Hi all,

I got the list below from Susan and I wanted to post it here as quickly as possible.

If you can help with any of those items, please send them directly to our Colorado office (see below for the address).  If any of them need “special handling” (as in like need to stay cool or something – I don’t know, I’m not a doctor), let me know and we can try to hook you up with someone who can bring them in directly.    Does that make sense?

Let’s do what we can and get them not only enough for them but enough that they can share these medicines with others as well.   I’m willing to guarantee that if they need these, others do as well.

Thanks!

Tom Vanderwell

Aciclovir (200mg) Dispersible
Aciclovir 5% cream
Albendazole 400mg chewable
Azithromycin (200mg/5ml) Powder for Suspension
Ceftriaxone (500mg) powder for injection
Co-trimoxazole 200mg + 40mg/5ml Oral suspension (we use this regularly and it is no longer available in Haiti)
Diazepam 10mg/2ml for injection
Epinephrine 1mg/ml for injection
Fluconazole 50mg/5ml (maybe 10 bottles)
Folic Acid 5mg
Metronidazole (125mg/5ml) Suspension (Again, we use a lot of this and can no longer buy it in Haiti)
Prazinquantel (600mg)
Vitamine A 50 000iu gel capsules
Vitamine A 100 000 iu gel capsules
Vitamine B compound 2ml for injection
Vit K1 (1mg/1ml) for injection (I need this quite urgently). It is very expensive to buy in the USA.
Zink Dispersible 20mg (maybe 200 tabs).

Shipping Address:

God’s Littlest Angels

2275 Waynoka Drive  Suite D

Colorado Springs, CO 80915

Tom here, I’m starting a new “feature” on the blog that I’m calling the picture of the day.    What is it?  Probably a couple of times a week, I’m going to try to put up a picture from Haiti.   In most cases, I’ll be able to credit back to the original source, but not always, unfortunately, that’s the way things work on the web.

In any case, none of the pictures are actually mine and if you are the owner of any of them, please leave the information in the comments and accept my apologies. 

The first picture is an aerial picture of the Presidential Palace.   As I’m sure many of you know, the Presidential Palace was damaged significantly.   But the thing that really struck me about this picture is that the “plaza” across from the palace is now a tent city…….

Aerial view of refugee camp at the Palais Nasyonal (National Palace), Port-au-Prince, #Haiti
photo: Creative Commons license (Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives). Timo Luege/IASC Shelter Cluster

Have you ever had it where you turn to your “scheduled” devotional passage for the day and the first verse just jumps out at you?

That happened to me today.  I opened my Bible to Ephesians 4:1 and this is what I found…..

¹In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel.

A couple of  thoughts that really struck me from this passage:

“In light of all this”  – what is Paul referring to?   Is he talking to you?  To me?  To the people, the millions of people, living in tents?

“Run on the road that God called you to travel.”   There are hundreds of thousands of people traveling a very difficult road right now.   But there are also many many people who are being called to travel a different road.    A road that might push them out of their comfort zone but also give them the opportunity to make a big difference or maybe a small difference.

So, what road is God calling you to travel?

Join me in prayer that those who are being called to travel a different road will respond to that call.

Thanks,

Tom

Tom here, and no, I’m not talking about a new earthquake yet.    This report was actually issued on February 23, 2010, but I just found out about it today.    A couple of “highlights” to it:

• There’s a pretty significant chance of another earthquake happening in Haiti.
• There were a couple of aftershocks over 5.0.   The odds of another separate quake over 5.0 is pretty good.
• From what little I understand about earthquakes, there is a difference between an earthquake and an aftershock.    Though I couldn’t really tell you what the difference is.   Anyone care to explain?

So, as “we” are collectively looking at trying to figure out where 1.2 million (that’s 1,200,000) people are going to live and what sort of housing they are going have, let’s keep in mind that there is a pretty good chance this wasn’t a one time occurence.  

Hopefully Haiti will be better prepared for the next one.

USGS Updates Assessment of Earthquake Hazard and Safety in Haiti and the Caribbean

Tom here- I’ve never had the opportunity to meet Alison yet, but a good friend of mine has.   She did an interview with Lauren that Lauren posted on her blog.   Lauren gave me permission to repost it here.    It doesn’t directly involve God’s Littlest Angels, but it’s a fascinating and disturbing look into the disaster relief in Haiti.

It also reinforces to me how one person can make a difference.    Enjoy!

Generation XYZ Haiti: An Interview with Alison Thompson

Alison Thompson is without a doubt a heroine of mine, and I am so fortunate to have connected with her. She is a visionary and an extraordinary talent driven by love, and I bring you her words with great pride. This interview is truly one of the most powerful things I will ever read. If I can request one thing of the people who read this blog, it’s this: aspire to be like Alison Thompson.

Alison Thompson is a preacher’s daughter who went on to become a nurse’s aide, humanitarian, high school math teacher, investment banker and an award-winning filmmaker. She is now the medical coordinator for JP HRO, Sean Penn’s non-profit organization dedicated to bringing humanitarian relief and life-saving medical attention to the victims of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. She began her path as a humanitarian in the aftermath of 9/11, when she spent a year volunteering at Ground Zero, running a First Aid station. Ms. Thompson met Mr. Penn shortly before the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, when he came on board as Executive Producer of her 2004 documentaryThe Third Wave, a film documenting her experience and that of three others working as volunteers in Sri Lanka for a year following the tsunami. At Cannes, the film was presented in the very first Presidential jury special screening. Ms. Thompson spent five years working in Sri Lanka, where she founded a tsunami early-warning center, a medical center, and a school, and has helped to rebuild villages and businesses. A native Australian (though an official resident of New York City for twenty years), Alison Thompson was awarded the Medal (OAM) of the Order of Australia in the General Division in 2010, “for service to humanitarian aid, particularly the people of the Peraliya region of Sri Lanka following the Boxing Day 2004 Tsunami.” However, she was unable to receive it in person. After the earthquake ravaged Haiti, Ms. Thompson received a one-word text message from Sean Penn: “Haiti?” She replied in the affirmative and has been there since—with only one five-day break back to the Big Apple, during which she generously answered these questions—doing yeoman’s work, saving lives and bringing hope to thousands.

JP HRO is located at the 82nd Airborne field hospital army base in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Alison Thompson, Sean Penn, Dr. Raul Ruiz, and Oscar Gubernati were each awarded the U.S. Army’s Commander’s Award for Service by Lieutenant Colonel Mike Foster of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne.

1. You have such a fascinating back story, turning from nurse’s aide to filmmaker and back again! Can you give us a bit more information about your background and how you came to be so involved in the non-profit sector?

I grew up a preacher’s daughter and from an early age, we went off into Third Worlds helping people. I guess it’s in my blood, sort of, and I also worked at my mum’s hospital as a nurse’s aide/medic for 8 years and then went onto becoming a high school math teacher. In New York I became an investment banker, and then later in life went to film school at NYU. I don’t think you have to be one thing all your life. If you have a decent brain in your head, then you can do and be many things and also combine them. On September 11th, the course of my life was changed for the better and I raced down there on roller blades with a medical kit to help. This is where I first learned about volunteering by myself and that I could really make a difference, and I didn’t need to belong to a government agency or an organization. I worked down there in the streets for 6 days straight, cleaning out fireman’s eyes and collecting the dead bodies on the streets, and set up a little First Aid station at Firehouse Ten. After that, I stayed and worked as a volunteer there for the next year. I was just doing common sense things, and I had lost 23 friends in the WTC attacks. So the September 11th attacks were really my first voyage into the non-profit world on my own (without my parents’ missions).

2. You have mentioned that despite your extensive experience as a humanitarian relief worker, that you have never seen anything like Haiti. If you can possibly verbalize it, what has been unique about this experience? What is it like in the day-to-day, and how does it compare to your experiences following 9/11 and the tsunami?

