Well, this container that came today did not go as smoothly as the last one did, but it was not bad.  One of the big container trucks kept over heating and also had a flat tire!  We finally got both trucks unloaded and into the new barn about 4 PM.  It was a long day and tomorrow we get to do another one!

Saturday, we may try to get things sorted a little so that on Monday, we ca n start making up more bags to give away to people.  We will also give some things to other orphanages and clinics that are needing supplies.

This container had a nice selection of items.  There are lots of shoes, diapers, baby formula, food, clothing, personal hygiene items, medication, and lots of miscellaneous items.  We should be able to make up some nice bags to give out.

Dave Williams, who has been in charge of distributions, left on Wednesday for 3 weeks in the States.  I really really missed him today!  I am very thankful for the volunteers and the work team that we have here at the present time.  It helps so much having lots of hands to help unload these containers!

Pray for us as we receive the container tomorrow.  Pray that all goes well.

In these photos you can see how nice the new driveway looks paved!  It was so nice getting the trucks to the barn with the new pavers offering a firm surface to work on!

Tuesday, we distributed 250 bags of relief items to J/P HRO (Haitian Relief Organization).  This organization run by Sean Penn and is located in Petion-ville.  They are in charge of a tent city of 55,000 people.  They have 8 clinics there and they do not look like they are getting a lot of donations for the residents of the tent city.We still have 132 more bags to take down this week.  We did not have room to take them all at one time. 

Each bag includes a hygiene kit, shoes, towels, clothing, some over the counter medications, and anything else they could find to put in the bags.  The person we talked to in administration at the camp were very grateful that we came with supplies and they were already sorted into bags.  They liked the idea that they could just take a bag and hand it to a needy family without having to sort and bag everything up themselves! 

Finally, we received word that two containers that were delivered in early March have been released by customs!!!  Hurray!

One container was delivered to the warehouse in Port-au-Prince late this afternoon and my team of workers will be there early in the morning to see it unloaded and taken to Fort Jacques. 

The other container will arrive at the warehouse tomorrow and then we will unload it and send everything to Fort Jacques on Friday.  It is just too difficult to unload two containers in one day so we will split them up into two days.

Then next week, we hope 2 more come out!  That will be great!

  Matthew Huff, an up and coming country music artist, and Micah Shane, a music artist from Florida, put on a great concert.  Every one there enjoyed it.  Both musicians and their bands came out in support of GLA and Haiti.  They put on the concert free f charge, so that the children would benefit!

Many people worked hard to make  the concert happen.  This is the first time, our office has put on a concert like this.  Five cities have contacted RS Express Enterprises asking if we would come to their cities and put on a concert to benefit GLA and the children of Haiti!  Our staff learned many things this time and made great contacts.  A church of about 2,000 members helped get things ready and we hope that they will send a work team to Haiti to help the mission build or distribute supplies.

The staff also met a Tennessee Congressman who said if GLA ever does another concert in Tennessee that we needed to contact his office.  He would try to help us in any way he could!

Unfortunately, due to high heat and lots of other festivals and concerts in Johnson City the same weekend, a large crowd did not come out to enjoy the concert.  The fundraising team will be sure to check which weekend would be best for the next concert!

  One of our adoptive families from  around Nashville came with their 4 children adopted from GLA along with their 3 other children.  Eric Noah-Wilson brought the children while Natalie, his wife, had to work that day.  The kids got up on the stage and told the audience that the next day was their 3 year anniversary of arriving in the States!  They said they were happy and they were a family.  Everyone in the crowd had tears in their eyes after listening to them talk!

We have a wonderful team of 11 volunteers here at  GLA right now.  Part of the group worked at Fort Jacques and part worked here at the main house and painted and worked with the children. They have really worked hard sorting boxes from the container that came out last week.  Dave, our volunteer from Australia, has supervised them and they prepared 375 sacks of donations to distribute to a tent city.

Today, all of the children went up to the balcony and the nursery rooms were cleaned, scrubbed, and painted.  I sent Molly and Joyce down last week to buy paint and told them they could pick the colors.   They decided to paint each room 2 colors and did not tell me, so I was quite surprised when I walked in and saw the rooms!  But they are beautiful and it turned out looking very nice.

Hopefully, they will get the other rooms painted tomorrow.  It is so nice to see the rooms painted and clean!  With our new cribs donated through Bethany Christian Adoptions, the rooms are beautiful!

The  children all stayed on the balcony and played and even took their naps together on the floor.  In the afternoon, it rained a lot.  We hear there is a tropical storm here in the Caribbean and it has rained a lot the last few days.  I do not remember another rainy season like this one in the last 19 years!  We have received a LOT of rain!

