Wednesday March 25, 2009

you may have noticed a couple of improvements in the blog. I am quite proud of myself for having become an internet master of blogging. I struggled to learn code and tricks to do all the neat things you see now, like those links on the side of the page for Haiti news. you have no idea how technical it is to do those....you have to tell the blog you want to change it....then find that gadget button and push it......the pick one....then give it a name and push save. I know some of the other real techie bloggers will be mad at me for giving out so many secrets of blogging, but I just can't help myself. I figure in another 7 months I might figure out some more neat stuff too, so if I get really good, I may have to charge for this free stuff I am giving out now. Oh, and don't worry that the news gadget for "haiti weather" has a lot of news in it. just a technical glitch.......somewhere.......this button thingy didn't save right, I think......or something like that. I'll have that fixed in no time at all.

Really........STOP LAUGHING AT ME......really........really.......really. :)

I still can't figure out how to send a video home, that will require hands on training. sorry, Wayne. but things are generally going well, so it's time to get ready for school today, will send more secret techie stuff later.....did you know these things have an off button?? :)

Djebenis tout moun!

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Well, plans change sometimes...for the better. I did not wind up going up the mountain with Diana and Delson. In fact, Delson did not go either, Diana went with Celecia, a local Haitian woman interpreter. It seems they did not have accomodations for men and women to stay so the guys stayed home. Diana said she had a good stay, though w/o much sleep. It seems that listening to the rats, cats, dogs, chickens, goats, pigs, sheep, and other local celebrities make it a bit difficult to snooze.

The upside is I was available to go to Canaan to take a couple of young kids to the Medical Mamba program. Peter went and is doing fabulously, thank you. He gained an entire KILO more than their goal in ONE week! (cheers and applause are appropriate here) He has become a regular kid when at first I saw him my thought was that he would be dead in 10 days. PRAISE GOD!!! We brought his brother Mitu with him, a really adorable kid who jabbers and smiles even though he apparently has no stature in the family and is pretty much ignored. He did not qualify for the program, but in a way that is good. Though he is small for his age (4) he is pretty healthy. AND I saw Troy Livesay at the clinic! He snuck up behind me and was whispering my name. I couldn't find where it was coming from and he walked in. It was very cool to see him again, even though we only had about 5 minutes to talk. He was coming up to visit the program to find out about the admin details of handling a clinic for medical mamba. No pic's, didn't expect to see any superstars while I was there so I neglected to bring my camera!

It seems that I am drawn into more contact with the small kids and I do ok with it. I like the little ones, they are open and loving and so in need. Maybe that will be my ultimate direction here, but it is far too early to tell that. All in all a pretty good day, and the clock ticks....... towards my return....and sooner.....my TAXES. :( I'll get them done....sometime.

Djebenis tout moun

Saturday March 21, 2009

The last week has been pretty busy with the medical team in here. Mary, Diana and Alicia have been all over the place helping people and it's been fun to help a little. Mary is a doctor from West Virginia, Diana is a nurse and Alicia is her daughter. They came in last Friday, and Saturday they went out into the local community of McDonal to see patients, including some very sick kids and a man who died 2-3 days later of liver failure. We found Peterson during this trip, and his story is the previous post. Sunday was mission meeting, Monday was more clinic in Mountrois, Tuesday was working at a church very near City Soleil, Wednesday/Thursday was in mountain villages. Friday they came to school for awhile to see the kids and then did a small amount of shopping in the local market, and today Mary and Alicia went back to the States. Diana is staying another week, then she and Caroline will leave together to go back.

Seeing people in so many sites is very taxing for the team, it involves travel on very bad roads, in some cases a few hours of walking to get where they are going, once the road ends. They did great. I was not in on all of it, as school is still in session so SOMEBODY has to actually teach some! It is amazing what you see though. So many people have such advanced cases of things that in the States would have been caught very early and not been any kind of big deal. One poor man has a...something...growing out of his neck. He can't talk and probably will die from it unless he gets help. Dr. Mary didn't know what it was, but she took pictures and will consult as soon as she is back to see if other doc's can identify it for treatment. It very well may be a very treatable form of something that just didn't get treated.

Next week Diana, myself and Delson, the interpreter, will go up a mountain for an overnight stay at a village. This is apparently very remote and they almost never get visitors, let alone medical care. Diana will do what she can with the medicine she has. It makes me want to have a billion dollars or so to set up medical clinics all over the place, not just Haiti. Poor people...I mean, really poor people, have so little access to what we take for granted in the States. There is no grocery store down the street; there is no clinic or doctor office or emergency room available, and even if there was, likely no road going to it. I have come to know that the US is not the norm, it is by far the exception. The rest of the world does NOT live like we do, which is why so many want to come to the US. We've done such a poor job with the riches God has entrusted us with, think what kind of very comfortable lives we could have had without the greed and laziness, and what we could have done for the rest of the world. Don't get me wrong, I love being an American, but part of it is being able to look in the mirror and see where we've messed up. The US has done more for others than anyone...but we could have done so much more. Seems like a heart issue.....again. Time is flying, school ends in 10 weeks, I can't believe it. Ten weeks from today I will be packing for a trip home for summer. Maybe I'll even have my taxes in by then. :(

There is so much to say and I just don't have the words for it all. I can't explain the times when I just want to scream...and those times when you find a Peterson and know why you're here. I hope this blog has helped someone have a better understanding of Haiti, missions, and more importantly, themselves. It's our hearts that have to change, we have to begin with ourselves and change that small part of the world. Some others will follow, most won't, but it's the call we all have.

