Big Wheels

When we first started the process of moving to Haiti I had asked a few people what are the most important things we should have in order to live in Haiti.
Someone said, a good mattress and a good vehicle.
I completely agree!
You need a good night sleep and you don't want to be stuck on the side of the road here.
The mattress part we have covered but we need help with the truck....
Our truck needs new tires - five of them as a matter a fact.
They are $175.00 each.
We also need some front end work done on the four wheel drive.
(Noted in the adventure with Zack!)
We think the front and back end work will run a couple hundred ($300 to $500) dollars...

If you can help us with the truck, please send your donations to us at:
God's Plumbline Ministries
P.O. Box 2812
Acworth, GA 30102

Thanks!

Watch For Falling Rocks

His mother sent him out early in the afternoon on Thursday to collect sticks for fire wood. Not an easy task when you are looking out at mountain after mountain with no trees. Haiti is 98% deforested so it wasn't all that odd for him to be gone for hours at a time. His mother was home with her other eight children, breastfeeding the baby, their papa was in port. As he passed in and out of consciousness he told me he was eight and his name was Antonio. No one who came with him could verify that any of this was true, his mama said wasn't coming. They would send someone for her later telling her she didn't need to worry about paying.

Thursday would turn into Friday while he lay alone, hurt and bleeding from his head, nose and ear. He was dusty and dirty, the dry brown earth fell out of his clothes as Lori cut off his bloody shirt. He was so thin that his pants fell off his body as he struggled. Someone had tried to make the waist of his pants smaller with a piece of string tied through several belt loops but it was no use, his thin frame had nothing to stop them from falling off. It would be Friday afternoon before a yard man saw the sticks that he had collected now laying on the ground. He knew something wasn't right, he began to look for other clues and found Antonio laying alone.

This was suppose to be a relaxing family outing with Zack, Lori and Licia at the rescue center. We had just looked at the property Zack is interested in buying. It was about three o'clock, we stopped on the top of the mountain to see what the problem was with our truck. It was smelling hot and making an awful noise. Two unpleasant things when you are at the top of a mountain and know you have to come down, preferably not on foot in the baking heat with no water.

As we stood out in the dust and hot wind Maddie was deciding just how badly she needed to go to the bathroom as a white pick up truck approached us. Not all that bad she said as she hopped around trying to convince herself that she could wait. The Estella work crew had found what we had thought was a old woman who was now wrapped up in the back of their truck. She had been hit by a falling rock as the road crew worked 24/7 to carve out a fantastic new road in the mountains past Cazelle. I am still not sure where this road was going to take people but I can tell you I wouldn't want to be on it in a Cameo going 100 miles an hour on that road.

As we made our way down the mountain, Dan and Zack went over a mental check list of things that "could be" wrong with the truck. I don't get sick easily but I was now feeling sick about a broken truck in the middle of no where and what I thought was a badly hurt old woman who could easily die. All the talk wasn't making me feel any better as dollar signs flashed in my mind. The squeal of the clutch cut through the air reminding me I wasn't feeling good when Dan and Zack looked at each other and said, that isn't good. A few turns later Dan announced he had lost the breaks. I told him to quit screwing around it wasn't funny. I wanted him to laugh but he wasn't laughing.

Zack had finally gotten a signal on his phone so he could call Lori and tell her what had happened. She and Licia would be ready and waiting. The fluid had burned off the clutch and the noise was gone as we pulled into the gate, I was feeling better. I thought we had beat the truck down the mountain but as I rounded the corner I saw what I had been thinking was an old woman was really a little boy, Anotino. My heart sank and I felt sick again.

The work to get him taken care of went quickly. Lori got an IV started, their nurse shaved and cleaned his head, Lisha tried to gather as much information as she could. The room was small and very organized to help things run smoothly. It was hot and filled with the smell of blood and body fluids. As he struggled to get a way from the pain he listed reasons why we should let go of him. In all of his wiggling to be free Licia found a red whistle that had fallen out of his pocket. He had been laying on it all this time. It quickly reminded me that just yesterday he was a normal little boy playing outside, now he was a nameless little boy crying in pain every time he woke up. I lost track of how many shots he got to numb his head as Lori worked to sew his wounds up.

Earlier in the day I had told her I wanted to learn how to do stitches. Now was my chance. As she worked she walked me through step by step instructions so I would be ready to go. It was now close to five and we needed to get on the road so we would be back before dark. I hated to leave him alone but he was in good hands. They had sent someone for his mother. I am not sure she ever came, but in the search for her they found yet another boy who had been hit by a falling rock.

That was Friday. On Saturday, Zack said a woman in labor showed up at the gate. She had delivered one baby and the second was stuck with the arm hanging out. Lori worked to get the baby out but couldn't. She ended up putting her in a tap-tap sending her in to port. Yes, in labor with the arm stuck!