I had visitors today who wanted to know a little about starting a mission in Haiti and wanted to see an American run orphanage. They were helping a Haitian run orphanage in Carrefour.  It is always difficult to know what to tell someone about what is needed here.  I gave told them what I thought just from my experiences but told them to be open to God’s will and God will open doors and show them what they should be doing.

This morning, Ernst got a call from our agent getting our containers out of customs and he told Ernst that we needed to send people to the port in Port-au-Prince for an inspection of 3 containers!  There was a strike today for public servants but one customs agent said he would inspect one of the containers today and the other two tomorrow.  So Ernst, Erick, Wadson, Patrick, and Dave hurried to Port-au-Prince to unload the container and let the customs agent inspect each and every box on the container!  This container has several kitchen appliances on it along with washers and dryers to replace some of our appliances that are worn out.

The heat was 105 F (40.5 C) and very humid today at the  Port!  Patrick came back to the house exhausted and dehydrated!  All of the guys looked a little worse for wear when they returned to the orphanage.  They are NOT looking forward to going to the port again tomorrow but they have to!  They will hopefully get there earlier tomorrow and take lots of water with  them!

We finally received 6 passports for children going to French families!  What a journey this has been for all of us!  We are so thankful that these children will be joining their “forever” families very soon!

Look how big Jerrensia is getting! We have had problems getting passports for some of the children with medical issues.  Their parents lost all of their identification papers during the earthquake and it has been very difficult to replace any lost papers.  Hopefully, we are almost done getting the paperwork ready for Jerrensia and Ken.

I would like to invite you to all come out and help support GLA during a concert in Johnson City, Tennessee, sponsored by RS Express Enterprises, Inc. Friends of Olde Downtown & Thunder in the Mountains.

FRIDAY 23 JULY:

3PM – 6PM

On Friday the 23rd God’s Littlest Angels is having a Haiti relief charity motorcycle poker run. Time 3pm – 6pm Friday afternoon/early evening. We have 5 sponsors, 4 stops & 5 prizes. 1^st place is $100.00 & 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th & 5^th place graduates down as to value of prize. There is a 10 dollar entry fee. Prizes awarded prior to concert.

(I do not have the starting point of this run yet, I am waiting for my contact in Johnson City to relay this to me.)

6PM-10:30PM

GLA has the pleasure of working with Matthew Huff whose new single, Back Again, is now in spot 55 on the country music charts and climbing every week! Matthew will also be joining us at our September 18^th fundraiser being held in Colorado Springs. He will be performing in concert on the evening of Friday 23 July to help GLA raise money and gather supplies for the babies, children and families of Haiti who are still struggling since the January 12^th earthquake.

The concert will be held at the grassy, outdoor amphitheatre area near the former NTARA building, located across from the Public Library and between West Millard and King Streets. The address is 112 W. King Street, Johnson City, TN 37604. The gate will open at 6pm and the concert will begin at 7:30pm. To gain entrance to the concert is easy… all each individual needs to bring are a donation. The donation can be monetary OR a gift in kind (diapers, formula, wet wipes, towels, deodorant, sheets, blankets, flashlights etc)

We would really love to see our Adoptive Families and the kids there. GLA children and their families will be invited to go back stage between our first artist’s show, Micah Shane from FL, and the second artist’s show, Matthew Huff, for a meet and greet with the artists and Rob and Mimi from the “Rob and Mimi “On Tour” on the Bus! show!

SATURDAY 24 July

9AM – 2PM

On Saturday the 24^th from 9am until 2pm we will be having a Bike Show at Fountain of Life Bible Church (118 Julie Lane, Johnson City, TN 37601). Registration will be from 9am until 12pm and trophies will be given at 2pm. There will be live music by Micah Shane and will be a great day for sure!

HOTELS: GLA has a group rate at the American Inn in Jonesborough TN.  It is $58 a night and if you call and say you are booking for the God’s Littlest Angels event you will receive this rate!

Their Web address is:

http://www.americinn.com/hotels/TN/Jonesborough?s_kwcid=jonesborough%20americ%20inn|4202749313

My Contact there is Nancy Lester who we wish to thank for giving us this amazing rate! 

Front Desk: 423-753-3100

376 East Jackson Blvd., 
Jonesborough, TN 37659

Anyone can contact Laurie at 719-338-7119 or Kati at 217-520-2210 with any questions. 

Please come out and show your support for God’s Littlest Angels and the people of Haiti!

Brandon, Patrick, Jean, Wadson, Ernst, and Erick all went down to Port-au-Prince early this morning.  They left our house at 6 AM.  They wanted to be at the warehouse where the container would be unloaded when they opened at 7:30 AM.

