Congratulations!

Just want to congratulate my brother Kevin and future sister-in-law Danielle on their engagement! So happy for you two!

Haiti Trip Report: Part 4

Tuesday, February 23

- We got up early to get to the airport around 5:30. Our Haitian cab driver came and picked us up, and when we got to the airport, he gave me several little cards with $20 credits and his name and phone number. So, if I’m ever back in Santo Domingo, I’m calling him to come drive me around! I wish we’d gotten Dmitri’s number, too, but oh well.

- We got to San Juan, Puerto Rico at 8am and went through customs and immigration. We still had about 4 hours until our flight to Fort Lauderdale, so we went outside to see if there was anything nearby to do. Kery asked a guy standing on the sidewalk if he had any suggestions, and he said that we could take the bus to the beach (about a 5-minute drive) for seventy-five cents each. So we did . . . When we got off the bus, we walked down to the beach and walked by the water for a few minutes. It was very pretty.

- We went to a little diner for breakfast/lunch. I was feeling rather terrible by this point (I got a cold just about the time we arrived back in the DR), and so I downed two glasses of cranberry juice in the hopes that it’d help my throat. After we ate, we stopped by Walgreens so that I could get some souvenirs from Puerto Rico—cough drops and Kleenex J Then we got back on the bus and went back to the airport. We had a momentary little panic when we first got on the bus because the bus clock said that it was 1:10pm. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1pm. Fortunately, we quickly discovered that the bus clock was wrong; it was really only 10:30am.

- We got back to Fort Lauderdale around 3:30pm. Kery went off to his flight to Ohio; I hung out down near baggage claim for an hour or two while waiting to find out when my flight would be and where I’d be staying that night. I ended up making a reservation at a Best Western near the airport and then took the shuttle to the hotel. The shuttle driver was very nice, and we ended up having a really good conversation about Haiti and how God is faithful even (especially!) in hard times. That was really neat.

- We got to the hotel, and I went in to check in. However, they couldn’t find my reservation; turns out that I was at the wrong Best Western. Apparently this happens all the time; there are two Best Westerns near the airport, and guests from the one hotel always end up at the other, and vice-versa. So I had to wait for the driver to come back and take me to the other hotel. I was so ready by then to be done with traveling for the day and just be in my room, but it wasn’t a big deal. It actually ended up being really cool because the driver and I got to continue our conversation about how God is working in our lives. So that was encouraging.

- The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. A guy that my dad works with used his frequent flyer miles to get me a flight back to Texas on Wednesday morning, which was wonderful. Paul picked me in Houston, and we got back to College Station late that afternoon. And let me just say, after over 48-hours of traveling, it was so good to be home!

- Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all of you who have been praying for me and encouraging me! Please don’t stop; I’m heading back to Haiti and to Notre Maison March 10^th! J I really appreciate all of your prayers and support; I am completely serious when I say that this trip was only possible because of your willingness to participate from a distance! I’m so thankful and in awe of the way God has brought so many people into the working-out of all the details of this trip!

o Kery, thank you for taking time off work and on such short notice to come with me on this crazy little adventure. Thanks for being willing to help “wherever needed” and for all you did to figure out where we needed to be and how to get there; I couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks for putting up with me—and for refraining from telling me I’m crazy the many times I said things that never really ended up making sense!

o Marci, you’re amazing, and I’m so thankful God put us both on that team in August! Thanks for suggesting that I contact Kery about this trip, and thank you for all of your prayers and encouragement and support. You are such a blessing to me!

o Lonnie, thanks for helping with all of the travel arrangements and for your encouragement!

o Kelsay, thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to drive to FLL to give us the money for Gertrude and the phone! That was incredibly helpful; thank you!

o Liz, thanks for driving me to Austin at 3:30am J You’re fantastic.

o Leslie I., thank you for your prayers and your support!

o Leslie C., Anna, Jennifer, Cindy, Caitlin, Caroline, Paul, Christy, and the many others of you who have been praying, again, THANK YOU!!!

o All of my coworkers, thanks for covering shifts for me and for helping make it possible for me to go; y’all are wonderful!

Haiti Trip Report: Part 3

Sunday, February 21

- We were supposed to fly out of Port au Prince at noon. I spent time with the kids in the morning, and then around 10am, Germaine came to take us to the airport. When we got there, we waited in the line for 20 minutes or so before we made it to the front. We showed out passports to the lady checking the passenger lists, and she couldn’t find us. I showed her a copy of our reservation (which was with Spirit), and she said that she just had the lists for American Airlines. She pointed us to another guy, who was with AirFrance, and he said that Spirit had cancelled their flights. We tried to still get inside the airport to figure out what to do, but they wouldn’t let us in since we weren’t on any of the passenger lists. The AirFrance guy just told us to “go home” and then take a bus to the Dominican Republic to fly out from there. I was a bit amused by the “go home” part—yeah, that’s what we’re trying to do!

