One year ago today...Haiti changes everything

It seems like forever ago.  Really, almost like it never happened.  One year ago, on New Years Day, I left my family at the airport(I was sobbing I might add) and hopped a plane for Haiti.  It was the most ridiculous of circumstances, the kind you don't ever plan for--which can end up the best kind!  I copied and a pasted a paragraph from the post on 12/29 when I found out for sure I'd be going.

You guys will NOT believe this. Literally, God dropped a 1/3 priced short term mission trip in my lap. Basically, we've been praying and starting a little savings for a mission trip. We just figured I'd be going back to Nicarauga since I loved it there. But, some friends of ours lead teams to Haiti several times a year. This morning I found out that someone on their team backed out and I got a spot with a free flight!!!!!!! So, in about 3 hours, we made the decision to jump in. I fly out this Friday night. CRAZY I know, but you all know I'm a bit wild anyway.

You know, I'd seen poverty before.  I'd been on mission trips to Mexico and Nicarauga(nicarauga is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere).  I'd been to Seoul and Jamaica(got offered drugs there too!).  Poverty, orphans, missions and such--my kind of deal.  BUT, Haiti changes everything. 

 I'm not sure how to describe it.  Haiti is a caucophony of experiences:  beautiful land, stripped bare land, beautiful colors, demolished concrete and rebar, the awful congestion in PortauPrince and total chaos, people who are boisterous and loud and dramatic with enormous smiles and laughter, people who love Jesus and know how to live for Him sooooooo much better than most people here in the States, poverty like none I'd seen, orphans everywhere(we were at an orphanage supported by Americans and certainly one of the nicest and it was bare concrete with 62 children overseen by 2 nannies), horrible lack of medical care, no infrastructure, hardly any access to clean water.   Half of the people are literate, 86 children out of 1000 die before reaching age 5(sorry, I'd messed that statistic up earlier), almost half of ALL people drink contaminated water.

I loved the trip.  I was terrified, thrilled, exhausted, pumped up, encouraged, devastated and heartbroken all at the same time. 

It isn't FAIR!

3 days after I landed, the earthquake hit.  I stood dumbfounded in front of the TV and cried a flood of tears.  My new friends, who risked their lives for our safety in an out of control mob, the very kind and smart friends who have NOTHING and NO WAY of helping themselves, were suffering terribly.  While I sat in my spacious and warm house with a plethera of food and clean water--they suffered.  A country only a few hours from Miami in this shape.  It shouldn't be.  I'm much more bold now and I'll tell you why I think so many Americans don't want to be confronted with the suffering and don't want to get involved:   because they are black and their culture is very different from us.  There, I said it, I think most of us are racist!!!!

If it were a neat and orderely country full of white people, I bet your bottom dollar that people would flood to help Haiti all the time.

Honestly, I didn't do anything at all for the people I touched while there.  O sure, we played and loved on orphans, we distributed little shoeboxes full of trinkets, we passed out medicines and rice, we cleaned and bandaged wounds, we read the story of Jesus and told the children Jesus had a plan for their lives.  But, really, did it make a lasting difference?  I am not arrogant enough to think it did.  The orphans have American groups coming and going.  They have learned how to act adorable and beg for candy--and see the women fall in love with that one special child who makes a connection--for 5 days and then is gone.  The medical needs were FAR more complex than the penicillin and de-worm meds I had to to give. 

What it did for me? 

Changed

Eyes opened

Heart broken

Bold

Angry at injustice

Determined

Grateful

Just a few words to describe me now.  A fantastic sermon by Andy Stanley when he was a guest speaker at Passion City Church a few months ago(please go get it on iTunes--it was incredible) had one of the best lines to sum it up.  He said "awareness brings about discontentment."  This works both ways.  You can be shopping in the mall and become aware of all the new styles and then become discontent.  Or, you can be in a 3rd world country and see a little boy with Down Syndrome who has zero access to medical care or education and will likely die early or end up institutionalized and  you become discontent to go about your life like you've never seen those sufferings.

That's what has happened to us.