I thought they might be up to Fort Jacques shortly after noon.  Well, I received a call from John at 9 AM and he said the first truck was already on the road!  I could not believe it!  He said the 2nd truck was almost ready to go too!

Still, I thought with the horrible traffic that we have downtown that it would take them at least 2 hours to get up to Fort Jacques.  We left the main orphanage at 10:30 and the first truck was already at the property and almost completely unloaded!

The last time we had 2 containers come out at the  same time and it took forever.  People went and waited for 2 days before the containers came out and then it took us hours to unload them.  I believe it was 10 PM before we got home last time.

Well, we had both trucks unloaded in less than 2 hours!   We had lots of volunteers and all of male staff up helping and it went fast!  What a blessing the new pole barn (storage shed) is right now.  It is large enough to fit 2 or 3 containers worth of donations inside it.  It has a beautiful floor done with pavers.  The workers John hired are wonderful workers and they are doing a good job.  T hey are almost finished and should have it all done tomorrow.  This gives us a smooth, flat surface for stacking the boxes of donations.

Everyone formed a line and passed boxes to the back of the building.  Some of the boxes were terribly heavy.  I think some of the girls are going to have sore arms and backs tomorrow!  I just supervised.  With my back problems, I knew that I could not help lift boxes!

But I did help cook hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill for lunch.  My son, Patrick, also helped and actually took over cooking them.  I guess he thought he could do a better job than his mom!  Patrick and his wife, Holli, and their children, Jay Jay and Lilly June, are living at Fort Jacques now and are almost settled in the house.  There were mini blinds on the container for the house. It is a very good thing there was because I sent them measurements of the windows to buy curtains, and they did not know that they needed to add 2 to 3 times the width for each window so their curtains are not wide enough!  They are going to have to use the mini blinds and then put the curtains on the outside and leave them open.  Next time they will know! 

I arrived at the property at 11 AM and left at 1:45 PM!  Everything went so well.  John and his group of volunteers still had to finish the doors on the pole barn this afternoon before they could come home!  The doors are now finished and only need trim work.  They were able to lock them and secure all of the donations for the night.

Our team from Michigan leave tomorrow but another team of 11 volunteers come on Monday.  We will give them the job of sorting all of the donations and getting them ready for distribution to the community.  There were no tents on this container, but we know there are some on the next two coming out.  Hopefully, they will be delivered next week.

Do you remember Miloudrine?  Her papa came today with his brother and mother.  The family has made the decision to take Miloudrine home with them.  When the father brought her here after the earthquake, he told us that his mother could not help.  She was an old woman.  Well…she is not an old woman.  She looks to be in her 40’s and is very healthy. 

It is so difficult sometimes to believe what a parent tells us when they come.  They are desperate for someone to help with their child so they say whatever they need to say to have us take the child.  Sometimes they lie. 

I am very happy that the grandmother will take Miloudrine, but I wish the father had let us know that he changed his mind about her being adopted!  He told several people he did not want her to go for adoption back in May but he would not come and tell us.  He just wanted someone to take care of her for him!  I did not find out that he had changed his mind until a couple of weeks ago.  He had not visited her during her stay here.  I pray that the grandmother will take good care of her.

Here are some photos taken today during the unloading of the container.  Hope you enjoy seeing them.

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We have waited months to get another container out of customs.  My staff has worked hard to get these donations out so we can continue our distributions.  John and his crew have the pole barn almost done and hopefully will get it done tomorrow morning.

The container actually was delivered to a warehouse about noon today.  The Dutch organization, BND, is allowing us to unload the container in their warehouse.  We will put the donations into box trucks and take them to our property at Ft. Jacques. 

Our staff will be at the warehouse at 7:30 AM when they open and get started unloading the containers.  We hope to have the trucks at Ft. Jacques shortly after noon. Butt of course, nothing usually goes as planned in Haiti, but I am always hopeful!

I have been fearful for the last few days and even had weird dreams caused from stress about the 6 month anniversary of the earthquake.  All day long, I have been waiting for a repeat of the 12th of January or at least a small earthquake.  I kept telling myself that the fear was silly and I needed to stop worrying, but I could not stop!  Thankfully, I can say that at 11:10 PM we are still earthquake free for this day in Haiti!

I am watching my FAVORITE CNN report and it is good to see him reporting on what is going on in Haiti today.  Yes, I am watching Anderson Cooper!  I am waiting to see what he says about the orphans in the tent cities and what the plan is for them!  Depending on what he says, he may be my un-favorite reporter again!  I really do not blame Anderson for his reporting because he is seeing a small part of the problem and is looking at it only from January after the earthquake!

