QUITE A WEEK

It's been a week filled with blessings.  But it didn't start out that way.  Last weekend, while playing with some of the other missionary kids, Hannah collided with a friend and toppled, breaking her fall with her left hand.  At first we thought the main injury was a thorn she put through the pad of her hand, just below her middle finger. 

A day later, her hand was still swollen and she could not bend her fingers.  The pain was getting worse instead of better.  We're so blessed to have a fantastic doctor right here on the mission grounds, so Melissa took Hannah to see Dr. Rodney and get an X-ray. 

Dr. Rodney said several bones were dislocated in the palm of Hannah's hand.  He pulled her middle finger into place and splinted the whole thing with a "Popsicle stick" - as her brothers called it.

On Monday night, Melissa and I were blessed to spend the evening with Pastor Storly Michel, who was getting ready to fly back to Columbus, Indiana soon.  He took us to our favorite restaurant in Cap Haitien, The Picolet.  Melissa had lobster and I had curried goat and we both thoroughly enjoyed some uninterrupted alone time with Storly. (Our neighbors, Erin, Elida and Jen, were kind enough to babysit our kids back at home.) 

By Tuesday evening, Melissa and I were back to being concerned about Hannah's hand.  The pain was not letting up at all and the finger was not bendable in the least.  Melissa and I began to worry that something more was going on than what was showing on the local X-ray.  Hannah is left-handed and we feared that her dominant hand was going to be permanently affected - were we doing everything that we could to assure complete healing?  Friends counseled us to visit the hospital in Milot, which is big enough to have doctors who specialize in orthopedics.  So Wednesday morning, Melissa and I missed school to take Hannah to Milot.

Here she is getting ready for another X-ray.  (Side note: The more I look at this picture, the more I like it.  In Hannah's apprehension, there is something childlike in her looks - and because she is next to a large machine in an empty room, she looks a bit smaller ... except for her feet. So she actually looks more her age:12.  We've had visitors recently ask if she's getting ready to head off the college soon.  Our reply: "No, we're thinking she should finish middle school first.")

Hannah with Dr. Pierre and his assistant, Maxi.  I was surprised that they smiled for the photo.

What Melissa and I got was peace of mind: the Milot confirmed Dr. Rodney's diagnosis and approach.  The new X-ray showed the dislocated bones had moved back into place. Now, though, he felt the sprained tendon would do better with the finger splinted in a bent position.  It took several pain shots before he could get the finger bent as far as he wanted it.  

So Hannah got her first cast.  It's supposed to be on for the next three weeks and the splint is to be bent a few degrees straighter each week.

Thursday afternoon, I was home from school with Sarah, who was having some minor tummy trouble.  She felt good enough to work on a birthday cake for Melissa, though, and in a moment of inspiration, wanting to occupy her while we waited for the cake to cool, I asked her to design what it should look like.  She gladly broke out the markers and came up with this:

Her design made my decorating job easy.  Sarah was so proud at school on Friday, telling everyone she had been the artist behind the cake.

On Friday, Melissa was surprised to find that I had had the foresight to smuggle a couple of birthday presents for her into our luggage two months ago.  One was a Christmas ornament for this year with a family photo taken this summer by our West Virginia friend, Kylee.

What a blessing for the whole family to be together at school for occasions like this.  Birthday cake is a big, BIG deal around here and everyone was pretty happy to get a bit of cake.

It's a BIG deal.

When we got home, even Madam Arnold (who helps us with work around the house each week) had gone all out to recognize Melissa's birthday.  She even set the lawn furniture up out front with its own flower arrangement.

The fun continued that evening with an invitation to dine with the Heckmans and Ayars out at Emmaus Seminary.  Melissa had requested Mexican food and Emily and Stacey had gone all out.

Even a cake with candles ... and ICE CREAM.

On Saturday morning, we hit Dhaloo Beach.  What a blessing this place is to us - an opportunity to get away and enjoy the beauty of God's creation and a bit of uninterrupted family time.