(note: photo's by madisen lynch)

Marketing Nightmare

In the corporate world I worked in the marketing and art department as the traffic coordinator. I was responsible for working with the writers, marketing managers, graphic designers, engineers and different vendors to keep all the jobs on schedule. We had war room meetings, conference calls, press kits, photo shoots, press releases, press runs and trade shows. Everything was about how our software looked and it's position in the market place. It wasn't even considered odd to have all day meetings just to talk about what font looked best for our literature and boxes. Every detail was looked at with a fine tooth comb to make sure every detail was perfect even down to the placement on the store shelves.

I have been removed from corporate life for a number of years but I can easily slip on my marketing cap and see life through the eyes of the marketing world. While watching television I have often thought to myself, I can't believe a group of people sat around a conference room table for hours to come up with crap like this and got paid for it.

I was laying in bed the other night with both my marketing and thinking caps on, not my preferred sleeping cap. I was thinking about the Deli Mart lady again. I had come to the conclusion she would technically be considered a marketing nightmare on every level. I mean look at her, she is a mess. No one wants to be a tourist and see things like that and wreck a perfectly good mindless vacation. Not to mention she is bad for business and makes the country look bad. On a more personal level, no mother wants to think about her child growing up like that and no child wants her mother to end up like this. And the church, well, we all know no one wants to sit next to her, shake her hand or have her over for lunch. After all what would everyone think? I have never had the guts to stop on Sunday morning and pick her up for church. I am not proud of the fact that I am a chicken, but I can't seem to stop thinking about her.

If you are honest with yourself you would admit at some level you care about how people see you and what they really think. Everyone packages themselves to look better and be more presentable. We market ourselves so that our lives look perfect, our kids act perfect, our ministry is flawless, our marriage is wonderful and our GAP clothes are trendy . I am always amazed to see the number of Haitians who have little money for food spending money to have clothes dry cleaned. It seems to me that the way they look is one of the only things they can be in control of so they spend hours making sure they look perfect.

So what's up with the Deli Mart lady? Here is my media spin on the whole deal. The day I took this picture she had taken off her packaging, her blue dress that was now piled up on top of her head. Her packaging was never discussed in an all day meeting it was pretty simple. She had just finished washing it on the side of the road in the car catcher. Unknowingly presenting the best picture I have ever seen for what can happen to humanity when we don't or won't deal with our sin. Standing in front of me was one of the truest pictures of what our lives apart from Jesus really look like.

Imagine with me if you will, that when you look at her as she is, it is as if you can see she has an entire life time of sin, generation curses, hurt, loneliness and pain saved up in the bags she has tied purposely to her body. She has never taken advantage of the free gift of salvation. Maybe no one ever told her she didn't have to carry all her sin and pain around with her and one day it was finally just too much for her and she stopped marketing herself in what we would consider the proper way. She now hides it all in bags under her blue jean dress thinking no one can see the struggle in her daily walk to sit next to the car catcher at Deli Mart. Just as I assume no one can see my sin as I struggle to walk out my salvation.
That's the funny thing about sin, we never think others can see it because we think we have marketed ourselves so well.

Saturday Baseball - Monday Carnival

On Saturday I was going to write a nice short blog about how we try to make things as normal as possible living in Haiti. Normal, like baseball games on Saturday mornings with a handful of other families. I started to write about a fun filled Saturday afternoon doing family type stuff but never finished.
Sunday Parker wasn't feeling well so I stayed home from church with him and tried to get caught up on my growing list of things to do. Sunday night was game night, pretty normal. Minus the fact that the night air was filled with the sound of rara bands passing up and down the street as we played cards and ate popcorn for dinner.
We went to bed late Sunday night knowing we could sleep in a little bit since we are on spring break this week while the whole country celebrates Carnival. Carnival is a really big deal here. I have never been to Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras in New Orleans but I am guessing Haiti would be on the extreme end Mardi Gras Madness in the States. In preparation they build massive band stands to play very loud music, randomly close off streets with trucks full of speakers bigger than people for even more music creating even more of an already confusing maze for those who are trying drive here, they dress up in costumes and go to massive parades, hundreds of young people fill the streets while they dance to rara music moving like a flood up and down Delma all the way from Port to Pentionville at any given time. This too is what is normal here for Carnival.

Monday morning came around and we loaded up the truck for a beach day with the Hojo's. Again, normal spring break stuff.
Believe it or not everything was falling in line with the theme of my original idea to talk about how we are doing normal things here in Haiti. When off in the distance I see this guy walking toward us surrounded by little kids. He was dressed in a big jewel toned sheet, had a snake skin around his neck, some kind of shawl around his shoulders, a cowboy hat on his head, this scary mask on his face and he wanted all the kids to put their hand in his box to get a prize as part of the Carnival celebration.

When he said, it might be scary, all attempts of normal flew out the window.
Maddie wanted nothing to do with him. Caleb and Charmaine are teenagers, enough said. That left Parker. I couldn't imagine what was in the box? But, Parker had no fear and put his hand right in with no problem. He didn't start screaming or crying so that was good. He didn't jump back or freak out so it couldn't have been too bad. It turns out that there was a puppy and a frog inside the box.
Normal, everyday beach stuff!