- We called Gertrude and let her know what was going on, and she sent Germaine to come get us. At first, finding out that our flight had been cancelled was kind of like a punch in the gut because I’d already said good-bye to the kids and had it in my mind that we were going back to the States. But I knew that God had a reason for changing our plans and that He’d work out a way for us to get home. I actually was kind of curious/excited then about what else God had for us on this little adventure.

- We went back to Gertrude’s and I spent some time online figuring out how to get back home. Gertrude told us about Capital Coach Line, which is the bus that she takes when she goes to Santo Domingo. So I looked it up, and it turned out that it was a little cheaper than the Caribe Tours bus that we’d taken to Port au Prince. We decided to go with that, getting us to Santo Domingo Monday afternoon, and I also got us a flight from the DR to Fort Lauderdale via Puerto Rico for Tuesday.

- I spent the rest of the afternoon playing with the kids, which was fantastic. I’m so thankful for that extra time with them. I sat on a mat near the tent in the yard for a long time with Gabi, Carly, and Christina. Carly was having such a fun time picking up rocks and giving them to me—she’d yell “whoa!” every time she put them in my hands. It was neat seeing her playing like that. I also spent some time teaching several of the boys some English phrases. We worked on “What is your name?” and “How old are you?”. They had a lot of fun with that. Later they tried their English out on Kery, which was really funny, because after they used up their two questions, they would come ask me how to say a word (hair, star, airplane, MINUSTAH, etc) and then go tell Kery that one word. They were cute.

Monday, February 22

- It took me a long time to fall asleep Sunday night—a lot on my mind, I guess—and I woke up several times throughout the night. Sometime around 3:30am, I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep. Around 4:30, my bed started shaking. It probably only lasted about 10 seconds or so, and I kind of wondered if I was just dreaming or if it really was another aftershock. When I got up a few hours later and went downstairs, several of the Haitians were talking about it. Apparently it was a 4.7 aftershock. They kept saying, “Li te fó, fó, fó” (it was strong, strong, strong). A little while later, one of the nannies who had left for the night came back and said that near where she was in Carrefour, another house had fallen.

- I didn’t really have time with the kids before we had to leave to go to the bus, but I did bring Christina upstairs and held her while I ate breakfast. Then I said good-bye to Gertrude and the kids again, and we left. We got to the place where you buy the bus tickets around 7:30 or so; there are currently US troops staying at the bus terminal, so we had to buy our tickets through the fence and then go across the street and a little way down the road to get to the bus. When we got to the bus, we found out that though the bus was scheduled to leave at 10am (according to the website), it was actually going to be leaving in just a few minutes. We just made it!

- At the border, they told us to get off the bus and take our luggage to be inspected, but since Kery and I both just had backpacks, they just waved us away. Which was very good, considering my backpack is absolutely stuffed full and it’s not easy to make it all fit back in again! We were at the border for about an hour or so. My US cell phone started getting service again, so I was able to see several texts that had been sent to my phone over the past few days.

- I got to see more of the Dominican on this bus ride since I wasn’t exhausted like I’d been when we came. It’s a pretty country, especially the mountains J. It reminded me a lot of Ecuador as far as roads and houses and towns go. It’s much cleaner than Haiti.

- We got to the bus station in Santo Domingo around 4pm. We didn’t really have a plan, besides hopefully finding a not-too-expensive hotel. We actually ended up getting a Haitian taxi driver, who was very helpful. He took us to the Hotel Mango in Boca Chica, which is a little town over by the airport. And then the guy that helped us at the hotel was Haitian, too, so that was fantastic. I was much more comfortable with that—being able to speak Creole—than having to try to figure out Spanish! Our taxi driver even gave us a $10 discount on our ride and then arranged to come pick us up in the morning to go to the airport.

- After we checked into the hotel, we went in search of pizza. We ended up with a little Dominican man named Enrique who spoke a little English and decided to be our tour guide. Reminded me of a certain experience in Jacmel several years ago… So he had dinner with us, and since we were in a touristy area, we went into a few of the shops. Then we went down to the beach for a few minutes. The stars were beautiful.