Usually the beach is quite empty, but this time there were a number of other folks there, including Enoch, a friend who recently became Hannah's piano teacher.  She got one entire lesson in before the hand injury!

Hannah didn't seem to mind more time with her Nook.  She's done even more reading than normal over this past week.  (The beach reading was nice, but I think she's found it especially enjoyable to read at home this week while her brothers are doing all the dish washing and drying and laundry folding around her.)

Meanwhile, her siblings got a lot of extra exercise.  

And we were ALL reminded again just how blessed we are.

SCENTS AND SENSIBILITY

Some of my posts get rather long-winded and this one was in danger of falling into the same trap.  But then I realized what I had to share was a simple truth about GOD'S poetry in this amazing country of Haiti and I would best state it simply:

When I first came here (four years ago this month) and again when Melissa and I brought the kids in 2011 and yet again when we moved our family here over a year ago, I could not help but notice (and gag a bit) at the smells of burning trash and open sewers. Those scents were not by any means omnipresent, but when a breeze brought one, it seemed inescapable.

Now?

Well, last week a visitor made a comment about the amount of garbage smoke and other unpleasant smells and it occurred to me that those odors really don't register with my nose any longer - not on any regular basis.  And I don't know why.  I guess I kind of assumed people weren't burning trash as much.  (Which is goofy - there's nothing else you can do with it here.)

Later that same evening, I was taking Buddy for a run around the mission grounds to expend some of his puppy energy and as I came down the gravel road behind some of the houses, I inhaled deeply and thought, "Man, I love this smell."

Even as I sit at the kitchen table right now and type this, the same scent is wafting in through the screens of the windows.  It's a flowery perfume that permeates the air.  It IS omnipresent around here - at least in the evenings and early mornings.  It smells a bit like lilac, only softer.  And it's not produced by a particular flower - apparently (as it's been explained to me by good sources) it is produced by entire trees.  

It has become one of my favorite smells in this entire world - right up there with bacon.  Seriously.  THAT is how much I love it.

And since we returned to Haiti in late August to begin our second year here, after a summer in the States, I have noticed it just about EVERY DAY.  And each time I smell it, even if my feet are moving, I at least mentally pause and am reminded about the beauty of God's world. Each time.

And now I recognize this "tree perfume" as one of God's graces for Haiti.

And one of His graces for me.

And how beauty quietly lingers and grows stronger while ugliness fades steadily to a shadow is a mystery to all but God.  

It's His specialty.

FORGIVENESS 101

I got taken back to the basics this week.  And I still have a lot to learn.

Wednesday was a great day.  After school, all the OMS folks loaded up in several vehicles and headed out to Petit Anse, just on the other side of the airport, where our dear friend Pastor Storly Michel was presiding over a dedication ceremony marking the end of a huge two year process.  Petit Anse is where the transmitting towers of Radio 4VEH stand and Storly is the station manager.  Just a few months ago, the two towers were rusting away and the radio staff as well as visiting experts were fearful that a strong wind could send them crashing onto nearby houses. Much worse, from an eternal perspective, was the fact that the towers were operating at about 10% of capacity.  Sadly, so many people were unnecessarily missing out on the eternity-changing biblical teaching and gospel sharing of Radio 4VEH.

But Wednesday, we all praised God as we stood beneath brand new towers and Storly and several other key players threw the switch and the radio signal went out once again at full power.

I snapped pictures of Storly as he stood behind a small lectern, reciting a long list of people to thank. Pictures of the gathered crowd joyfully singing.  Pictures of the large tent where a group of people had lived for the last several weeks as they finished the work.  Pictures of all the tools required for the project, now hanging quietly in the tent.  Pictures of our kids standing beneath the 200 foot tower.

This post would have been me sharing those pictures ... if not for the ride home.

Melissa and I were in good spirits for the half hour drive in our white pickup.  Our kids had decided to ride in the big truck with their friends and a visiting mission team, leaving Melissa and I alone for the ride.

