Mothers Day 2015

 Mothers day is the day all of us mothers get spoiled!  All the Dads and single kids work so hard.  This is an all day thing.  We drink lots of tea, visit and eat all day long!
This year they made us a brunch of veggies and dip, lunch meats and amazing cheeses.
Then later they BBQ steak for dinner along with a fantastic salad with feta cheese, etc.
They keep the kids fed with hamburgers and hot dogs too.
For desserts we had lemon cakes, lemon pie, lemon sugar free desserts for me!  Monica worked the day before making the lemon desserts!

Jon and Noah

Eric, Shawn, Christopher, Moriah

Brunch

This was part of our brunch!

Paul, Joe and Mark being silly!

Paul, James and Mark

Jon and Noah

Monica and Raelee

James holding Noah, Jon

Moriah gave me this beautiful plant.  I love plants on my front porch!

Missing a few people, but most of us happened to be there.

The kids and grandkids all gave me a jar full of these precious notes.  They made me cry as I read them all.  My sweet children!

All my beautiful presents.  

Fine Arts and Monica's performance 2015

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The weekend of fine arts, Monica also had a performance.

Match Maker

This was a readers theater.  Forgiving the big bad wolf?!!!

At the mall on a break!

slumber party in the girls room!

Mark was invited to nationals this year!  We are all so proud of him.  He is very talented on the piano and singing!

James did a little skit on forgiving 70x7

Haiti part #4

Chickens. Goats. Tropical birds,  Geckos, wind:  the sounds of Haiti.  

It’s not quite relaxing. If you’ve ever heard the sound a gecko makes it’s slightly unnerving to hear above your head.  It’s surprising what a loud noise a little gecko can make.  We wake up to all these noises plus loud talking on the trail below our house. 

Little goats were all over.  They don't milk them though, they are for meat.  

This pig has nothing to eat in it's fence.  Everything is so dry, no weeds or anything grows! 

Haitian’s walk for miles in the mountains.  One trail behind our house and the voices carry in the early morning so clear they sound like they are just out your window.

Today I learned that eating hard-boiled eggs while pregnant will make your baby bald!  Or how about when someone yawns it’s because they are hungry!   So if a baby is yawning they need food, not just breast milk.  You can’t fan a mom in labor because you don’t want to cool down the labor.    Superstition runs high here!  Some are funny like that, but most are not.  Many people have more faith in the witch doctor then medical doctors. 

They believe a mom that just has had a baby cannot get cold. So even though the temperatures are very high here (humid and hot 90’s) the mom doesn’t leave the house for 2 weeks. She stays covered up, wearing pants under her skirt, blankets etc.  Since the baby still needs to get a check up, someone else brings the baby to the clinic. The walk can be 2-4 hours long and so by the time they get to the clinic with the baby, wait their turn (which they always put the babies first for this reason) then walk back home, that poor baby has gone a full day without eating.

Today we saw a mom with a possible placenta abruption.  She came in carried on a stretcher type bed.  (There were actually 4 people that came on their beds today)  Their family or friends put sticks in the ends of the bed and one person on each corner carry the person in the bed to the clinic.  I can’t imagine.  We have a half-mile hike from the house to the clinic each day.  I get out of breath and have to stop and catch my breath.  That’s just the start of their walk.  They hike way past our place up over the mountain.  Can’t imagine carrying a bed with a person in it for miles on mountain trails!

They were working on a poster for an education class on nutrition.

As I was listening to one little boy’s heart I noticed it was skipping a beat.  She said there is nothing that can be done here to get it checked further.  We saw a women today, the mother of 12 children.  She had fallen off her donkey a month ago.  She must have had spinal injury because she lost feeling in her arms and legs.  Things like this cannot be repaired down here.  We also saw a boy with a hydrocephaly.   They had seen him at 3 months and didn’t notice anything unusual, but at 7 months his head was obviously large and they asked them to come back.  The nurse was going to research to find out where to send them. But they never came back till now.  Now he is over a yr or more and his head is 57 cms.  There is so little they can do in some cases, but on the other hand, they do so much.  Lives are being helped and changed because of their work here.  So many children nice healthy weights because of feeding programs.  Giving protein powder or Mamba packets to pregnant women to prevent the myriads of problems.  Although there are goats everywhere here, they don’t milk them.  Dairy products are not something they use much of.  So the Protein powder they just generally eat out of the container straight! 

People in the US make these Layette kits.  They are a light blanket, cloth diapers, onesies, and a sleeper, diaper pins, plastic pants etc.  The parents can have one of these kits if they get a birth certificate for their baby.  The birth certificate will help the child be able to go to school.  The parents are so excited to get a kit.  Often the parents don’t have any diapers for the babies. Sometimes they use a towel, but most often they don’t have any diaper on the baby.  One mom during the babies check got her whole skirt wet, as the baby had no diaper on.  So diapers and clothes aren’t just another outfit, but a basic necessity they don’t have.  We also give out birth kits.  A birth kit is a piece of gauze, a new razor blade, 2 pieces of heavy string, This is because so many infections were taking place because of cutting the cord with something dirty.  So it’s a very basic kit, but it has prevented so many infections.

different types of homes you see along the path

Monica and other volunteers sorting pills into bags.

We all did a lot of pill bagging.  Seems like it's an on going job there.