So, maybe I should say we live in "pockets" of normal here in Haiti. Normal is kind of woven into what is odd, strange and unperdictiable at times.
This has become normal for us and most of the time I enjoy this kind of normal. We have gotten used to it and it seems normal. Infact, so much so, that playing baseball can seem abnormal. Strange but true!

I always wonder what Jesus thinks about her when I drive by. I find myself checking on her to see if she is there. When she isn't I wonder what she is doing. She sits alone everyday at the intersection right in front of the Deli Mart.
I think she was beautiful at one time, she still is in a way that I don't have words to describe.
She is dirty, but her hands are thin and elegant. She has fragile features and perfect skin.
I wonder if she has children.
How is it that this corner is her home?
She has bags and bags of things that she has collected around her and under her clothes.
I asked her if she was sick but when she answered she wasn't talking to me. She was looking at me but she wasn't seeing me.
The two boys who stopped to ask me for food said she wasn't sick she was a fool.
I knew no one ever talked to her because when I stopped and got out of the truck I instantly had a crowd around me laughing.
As the crowd grew Dan thought he would see if she needed money before we left.
It seemed to me she carried all she needed with her and money had no value.
I think I will stop again and see if she will tell me her name.

I think Jesus would wash her feet.

United Nations (MINUSTAH)

I Googled you, she said.
It still sounds funny to me when I think about it.
But, this is how Amelia Shaw and the UN ended up coming to do a story on sewing school. I couldn't imagine how on earth she had found out about us. At first I thought John had been talking to someone. Next, I guessed it was Dave, a pilot who works for the UN and attends our church.

As Amelia was finishing up her story on Tuesday I couldn't stand it any more. I had to know how she found out about us.
"I Googled you"!
It is amazing to me that we live in this day and age where we can be Googled. We have found our street here in Haiti on Google Earth. That is crazy!

As it turns out she had gotten a Haiti News Alert with an on-line news story. When she did her search she found the recent story about us in The Villages newspaper. As she read the story she saw that we lived in Haiti and decieded to find us. When she Googled us our blog came up. It was that easy. She sent us an email to set up an interview and spent the morning with us seeing what we do.

The story will run on Haitian television after Carnival and be sent to New York. Amelia had come to Haiti to do some film work and always wanted to be a journalist. She said it was always something she wanted to do but didn't go to school for it. She has always liked to live in different cultures and went to school for anthropology. When all the trouble started in 2004 the BBC had known about her living here and asked her to start doing some work for them and that is how she ended up with the UN.

I don't think they Googled her...but I am glad she Googled us.

Happy Birthday!!

He didn't show up dressed in a red suit.
He drove up to the gate in his white Toyota pick up, minus Rudolph of course. He simply honked so I would come out to the gate and check out his load.
A birthday cake would have been appropriate, but he didn't know what today was and he had something so much better.
He says he's just a bag of dirt the Lord put breath into....maybe.
I am not allowed to give him any glory - it was all God. He said he is just the yard guy....maybe.
Two days ago if you read my Facebook status it said, Sheila needs fabric!
Do you think he read my Facebook status and just happened to have twenty-one bags of perfect fabric? Maybe.
So, now that we are not talking about the Santa Claus looking guy in the picture, I am free to talk about what today was.
Today the sewing program celebrated it's one year birthday!
I thought about making a cake, but forgot. I am sorry to say I had thought about it earlier in the week but by the time today came I had forgotten all about it and moved on to the next thing.
Today the ladies started taking their written exams on shirts. I am very behind in grading paper projects and needed to spend the morning getting caught up with a number of things.
It was now nine o'clock, I had just heated up my coffee that Dan made me at six o'clock this morning before he did devotions with John that I didn't get to drink because I was going out for my run/walk when my phone rang. It was Dan telling me that we had a delivery coming from the yard guy, you know the one in the picture.
I'll admit I was thinking about freaking out!
Yes, I wanted and needed fabric but what on earth was I going to do with twenty-one bags of fabric? But as luck would have it (or something like that) I had just collected all the extra bins last week and had them sitting up stairs. Empty, Ready and Waiting!
The yard guy explained to me that these bags may not have anything I needed in them because the label said, upholstery fabric.
Ha! Funny! That is exactly what we need! As we opened all the bags I started to cry! It was overwhelming! So many perfect and beautiful fabrics! The yard guy said it's all about our brokenness and our willingness to let God use us in any way He can and he didn't have anything to do with it....maybe.
Everyone who walked in this morning wanted to know what on earth happened? The ladies said it was a cyclone!
All I can say is it was better than Christmas and one really great birthday party for the sewing ladies! Thanks to some yard guy!
He isn't too bad at diet coke and pepper jack cheese either!