Haiti is like no other disaster I have witnessed first-hand, and I’ve spoken to many journalists and army personnel who were in Iraq and Afghanistan and all over the world, and they all seem to agree. It is the deep wounds that we have never seen before in such a massive amount of people. Millions were hurt and over 300,000 were killed. There are still thousands of bodies lying under the rubble, so they say that the number will rise to over half a million people. That is a lot of people to die in one quick, ugly moment. It could be the largest disaster in the history of Earth, possibly? About those deep wounds: yes, things were tough in Haiti way before the earthquake, but now there are deep, infected wounds from the earthquake, and in the early days hospitals all over the country were amputating young children’s legs and arms every few minutes, and in the early days there were no painkillers. My most dramatic moment was helping to hold down a young boy as they sawed off his leg. Don’t get me wrong, a death is a death, and is tragic whether it was one, two or more who were killed…and the painful cries from the tsunami, September 11th and Haiti were all equally heart-wrenching…but during the other two disasters there seemed to be more hope. In Haiti, it seems too big. Some days, I see tragic things and I say to myself, “That is so bad; I don’t think I have seen anything worse in all my life.” But then the next day I come across 80 orphans living in the dirt and eating dirt with maggots coming out of their ears and worms in their bodies, and i say, “No, that is the worst thing that I have seen in my life.” But every day I see something worse than the day before. Each day, I go out on mobile clinics to other IDP camps; it frustrates me as it all seems too big. No one is helping in many of the other camps, and I say to myself, “Where is everyone? This is too big for our small group to handle.”

3. Easter Sunday–arguably the most important Catholic holiday–happened just under a month ago, and one thing that the media coverage has taught us about the Haitian people is that their faith is an unshakable cornerstone of their culture. What was Easter like in Port-au-Prince?

We could learn so much from the Haitian people and their faith. Their faith is an unshakable cornerstone of their culture, and I am enlightened daily by it and share in the church services held in our IDP camp nightly. In their deepest paths of despair, the Haitians are at peace and they teach me to be a more humble, faithful human being. Easter services were beautiful in Haiti and as they praised God all day long it was as if the rubble had been cleared away and we were all allowed to go back home.

4. Obviously one of the major focuses of JP HRO and others working in Haiti right now is the upcoming rainy season. Have the rains started in full force, and what impact do you expect the rain will have on the conditions where you are and your ability to work?

The rains have started in Haiti and they come down hard and fast. When it rains, the Haitians living in tents have to stand up all night as the water rushes inside, under them. At the JP HRO IDP camp (which is over 50,000 people strong), we have been preparing for the rains for over a month now and have been working against the clock to ensure the safety of our villagers. We have also had the help of the U.S. Navy SEEBEA engineers who have been building trenches and safety bridges, sandbagging, and securing the land. Our camp is situated on a hill and there are dangerous flooding zones, so for the past three weeks we have been busy relocating 5000 of our people to a new safer land. The mission was led by Sean Penn and was successful and we nearly collapsed in exhaustion doing it. We really believe in constantly moving forward and not being stuck in bureaucracy.

5. You had a remarkable experience in which a Haitian couple named their child after you. Talk us through that. Why do you think you made such a profound impact on that couple? How is Baby Alison?

There are many babies born in our field hospital daily. I have been involved in birthing over 85 of them. It is common for the mother to call her baby after one of the medical team who helped her birth the child. There are many “Baby Alisons” around now and I just smile…it is a beautiful connection to the child and one to put in my memory bank of love forever. Baby Alisons are alive and kicking!!!! There are many Seans around too!

6. You recently tweeted that one of your nurses, whom you described as your “rock,” attempted suicide with a scalpel. If you’re comfortable doing it, will you talk us through what happened to her on that day and how she is doing now? Do you feel there are adequate mental health resources for the relief workers, soldiers and journalists where you are?

Life here is hard for not only the victims of the earthquake but for the visiting volunteers as well. The emotional and physical strain is hard. We have many Haitian nurses and translators working for us in our hospital who went through the same earthquake ordeals as everyone else, but have been thrown into a busy work life. As they are busy healing others, we seem to forget they still have deep pain that they hold onto themselves. One morning, we found a young distraught Haitian nurse on the bathroom floor attempting to finish her life with a scalpel. It’s hard to talk about because it was such a private moment. She has no family left, and had been in nursing school when all the colleges were destroyed, so she has no future to finish her education. That is a big puzzle facing many bright students in Haiti today; their life and future have stopped with no way of moving forward. She is doing great now and lives with us in our main tent camp and we keep a close eye on her. There are not enough mental health workers here in Haiti; we may get one visit from a therapist once a month but for a camp of over 50,000 people that means they can only really see a small number per day. There is much work to do here, and trauma is just setting in with a noted rise in stabbings and wife-beatings.

7. How are you doing? Physically, emotionally, mentally?

Physically, mentally and emotionally I’m exhausted. When you start analyzing the person’s pee in the toilet before you, you know you have been away from home way too long! I hit a wall two weeks ago and needed some time off. It’s important to go back to your country and sleep and regroup and then come back in, fresh. I never seem to learn that lesson, as things on the ground are always too dire to leave, and I had been here for four months straight without a day off. I left Haiti a week ago to rest in NY and it has been a major culture shock. As I type this, I sit at Miami International Airport waiting to head back into Haiti, to that big mess I now call home.

8. In an interview you gave to Celebrity Wire at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, you were asked to discuss why your group of four independent volunteers in Sri Lanka was often able to achieve results faster than some of the big government-run initiatives and even private sector NGOs that have millions in funding, but are often dealing with slow-moving bureaucratic decisions. Now that you’re working with one of those big NGOs, do you find that progress is slower than it was when you were working independently?

I’m not working with a big NGO (a big NGO is Red Cross, World Vision, US AID, etc). Our organization is very similar to the Sri Lankan volunteer group; we set off as a small group together and are still a small bunch of volunteers. We do, however, have a 501c3, which allows us to accept donations and have money behind us so we can do so many more things than during the tsunami. It’s all about the heart of the volunteer and that is as strong as an ox. Our core group is only 8 people, which helps us maneuver around more easily, and we are moving ahead without bureaucracy and that is why I love working with this group.

9. Are you at all involved with other NGOs working in Haiti? How do you feel about the work that is being done by Doctors without Borders, charity: water, The Clinton Foundation, UNICEF, the Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children, Yéle Haiti and others?

I don’t want to comment on how I like working with other NGOs or how bad they are as I still have to live here in this small town and see them daily. It’s a hard question; let’s just say some are working well and moving forward (I say only some), but many more, especially the ones at the top, are stuck in a giant mess of bureaucracy and accountability and need to learn how to play with each other in the sand pit!!!!!! During our relocation process, Sean [Penn] led the way in bringing together all the NGOs working in our village and we worked together really well. I was shocked at how Sean pulled us all together, as many NGOs don’t collaborate with each other across the board. CRS (Catholic Relief Services) were a good example of an NGO working with others and doing great things for Haiti. The Clinton Foundation are also very good.

10. Musician and blogger Richard Morse has been writing captivating articles for The Huffington Post these past few months, most notably his column “Stealth Zone,” where he details his experiences—both before and after the earthquake—involving attempts to silence him and to prevent certain businesses from profiting by placing them into “Red Zones,” alleged high-crime areas that don’t necessarily have higher incidences of violence than “Green Zones.” Where do you think these forces are coming from, and have you dealt with them?

I haven’t read his blog on Huffington Post and am not sure what you are talking about in that question…if you explain it again I can maybe answer it…I do know I have been silenced by people for reporting the truth here. People don’t like to hear the truth, especially when it hurts.

[Ed. Note: I think I have made an error in asking this question as if it would be something with which most people in Port-au-Prince and Petionville would be familiar. That seems not to be the case. I have since sent the column in its entirety to Ms. Thompson.]

11. In promoting your film The Third Wave, you stated that “you don’t have to have any skills to hand out water or to give someone a hug.” Is this also true in Haiti? How can the average person get involved, and should people without medical, disaster relief or journalistic training be making the trip to Haiti right now?