So this is the end of our trip to Haiti.  God sure did have other plans then delivering one baby.  Instead he gave Monica and I a love for mission work, a love for Haiti, the joy of helping in a clinic and getting to watch as desperate lives were being helped.  He gave me a different view on our life style and what’s important.  I know I’m going to go through culture shock when I arrive in America.  I know it will be harder to have 4 wheeler conversations with James, or hear how someone wants a new phone, going back to my busy, busy lists and phone calls.  I’m not sure how to balance our busy life styles with what is truly important.  God has given me much to think about.  It’s been a life changing 3 weeks!

Haiti part #3

Haiti part 3   March 7^th, 2015

We left the CAM base about 9:30 Sat morning.  We heard it was a ruff ride to LaSource, but I wasn’t prepared. 

Homes

A typical site to see someone walking with a 5 gallon bucket on their head

First it was about 2 hours on crazy Haitian roads.  Like through markets and traffic, with giant trucks getting so close to you that they bump your mirror (literally), where at times I had to close my eyes because it was so scary!  Then when you finally get to an area that you’re not creeping along, they have these giant speed bumps in the middle in the hwy.  They are actually called “sleeping policeman”  (translated)

So after about 2 hours on those crazy roads we got to the dirt road.  Again I would describe it as a dried up river bed, but the funny thing is we crossed 2 dried up river beds while we drove and they seemed a lot smoother then what we were driving on, LOL! The rocks jutting out, the dips and constant bumping up and down.  Monica was next to the door and was getting so bruised up by bumping the door that she finally curled up on my lap.  Besides being so horribly bumpy, it was windy and up hill, so it was easy to get nauseated too.  So you can handle a road like this for 30 min or so, but 3 and half hours of it!  We were comparing it to labor!  LOL

There were some beautiful views too, as we were driving by the ocean.  As we climbed higher their were still huts every so often, but not constant.  Children outside waiving.  When you finally got to LaSource (pronounced La Susz) you couldn’t tell it was a village except for a covered shelter for a market. The government started to build this shelter for the community and never finished it.  When there was a Cholera epidemic a few yrs ago, CAM needed a shelter to make into a Cholera clinic.  So they offered to finish the roof and cement work if they could use it.  They put blue tarps on the side and used it until the epidemic was under control.  Now the community has a nice place for a market.

There is also a church, school and clinic here ran by CAM. Monica and I will be working in the clinic this week. 

We had a nice dinner with the missionary families.  They made homemade pizza for us and after dinner the kids all went on a tarantula hunt.  Sure enough they came back with one and all the kids were passing it around, letting it walk all over their hands.

 

One of the families is trying to adopt.  They have 2 beautiful little girls.  One they were given in December.  Her Dad came to the clinic and wanted to give her away.  The mom had been gone for a long time.  They tried to fix the problems, but in the end this couple is going to adopt her.  The only problem is the Haitian government makes it very hard to adopt here.  They have strange rules and they change all the time.  Like you have to be 30 yrs old and married for 5 yrs.  Then they changed it to having to be married for 10 yrs.  I hear it ‘s very common for people to ask you to take their babies.  They probably want a better life for the children then they have. This little girl, the dad had no idea how old she was.  He said,” I remember she was born on a Wed in Sept”.  Because of malnutrition it’s very difficult to guess.  So she could be anywhere from 5 yrs old to 10 yrs old.  She did just loose a tooth, so that gives a little bit of an idea.

This morning we went to the church meeting.  There were about 100 people there and Haitians sing nice and loud. Someone translated for us as the Haitian preacher spoke a great sermon on love.

The church building has no screens or glass windows, just open holes.  No fans, just wooden benches.  One 75 yr old man had come on a donkey.  If he had walked it would have been 2.5 hours, but today he had a ride on the donkey. 

Monday:

Went to sleep last night knowing there was a Gecko in my bedroom.  They seem to be afraid of people too, but it’s not very consoling when you hear something moving around in the bedroom with you!

This is the house we stayed at in LaSorce.  The cabinets are made from a fiber board that the termites can't eat.

They hang this to keep food from ants

Got our tour of the clinic this morning.  It is a very well organized clinic.  I like how they spend so much time with each patient.

This is the "pharmacy"  After we see the patient we send them to the pharmacy to get their vitamins, protein powder or medicines.

Monica dividing pills into little bags for distribution

This little girl had a common skin issue.  It destroys the hair too.

They grind the beans and rice together before they give it out.  This way they get complete nutrition.  Otherwise they will cook the beans and throw away the skins where there is a lot of nutrition.

Thankfully it's treatable.

 One little girl today was brought in by her father.  The mother died of HIV when the baby was 18 mos old.  She did contract HIV from the mother before she died.  So the little girl has been on the HIV program getting medication and food.  She looked very healthy and happy.  They have a 12.5 mile walk to come to the clinic, so they start early in the morning to get there.  The nurse said they might have a donkey to help them get there. 

The world health organization used to recomend for the HIV positive moms not to nurse their babies because they can rarely get HIV from the breast milk.  But now they realized more babies died without breast milk, as they would be fed unclean water and end up with cholera or malnutrition.  So being it’s a small percentage that actually get HIV from breast milk, chances are better for the babies if they continue to get breast milk.

Another typical Haitian lunch