I'm starting school Feb 28th because of Haiti.  I felt so ill-equipped as a nurse in the clinics and wanted to be able to do more.  I have to finish my BSN, which will take 13 months.  Then I'll start the masters program to become a Family Nurse Practitioner.  I have no excuses not to do this and it would be a huge shame if I turned it down.  My hospital pays for our advanced education.  I'm reading a book right now, "Half The Sky" and it documents the horrible crimes committed against women.  The biggest way to help these women is give them an education so they don't get victimized(honor killings, genital cuttings, sex slavery, child marriages).  Here I am, offered a free one, and I don't want to do it because it will be a lot of work! 

If you have time, please go to the Labels tab on the uppper right of the blog and read about the Haiti trip.

Christmas post 2(long)

How do you live your life according to the words of Jesus without being "weird"?  Is that possible? I come by being weird honestly- I grew up weird.  From the time I was about 3 until I was 14, we attended a very strict and conservative non-denominational church.  Think of lots of denim jumpers, no makeup, supposed to live humbly, girls don't talk to boys, give your every dollar and spare minute to the church kind of place.  We didn't celebrate Christmas like others. 

We knew Santa was fictitious and not Scriptural.  I was the obnoxious 3rd grader telling kids at school that Santa wasn't real :) I know, you are shocked that sweet lil o me would do that!  We had no tree, no elves, no lights, no Santas, no reindeer.   Our grandparents celebrataed Christmas traditionally and my parents enjoyed taking us to their homes for Christmas fun.

There were certainly wonderful aspects of being in this church.  For example, they were multicultural before it was cool(think early 80's).  We had close friends who were Hispanic, Chinese, African-American.  Some of my favorite Christmas time memories are when our family would host several single ladies from Taiwan for the big church training during the Christmas break.  We had a blast.  They'd play with us and cook.  I grew up speaking a good deal of Spanish too.  We always had extra people in our home and we grew up feeling comfortable with all races.  Anybody in the church who needed a place to stay--they were welcome to move in a while.  We kids would make big pallets in the walk in closet and voila--instant extra bedroom.

My parents left that church when I was 14.  We found much more freedom and joy in a more mainstreamed type of body of believers.  Christmas appeared at my house and boy did it go over big!  We went ALL OUT!  Tacky sweatshirts, tree, lights, carols, Christmas dishes, driving around looking at lights while singing(think Griswolds here), holiday movies, etc.. 


Fast forward to now. I feel torn between 2 worlds.  I want my kids to have fun, feel like they belong in the world and yet.....a part of me wants them to feel weird.  Anyone understand this?  Jesus was weird!  In Luke chapter 9 we says some radical things like:
If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.
24"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.
25"For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself?

Society rulers thought he was nuts.  If our family blends in with society and isn't considered "weird", then most likely, we are not living according to Jesus' words and  and we are having zero impact in the world around us. 

If being weird is having a pared down Christmas and not glorifying Santa--then we want to be weird.

If being weird is giving money, resources, time, help to others and the church--then we want to be weird

If not watching sexual shows or letting our teens car date is weird--then we want to be weird.

 If staying married to one person through good and bad times is weird--we want to be weird.

  If adopting children without parents who don't look like us and not having as much stuff, free time, etc  is weird--then we want to be weird.

Really, I'm confused and a tad stressed about all this.  I remember feeling so different from my friends at school and wanting to just be "normal"!!  I don't want my kids struggling with that.  BUT, Mike and I do not want to settle for  normal!  hhhmmmm, makes me think of that cheesy song from the 70's "if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right."

Sing-a-long

FIRST:  Scroll way down to the far right had side to pause my music player so you can hear the video.  The video quality is poor since I was using our regular digital camera.  But, this video portrays our wacky family Christmas sing-a-long and how much fun it was.  Dillon embelished his part.  Carter is the nutty 10 Lords a Leapin that you hear yelled out. 

Christmas pics

The boys listening to Abby read the Christmas story

Abby was so excited to give daddy the wallet she got.  She kept wanting him to open it early.

Dillon with his new bike(with a spedometer on it!!).  It is in the shower because we had a treasure hunt for him to find it.  The last clue was "Look where Carter gets clean."  Such fun.  When he pulled the curtain back and saw it he yelled "Thank you Carter."  Uh--wrongo--that was from us!