I still believe in the volunteer message that “everyone is needed,” and you don’t need any skills. There are so many organizations here that need volunteers to come and hand out water and do too many things to list here. Or come along with a small group of friends and you’ll soon find so much work to do. There will be so much work to do, even if you do it a year from now.

12. As you well know, 80% of the Haitian population were below the poverty line before the earthquake. Haiti needs long-term solutions, though due to the extent of the immediate need, the Red Cross has been under fire recently for their comment that they want to hold onto the majority of donations for long-term solutions. Where do you feel the long-term solutions lie? Can these solutions be created merely through private sector non-profits and UN attention? How do you feel about the Red Cross’s decision to hold onto approximately $300 million of donations earmarked for Haiti?

I’m not going to comment on the NGO as I haven’t seen them do much here yet, but long term sustainable projects and business are the key to any future here. We can’t just keep handing them food. For example, we shouldn’t be importing timber to build homes; bamboo can be grown here and it can create business and work–but the problem with that is that it takes time to grow it. We have to think long-term here, and it’s been a mess here for so long, and we aren’t just trying to fix earthquake damage, but at the same time things are so bad here we need to save lives so there is a future. It’s tricky, heh?

13. What didn’t I ask you that I should have asked you?

What didn’t you ask me? Hmmm…”What’s it like living in a tent?” Its pretty okay: I lie here and think, there isn’t much more in life I really need than this tent. It is orange and white, and sometimes I feel like I am living in “Finding Nemo’s” belly.

Please, if you would like to donate to JP HRO, I would urge you to do so here. You can follow Alison Thompson on Twitter @lightxxx. Pray she may come home soon, and that the people of Haiti see the light and triumph they deserve.

(Tom here again – I don’t know what it means in section F about the definition of child but it sounds like it’s not something that would be an issue unless the child in question is very close to the age of 18.   So, my reaction to this bill is that it probably is a pretty good thing.   It does raise a couple of questions that I don’t know the answers to:

• If an orphan who came home on humanitarian parole gets their status changed to permanent resident alien, what implications does that have for the overall adoption status of these kids?
• What else should be known to make wise decisions about supporting this bill?

If anyone who reads this KNOWS the answers or knows anyone who is an immigration expert, I would gladly post any additional information here to help others out.)

Thanks!

Tom

I’m taking the liberty once again of putting something on here that Tara Livesay wrote.   Why?   It’s pretty simple, I know that a lot of those who read here are struggling with their own personal response to the tragedy of what has happened and what is happening in Haiti.

Tara speaks very eloquently to that issue and I’d encourage you to read it and reflect on how that might be speaking to what you’re thoughts, feelings and plans are.

I know I will……

Tom

The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog: Audience: One

Audience: One

We’re not to sure why people read, but we do know that many people end up at our blog because they have an interest in adoption or an interest in missions work abroad. (Google tells us these and other weird things.)

We have had the pleasure of following the journey of one family from Missouri to India and another from Whales to Uganda, our exchanges over the years have been encouraging and fun.

We have also been blessed to see many families start and even complete adoptions. It is cool to see the hand of God in these things. It is cuh-razy to think of the connections and friends we’ve met. For all the horrible things, at least the internet can also be used for good; to bring together people that can encourage and challenge one another.

We’re humbled by the questions and genuine love and concern offered by complete strangers.

Two of the most often emailed questions have been -

1. We want to adopt from _______. Our family is not approving of this decision. They say adoption is dangerous/risky/corrupt/not for us.

and

2. We are thinking about moving to ______ . We told our friends and they think we are crazy/wrong/stupid/irresponsible.

“What do we say to those people?”

This question is loaded.

The problem is, most of us live to please humans. Truthfully, we all desire affirmation. Sometimes the need for affirmation becomes a monster of a problem. Troy and I have been known to fall into that trap.

If you live to please people you get tripped up a lot more frequently. Opinions of others hurt more. Frustration over feeling misunderstood happens continually. The focus becomes getting others to see it your way rather than focusing on trusting God in the middle of the big things He wants to do.

Been there. Done that. Hate to admit we’ll probably do it again.

When your chief purpose becomes about being liked, being popular, being approved — prepare to fall.

If you are certain God is asking you to do X Y or Z, and you are certain because you’ve prayed and discerned and maybe even sought the counsel of a wise and trusted person in your life, it matters not what Aunt Bea and your old friend from way back think. Really. It doesn’t. Your passionate call to do whatever it is will have to stand up to disapproval and unkind words. If it can’t, maybe you have to evaluate how called you are.

Sometimes people are even called to do things that will ultimately fail. (Learning from failure – the worlds best teacher and butt-kicking.) God is in that too.

Of course we did not have totally happy people jumping up and down at our decision to adopt from Haiti. Yes, mean emails and comments were received. We did not have 100% friend support when we moved to Haiti. Yes, some friends were lost. Did that hurt? Sure. Does it matter?

Well … It shouldn’t.

We cannot expect people to understand OUR vision or call from God. It is not their calling, therefore they cannot be expected to “get” it. Maybe they are scared for you and wanting to protect you. Maybe they are jealous of you. Maybe they truly think you are an idiot.

Let them. (And try to love them anyway.)

Our encouragement to all in the decision making place on either of these two issues is to pray, and pray some more and if God is still nudging you forward you’ve got to move forward in obedience and faith that your friends and family will either get on board later (most everyone will eventually) or not … but gaining their cheers and approval cannot be your primary focus.

Your audience of One will see you through it.

tara

Technorati Tags: Haiti, God’s Littlest Angels, Orphans, God’s Will

Tom here, I’ve had a number of people who have e-mailed me and said something along the lines of:
“Tom, I saw the video about the Haitian girl’s soccer team and it really got to me.   But I went to show it to my ______ (insert husband, wife, friends) and it says it’s not available.  What’s up?”

We are trying to get through to ESPN to see if we can get a digital copy of the video.   But I was also able to find a written copy of the story at their website, and I’ve reproduced part of it below.   At the end of what I’ve put up is a link to their site where you can read the whole thing.

There are some of “us” who are dreaming big dreams right now.   If you’d like to help, e-mail me at Tom I’d like to help!

At a minimum, don’t forget to continue to pray for these girls and the situation in Haiti.

Thanks,

Tom
ESPN RISE high school girls soccer – ESPN RISE

Alexandra Coby cries all the time. She sits in her tiny home — an 8×8 dwelling with dirt floors and no windows — and thinks about how she ruined her teammates’ lives. She didn’t, of course. But it’s only been a few weeks since the Haiti Under-17 girls’ soccer team was eliminated from the CONCACAF U17 tournament. They took three straight losses in which Alexandra, the goalkeeper, was unable to defend the 12 goals that sent them home. The pain of loss is intense.

Alexandra Coby collapsed in tears after Haiti’s tournament-opening loss to the U.S. on March 10.

For Alexandra and her teammates, those games weren’t just about soccer. Pursuing a junior World Cup berth meant not yet having to face the destruction waiting for them in Haiti. Losing means that now the girls have returned to their island home, and they must live every day with the results of January’s devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake.

Alexandra’s neighborhood feels apocalyptic. It was one of the poorest slums on the planet before the earthquake. Violent gangs roam the streets. There is no running water, almost no electricity. Raw sewage flows by in steaming rivers of filth and stink.

Madeline is consoled by a neighbor. Both parents and her sister died in the quake.  She feels there is no future here and thinks it’s her fault. She’s the goalkeeper. The team was counting on her.   Never mind that her teammates didn’t score a single goal. The memory of those games runs through her head, over and over. “I’m always thinking about it,” she says. “I cry when I think about my future that was wasted.”

And without the tournament to focus on, she also begins to replay the awful day of the quake in her mind. On Jan. 12, the earth began shaking during practice. The national stadium cracked, and the girls hit the ground and prayed. Protected by the open space of their soccer fields, they had no idea that just outside the stadium walls, Port-au-Prince was crumbling in a cloud of brown dust.