Haiti Trip Report: Intermission

I haven't gotten caught up on the typed version of my journal, and I don't have the paper version with me at the moment, so before I post about the last few days of the trip, here are some general thoughts about my time in Haiti:

- Something that was really neat to see during this trip was just how far even a little attention or a smile or hug can go. . . My goal was basically to give as much individual attention to the kids as possible—talking to them, holding them, smiling at them, whatever. Nothing huge, but it was amazing to see how they responded. And just seeing that was more than enough to confirm for me that I was supposed to be there, just loving on them. I had prayed before we got there that God would give me His love for the kids, and He really did. The love He gave me for them and the joy in just being there with them was incredible. I can’t really even describe it; it was just such a blessing to be there and to get to interact with the kids.

- One of my favorite things about this trip was getting to know Carly better. Carly is about 4 years old, and Gertrude thinks that she might have had polio or meningitis. Because of this, she has problems with her legs and is unable to walk. She can pull herself up to standing, though, if she has something to hold on to, and she’s very good at maneuvering herself around in her wheelchair or scooting herself along the ground. She’s also very, very quiet most of the time, especially around people she doesn’t know well. You can ask her questions, and she’ll answer (at least, yes/no questions), but you have to either be listening very closely or watching her mouth to hear her answer. I spent a lot of time with her, and by the second day, she was following me around in her wheelchair. She also became more willing to talk, and by Sunday, she was actually shouting and laughing as we played. She also started reaching out to hold my hand if I was near her and already holding another child. Sunday night, too, I held her as she fell asleep, and then when I went to put her down on the mat, she was not happy, so I sat by her until she fell back asleep. She’s a very sweet girl, and it was neat to see her respond to even a little attention.

Haiti Trip Report: Part 2

Friday, February 19

- I pretty much spent the day playing with the kids, which was fantastic. Mallery and Ali came by for awhile in the morning. . . Later, some US soldiers came by. Several of them are army chaplains, and a week or so ago they had contacted my dad about helping Gertrude. So they came by with some snacks for the kids and to talk to Gertrude. I talked to a few of them. It was kind of funny because I was sitting there playing with the kids when the soldiers came, and then several of them came up and started taking pictures. Felt kind of funny to be the one photographed; usually I’m the one taking pictures like that!

- That afternoon, Kery and I also helped Gertrude start to give out some of the clothes from the storage room to the kids. Gertrude wanted to make sure that each child had at least 3 good weekday outfits and one good Sunday outfit. She and one of the nannies went through each child’s clothes to determine what needed replaced, and then she sent the nanny up to me and Kery with a slip of paper saying what clothes were needed.

- This was the day that I discovered Christina, a little girl with hydrocephalus. She’s apparently been at Notre Maison for awhile, but somehow I hadn’t noticed her before— I guess because in the past I’ve only had a few hours at a time with the kids. Anyway, I noticed that Christina looked pretty lethargic and had basically just been laying on a mat or sitting in her stroller all day, so after Kery and I finished in the depot, I went down and held Christina for a long time. She was still fairly lethargic at that point and didn’t seem to be feeling very well, but I just held her and sang to her in Creole. A few times I got a little smile out of her. She’s such a sweet little girl.

Saturday, February 20

- In the morning, Gertrude took us to visit some former Notre Maison kids who are now living at an orphanage for special needs kids run by Food for the Poor. Darlyne, who is one of my favorite Notre Maison “kids” and whom I’ve known since my first trip to Haiti in 1998, is living at this orphanage. It was really fun to see her again; she was so excited to see us. Though Darlyne can’t really say more than a few words, she fully understands when we talk to her and responds in her own way. We asked her several questions and told her about how some of the other kids are doing whom she’d known when she lived at Notre Maison; it was obvious she was thrilled with all of this. We also got to see several other kids who were at Notre Maison until a few years ago—Ashley, Manouschka, Betsy, Glannys, Vanessa, Gwo David, and Ti David.

- After we visited the orphanage, Germaine (Gertrude’s brother) drove us downtown. Again, it was surreal seeing the damage from the earthquake and especially seeing life going on alongside all the destruction. There are tents set up right across from the National Palace, and people still have shops set up all around. It’s strange, and yet somehow it seems normal. Sad as it is, the Haitian people are used to life being a struggle. I think, though, that this is helping them to be able to rise above their horrifying circumstances and to go on. Life has rarely, if ever, been easy for them, and even though the suffering that has resulted from this tragedy is in many ways beyond anything they’ve ever experienced, in other ways, it’s not that different from what the Haitian people have faced for generations. And, as in the past, it seems like many are choosing to move forward as best they can rather than dwelling on the suffering that surrounds them; this is amazing to see.