Djebenis tout moun

Friday March 20,2009

Meet Peterson. He is a quiet young man, approximately 2 years old. About a week ago we met him as members of a medical team went thru McDonal treating patients. One of the leaders of the community alerted Barb, the "elder" local missionary (sorry Barb) about this young man. When we first saw him, I have to say I thought he would live for maybe 7/10 days and die. He could hardly hold his head up, and could only stand in one spot, w/o any life in his eyes or movement of limbs. We were told he had severe diarrhea and could not keep food in him. Sunday at missionary meeting we talked with Elsie and Bobbie, two missionaries at Canaan orphange that have been working with the Medical Mamba program, coincidently started by a pediatrician in St. Louis, Mo. It is a program to take kids who are highly at risk and nourish them back to health with "super charged peanut butter" (Mamba in Creole) so they have a fighting chance. Peterson, on the scale used to measure the need for intervention, was critical. It started on Tuesday, and by Friday he has more life and is eating food every 2 hours or so. He seemed to almost smile once when I was running my fingers up his belly. He will also just let people cuddle and love him, which unfortunately he received not at all from his family. The truth is we believe the family thought he would die anyway and just stopped feeding him. His mother saw him yesterday and, I am told, couldn't have cared less about him. She is a prostitute and has many issues. Peterson was often left in the "care" of his 4 year old brother....for the entire day or longer. The adults in many cases just don't care whether the kids live or die, at least for many in this community and others. Well, Peterson is starting to thrive, and he was officially offered a position in the orphanage by the entire staff tonight. He kind of smiled, so we took that as a yes!

Later as we were talking some, the conversation turned to "what do you do?" when a kid is dying? You do whatever you can with as much as you have. No one wants to think of the hundreds or thousands of other kids like him we can't save. It's too hard. Peterson, however, will live.

It was a very good day today.

Djebenis tout moun

March 15, 2009

I spent some time this morning trying to find some Christian blogs out there that would be interesting. Found a couple of particular blogs that seem promising, but I have to admit I was not overly impressed with the outlook of many. I guess that says more about me than them. It's kind of like Christian music for me, it is hard to find things that reallly make me think about my relationship with Jesus and how I live my life. There are many songs that are emotional and I am all for that, but there seems to be an almost total dearth of songs that really challenge people. Jason Upton does this, sings about real stuff and how we are with it, at least for me he does. Kind of like sermons in churches, it seems we like to make ourselves feel better and all and we don't want to offend anyone, but it is hard to find folks who will lay it on the line and call it like it is. Which brings me to my point: why are Christians afraid to think about and be challenged by what we say we believe?

It appears to me that the "Christian" church, or thought process or whatever you want to call it, has become, well, pretty worldly. We want Jesus to approve of what we want instead of trying to do the deep digging into our lives to see why we do what we do, and maybe find that place that will bring us to change in ourselves. Just like I want Jesus to approve of my point of view here, maybe I need to actually READ His word and seek HIM before I make proclamations about the state of the church. (Actually, I have and feel like I am on pretty safe ground here).

Living in Haiti, being on the mission field, I felt I would see the best the Christian church has to offer to the world. Alas, I find that, like me, the people here are.......people. They have the same quirks and such that I have, some not so bad......some maybe worse (at least I tell myself that so I feel better!) But it makes me think, because I didn't encounter what I thought I would, my expectations were not met......so I had to challenge myself. Maybe I expected too much......CHECK! Maybe I didn't do my homework about missions the way I should have......CHECK! Maybe the things I see are not so much a problem with everyone else (though I am pretty sure some of it is) as much as a challenge to me to root out what I really think about this Jesus guy and what He means to me. It seems to me that more and more that I am getting changed much more than those around me.

Which, in a roundabout way, is what I am talking about. It seems the church has lost much of it's ability to look at itself, for Christians to look at ourselves, and judge ourselves in relation to God's word and His Spirit. NO, I do not mean that our lives must be filled with works to earn our stripes. What I mean is that our lives should not be white washed coffins, looking good on the outside and filled with dead bones on the inside. It seems we are so into comfortable that we forget that God's spirit is an agent for change in our lives. We have accepted the saving part....."thank you God for saving me from my sins....now pardon me for missing church while I go play softball, or have a few drinks with my buddies.....again". And no, I do not mean that missing church anytime is a grievous sin. I think the point is not hard to get. We take the gift of forgiveness and live in it, instead of letting it be a starting point of growth. Try to talk about discipleship and you'll get a lot of rolling eyes and people changing subjects. We are already saved, right? Yes, but to whose purpose?