The new radio towers were big news for OMS and the Kingdom, but the big news in Cap Haitien the last few weeks has been the renovation of the airport and American Airlines beginning daily direct flights.  As part of a big push for renewed tourism, the government has also begun clearing away hundreds of ramshackle houses and businesses lining a good half mile or so of the waterfront just outside the airport, opening up a gorgeous view of the oceans and distant mountains.  (Most Haitians we have talked to see it as a very positive sign of progress and we're told that the people who were displaced were given compensation for their property.)

Well, Wednesday evening the area was full of activity: earth moving equipment, workers, scavengers and gawkers.  Melissa and I were gawkers.  And, of course, I pulled my phone off my belt clip as we crawled along in traffic and asked Melissa to roll down her window and take some pictures as I drove.

Just as we hit a curve where the new view really opened up in a spectacular way, there was a loud thumping sound from Melissa's side of the truck.  I glanced over to see two men on a motorcycle right outside the window and for a second I feared that I had somehow clipped the cyclist with my mirror.

But then Melissa screamed, "They took your phone!" And the motorcycle zipped in front of our truck and was several car lengths in front of us before the reality sunk in to my brain.  I tried to pull around the truck in front of me to catch up with the thieves, but it was apparent that my truck was not going to squeeze between traffic the way the motorcyclist could and they were quickly out of sight.

You need to understand that I LOVED that phone.  And I am not one to be too attached to material possessions.  There are only two other objects you could steal from me to get me anywhere near as upset - my laptop and my pocket video projector.  And they are a distant second and third.

It was a Samsung Galaxy S4 and I had it for just over a year.  It was my first smartphone and my first venture into the wonderful world of "apps".  It was my watch, my calendar, my contact list, my Facebook portal, my Bible, and my flashlight.  And, now and then, my phone. Always at my side, hanging on my nerdy belt clip.

But more than anything else, it was my camera. I have always loved taking pictures, but, over the course of this past year, having an excellent digital camera ever-handy in such a beautiful and unusual place as Haiti has turned me into an insatiable photographer.

So I confess that my heart towards the thieves was far from Christlike.  Especially in those first few minutes after the incident, I found myself fighting the urge to swerve into every motorcyclist on the road.  The following morning I awoke at 2:00 am, grinding my teeth over my loss.  I replayed the robbery over and over in my mind with various new and better endings.  I was told later by a Haitian friend that if we had yelled, "Thief!", perhaps some bystanders along the side of the road would have jumped the cyclists, pulled them to the pavement and beaten the snot out of them.  Imagining that scene brought a smile to my face.

But somewhere in the midst of my heart's grumblings over the last few days, the Lord reminded me of a short story my students and I had recently read at Cowman.  It was a Langston Hughes piece called "Thank You, M'am" which relates a tale of a middle-aged woman in Harlem, Mrs. Jones, who is the victim of a botched purse snatching. The would-be thief, Roger, stumbles and fall in his escape, allowing Mrs. Jones the opportunity to put him in a strangle hold and drag him back to her apartment.  There she feeds him, washes him up, and eventually sends him flabbergasted on his way with a ten dollar bill and an admonition: "Next time, do not make the mistake of latching onto my pocketbook nor nobody else’s ... I got to get my rest now. But I wish you would behave yourself, son, from here on in.”

In class, we explored the parallels between Hughes' story and the story in John 8 of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery: "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more." 

The fictional Mrs. Jones was no doubt Christ-like towards the one who wronged her. Me?  I was feeling nothing BUT condemnation towards "those who had sinned against me".  

And that brought me to The Lord's Prayer, which I have been trying to use lately as a model for my own prayer life.  It struck me that to pray "forgive me my sins as I forgive those who have sinned against me" was putting me on spiritually dangerous ground!  

The solution, of course, wasn't to avoid praying that sentence.  The solution was to forgive the thieves.

And that's when I realized I was back in "Forgiveness 101".  I long for the day when, by God's grace, forgiveness is my heart's default mode. 

