Saturday, April 18, 2009

Sunday is the election here in Haiti for open Senate seats. There are 12 of them, I believe. St. Marc has ordered all schools closed on Monday....just in case there is post election violence. Vehicles besides motorcycles are banned from the streets after noon today....to limit drive by incidents. Power has been shut off to limit night time...campaigning. Who said elections can't be fun?

April is apparently vacation month in Haiti. The Haitian schools attend classes about 4 days for the whole month, I am told here. There is a spring vacation, personal holidays, teacher holidays, animal and insect holidays....so the whole month is pretty much taken up in holidays. Kind of like August in France, but August is too hot here so they make it April.

I have become very popular with the kids in school. I owe it to mechanical pencils. I have a small supply of them and the kids absolutely think they are the greatest invention ever. I get asked every day for one. I do not have enough to give to every one, so "no" is the usual answer. But it is nice having the kids suck up to me. Rutney, a 9 yr old in Daniels class told me "oh, Mr. Dan, I wish I was in your class". She is nine and I teach the high school kids. She is a very bright nine, but..... So I get hugs and stuff from the kids, I get to tickle them a lot....then I say "no". I am a bad teacher...... I have a reputation for being a mad tickler and the kids avoided me because of it, so I backed off. A few days later, they all started coming around me and are now asking me to tickle them. Fickle kids. Dadyd (da-deed) is a highly cute 3 year old who is very diva-ish already. She ran from me for awhile, but when I quit tickling, she now runs towards me and wants to be tickled. So my life has become easier....I just wait for the kids to come to me and then tickle. Ah, experience leads to a better life!

I can't wait to get home and cut Steve's grass for him. it's one of the simple pleasures of life that I have missed. If I don't get a job, I may have to charge him. Let's see, how much to charge for 10 minutes of cutting grass? I am thinking $200 a week will take care of my bills, as long as it is in cash. :) oh, Steve.......

Djebenis tout moun

Bondye benis ou

Friday, April 17, 2009

WANTED: summer job around St. Louis, Missouri area, beginning around middle of June. REASON: other position fell thru. NOW the government decides to start managing it's money well!!!
POSITION WANTED: I already cut grass for free....so maybe something that pay's a little. Pretty much anything as long as it's not working in front of a blast furnace....oh, yeah, forgot, that's not an option anyway. Bummer for blast furnace workers. will work for anything from $5 an hour up to $100, I won't take a dime over $100 an hour, no matter how much I am offered. I have principles, you know. :)

IF YOU HAVE SUCH A POSITION OPEN, PLEASE CONTACT STEVE MCKINNEY AT FRONTLINE FELLOWSHIP CHURCH IN GRANITE CITY, IL. OR VISIT 816 IOWA IN MADISON, IL AND LET MY SON KNOW. OR FLY TO HAITI AND TELL ME HERE......OR ANSWER ON THE BLOG.....CARRIER PIDGEON IS OK TOO.

Djebenis tout moun
Bondye benis ou

Wednesdy April 15, 2009

today is the day celebrated all over the world as American tax day!!!! I assume parades and such will be happening......maybe not? Today is the day we officially give our government trillions of dollars to spend as they see fit...which we all know is to secure more votes so they can win next time and get more money again.

talking with some of the locals here gives the sense of people who are resigned to the fate of having a corrupt govenment...this one or the next one, only difference is in who takes the money. I have to say that I have the same feeling about the US at this time. our government is completely out of touch with reality, they live in a fantasy land of money and power...otherwise known as the world. It seems that the only way to defeat the world is to live in it while at the same time seperating yourself from it. We can't leave it, but we can't live in it, as witnessed by a few thousand years of human history and how we mess up things every single time. We are consistent if nothing else, and "we" encompasses all people around the world. Consider the corruption in government and business, and prepare to get overwhelmed. The US, UN, Russia, EU, Japan, most 3rd world govt's......the list goes on and on. It appears that as humans we have found our niche....breaking things, just like kids. As we grow, however, we break bigger and bigger things and effect more and more people.

One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is in assuming that it is due to power. I think that the Bible is right when it says that out of the a mans' heart comes the excess of his mouth. We sow out into the world what is inside us, and corruption is everywhere. It isn't politics, business, capitalism or socialism...it is people. Maybe we need to be in the zoo's and let the animals run the show for awhile and see how that works. God, in His wisdom, however, put us in charge. I do not believe it is because we are so good at it, as previously explained! So as I rant and rave at times about getting rid of this or that and fixing governments and injustice, I realize that as we get rid of one set of people we would only replace them with another set of people.