Starting goalkeeper Madeline Delice lost both of her parents and her sister that day. Most of the other girls lost their homes. When the shaking stopped and that brown cloud settled, they found they’d lost just about everything — except one another.

As the country fell apart, the team stayed together. The soccer federations of the Dominican Republic and Panama opened their doors and their hearts to the girls, offering shelter, support and training facilities. Living and practicing in those other nations these past three months, the team stared slack jawed at shiny shopping malls, so different from what they knew in Haiti.

They’d meet as a team every day, trying to put words to the emotions they all felt. “I cried a lot because I didn’t understand,” team captain Hayana Jean-François says. “I didn’t know what to do. I saw so many things. I thought it was the end of the world.”

The tournament took on outsize stakes. If they could get a win, maybe even a tie, the team would advance to the Under-17 World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago and remain in the safe embrace of fancy hotels and endless buffet lines. If this were a Hollywood movie, they’d win.

But this is real life.

Read the rest of the story on ESPN’s Site by clicking here……

Technorati Tags: Haiti, Orphans, Soccer Team, God’s Littlest Angels

Today is Haitian Mother’s Day.  

As I’ve spent today with my 2 Haitian kids, my thoughts have turned a number of times to some very special women:

• The women in Haiti who get up every morning and struggle to stay alive and struggle to care for their kids.
• The women in Haiti who have given their children to a place like God’s Littlest Angels, NOT because they didn’t love their kids but precisely because they love their kids so much that they wanted a better life for them.
• The women who gave life to the 80 kids who came to the United States in January.  And the 20 kids who went to Canada and the 37 kids who went to Europe.
• The women who are mothers now because those women either made the difficult and ultimate sacrifice for the good of their children or they died trying.

So, when you read this, I’d ask you to say a prayer for the mothers in Haiti today:

• Pray that those who gave their children up for adoption would be at peace knowing a difficult decision was the right one.
• Pray for those who struggle every day, not with complex issues, but with a very simple issue – “How can I get my children enough food for today?”
• Pray that those who have the privilege of being an adoptive mother to kids from Haiti would cherish that privilege and would help their kids come to a healthy “place” with having two mothers.   Pray that they’d also realize that “place” is different for every child.
• Pray that those who have died would have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ so that they can some day be reunited with their children in Heaven.

Pray also for people like Dixie, Molly, Joyce and the gang at GLA who are essentially mothers to the children there until they can be united with parents in a permanent setting.

Thank you for your prayers,

Tom

I know from talking and e-mailing with many of the readers of this blog (and consequently supporters of God’s Littlest Angels) that many of you are wrestling with the enormity of the issues in Haiti and how one person can make a difference.

My friend, Tara Livesay, works with Heartline in Port Au Prince and she recently wrote a very good article on their own blog, The Livesay Haiti Blog, about exactly that issue.

I’d encourage you to read the part of it that I posted below, remember the overriding principle that Tara talks about:

Only God Can Make Haiti Whole

And then continue to do small things with great love for the people in Haiti who need it desperately.

And also click through and read the whole column at Tara’s site (and listen to the radio program she references – I did).

Thanks!

Tom Vanderwell

The Livesay [Haiti] Weblog: Skeptical or Cynical?

Staying focused on doing small things with great love is the singular way to remain sane.

Haiti.

The place is frustrating and difficult and for every problem you might begin to understand and possibly even solve, another will be uncovered, and another only this time deeper. I don’t think any one person, country, injustice, or government is to blame. That is too simple. You don’t end up with complex problems due to simple causes.

All the buzz words and cliche answers, even though true in theory, won’t easily be applied. Not by Haitians and not by foreigners. Sustainability. Yep. Great plan. Infrastructure. Uh-huh, who is not for that? Democracy. Please let it be!

I don’t think there is a man-made formula for fixing it. I don’t think any government will fix it. I don’t think any NGO or combination of NGOs will fix it. I don’t think man will fix it. Only God can make that place whole.

We can pray. We can give in obedience when our hearts tell us to give. We can become informed donors. We can advocate for the voiceless. We can respond to what He is asking us to do. And after all that it might still be what it is today.

Then we can pray more.

Only God can make that place whole.

Until that happens, small things with great love.

It’s not very often that on the “main” page, I blog about something that Dixie wrote but I think it illustrates a couple of important things:

• The Haiti that existed prior to January 12 is a different Haiti than exists now.
• Haiti cried and you answered.    Haiti is crying and you’re still answering…..

Thank you for answering that cry.

Tom

And Life In Haiti Goes On » Blog Archive » A Whirlwind 18 hours in Brussels, Belgium

I was talking to Lola’s class which are children from 9 to 10 years old. We were talking about people hurt in the earthquake and how the Image048 international community was helping people by providing medical care and artificial limbs for those people who had amputations. I told them how Haiti would need to change how they thought of handicapped people because now we have so many! I told them that before the earthquake, if a person was handicapped that they begged on the street for money. One little boy raised his hand and asked, “Why did the world not help Haiti’s handicapped people before the earthquake?” I started crying! A nine year old child asked a question that made perfect sense to him and to me. I told him it was because the majority of the world ignored Haiti’s needs before the earthquake. But after the earthquake, “Haiti cried and the world heard her suffering and came to help!”

Technorati Tags: Haiti, orphans, God’s Littlest Angels

Hi all, this is Kate…..I know, you all thought that I fell off the face of the earth!

This is Part 1 of 2……I have to much to say for one post!

Let me tell you what all has been going on the last few weeks. 

On May 14, 2010 we sent a container of donations from Clinton, Illinois.  It was very successful!  We had 4 days to get ready for the container once I arrived in Illinois.  A container normally takes us WEEKS of packing, sorting, and shopping to get ready for, and we had 4 days!  I’ll take you through the week….I did find humor after it was over!

First, I want to thank Rick Wallace, husband to Melinda Wallace who works in our office here, for going to Illinois with me to help with the container.  The poor man was at my beck and call all week.  Every time Dad would call and ask me to pick up building supplies, wiring, welding rods, outlets, ect., I would just hand the phone to Rick.  The people who did volunteer with us will understand, every time he turned around I was yelling “Rick”!

On Monday, we opened the storage unit for the first time…..Rick and I were scared!  Everything that had been collected had been placed into the storage unit as it came.  My girls had started to sort the donations but there was too much for them.  When we send a container, everything has to be sorted by category, the boxes sealed and labeled.  Then after that is done, we have to number them and put them on the manifest.  It is a huge job.

As we were standing there, a team of 4 men from the Cross of Glory Church arrived.  They had driven 9 hours the night before to help us!  The church had collected donations, sorted, and labeled them….they were ready to ship!  Two of the men had to leave to return home after the trailer was unloaded, the other two, Dave and Orville, stayed to help us.  You should have seen these guys!  They helped us empty the storage unit, sort, pack, label and number the tubs of donations!  It all got done in ONE day!  That afternoon, just as we were about 2/3 done, it started to rain.  We all moved fast, got everything back inside, and finished sorting inside.  Dave and Orville left the next morning, we were sad to see them go!  Thanks again guys, don’t know what we would have done without you!