If, as YOU ponder forgiveness, the Lord brings a name to mind, I urge you to pray it through, get to the bottom of the wrong itself and then forgive from the center of your heart.  It's a much better place to live.   

****************************************************

P.S. Fortunately, I had my phone programmed to upload all my pictures to the internet anytime it had a wifi connection, so I didn't lose tons of photos - just the ones from Wednesday afternoon. 

 Here's the last picture to upload. As we sat outside the office Wednesday afternoon before heading to the radio towers, I snapped a picture of Sarah (right), her friend Kristina (left), and a brand new friend, Faith (middle). Faith's family just arrived this past Tuesday and her dad will be the mission's new maintenance guy while her mom will be teaching English and helping out in other ways to be determined.  We welcome the Demerchants to OMS Haiti! 

Three 7-year-old princesses living in the same neighborhood?  Could be trouble!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMUEL!

Samuel turned 11 yesterday.  Somehow, each fall Melissa and I get busy with the start of a new school year and his October 4th birthday sneaks up on us unawares.  But THIS YEAR we had some gifts sent in via Amazon days in advance, so we were pretty proud of ourselves.  AND both grandmas sent packages through the mail, arriving the day before. We also did our research on food requests and birthday activities ahead of time.  We were so glad his big day fell on a Saturday this year, giving us plenty of time to celebrate.

Samuel's first celebration request was my kind of activity - free!  He wanted to climb the mountain behind our house.  We had a quick Saturday morning breakfast and then Caleb, Samuel and I left our house at 8:00 for Ruysdael and Johnny's neighborhood so that they and Mikenn could take over as our hiking guides.

 

Samuel stopped outside Johnny's house to pet Buddy's mother.

It was a cloudless, clear day ... by which I mean "it was stinking HOT".  But the views were great.  We had ample opportunity to enjoy the views since we were stopping every five minutes for a rest.

And who was begging for stops the most?  The birthday boy.  Early on, I asked him, "So whose idea was this anyway?"

His answer: "Some dumb kid's."

Look at the pain on his face after about 45 minutes:



So, needless to say, we didn't actually make it to the top.  I hear THAT hike can take up to four hours.  We made it to what Mikenn called "the first floor".  



And once we hit this point, the path leveled out and it was easy walking, so we decided to explore the area a bit before we headed back down.  We found an avocado tree just LOADED with the biggest avocados I have ever seen.  The boys knocked a couple out of the tree with rocks.

Samuel got a bit adventurous and poked around inside an abandoned house.  When he opened the door, a bat flew past our heads.  Mikenn said there was evidence of voodoo practice inside.

Outside, we found the largest hermit crab I have ever seen.

And a small tree snake.

And a boy riding a donkey bare butt! Can't be comfortable.

 And a little natural spring.

And a boy who was there for work, not pleasure.

All in all, we took our time and enjoyed the views and gulped our water and looked for shade - both coming and going.

While we were out, his sisters and a couple of the Bundy girls decorated the living room for Samuel's birthday party.

After lunch, Grandma Trudy Skyped while Samuel opened some presents.

And Caleb enjoyed some of the candy corn Grandma Gross sent in a care package.  

For his birthday dinner, Samuel had requested chicken nachos. The only problem was that we had no tortilla chips.  I went into Cap Haitien in the afternoon in a vain attempt to find some chips.  As a last resort, Melissa spent about two and a half hours making tortilla chips from scratch - another culinary first for us.  Samuel was duly grateful.

 

We made up some of that time by not decorating a cake.  This birthday boy doesn't care for cake.  A pan of brownies is more to his liking.

We are so very grateful for this wonderful kid - his faith, his kind heart, his sense of humor.  Melissa and I will be forever thankful that God has put him in our family and given us the privilege of being his parents.  

Happy birthday, Sammy!

P.S. We got word this week from my younger brother, Russ, that he and his family have purchased tickets to come visit for a week after Christmas!  We are so excited.  Maybe I can convince Uncle Russ to hike to the TOP.