Me with my darling neice Kylie at my mother's side of the familiy Christmas. 

 

Christmas day Mike took the kids to his mothers.  I worked :(  They had fun riding the mule in the country with Nana and the cousins.

Holiday season update

Happy Birthday Jesus

 

Yep, it is Christmas Eve and I'm blogging.  Therapy for me really.  Santa came to our house last night, since he knows mommy works tomorrow.  We told the kids they couldn't wake us up til 6:30 and  low and behold--Abby "thought" her clock said 6:30am, when in fact, it said 5:30 am!

We've had fun today going to church(Mike let Hudson hold the little candle and I was terrified he'd light the man in front of us on fire).  Then we had a party with my mother's side of the family.  The kids were pooped out and I'm about to hit the hay.  Mike got me 3 new books that I'm dying to dive into:  The Ragamuffin Gospel, Half the Sky, and I am Nujood, age 10 and divorced.  Only problem is that Mike just flipped the channel and Pretty In Pink is on--my all time FAVORITE!!

   So happy to report:  

 we didn't swipe one single time this holiday season!!  And, yesterday I sent the last of Carter's ER payments.  Dave Ramsey debt snowball---here we come!!!!!!

And, as for our Christmasing, we have 4 events down, and 1 to go.  Actually, I'll be working tomorrow(seems people have lots of heart attacks on Christmas).  It's stinks sometimes to be an ICU nurse, but it's okay, I've had my fill of fun Christmas events--and let me declare here, they've been a blast(food, fellowship, music, toys, friends and family, tacky clothing and such).  I'll make a fat check this week with critical shortage differential(we are short staffed) and holiday pay.  I think I'll survive missing out on one last Christmas get together. 

In a few days I'll post some pics of the last few events.  I'm also working on a long post about why I'm so weird--especially at Christmas time :)

Christmas fun

We kicked off our first Christmas celebration at Mike's Grandma's house.  Fun times with cousins.  They played for hours and hours with their new toys. 

Christmas celebration number 2 at my parent's house. We had a tacky Christmas outfit contest!  Mike's sweater was hideous,but an almost exact replica of one he wore when we first dated as seen above.  Don't ask me why I wore clothing 3 sizes too large or white hose with red satin shoes!  Hey, it was 1992!

The whole tacky family!  The funny thing was that my mom and sister, Emily, bought their sweaters at resale shops.  When checking out, the salespeople exclaimed over how cute they were :)  My brothers-in-law looked AWFUL---slicked hair, awful sweaters and sweatshirts including one with a Christmas tree made of stacked cows!!  Abby was in the spirit and wore Uncle Wayne's obnoxious snowman tie.

Anybody have a little more room?

My sister Melody, the one involved in foster care, told us a heartbreaking little story about a sweet 10yr girl needing a family ASAP. She's been in foster care for a long time now.  Her parental rights are being terminated anyday.  She will be free and clear for adoption.  The little girl told Melody "I'm going to be on a bulletin board!"
 This excited her. 
It broke our hearts.  A 10yr old girl, excited to be have her picture on a bulletin board because she needs a forever family.

I've been around this child twice now.  She's darling, engaging, loving, super affectionate, healthy, smart, and basically---terrific.  Pray about calling this blonde sweetie your daughter.  It will be a free adoption through the state.
Here is a poem written from a waiting child's perspective.

The Waiting Child

By Debbie Bodie

I saw you meet your child today

You kissed your baby joyfully

And as you walked away with him

I played pretend you'd chosen me.

I'm happy for the baby, yet

Inside I'm aching miserably

I want to plead as you go by,

"Does no-one want a child of three?"

I saw you meet your child today

In love with her before you met

And as I watched you take her out

I knew it wasn't my turn yet.

I recognize you from last year!

I knew I'd seen your face before!

But you came for a second babe.

Does no-one want a child of four?

I saw you meet your child today

But this time there was something new

A nurse came in and took MY hand

And then she gave my hand to you.

Can this be true? I'm almost six!

And there are infants here, you see?

But then you kissed me and I knew

The child you picked this time was me.

Copyright 1997