Maybe we need a different method of operation. Maybe we need to let God run our lives. I know I absolutely need it, because I have no doubt whatsoever I will mess things up when I am in charge. Maybe if we gave to Caesar what is Caesar's and gave to God what is God's, (ourselves and our ambitions, along with everything else) we would be better off. I personally would like being better off. Not necessarily talking of money here, but about joy, peace, and knowing that I am secure in Him so that I can give and receive without worry of having lack or debt. That would be a good tax day, wouldn't it?

Have I said recently it is getting hot?

Djebenis tout moun

Bondye benis ou

Monday April 13, 2009

I have not been posting......duh! it is hot, I am lazy, and I don't want to think most days. did I mention I am lazy? school is going fairly well actually. we have some small classes most of this week, as the week after Easter most Haitian schools are off, so the families just pretty much let their other kids stay home also. Or the kids just take off anyway. Seven weeks left of school, just over 6 of classes, at times I thought.....well, actually, I thought I would make it almost the whole time. didn't say I would enjoy the whole time....but taken as a whole, it has been pretty good. my summer job thing maybe be getting slightly dicey, so prayer is appreciated. I have no issue with working at MacD's if needed, those jobs are probably hard to get now! things work out so I am not worried. did I mention it is hot, and I am lazy?

had a good conversation with two of the Haitian workers just awhile ago, they run an English class in the school on Mon/Tues/Thurs evenings. they came by and we just talked about the upcoming elections, Haiti, the US, a rah-rah band clash that left 6 or 8 people dead not far from St. Marc. apparently two rah-rah bands came head to head (rah-rah=kids rave bands that travel around singing and making lots of noise with people of all ages) and people pulled guns. sometimes it feels so much llike home. :(

I really don't have much to say tonight, I will try and be witty and entertaining later this week.....or next. did I mention I am hot.....and unmotivated? :)

Djebenis tout moun
Bondye benis ou

Saturday April 10,2009

So Jesus is walking back to the city where previously he had driven out the merchants of the temple. He had gone out that previous evening from Bethany and spent the night outside the city. When He re entered the next day, He was hungry and passed a fig tree. Now the weird thing is that the commentary type folks say it was out of season for the fig tree to have fruit, but Jesus saw the tree without fruit and condemned it, and it withered. I always wondered why He was so harsh on the tree, being out of season and all....until I thought about a previous part where Jesus had warned people of the bad dudes running around, false prophets running around as sheep, but really looking out for what they could get. Jesus said that you had to judge the tree by the fruit it produced, and we had to see the signs of those who produced bad fruit.

So...it seems maybe there is no season for a believer for fruit. Maybe Jesus expects us to produce fruit all the time, whether it seems in season or not, whether it is.....convenient or not. This seems to be a message most Christians don't want to hear often, that after being saved by grace, Jesus expects something of us. Maybe He means that He can tell those who really have accepted Him by the fruit they produce. It makes me think that I should rethink my whole life in relation to how I serve Him.

I think that calling Jesus my "king" but then treating Him as though, well, as an entertaining guy and all that but one who I can change the channel on when it suits my purpose......I think it would really tick me off, if I was Jesus...a very scary thought in itself but we don't need to go there today. I think Jesus would think it highly disrespectful of me to treat Him that way.....especially after I called Him my "king". It seems that if I really felt He was my "king", I would treat Him that way. I need to give myself to Him, really give myself, to His service, and I need to consider how I can best do that. Maybe I have just played around at it, doing what is convenient for myself, but not necessarily glorfying Him. I have always had this self serving attitude about myself, for some reason. I think I need to ponder on what it means to have a "king" over me, one I submit to completely, for whom I work and strive to please. Maybe I'll find a little less of myself in that conversation and a little more of Him. I hope.