On Tuesday, first Rick and I met my Grandma, who had brought some donations up to the storage unit with my Aunt Linda.  It was so nice to see them.  I hadn’t gotten to drive to Monticello where Grandma lives, so this was the first time that I was able to see her.  I had planned this container to coincide with her 90th birthday party and was looking forward to spending time with her and the family.  After that, Rick and I headed to one of the larger towns near us.  We were on a hunt for items for the new orphanage.  I walked into Lowes and said “I will be your easiest sale of the day IF you have what I need”.  Well, they didn’t.  I learned a lesson that day, in Central Illinois, people don’t buy gas dryers!  They use electric, the stores only keep one or two gas dryers in stock at a time.  The rest are special order!  We had to go to 4 different stores, in two different towns before I found the dryers that I needed.  Then, I needed 24 twin mattresses for bunk beds that had been donated.  I went into a Lebada Mattress store, the manager was a Pastor. He only had 7 twin mattresses in his store.  He got on the phone and by the time he was done, we had the mattresses and they were being delivered the next day!  Back to the dryers, did I mention that I also had to buy a conversion kit for each one, and that they didn’t have those in stock at 3 of the stores???????  I do have to say, Rick stayed much calmer than me through the day.  I had little patience by this time.  We went to the last store, Menards in Bloomington, IL, and they had EVERYTHING else that I had on my list!!  Dad and Rick were on the phone most of the time, getting wiring items for Ft. Jacques.  I was setting up delivery times, and I found something that wasn’t on the list, but I knew my father would be so proud of me for finding it.  I found the high effency light bulbs that put out 60 watts, but only use 13 watts.  They were in 3 packs for $.99!!!  I bought all that they had because, if you have ever been down there you know how we go through light bulbs!  I felt like the hero of the day!  We didn’t get back to the house until 9:30pm, we had left the house at 7:30am.  Lights out!

On Wednesday morning, I sat at my computer, in my pajamas, and worked on the manifest for the container. I felt good not to run first thing in the morning.  At 10:00am, Rick and I had to meet the Lebada Mattress delivery men at the storage unit.  Our storage unit manager at Unlimited Storage had allowed us to use another storage unit for all of our deliveries, thank you Jeremy!  The guys got the mattresses unloaded quickly!  I couldn’t believe how fast the three of them unloaded that truck.  As we were finishing, the first Lowe’s truck showed up!  Out came the appliances that we had gotten from there, it was a whole truck full.  That 30 foot storage unit was filling up fast!  Rick and I were starting to worry at this point.  We had 2-30 foot storage units over half full!  The truck was only 40 ft. long.  Was everything going to fit?  We still had 3 more deliveries for the next day!  Next we went to Wal-Mart to pick up a site-to-store order that my Mother and another missionary, Nikki, had ordered.  When we went to the service desk, they were very happy to see us!  The Wal-Mart in Clinton, IL is NOT a super Wal-Mart, it is very small.  Our orders were taking up a very large part of their back room!  They asked how many trucks that I had brought with me.  At this point I was VERY worried!  I only had one truck, and just Rick and I to unload it at the storage unit!  The whole crew there went into the back to load everything onto carts to bring up for us.  It took them 4 big carts and one guy carrying a huge futon mattress to get it all to the front.  Now, at this point I am giggling and Rick was shaking his head…..what else could we do?  We pulled the truck up to the doors, the guys laughed when they saw my short-bed truck, they said “no way will that fit”!  We had 10 bunk beds, a queen bed frame, 2 twin bed frames, and other furniture.  They started stacking things in the truck, Rick was supervising, I was standing back still giggling.  Can’t say I was too much help at this point!  We filled up the back seat of the truck, stacked the back to about 3 feet above the cab, and then tied everything down.  It all fit!!!!!  Thank goodness we didn’t have to drive far, we could only drive about 20 mph, but we finally made it to the storage unit.  Once we got there, we were stumped.  There was no way that Rick and I could unload it by ourselves.  So I got on the phone, called my daughter Mikayla who was just getting out of school.  I had her bring some boys from the High School with her and everything got unloaded!  Now, looking at the storage unit, I was really getting worried.

I will finish this on Tuesday….

Keep praying………..

Kate

Tom here……

I’ve got a rather vague prayer request for you.   Let me explain what I can:

• There are a group of us who are embarking on a “project” that will, if successful, make a significant difference for the children in Haiti.
• For it to work, we are going to need the cooperation of a number of large businesses.
• There will also be the opportunity for a substantial number of “people” to do their part to help.

I’m not going to say any more about the specifics right now except to ask you to join me in prayer for a couple of specific needs:

1. Pray that the right hearts will be touched and the right doors will open so that this project can fall into place.
2. Pray that the logistics can fall into place and that we can make plans work out in God’s way and God’s timing.
3. Pray that at the time we need people to step up and make a difference, the problem is not that we don’t have enough support, the problem is we have too much support for this particular project.
4. Pray that through these efforts, children will know they are loved and that a long term and lasting difference can be made.

If you think you know someone who can help, send me an e-mail at Tom, I think I can help! with the words Vague Prayer Request Assistance in the subject line.

And remember, as it says in Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps.”

Thank you for not forgetting about the children in Haiti and thank you for your prayers on their behalf.

Oh, and stay tuned, as I know more, I’ll share more.

Tom

Hi all,

I wanted to let you know about some tweaking that I’ve done to the blog that will help us keep the needs in Haiti in front of the general public.

What is it?   It’s pretty simple….

It’s the Facebook share button.

On the side of each post, it’s right there.    Click on that and it will pop up a box where you can share it on Facebook.

So, when you read something on the blog that you like, click on the share button and it will share it with your friends on Facebook.

Then hopefully they’ll share it with their friends and it will spread from there.

So, if you read something on the GLA blog that touches you, take the time, click the button and share it with others.

On behalf of the kids,

Tom

An interesting article about Wyclef Jean.  He is doing a LOT of good work in Haiti (his home country) right now.    He wants Brad and Angelina to adopt from Haiti.

If they did, that would be the one thing that I’ve got in common with Brad Pitt…..

Seriously, we are still getting conflicting information from various people inside the Haitian government as to the status of adoptions and because of that and because of the number of kids we currently have available for adoptions, applications for adoption are not currently being accepted.   So, if you know Brad and Angelina, nah, never mind…..

Keep in touch and keep working for the good of the kids in Haiti!

Tom

Wyclef Jean pleads for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to adopt next child from Haiti

Wyclef Jean pleads for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to adopt next child from Haiti

BY Kristie Cavanagh
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Singer Wyclef Jean wants pals Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie to help his earthquake-ravaged homeland by adopting a Haitian child.

“Brad and Angie, please! Please adopt a child from Haiti!” Jean told Usmagazine.com.

Jean’s plea isn’t too far-fetched – the actress previously expressed interest in the notion while visiting the country in February. Pitt and Jolie are already the parents of adopted children from Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam.

“I’m always open to children around the world. We’re that kind of family. Brad and I talk about that,” Jolie told CNN. “But that’s not what we’re focusing on at this time, by any means.”

Jean, a roving ambassador for Haiti, says that both Pitt and Jolie have been active in his relief efforts.

They traveled to the country in February and have donated $1 million to Doctors Without Borders through their Jolie-Pitt foundation.

“I have so many celebrity friends who have really supported this cause and who continue to support this cause,” Jean said. “Our job is to help those little kids, to give them a chance. If we give them a chance they’ll have a better tomorrow.”

I was on twitter today (if you ask my wife, I spend too much time on there) but I found out about this video.   They had a Haitian Flag Day celebration at the old Ft. Jacques fort.   The fort is literally 2 properties away from our new property.

Enjoy!

Tom

Technorati Tags: Haitian Flag Day

Tom here, yesterday I told you about the video that ESPN did about the Haiti Girls U-17 soccer team.    You can watch the video at Haiti Girls Soccer if you missed it before.

I told you yesterday that I’d share some reactions to the video.   So here goes (in random order:)

• As a parent, it really hurts to think of teen age girls having to live and go through those type of situations.   Being a teenager should be about learning who you are, what you want to be when you grow up and things like that.   It should not be about having to learn how to live without your parents and not about having to wonder where your next meal is coming from.
• I’d love to say that the situation that the girls soccer team is in is unique, but the only thing unique about it is that they are in a sport and a position where people might pay more attention to them.   How many countless others are there in Haiti who might have had a hope and a future prior to January 12 and their hope and their future is smashed in the rubble?
• I’m not saying this particularly about these girls, but their story illustrates the fallacy of UNICEF’s view of international adoption.   Do you mean to tell me that kids who have lost everything, have no family and would need to live in those type of situations (like these girls had to come home to?) would be better off staying in Haiti in a situation with no hope, no family and no permanence than they would to go to another country and have a forever family who can help them experience the things kids should experience as they grow up?  (That was a really long sentence – but read it again).
• The needs in Haiti are huge, complex and ongoing.   I think there is a very big risk that people outside Haiti will look at the needs, look at the huge scope of the disaster and say, “I don’t even know where to start, so I just won’t do anything.”  To that, I’d like to finish this post with a poem.   My wife and I gave this poem to our three oldest daughters when we first approached them at Christmas of 2002 about the possibility of expanding our family through adoption.   I think it applies very well to this situation:

The Starfish

Once upon a time there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work. One day he was walking along the shore. As he looked down the beach, he saw a human figure moving like a dancer.