- After we saw the downtown area, we started heading back to Delmas to go to Epi D’Or for lunch. However, something broke on the truck, so we pulled over and Germaine tried to fix it. While he was working, Kery and I walked up the street a ways to buy drinks. . . We ended up having to take the truck to a garage, and Germaine waited there while Gertrude, Kery, and I taptapped to Epi D’Or. Epi D’Or was pretty crowded—missionaries, American and Canadian soldiers, relief workers, Haitians. We went ahead and had lunch and ice cream, and then Germaine came back with the truck a little while later.

- While we were at Epi D’Or, Gertrude got a call from a woman who is working with the various relief groups that are staying at Quisqueya right now. Miquette told her that a German group (Humedica?) had gotten a donation of several pallets of baby food to give to orphanages, and so if Gertrude wanted, we could come by and get some for Notre Maison. So we drove over there and ended up spending some time talking with the guy from Humedica who was giving us the food. He wanted to know about Notre Maison and the kids so that he could report back to the donors about where the food was going. He was very nice . . . We loaded up all of the baby food, along with a box of clothes and some first aid kits that they also gave us, and we headed back down to the orphanage.

Haiti Trip Report: Part 1

Here's a bit of a report on my trip to Haiti last week. Some things I just summarized; everything in italics is taken directly from my journal. It's a bit choppy as I haven't really taken the time to edit it, but for whatever it's worth, here it is.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

- Kery and I met up in Fort Lauderdale and flew to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

- When we arrived in the DR, we took a cab to a hotel that our fantastic driver, Dmitri, recommended to us. Though Dmitri only spoke a little English and my Spanish is very limited, we had fun talking with him. Dmitri suggested that we try to fly to Port au Prince rather than take the bus, and so we arranged for him to take us to the airport the next morning to find out about the flight.

- We had dinner at a pizza place and then walked around for awhile near the hotel. This was my first time in the Dominican, and of the different countries I’ve visited, it probably reminds me most of Ecuador.

Wednesday, February 17

- Dmitri picked us up at 6am, and we drove across town to the airport. Dmitri pointed out various landmarks along the way and told us some of the history of the city. When we got to the airport, we discovered that though there was a flight that would get us to Port au Prince pretty quickly, it would cost us each $250. So, Dmitri took us to the bus station.

- We bought our tickets, and then an hour or so later, the bus headed out. Kery and I were both really tired, so we ended up sleeping for a lot of the 7-hour drive. About 5 hours into the drive, we got to the Haiti/Dominican border, where we stopped for an hour or so while our passports were processed. It was very nice to get off the bus for awhile (and warm up; the bus was freezing!).

- The Haiti part of the trip went relatively quickly. We both slept a little more, and then about an hour from the end of the trip, we started seeing the damage from the earthquake. It’s hard to explain what that was like; it was like the photos, except that it was right there in front of us. Still hard to fathom what we were seeing and what it meant for so many people.

- I called Gertrude (who runs Notre Maison) about an hour before we got to the bus terminal in Petionville, and she said that she’d send her brother to come pick us up. We ended up waiting about 45 minutes or an hour for him to come; in the meantime, we talked to several people who were hanging around, including one guy whose wife and child were killed in the earthquake. He asked me if I had any construction work he could do; I said I wasn’t sure but got his name and phone number just in case. He is just one of many struggling to survive in the aftermath of the earthquake.

- Germaine picked us up, and we drove down to Notre Maison. We saw more damaged/destroyed buildings, and we drove past several tent cities. It was pretty surreal. We got to Notre Maison, and it was so good to see Gertrude and the kids again. . . Gertrude and I talked a lot about her experience during the earthquake and about what she’s planning to do now. She is so amazing. Despite all she’s been through, she’s able to say that God has a plan even in the midst of all the suffering, and she’s so grateful for all of the miracles God worked even during the earthquake. I was really blessed and encouraged by talking to her and hearing what she had to say. I’m really excited about (hopefully) being involved in helping her with whatever she needs done.

Thursday, February 18

- I spent the day alternating between playing with the kids and helping sort clothes and other items in Gertrude’s storage room. When we started organizing, there were piles and boxes and suitcases of clothes everywhere; the goal was to get them sorted according to gender and size. It was a little daunting at first, but little by little we were able to put things where they needed to be so that Gertrude will be able to more easily find them when needed.

- I’m thoroughly enjoying spending time with the kids. This is the first time in years I’ve been here long enough (at Notre Maison) that I’ve gotten to really spend time with the kids. Usually I’ll be here for a few hours and then have to leave; now I get to be here all day. It’s so fun getting to know them better; these kids are so sweet.

- Before dinner, Kery and I walked through the neighborhood for a little while. We passed several little tent cities. It’s so hard to imagine what it must be like for those living there.

