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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Shaquille O’Neal (the basketball player) wrote an article for CNN about what he and his organization are doing for the kids in Haiti.
A couple of thoughts (and I’d urge you to read the entire article):
The importance of having people with a “public” voice doing what they can to help keep the perspective on the needs of the children in Haiti can’t be overestimated. The needs are huge and long term.
There is a need (and will be for a substantial period of time) for temporary care for the children in Haiti. By temporary, I am talking about a couple of “scenarios:” 1. Children who have parents but require medical care that their parents can’t provide. 2. Children who are of an unknown status. They don’t know who their parents are, don’t know the status of their parents, don’t know anything about their family.
The idea that raising children in an orphanage setting is a long term solution for the children and is what’s best for the children is a fallacy. Tara Livesay says it well at “The Case for Adoptions.”
Given the lack of infrastructure, the best way for many of the orphans in Haiti to have an opportunity at a successful and productive life is to find them forever families outside of Haiti, get a good education and if they decide they want to give back to Haiti, that would be an awesome thing. But with a “pre-earthquake” unemployment rate of in excess of 7 times what it is in the United States, how likely is it that they would be able to get an education, find a job and live a useful and productive life? Until the international community steps up and helps Haiti rebuild with a better infrastructure and better education, medical care and industry, adoption is for many, the only way for these children to have a chance to give back.
It is very very important to do things the right way. it’s very important to follow the rules of the Haitian government and the government of whatever country that you are from when working on helping in Haiti.
But we are at a situation where things need to be done. Statistically, there is virtually no chance that of the estimated 230,000 people in Haiti who died, every single person who died was part of the same family units. There is no way that there weren’t countless (probably thousands) of orphans created on January 12. Where are they? Many of them were taken into the countryside with the flight of the refugees. I heard of an orphanage about 5 hours from Port Au Prince that had 150 orphans before January 12. Now they have 750.
If we (the international community) don’t step up, work together, and care for these children, then they will end up dying or being sold as restaveks (child slaves).
And that is in direct contradiction to what God calls us to do in James 1:27.
So, you’re probably wondering, “What can I do?” A couple of suggestions:
Pray and ask God what to do. Ultimately, the challenges in Haiti and how to deal with them are way too big for us to solve without God leading the way. Ask God to foster a much better and bigger and more proactive partnership between organizations, people, countries and industries to help Haiti become better than it was before.
Support the organizations that are working in Haiti – and ones that are doing it in line with the way you feel comfortable. What do I mean by that? Read the information the organizations put out, look at their goals, their history and then respond accordingly. Don’t just blindly give money to a “big name” just because they have a “big name.”
Be in it for the long haul. This won’t go away over night, so stay committed and help for the long haul.
Thanks for reading, thanks for the way you’ve supported God’s Littlest Angels already. We are working on some additional detailed ways that you can be involved with God’s Littlest Angels going forward. Just a bit of a “glimpse” into them, they have to do with sponsorships of the children, educational sponsorships, and the plan to get the children into an orphanage that is a hurricane and earthquake resistant place.
This is a country full of young children who will be permanently affected by this catastrophe. It is our responsibility to help Haiti solve this problem, as long as it takes to do it. We must not only rebuild the country, its roads, its buildings and its government. We also have to rebuild its children.
It is an emergency to get these children back in schools. It was already an emergency before January 12, when a large percentage of children were not in school. It is an emergency to protect their human rights, it is an emergency to give them health services and prevent diseases that have long-term impact. We must not only rebuild the country, its roads, its buildings … We also have to rebuild its children. –Shaquille O’Neal RELATED TOPICS
* Haiti * Disaster Relief * Education
We must treat these children like children. They need music and arts and sports. They need trained teachers who can educate and protect them during the school day. They need to have safe places to play. They need access to computer labs, technology and modern education tools.
I decided this is what I would focus on. How could I lead in contributing for immediate needs — but also for those that linger? A bed to sleep in and a roof over their heads. Schools. Computers. Teachers. Books. Soccer fields. Basketball courts. Parks. That is it.