"It made a difference for that one."

I saw this video yesterday on ESPN.   It’s the story of Haiti’s U-17 (under 17) girls soccer team and how they have been affected by the earthquake.

This story touched me emotionally.  I think partly because I have 4 daughters.

I’m going to share my thoughts and reactions to their story, but I’m not going to do it today.   I’ll share mine either tomorrow or Tuesday.   I’d like to hear your reactions first.

So, watch the video and if you don’t feel like responding in the comments, feel free to e-mail me privately at e-mail Tom.

Thanks,

Tom

Kristen Howerton is a friend of Tara Livesay  who is a missionary in Port Au Prince with Heartline.   She wrote this post on her own blog and graciously allowed me to post it here.

Why did I want to post it here?  It’s pretty simple.   There are a LOT of people who read this blog who are interested in venturing down the road into trans-racial adoption.  It’s a road my wife and I have been traveling that road for 7 years now and it’s been a wonderful experience, but it’s also one that requires knowledge and education about the issues and challenges.

Read it, think about it and continue to pray for the kids in Haiti.

Tom

Sandra Bullock and the complexities of transracial adoption

Since Sandra Bullock announced her adoption of an African American baby, I’ve seen countless news medias reporting on the “controversy” surrounding transracial adoption. It seems like celebrity adoptions often become the grist for the mill of those who have an agenda to push about transracial adoption. To me, this recent CNN interview is a perfect example of the polarity of thinking when it comes to the practice.

Lisa Rollins shares her personal concerns that some white people are not equipped to help black children deal with racism (which the next speaker handily illustrates), but then goes on to suggest that there are options for children in fostercare or children in Haiti that have been ignored. She also suggests that black social workers are not seeking out same-race families – as if there are many families lined up to adopt African American children in the fostercare system. But the facts don’t line up with her narrative: of the 300,000 orphans that were in Haiti prior to the earthquake, only 900 left to be adopted. The majority of Haitian orphans are being cared for in their own country. And kinship adoption is the most common form of adoption from fostercare, with black women representing the majority of people adopting black children

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, tens of thousands of nonwhite children are waiting for adoptive families, and many have remained in foster care for at least two years. Of the 525,000 children in foster care, 45 percent are African American. So the fact that Lisa Rollins suggests that there are easy answers and alternatives to the practice of transracial adoption when the numbers are so staggering? Makes my blood boil a little bit.

But then, in the other corner and representing the “transracial adoption as puppies and roses” side is Wendy Walsh, who suggests that race is not an issue at all, and that adoption is colorblind and all that jazz She describes her kids as a racial curiosity, and seems to have no clue of how that might feel for them. She is completely obvious to the possibility that transracially adopted children might experience some racial disconnect, and even goes so far as to say that race should only be examined if you are over 40. (Have I got a story about some 4-year-olds for her.)

This report mostly bothers me because it is further polarizing the wide gap between adoptive parents and adult adoptees, choosing two women with extremely biased views and pitting them against each other in a debate. And the result is that neither point is heard, both sides dismiss the real issues on the table, and the chasm between adoptive parents and adult adoptees widens.

The reality: there are black children waiting for homes, and a shortage of black families.
The reality: transracially adopted children will struggle with their racial identity.

I just wish that the adoption community could begin to see the complexity of the situation, instead of pushing the typical agendas of either ignoring the need for families for waiting children OR ignoring the racial issues inherent in transracial adoption. Why is it so hard for us to look at both at the same time?

Technorati Tags: Haiti, Orphans, God’s Littlest Angels

The following is a big THANK-YOU from the organizers of the container sent out of Saskatoon, SK:

Hi everyone.

I wanted to take a moment to share some thank yous for helping to send almost 700 boxes/bins/larger items of aid to Haiti, including:
- 34 tents and 5 bins of tarps to provide temporary shelter for homeless Haitian families
- almost 230 boxes of shoes and clothing to help clothe bodies and restore dignity (Haitian people are very proud of their appearances!)
- 12 boxes of candles and flashlights to help light up the night where there is no electricity available
- almost 100 bins of food to nourish infants, children and adults
- more than 60 bins of diapers to keep small bottoms dry and comfy
- 129 bins of towels, sheets, and blankets to keep people warm
- and much, much more!

First, a huge thank you to the dozens of amazing volunteers for the tireless help.  These are but a few of the important contributions we needed and received:
- sending emails to spread the word about the project
- asking your families, friends, co-workers, and organizations to lend their support
- sorting and itemizing donations
- packing and repacking bins/boxes
- hauling boxes to and from homes, shipping companies, and the warehouse, and
- helping us secure the tools and physical space we needed for this project

And second, for all of you who shared such generous donations, your spirit of giving was so overwhelming!!  Thank you so much for giving in such thoughtful and meaningful ways!  Your gifts will improve the quality of life for children and families, either directly or through other aid organizations like medical clinics, dental clinics, orphanages, feeding programs, and so on.

I have created a small album of photos to commemorate the day we packed the container, and I welcome you to view the photos and take a moment to celebrate how you helped make this dream a reality!   http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=216989&id=708135271&l=a4d9f651e0

Because the same generous spirit that blossomed in the prairies also bloomed across Canada from coast to coast, there will be a number of 53 foot shipping containers, all heading for God’s Littlest Angels (www.glahaiti.org) so the staff and volunteers there can distribute the aid to people experiencing real need, every day.  In less than a week, these containers will be loaded on a ship, and heading for Haiti.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you!  You have contributed to make something wonderful happen in the wake of such terrible devastation.  Seeing everyone pull together to help the people of Haiti has impacted me profoundly.  You each gave how and when you could, and I hope the experience moved you as well!
Please share this message with the people you know who contributed of their time, their gifts and their prayers for this project.  Due to the way this project grew, I do not know how to reach everyone who contributed, so I appreciate you passing along the gratitude!

God bless,
Lea Lapointe
lea.lapointe@yahoo.ca

*Please continue to pray for all GLA containers arriving in Haiti over the next weeks and months to clear customs quickly so that items can be distributed to the people in need!

Tom here, and I was reading in Luke 7 for my devotions today.   A thought struck me that I thought I’d share with you.

Luke 7 starts out with the story of the Roman centurion, you know, the one who has a sick servant and asks the Jewish leaders to ask Jesus to heal his servant.   As Jesus is heading to his house, he sends messengers out to Jesus and basically says, “I’m not worthy of having you come to my house but I have enough faith, say the word and it will be done.”

Here’s the verse:

⁶Jesus went with them. When he was still quite far from the house, the captain sent friends to tell him, “Master, you don’t have to go to all this trouble. I’m not that good a person, you know. I’d be embarrassed for you to come to my house,  ⁷even embarrassed to come to you in person. Just give the order and my servant will get well.  

Now ask yourself (I’m asking it of myself), what is God calling you to?   What is He asking you to have the faith to step out and do? 

How many people have already stepped up way beyond the “expected” call of duty since January 12?   And how many lives have been changed because people had the faith to go above and beyond?

Food for thought as we start a new week……

Tom

Tom here, Sylvie e-mailed me and thanked me for “urging her to get off the couch and do something about what’s happening in Haiti.”   I consider that a compliment!