They say only 2% of the debris and rubble has been removed.  Experts say it may take 20 years to clean up the rubble!  I hope that is not true! There are still 1.5 million people who are homeless.  Foreign doctors have gone home and hospitals are ghost towns according to Anderson.  Medical Equipment is still in the hospitals but there is no one there to use it!  Some hospitals have closed since the earthquake.  They have no money to run them and they do not have the doctors to see the patients.  Haiti has always had a shortage of doctors.  They are saying that the hospitals and clinics need doctors and nurses to come.

I went downtown today to see an engineer about building homes for our staff and biological families.  It has not been easy getting rubble cleared away and it has been very costly too.  Hopefully, by Wednesday, I will have an idea of the cost of each house and how quickly we can get some houses put up.  I wanted houses built 4 months ago but have come to realize that it takes time to plan the right type of housing and housing that is safe.

The traffic was horrible.  Where did all of these people come from?  Wadson, one of the GLA staff, says there are so many people because everyone from downtown Port-au-Prince have moved to Delmas and Petion-Ville!  These areas were already overpopulated and now they are so much worse!  The heat also was oppressive.  Can you feature how hot it must be inside a tent?

My son, Patrick and his family arrived in Haiti tonight.  Patrick will be working with his dad building at Fort Jacques.  They will be living on the property.  Holli, his wife, will be in charge of volunteers when they are working at the main house.  John needs the help and I think having Patrick here will be great for the mission.

We have a large team from Hillcrest Church in Michigan.  They are spending their mornings doing Vacation Bible School for all of the children at the Toddler House and their afternoons working at the main house.  We are supposed to received 3 containers this week and if we do, they will help unload and sort the supplies for distribution!

God has been good to us and I continue to thank Him everyday for our donors, adoptive families, and those of you reading this blog and praying for everyone at GLA.  Without all of you, we could not continue to do the work that we do! 

Our work in Haiti is evolving into different areas.  We continue to care for orphans , but now also care for children who need short term help.  We are building houses and distributing supplies to earthquake victims. 

Where is God taking GLA?  I do not know.  I would love to have a crystal ball that told me everything I needed to know about the future, but I do not have one!  So, we will step on faith like we did when we first came to Haiti 19 years ago.  We will let God direct us in what we are supposed to do.  He will too!  He has led us down a path that is sometimes bumpy but always taken us in a direction that benefited the children of Haiti.  God’s ways are perfect!  I believe that and have faith that whatever path He sends us down, we will be in His will!

Berline was admitted to the nursery this week.  Her aunt brought her to the nursery.  Her mother died and her father is unknown.  The aunt is a friend of Magaly, my Haitian administrator, and called Magaly to ask if the orphanage could take Berline.

Berline is a cute baby girl and seems to be in good health.  Hopefully, once all of her lab work and psychological exam is done, Berline will be placed for adoption with one of our waiting families.

Friday afternoon, I received a call from Dr. Justine Crowley, who is the medical director at the J/P Haitian Relief Organization.  J/P HRO is the organization co-founded by the actor, Sean Penn. 

(Katia is in the green scrub top.  Jocelyne is holding Daniel.)

I had met Dr. Crowley at church last Sunday.  We were talking about our program for premature babies and she asked if she could send babies to us if needed.

Well, Friday, she called to tell me that she had a mother and child who refused to leave their clinic.  She was homeless and desperate and needed help.  At first the mother, Katia, told the clinic staff that she wanted to give them her baby, but then she just wanted help. 

Katia is a woman who has been educated.  She used to work in a bank.  She speaks Creole, French, and some English.  She is 44 years old and Daniel, her baby, is her one and only child.  Katia became involved with a man and he took her to Santo Domingo.  She became pregnant and came back to Haiti to have her baby.  Her family has turned her away because she has shamed her family because she got pregnant.

She cannot afford a home.  She and Daniel look to be in good shape.  I have not got all of the story yet, but hopefully, I will fully understand why all of a sudden she feels like she just cannot make it on her own anymore.  I think she is just exhausted trying to survive!  We will try to find a solution for Katia and Daniel and look for a way to get them into their own tent or house.

John, Brandon, Tim, Dave, George, George, Wilmond, and Jean have been working hard to get the pole barn up and ready for the next container that will come out hopefully, this coming week.  John hired a local crew of men to dig the foundation and level the land for the building.  They are also going to lay pavers inside the building to keep the supplies off of the ground. 

John had hoped to get it finished today but it will still take a few days longer to get it completely done.  It will be a nice and big building.  The only color of siding we could get was bright blue or bright red.  We chose the blue and it is definitely bright!

Here are some photos of the pole barn that I took today.

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