We DO Like Spiders and Snakes

Just wanted to post a few pics from the last couple of weeks to show that life went on, even as some of us were under the weather.  (By the way, thanks for the many prayers - I was able to complete a full day back at school last Friday and I'm feeling good heading into this new week!) 

We got a package in the mail last week from our dear friends, the Bradburns.  The box was packed with autumn-themed goodies and decorations for the house.  This is so helpful since everything around us tends to scream Perpetual Summer and we always LOVED fall in Indiana, with its cool days and trips to pumpkin patches and apple orchards.  



You know what those orange things are on top?  Carve-able foam pumpkins.  How fun is that?

The Bradburns even included a couple of fake spiders from the Halloween aisle.  Samuel latched onto one of these immediately and started plotting mischief.  The funny thing is, a fake spider THIS SIZE will scare virtually NOBODY in Indiana.  But HERE??

Here, It's actually a whole lot more realistic.  Melissa yelped when she turned on the kitchen light that night and saw it on the countertop! And then last Friday when I came home to grab a book I had forgotten to take with me to school, Madam Arnold (our sweet friend who helps us with cleaning and laundry a few times a week) re-enacted for my enjoyment how she found the spider under one of the couch cushions, screamed and ran out of the house!  When she found her courage, she poked it with a broom handle for a moment or two before realizing it was a toy.

On one of the days I stayed home sick from school, I was preparing to take a(nother) nap when I heard a bizarre little scream repeating from the backyard.  Curiosity drove me to check it out.  I found this beautiful green snake swallowing a terrified frog on the floor of our shed. 



The snake was so preoccupied with his lunch that he was fairly easy to catch.  I put him in a tote and was excited to take him into school the next day for a bit of show and tell.  

Many Haitians will run the opposite direction of a snake as quickly as possible, but we had a young visitor from Canada who wasn't afraid to handle it.



Eventually we let the snake go in our backyard where I found him.  We've not had any problems with rats inside our house over the past year and at least part of the credit goes to him, undoubtedly.

A FEW OTHER ODDS AND ENDS:

COWMAN:  I was feeling good enough after skipping school all day last Thursday, to meet my students' parents during Cowman's Open House that evening.  We had a fantastic turnout.  I was able to share info with the parents about improvements I am making this year to grade tracking and parent/teacher communication. AND we began discussing what does Cowman 9th Grade look like starting next year?  There's never been such a thing before!

BABY SHOWER: Melissa hosted a baby shower for Cheyenne, a sweet young lady who has been working at Emmaus Biblical Seminary over the past year with her husband Ryan.  This will be their first child and everyone is so excited for them!

MIKENN: My illness reminded us that Cowman could really use a substitute teacher.  Mikenn's medical school doesn't start until October and even once it does, there may be time in his schedule here and there to work elsewhere.  So I thought he might make a good candidate.  I was able to help him work up a first resume and print it off.  We'll see if anything comes of it.

WEED TEA: I'm not a big fan of tea of any sort - I usually joke that tea uses the same recipe as a mud puddle - dead leaves in water - but without the dead worms.  But when Madam Arnold graciously went out of her way to collect some leaves from our yard that she said would help my cough, I had to try it. 

The flavor was ... distinct. 

But I have to admit, it helped the cough.

AVOCADO SEASON: Avocados are one of a handful of foods cheaper in Haiti than in the States.  But it's feast or famine!  The trees are loaded with them right now and my three Haitian sons have helped pick us quite a few.

Break out the Mexican recipes!



A bowl of guacamole this size would cost $20 in the U.S.



The trade off?  We spent an hour and a half making our own tortillas from scratch!  I'll be looking into getting a tortilla press for Christmas...