This is the article that was published locally about the trip she took to volunteer at GLA.    Sylvie, thanks for going, thanks for loving on the kids, and thanks for sharing!

Sylvie Cormier’s life-changing trip to Haiti

Tom here, I was reading in my devotions from Jeremiah 47-50 and it was kind of depressing.   It was about all of the countries surrounding Israel who were literally getting beat on because they don’t follow God and his commands.

But then I read chapter 50 and came across this passage:

“In those days, at that time”—God’s Decree— “the people of Israel will come, And the people of Judah with them. Walking and weeping, they’ll seek me, their God.
⁵They’ll ask directions to Zion and set their faces toward Zion. They’ll come and hold tight to God, bound in a covenant eternal they’ll never forget.

That’s what’s happening in Haiti right now.   There is a huge revival happening and people in Haiti are realizing that they need God in their lives more than ever before.

Join me in giving thanks to God for the change in attitudes and belief in Haiti and join me in praying that Haitians will continue to follow God, seek His will for their lives and live according to His calling.

God is up to something big and it’s exciting to be involved and to watch what He’s doing!

Thanks for joining me in prayer for Haiti today!

Tom

Tom here, I just got an e-mail from Jace Freeman.   He’s a Christian filmmaker who made a documentary down in Haiti shortly after the earthquake.   He is distributing it totally free to anyone who wants to use it.   His goal in doing it and distributing it is strictly to help others and raise awareness of what’s going on in Haiti.

I urge you to take some time, watch this and then ask yourself, how can I do something to help?

Thanks!

Tom

I’ll warn you, don’t watch it with young children around (at least not the first time), some of it is disturbing, like the funeral scene I’m watching while writing this.

If you find it moving and informative, share it with others on Facebook, by e-mail and any way you can.  And then send an e-mail to Jace Freeman and tell him!

When The Ground Stopped Shaking from Riley Norfolk on Vimeo.

I’m probably going to embarrass Melissa when I say this, but I’m going to do it anyway…..

• She really didn’t want this video put up on the GLA site and certainly wouldn’t have if it was up to her.
• She wasn’t very happy that the BBC came and only gave her about 5 minutes to prepare for doing the tour.   I think the way she said it to me was something along the lines of makeup and hair?

With that being said, click on the link below and it will take you to the spot on the BBC’s website where you can see the video tour that Melissa gave them of what life is like at GLA.

There, that wasn’t so bad, was it Melissa?

Tom

Tour of God’s Littlest Angels

Tom here, I got the following e-mail from Kim at Bethany and she is asking for input from the parents who brought home children since the earthquake.  Apparently, the CDC would like input on the health of the children who came home from Haiti.

So, I’m putting this out there.   If you fit into that group and can take a few minutes, that would be great…..

Dear Families:
As you are probably aware, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has set up a survey which will hopefully help them better understand the health issues with which the Haitian children entered the US.  I just received a call this morning from the CDC asking us to send out this message to all of our families again, as they have received only a 20% response.  While what they have received so far is helpful to them, it is not reportable or usable as data.  They are hoping to hear from additional parents, as this will assist them in sensitizing health providers in the future, and provide better outreach to families with children who enter the US if a similar crisis ever occurs.  Even if your child did not have any significant health issues upon entering the US, they are asking that you still complete the survey.  
The CDC wanted us to pass along that they greatly appreciate the families that have already taken the time to fill out the survey.  For those that have not yet, the parent survey is confidential, and results will only be used to better understand the health conditions of the children.  The survey takes 5-10 minutes to complete.  If a parent is the parent of more than one child who arrived from Haiti after January 12, they ask that the family complete the survey, log off and then on again, and then click on the

link again to fill in the information for each additional child.  The CDC apologizes for the inconvenience but that was what seemed to be the easiest option.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/parentsurveyHaiti

The deadline for completion of this survey is Sunday, May 16, although they may extend this deadline if they are not able to obtain a sufficient response.

If any of the parents have questions or if anything is unclear, kindly email the CDC at HaitianAdoptees@cdc.gov

Thank you everyone for participating in this important survey.  You will be assisting children, parents, and health providers in the future.

Kim Batts, LBSW
International Services Coordinator
Bethany Christian Services
901 Eastern NE
Grand Rapids MI 49503

Tom here, I had someone stop me at my “real job” yesterday and ask me, “How are things in Haiti right now?”   I think this video and story portray it quite well.

• The immediate life saving disaster mode is passed.
• However, as Dixie said when she spoke in “my” church on Sunday, “The Haiti we knew is gone forever.”
• There are a LOT of things that need to be done and a lot of opportunities for people outside of Haiti to make the right kind of difference.

The job isn’t over, the needs aren’t over and we need to keep focused on the fact that God says, in James 1:27, that “Pure Religion is this – to care for the orphans and the widows in their distress.”

If Haiti isn’t the place to do that, then I don’t know where there is.

Tom

Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Horror has given way to acceptance; it can be seen on people’s faces. But desperation surfaces everywhere:

In the rubble still strewn about the streets, in the steadily rising piles of garbage, in the 1,300 makeshift camps that still house so many people.

Four months on, the tragedy of the massive January 12 earthquake is fresh.

Relief operations thwarted widespread hunger here and so far, there have been no reports of killer disease outbreaks. But Port-au-Prince is very much running in emergency mode. Still.

No humanitarian worker will argue with that sad fact.

Despite the efforts and good intentions of a host of foreigners and a government that got a wake-up call, progress has been timidly slow.

The future has a different meaning now for Haitians such as Edline Pierre, who worries not about where to enroll her three daughters in school but how to get them up off the floor fast enough when the rains start falling.

Haiti earthquake special

She poured cement around her shack in the city’s central Champs de Mars plaza. But that doesn’t keep the water out or her girls safe at night.

The future means getting through the night and when the sun comes back out, scrounging together a meal.

On the streets, a bright spot: the sight of schoolchildren in uniforms. But only 700 of the 5,000 or so schools around the Haitian capital have opened. Some were destroyed; others are occupied by the displaced.

Another welcomed sight: Hundreds of street vendors, many of whom are women, sit under a rainbow of umbrellas to sell mangoes, plantains and coconuts. Or they display a collision of goods in one basket — shoe polish, spaghetti, shampoo, cigarettes and molasses.

These are snippets of life as it was once, before that fatal day.

Give us work — not handouts

In the aftermath of what most Haitians refer to as "the catastrophe," people asked for food. They patiently lined up for hours to receive a sack of rice, a quart of oil.

The lines are gone, along with the massive aid drops. International agencies are wary that too much help could stymie the local economy.

Now the two million Haitians living in squalid makeshift camps — and countless others living in the homes of generous family and friends — need jobs.

They don’t want handouts; they just want money so they can feed themselves. "We are willing to work — work hard — for money, but we need jobs," said Joseph Cangas, a coordinator at a new camp in Corail.

Some earn a few dollars here and there through work-for-cash programs. They clear debris off the streets or clean latrines in the camps. These are hardly high-quality jobs, but being employed anywhere will earn you envy.

More than 100,000 Haitians found work this way. But that’s only a sliver of the population. Almost four million people live in Port-au-Prince, a city designed for 250,000. Haitians lived in congested neighborhoods and shanties before the quake.

Imagine those conditions compounded — a family of six eating, sitting and sleeping in a space that’s hardly bigger than the sofa in your den.

When home is a place of last resort

To shield people from the potential danger of the rainy season, aid agencies have started building transitional homes and have relocated thousands to new camps on the city’s perimeter.

Almost 5,000 went to Corail, a stark place that evokes images of a military base in the Iraqi desert. Void of trees, the tropical sun beats down hard, and soaring temperatures make furnaces of the tents.

It’s not a place residents say they would choose. But this is where the government had access to land, so this is where people were brought to ride out the rains. Here, at least, they are not at risk of being washed away by torrents of water or in mudslides down steep, denuded hills.