Our team traveled to Port-Au-Prince and Jacmel over the past few weeks, and we are returning again this month. We have joined in partnership with the United States Foundation for the Children of Haiti. The team met with the most amazing woman, Gladys Thomas, who has been serving the children in her homeland of Haiti since 1981.
Thomas has led the foundation in developing a full spectrum of services for the growing number of children brought into her care. We will support her organization and work to support La Foundation Pour les Enfants d’Haiti, a nonprofit and nongovernmental Haitian organization.
Our foundation O’Positive, along with Greenhouse International, will support the ongoing need to rebuild the infrastructure and buildings for School of Good Shower, Hope Hospital and Children’s Hope Village, which both serve Haitian orphans in her care.
O’Positive and I will also be working on a partnership with Save the Children and Harvard University Innovation Lab in Haiti to help provide infrastructure and quality education, teacher training and supplies the children need to succeed.
So many people have already given so much. But this effort is just beginning. It has been four months since that horrible day. One-third of a year. Thousands of children are sitting in tents each day, with nowhere to go and nothing to do. It is easy to forget about what is no longer on the front page or staring you down on your TV or computer. We get back to our normal lives.
But remember, these children cannot resume their normal lives. We must not forget that in order to rebuild Haiti, we must rebuild its youth. We must not leave them behind. Their lives cannot end at the hands of an earthquake. Let’s find the light in the storm, and build a future for the children.
Tom here with some rather mundane housekeeping type of things…..
When we set up the “chip ins” on the right side of the page, I had to put an expiration date in them. That date has now passed.
The needs aren’t anywhere close to having passed.
So I’ve set up two new ones. One is for medical equipment. We were approximately $8,000 into our $20,000 goal for the new medical equipment that we need.
The other is for the earthquake rebuilding fund. I’m calling it the rebuilding fund because it’s in many ways moved beyond the initial disaster recovery and is more into the rebuilding stage. We raised over $180,000 on the blog due to the generosity of so many of you for that, and we thank you for that immensely.
The goal that I’ve set “out there” is that I’d like to see the GLA community come up with an additional $1,000,000 in the next 12 months for use for helping staff rebuild their homes, helping their community and getting GLA into a new earthquake and hurricane proof home.
This is actually a few months old, but it’s still applicable and since it talks about Richard Stearns and World Vision (and Haiti), I thought I’d reprint part of it here.
I think the most important thing that it says is echoing what Richard Stearns asks, “Where is the church?”
Where is the church? Much more involved than it was, but not as much as it could be…….
A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?
It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.
World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.
………A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.
“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?
“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”
Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”
In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)
Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.
A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.
If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.
Holland family celebrating Mother’s Day as their two adopted children from Haiti settle in By Ted Roelofs | The Grand Rapids Press May 08, 2010, 5:10AM
Paul and Marisa Brinks have four children, from left, Alyssa, 8, Samara, 6, Austin, 6, and Aidan, 4. Samara and Aidan were adopted from Haiti this year.For Holland resident Marisa Brinks, the wait after Haiti’s Jan. 12 earthquake was a stomach-churning “emotional roller coaster.”
It ended in joy 10 days later, when she and her husband, Paul, hugged two young Haitian children, Aidan, 4, and Samara, 6, who await final approval for adoption.
With their other two other adopted children, Alyssa, 8, and Austin, 6, they already have altered her outlook on family and motherhood.
“We are blessed to be able to have these precious kids and to experience this. But this is not about rescuing them. They didn’t need us. We needed them to complete our family.”
But she knows all too well any emotions she endured are dwarfed by the challenges of everyday life for children and families in Haiti.
“For the people of Haiti, the emotional roller coaster is still going on. If they’ve lost family members, they don’t know how they will go on. They don’t know if they will have work. They don’t know if they will have food.”