Big finish now. It seems we have taken the forgiveness God has offered us..and used it for our purposes instead of His purposes. It is easy for us to think of the past, and be grateful for the forgiveness of our past sins, or think of the future and how we will serve God someday.....but for today we seem to lack the ability (or fail to choose) to serve Him now. We fail to work out our salvation today....and I'm pretty sure we're suppose to, or else God wouldn't have put it in His word. SO, as soon as I have it worked out, I will let you know. Just in case someone else is working on it too, if you get there first, let me know, ok? :)

[the opinions offered here are often self serving and out of touch with the world, and many find them highly offensive. Thank you]

Djebenis tout moun

March 14,2009

So this Jesus guy is going thru the countryside, talking to people, healing them of all sickness and disease, so He was pretty popular with the folks. When He saw a crowd of people coming one day, He went up a mountain with His friends and started to talk to them. These guys listened a lot to Jesus, but they had a hard time hearing Him, if you know what I mean. He talked in a way that just didnt' make sense to them a lot of the time. They had their view of the world, their agenda they wanted to see fulfilled and when Jesus said things that they didn't understand, well, I think they just ignored Him or re interpretated what He said to their particular liking, kind of like we all do.

So Jesus tells these guys that the blessed people on the earth are the poor, and that the poor will inherit the kingdom of Heaven. Not only that, but the word He uses for "poor" is "piltolka" or something like this, a Greek work that literally means the lowest of the low. You see, there were levels of society in those days, and the high up's had 4 levels of the "have's", those associated with the power and riches, of which they had about all of it. The peasant class also had 4 levels, and these "pitolka" guys were the lowest of the 4. Like the "untouchables" in India, those who had nothing, criminals if they chose, beggars if they refused to steal, those who literally were deemed not worthy to be touched. Interesting point in this is that for the religious leaders of the day, they had a bunch of rules that were really a pain in the rear for everyone, but it helped them keep control and power so they liked the rules. One of these rules was that it was totally beneath ANY rabbi or student to sit at a table with such folks......which is kind of ironic since that is pretty much what Jesus did all the time. Hmmm.

So, Jesus is telling these guys who are following Him that the kingdom of Heaven is for the lowest of the low, the "untouchables", thieves and beggars. Those totally without power or clout or worth or social status or....pretty much anything. I have to think that this pretty much freaked out His followers, as I imagine them as, at least at this point, pretty much guys who thought Jesus was their meal ticket, the guy who would have power and clout and status and.... would share it with them. So, when Jesus is saying this it's like, "whoa, wait a minute, maybe we hooked our wagon to the wrong guy here, fella's". Who wants to be poor and all that? Remember when Jesus tells the rich guy that all he has to do is give up his money to the poor and he will have heaven, and the guy goes away totally bummed? The followers of Jesus asked Him, "who then can reach Heaven if not for the rich?". Jesus said it is easier for a camel to pass thru the eye of a needle than for the rich to get to Heaven, but then said that in God, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE.

So it seems to me that this Jesus guy is saying that anyone can reach Heaven, IF they see themselves as totally dependent and in need of God, and if they see themselves as one of the "untouchables". When we lower ourselves, we get a better view of God, I think, a truer view. Then we know where we really stand before Him, and we can truly get desperate enough for Him that we don't care about how we look to the world, only about how we need Him.

Pretty cool story if you ask me. If only churches were filled with more of the untouchables and fewer of the I'm in charge, I've got mine rabbi's I think Jesus would be a lot happier with us. Really.

Djebenis tout moun

March 13, 2009

So many things going on. Gary went to Port again to pick up the medical team that is here for week to do clinics. that will be a busy time getting them about while still running school and "regular" stuff. Kids in school are causing problems, and we have to run down what exactly is going on. A couple of newer kids appear to be "planning" something so they may be very short lived in the El Shaddai school. It is causing problems with some of the other kids as well, like a bad seed, so we want to deal with it asap. One of our kids who is really a good guy and has a future found out he may not get to go home for school next year as he was told he could. These kids are so often pawns in their parents dysfunctional lives, all we can do is support them the best we can while trying to further their education. Some missionaries I know of received some devastating news recently....something that can change a lifetime...and they are dealing with it. Please pray for them, unspoken request, for peace, wisdom and recovery.

Caroline is about ready to leave in about 2 weeks to go to Chicago and teach for a month. She has been cramming like she is the one to be tested! I am sure she will do very well, though, because of her preparation. So, lots' of stuff gooing on here, while the days count down to the end of school

Djebenis tout moun