Corail has its own problems. It’s far from the city, and it can cost a camp resident an astronomical $1.25 to take tap-taps, the colorful shared taxis, to central Port-au-Prince.

No one at Corail could afford that journey. But they said they had to figure out a way to go where the jobs were. "We help each other. We share food," said Cangas, the camp coordinator. "But the situation is getting more tense. People have nothing so they resort to stealing sometimes."

We help each other. We share food. But the situation is getting more tense. People have nothing so they resort to stealing sometimes.
–Joseph Cangas, coordinator at a Haitian camp

He complained about the lack of services and schools at Corail. But aid agencies don’t want people to get too comfortable here. Eventually, people have to try and regain their livelihoods in the neighborhoods where they were established.

"You want people to go home," said Mark Turner, spokesman for the International Organization for Migration. "The last resort is a place like Corail."

Turner said camp managers have been asking Haiti’s homeless this question: What will it take for you to move out of a camp?

The answers are varied, and the problems aren’t easily resolved.

Not even the safe places feel safe

All over the city, buildings are being marked green, yellow and red. Some already say: "To demolish."

But even after an engineer has marked a home green for "safe," people are reluctant to return. The United Nations estimates only 9 percent of those with green houses have gone back.

What if there is another earthquake?

Gerald-Emile Brun, an architect working with the government on relocation, said incentives for people to go home — $50 and a few provisions — are being created. But so far, nothing has been doled out.

For many, Brun recognized, it’s impossible to go back to the spot where their house once stood because there is no place to dispose of the rubble. In this city of renters, landlords are refusing to accept people who cannot pay the back rent for the four months they have been gone. Many of the displaced can no longer even afford the monthly amount they were paying before.

And as time marches on, many landowners want to evict displaced people so the buildings can be used as intended. What if your child could not go to school because the classrooms were occupied by the homeless? What if you were homeless and had no place to shelter your children except at the neighborhood school?

It’s a tough call, especially for humanitarian workers who don’t believe in forced evictions. But at the same time, Turner said, "we recognize the landowners have legitimate concerns."

These are municipal issues that will have to be dealt with by the local government, Turner said.

But it won’t be easy.

Ask Jacques Pablito Chardavoire, who helps manage a camp in front of the city’s main cathedral. Chardavoire’s response was simple but to the point:

Why would you leave an encampment that offers you a toilet, a shower, emergency food rations and, yes, even an outdoor movie screen when you have no place to go and no money in your pockets?

He said almost 2,000 people were resettled in February from Champs de Mars to the cathedral. But within days, that many more people from elsewhere had flocked to Champ de Mars.

"Every time we move people, more come because they need services," he said.

Much is shattered, but not hope

Haitians, who have lived through political turmoil, extreme violence and grinding poverty, will tell you the earthquake was the worst experience of their lives.

Whether a new city can rise from the rubble of Port-au-Prince remains in question, though Haitians are hopeful something good must come out of an event this tragic. They have to be. They have nothing left but hope. And faith.

That’s why if you peek down lanes on a steamy afternoon, you’ll see a gathering of people under a tent, their arms stretched skyward, their eyes closed. And you’ll hear the Lord’s Prayer.

You’ll hear it, too, every Sunday morning, before the sun gets hot, at Notre Dame, the main cathedral in Port-au-Prince. The building is shattered, but not the congregation’s faith. They still come to the place where, every week, they are re-energized by their belief in Christ.

Several Haitians said they feared the world’s goodwill would quickly fade now that the throngs of media have left and the spotlight has turned elsewhere. Edna Dunrod was one of them.

She worried she was forgotten, lying on a smelly mattress under three tattered bed sheets that serve as a roof in the Champs de Mars tent city. Last month, she gave birth to Marvins, asleep in a plastic tub under a foldable umbrella.

Life with a newborn in this congested camp, she said, was unbearable.

"I want to go somewhere else," she said. But where, she worried. And who would help her reclaim her life?

Tom here, as we continue our journey through the Bible in an effort to determine what God is calling us to do, this morning’s reading is from Proverbs 1.   A couple of things jumped out at me while reading it:

Vs. 7 Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

It sounds so simple but yet it can be such a hard thing to do.   As we look at what our plans are in our lives and as we ask ourselves, “What should I be doing about the disaster in Haiti?” we need to do something very basic.

Start with God.   Talk to God, tell Him what you’re thinking, ask Him what you should do.  And then listen to God.   Listen in the small whispers of life, listen in the doors flung wide open in front of you, listen in the pictures and stories of those less fortunate than you.

But remember, if you listen, you also need to be ready to act on what you hear.

Then I read a little further and read Psalm 63 (I told you it was a random schedule) and came across vs. 8.   As I read that, I remembered something that Dixie told us Friday night.   Friday we had a get together for about 90 of our closest friends who came from as far as a couple of hours away to have dinner with Dixie.    While the parents were talking that evening, Dixie said that for the first two weeks after the earthquake, virtually all of them down at GLA were getting motion sickness.   The ground was literally swaying so much and so often they were getting sick from it.

And then I read what David says in Psalm 63 vs. 8:

 ⁸I hold on to you for dear life, and you hold me steady as a post.

If we hold on to Him, even though the earth moves (literally) He will hold us and give us the strength we need.

Join me in prayer today that all of the Christians in Haiti and those who care about what’s happening in Haiti would stay close to God, hold on to Him, listen to Him and be ready to follow God’s call.

Thanks for reading and thanks for caring…….

Tom

Here’s another Mother’s Day Miracle story.   Enjoy it!
(I couldn’t get the video to work, but click on the link and it works there – sorry)

Haiti with love on Mother’s Day | abc30.com

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — In March a Haitian toddler named Benicio was adopted by parents in Visalia after an earthquake rocked his hometown.

Sunday Benicio’s family shared their story of failed pregnancies with a church in Northeast Fresno and explained why Benicio is a present from God.

Congregants of New Covenant church in Northeast Fresno witnessed a special Mother’s day gift 9, years in the making, an adopted son giving his new mother her first Mother’s Day hug.

“It’s neat, finally. It’s been a long road,” said Catherine Downes.

Catherine and her husband Kevin of Visalia were invited to share their unique story of infertility and the adoption of Benicio, a Haitian born child who survived January’s devastating earthquake.

“The process to adopt from Haiti and any third world country for that matter is just the infrastructure is just not really set up and so we would have delay after delay after delay,” Kevin Downes said.

But two weeks after the quake this two-year old was in America.

“Melting into our arms and just kind of a sigh of relief for he just somehow kind of knew this is where he was supposed to be,” Catherine Downes said.

Their message of perseverance and faith resonated with the audience.

“I wasn’t able to have children so it meant a lot to me because he was a couple that stepped out of the box,” Alice Reiter of Fresno said.

Lorrie Garnier of Fresno added, “Lot of friends that can’t have kids, would love to adopt. It’s a big process. I just praise them.”

Sunday’s service took on a stronger spiritual significance when the Downeses explained their unusual twist in fate early in the adoption process.

“October of 2008 is when we got the referral from the orphanage in Haiti with Benicio and that was an unbelievable moment and then the very next day Catherine found out she was pregnant,” Kevin Downes said.

Now there are two reasons to celebrate this Mother’s day 11-month old Nathaniel and his older brother Benicio.

“Never lose hope and trust that God has a plan for you,” Kevin Downes said.

(Copyright ©2010 KFSN-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

Technorati Tags: Haiti, God’s Littlest Angels, Orphans, Adoptions

Tom here with some thoughts from my devotional reading.   The schedule has a reading from II Corinthians 11-13 for today.   Here’s the verse that struck a chord with me:

Paul is talking about how he struggled with his limitations and God told him in Chap. 12 verse 8:

My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.

Think about how many people have been pushed beyond their “normal” boundaries because of what happened on January 12.   Think about how many people have answered God’s call to help since January 12 and stepped WAY out of their comfort zone.

So, join me in praying about how God is giving you (and me) the grace that we need to make a difference for the children and people in Haiti.

Thanks!

Tom