A TRYING WEEK

It was a rough week for about half our household - Melissa and I and our littlest one.  I've been fighting a sinus infection (again!) and an all night rain moved it down into my lungs last Sunday night.  By 1:00 am on Monday morning, my breathing was so labored it woke me up - and then kept me awake until it was time to push the family out the door to school.  I taught throughout the day on Monday, but you'd have to ask my students if any of it made sense.  
By Monday night, Sarah was running a temperature.  That was the beginning of three days of spiking fevers, irritability, headaches, and finding ALL of Daddy's jokes entirely unamusing. 

Melissa and I took turns staying home from school with her throughout the week.  The low point came when I was subjected to a "Spy Kids" marathon: the original and three sequels.  

(The "Spy Kids" movies ARE educational - if you want to learn how to make mind-numbingly stupid children's movies.)

I'm exaggerating. The actual low point came in the last 24 hours when Melissa and I saw Sarah go through a complete loss of appetite for food AND drink, repeated vomiting when Mommy and Daddy tried to force the issue - losing three and a half pounds in the process.  (Which for this little girl represents about 10% of her body weight.)  The only things that brought her any comfort were several loooooong showers, seated on a lawn chair and letting the warm water run over her.  

In the midst of all of our anxieties Wednesday night over Sarah's health, we called in our resident nurse and then our doctor for consultation and reassurance.  (Both are such a blessing to us!) Dr, Rodney followed me up in the dark after I knocked on his front door at 9:30.  He told us that if Sarah continued to throw up, she would need an IV.  He gave her some anti-nausea medication and he waited with us the 20 minutes for it to take effect.  Then Melissa fed Sarah some crackers and water.  

And it all promptly came right back up.  

All the while, Sarah was begging to go to sleep.  We told Dr. Rodney that we would be seeing him in the morning if we couldn't get liquid into her overnight.  

Sarah woke in the middle of the night crying and babbling about being afraid of the "people who are trying to take our house back" and, a few minutes later, a concern over some "meanness in her own heart."  We took it to be the leftovers of a bad dream and/or the justifiable incoherence of a feverish 7 year old at 2:00 am. 

When morning finally came, Melissa and I kept dragging our feet on getting an IV started because the whole thought made Sarah so anxious.  And yet, she still couldn't keep anything down in general - although Melissa did get a dose of an antibiotic into her in case the illness was bacterial.  Otherwise, every little sip of juice and every crumb of food resulted in stomach pain and, ultimately, rejection.  

In the afternoon, Sarah was once again in the lawn chair soaking under the shower head when she turned and announced, "Satan has been torturing me."

Now, please understand that I've never heard anything even close to this phrasing coming out of any of our children's mouths, and certainly not my little blond second grader with the two missing front teeth.  Like the rational western church culture we were raised in, we're not a family that talks much about the devil and demons and such.  

So I asked, "By that do you mean that you feel so bad that it must be the devil's fault?"

Nope.  It was a "mean voice" in her head that would now and then "yell" things at her, she explained. It had started the previous day, often speaking specifically whenever she held something in her hands.

Melissa and I figured we were dealing with either dehydration-related hallucinations or spiritual warfare.  Maybe both - who knows how these things work?  Either way, it was a matter for family prayer.  Before bedtime on Thursday evening, the six of us held hands in the living room and looked to the Lord for guidance and healing and protection.  

Whatever the root causes of the fever and headaches and grouchiness and mean voices, Sarah turned the corner that evening, so happy to have avoided the dreaded IV.  There was one more incident in the middle of the night where she cried out and when I came running to her bedside she told me that the voice was "torturing" her again.  But she quickly fell back to sleep and by morning, she was 100% her old self, to God's glory!

Her brothers and sister were happy to have the old Sarah back. Mom and Dad were flat out RELIEVED.

It was a long week, but it was a good reminder for us as a family to be vigilant in prayer.  We KNOW that so many of you are praying for us as we serve here in Haiti - some on a daily basis even.  We are SO thankful!  We can never have too many prayers!


P.S. - My sinus infection continues - entering its third week now!  It's a nuisance that saps my strength and makes me grumpy.  My family would appreciate you lifting my health in prayer. ;-)