one of the motorcycle taptap drivers if he could take us in, and he said yes.  We hopped on, and off we drove toward the lake/river.  When we got to the edge of the worst part, he stopped, and I was sure he was going to say we had to get off and walk the rest of the way.  But after a minute, he kept going...right into and then through the murky/disgusting/don't-want-to-think-about-what's-in-there water.  It was pretty epic.  And it was also Paul's first time on a motorcycle.

a view of the Clercine lake/river from
the neighborhood entrance

sunday
- We started out the day by going to the first service at Port au Prince Fellowship.  Originally the plan was for Paul to leave from church to go to Cazale to work with Real Hope for Haiti for the week, but it ended up working better for them to pick him up from the guesthouse later in the afternoon.  After we got back from church, we pretty much spent the next few hours just sitting around reading, which was super strange but super nice after how hectic the past several months have been (especially for Paul).  As great as the concept of "rest" sounds, it can be surprisingly hard to actually put that into practice when given the opportunity!  I'm so used to always being busy or having things to do that just sitting still was a bit hard.  But it was definitely a gift to have that time where I literally had nothing I needed to do, so gradually I was able to enjoy and appreciate it :)
- Later that evening, Melissa came over, and she, Allison, and Asher taught me how to play Monopoly Deal, which may not won't likely end up on my list of favorite games, but it was fun nonetheless.  Maybe if I were more competitive...

to be continued with monday and tuesday...

Thanks to all of you who are praying!