Djebenis tout moun (French, just found that out)

Bondye benis ou (Creole version)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

OK, taxes have been filed...or at least filled out. Then they went to Mountrois to go to Mike......who is taking Anne to the airport in Port today........who will fly to Miami, then Michigan.......and then put them in a mailbox. See? No problems! We Haitians don't worry about such things, they just seem to get done. :)

The kids have been anxious about Easter break, locally schools get most of the week off...but here Friday only and they are bummed a little. The local schools giving the week off do so mainly to accomodate voodoo holidays around Easter, kind of a backwards arrangement, but it is what it is. Each day the talk is about "only 8 weeks left!". I guess school kids are working on getting to summer as much as we did when I was in school.

Dmitri and Christian have basically left school. Dmitri got into trouble again and was sent home, and he was going to Port with his brother Christian to get passports last week. Well, they never returned. Neither one wanted to learn English or work in the books. Honestly, the parents did them no favors putting them here, they would have been better in a Haitian school, but the parents didn't want that. They thought the kids would be better off knowing English also, and they would, but they obviously won't work at it, so maybe this will work out better for them wherever they are.

It is WARM now. The days are getting highly sweatified around here, though it still is not bad in the early morning. Again, it is a very mild time here, and it is not usual for this time of year. Take the gifts you get and be glad for them!

The road is bad....really bad.....getting close to horribly bad. It takes close to 20 minutes to get close to the edge of town, the potholes are just getting deeper and wider. We are seriously considering a helicopter....... :) Bouncing down the road is a common thing, we see things that fall off of trucks all the time, and in the last week, a gazillion or so vehicles broken down on the roads....not on the sides of the roads, on the roads, in the smack dab middle of the roads! But that is how it is done here. Oops, forgot to get rice out for Rose, gotta run, take care in the land of snow and baseball.

Djebenis tout moun.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

NO, my Illinois state taxes are not filed yet, thanks for asking. I plan on getting to it sometime next October, and if I don't YOU didn't remind me so it's YOUR fault, remember that! I did get my fed and Missouri taxes done and sent off. Yes I sent it snail mail, but it went out a week ago and will get there in plenty of time. NO I did not have the ILL form's to get done so I couldn't file them with the other forms. Pouki sa? you ask. Wow, blog readers are so nosey....I waited until the day before Caroline was leaving to go to the states and could'nt get on the Il web site to down load the forms. I had the fed and Mo forms, but the internet let me down......it's the web's fault!!! I knew I would find the culprit eventually. Remember, if you have a problem, just go down the list of everyone who could have possibly taken care of the problem for you and you'll find who did it.

Gary sent out a notice to parents a few weeks ago stating that the school was full and to ensure their kid had a spot for next year, they needed to sign up now and pay a small fee. The fee is more to make them responsible for actually showing up next year, as a signed paper w/o a fee really means nothing. There has been a surprisingly good response to this, with already about a dozen kids signed up for next year. (I have been teaching seniors English...not teaching but reading along with the students who do it...and I have learned that my writing style includes so many dangling participles, split infinitives and such that I should be back in 5th grade) SO, as I struggle to not split what should not be split, it seems that I have learned that several of my students are already signed up again for next year. These two had gotten into trouble in the states and wound up here mid year and honestly these are the biggest problem students. Consistent with Haiti, they have conformed to expectations.

It is difficult most times to even come close to viewing these kids in complete context. Obviously we can't do that readily for anyone, and never really completely. There is so much you just can't know about their lives and such. These two kids are honestly pretty nice kids. One is a manipulator, another a follower who went with a bad crowd. I think both are completely salvageable (bad term but it's early). They will work when prodded (I like Haitian school rules....if you don't like what the kids is doing, swat him. Most parents, if not all, have NO problem with it. In fact some actually wonder why we don't do it more) and have generally ok personalities. Their obvious problem is.....they are teenagers, and worse, American teen agers. If only there was a pill to cure this condition...

So next year it appears that Myberson and Kesmy will likely be gone to the states. This will leave me with Pony, James, Sophonie, Jephtae and D'Jinu. (assumes I will be back, pending any unknown kidnap attempts to keep me in the states by, well, these students). This should be a pretty good group I think for whomever is their teacher.

I truly do not know where I will be next year and I am very thankful that Gary has not asked me for a committment. Gary has told me that his goal is for me to find my place here and serve in it, wherever God wants me, and I really can't ask for more than that. If it is here, fine, if it is doing something else then God will arrange that. If it is home, then I know this will have been a year to change me. I will have to remember, however, to not carry a stick around to swat the kids with.....unfortunately! :)

Djebenis tout moun