Trust in the Lord

"Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him." (Psalm 37:3-7a)

As I sit by myself in a bedroom in a house in South Florida –the home of people who, two days ago, I'd never met– I have to admit that I'm a bit frustrated and confused as to why I'm here. Less than 48 hours ago, I received a phone call asking me to come to FL to be ready to go to Haiti as soon as a flight became available (at the time, it was believed we could get a flight out last night–Friday). The purpose of the trip would be to bring the orphans from Notre Maison in Port au Prince to Miami, where Catholic Charities apparently has facilities set up to care for the children. After receiving that call, I spent some time praying and getting advice as to whether or not I should go. By mid-morning, I decided that if God continued to open the doors to make it possible for me to go, I would walk through them. The next few hours are kind of a blur in my mind, but the end result was that within an hour of getting off work Thursday afternoon, I was on my way to the airport to fly to South Florida.

When I arrived in FL, I was picked up at the airport by Dr. Alberto Sosa (an orthopedic surgeon that spent several days last week working in Haiti) and his wife and taken to their home. Since returning from Haiti, Dr. Sosa has been working night and day to collect medical supplies to send back down to Haiti and also to facilitate the evacuation of Haitian orphans. Over the past few days, he has appeared several times on a national Hispanic news station to talk about Haiti and the urgency of caring for the orphans; the hope is that by raising awareness, more people will get involved and thereby the ability to help the children will be increased. Dr. Sosa is hoping to go back to Haiti this weekend with Fernando del Rincón, a news reporter who is also very concerned about the plight of Haiti’s orphans, and to do a report from Notre Maison about the children.

At this point, you may be wondering where I come in (actually, I’m kind of wondering, too). I knew very few details when I got on the plane in Houston; two days later, I still am unsure as to what exactly the purpose in my coming is. Dr. Sosa wanted me down here quickly so that I could be interviewed on the news about my experiences with Haitian orphans and adoptions. Though I was hoping to avoid actually having to be on TV — speaking, and particularly being in front of a camera, is way beyond my comfort zone— I did end up doing the interview last night. Though there is more I could say about that experience (and someday I really should blog about it, since now that it's over, it's fairly hilarious), let’s just say that I am thrilled to have that behind me, and if anything that came out of my mouth made sense and/or is helpful, it’s all by God’s grace and for His glory. I was a nervous wreck, and I honestly don’t remember what I said.

So that was last night. Today, I have spent the day reading my Bible and Candles in the Dark (a collection of letters by Amy Carmichael), praying, looking through the latest news out of Haiti, and waiting for a flight to open up. Midday today, I thought I was going to go, and even went partway to the airport, but that opportunity ended up falling through. And so I came back to this house, wondering why in the world God would bring me this far just to do a 3-minute television interview and to sit in the house of some very wonderful people—but people I don’t even know—with no certainty that I will even get to Haiti or be able to help in any way. I know things could change even in the next few minutes, and I could be on my way to Port au Prince within a few hours, but I have to admit that I’ve had several moments today of doubting the wisdom and necessity of making this trip. And yet, when I’m able to step back from those doubts, I still am convinced that God has me here for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is—maybe I’ll never know—and it could very well be that His plans for me don’t involve going to Haiti right now, but regardless, my time here is not and will not be wasted. If nothing else, this uncertainty and time of waiting is reminding me that everything is in God’s hands anyway; I am utterly helpless to do anything (besides pray, of course). And so, I am focusing on the verses at the beginning of this post; trying to trust and delight in the LORD, to commit myself to Him, and to be still (rather than worry) before Him. If I can do these things, and if this is “all” I get out of this little escapade, it is enough.

From Candles in the Dark:

To one who felt useless,

My first feeling was to write and tell you that you are mistaken, but though I think you are, in part, I won’t write so. Instead, I will say what our heavenly Father said to me long ago, and says to me still very often: ‘See in it a chance to die.’

Perhaps the brave love of God is touching with death the “I” in you, that it may be in very truth ‘not I but Christ’. This is your heart’s desire, your deepest desire, and He counts nothing too much to do, that it may be fully fulfilled. ‘Ponder the voice of my humble desire.’ He has pondered it; He is answering it. So be of good cheer. Don’t heed the devil’s whisper about uselessness. Is he not the father of lies? Why believe a liar? God is working out a most beautiful purpose.

Now good night, and let the Lord give His beloved sleep untroubled by the unkind remarks of the enemy. Believe me, he is not at all trustworthy, and you well know your Lord is. Does He ever break His word? No, never, and He knows that you know it. ‘For Thou, Lord, hast never failed them that fear Thee.’ No, nor ever will.