Since the earthquake, some 1,000 Haitian children have been brought to U.S. families like the Brinkses who filed adoption applications before the quake. But with that pool diminishing, adoption advocates are pressing to knock down bureaucratic barriers they say stand in the way of far more children appropriate for adoption.
An estimated 40 percent of Haiti’s pre-quake population was under 14, including about 50,000 in orphanages and more than 200,000 others not living with their parents. Hundreds of thousands of Haitian children lack birth certificates or other identification, complicating adoption efforts.
The Organization of American States is proposing to provide all Haitian minors with identification cards, a task that could take until 2013 to complete.
But the downside to overzealous intervention became clear in the weeks after the quake, when members of an Idaho church group were arrested for trying to take children they falsely claimed were parentless out of Haiti without government approval. The leader of the group still faces charges in Haiti.
At Bethany Christian Services, which managed the Brinkses’ adoptions, international service coordinator Kim Batts described a delicate balance between respect for a culture and nation and the needs of children.
“It is definitely a line that we are walking. It can be difficult to prove if there are no documents,” said Kim Batts, Bethany’s international service coordinator.
Batts said the agency is proceeding cautiously while documentation issues are sorted out.
“We want to make sure every child has a chance to stay with their birth family.”
For Marisa Brinks, 35, it has been a long and improbable trip.
“Four years ago, this would have never been on my radar. We had the perfect family, one boy, one girl and a dog.”
The couple first turned to domestic adoption in 2001 when they adopted Alyssa and in 2003 when they adopted Austin……
In 2007, Paul traveled with a group on a mission trip to Haiti.
“That kind of opened our eyes that this was an option,” Paul recalled.
Marisa Brinks will not soon forget the moment she and their newest family members entered their lives after the children’s flight to Miami. They arrived on humanitarian parole from an orphanage in Port-Au-Prince, their adoptions pending approval by a local court.
“We were in a conference room and they were in a conference room. It was kind of surreal. You waited all that time. It was good to see them safe and see their smiles and good to give them a hug.”
Since then, she has seen their individual personalities emerge, as they adjust to a strange new land and from their native Creole to English.
Samara: “She is full of emotion and lots of smiles. She is willing to try anything, to jump into any activity. If I am cooking their red sauce with rice, then Samara will be, ‘Hmmm, we have good cooking tonight.’”
Sometimes, says Marisa, she will say: “‘This family is good.’ Or she will just say, ‘Thank you. I love you, Mommy.’”
Aidan: “He is easy going. He always has a smile on his face.”
And Marisa: “Sometimes it’s like, ‘We’re done. We are all here.’ It’s just a good feeling.”
Okay, I can’t say that very often, but I can definitely say that tonight…..
Let me tell the story……
There’s a little girl who was born in Haiti about 9 months ago. On January 12, she was living at God’s Littlest Angels orphanage when the earthquake struck.
And people prayed for the children.
Shortly after that, she got sick. Quite sick. And people prayed.
The following Tuesday, my wife got down to GLA and immediately got busy helping take care of the kids. At the same time, Dixie, Laurie, Stephanie, Melanie, well, everyone there was working on the paperwork to try to get the kids home. And people prayed.
Jump forward to Thursday of that week, and the entire GLA staff is getting the American kids ready to go to the airport. And this little girl is really not doing very well. Dixie tells Cheryl and Laurie and a few others that they need to take her down to a hospital in Port Au Prince to be seen by an American doctor to make sure she can handle the trip to Miami. As in, make sure she doesn’t die on the plane. Yeah, that sick. And there were people praying.
The ride down to the hospital is quite an experience. Anyone who has been there knows that it can be a 1 to 2 hour traffic jam down to Port Au Prince. Laurie is driving and when they needed to “merge” into traffic, her friend Junior (someone who I have never met but want to) who was riding shotgun would get out, jump in front of traffic, bang on other cars and get them to stop and let them in.
They made the drive in 31 minutes. No, that’s not a misprint. Obviously, there were people praying.
Now jump forward to midnight that night. The plane lands in Miami. The first two people off the plane are my wife carrying this little girl. The Miami airport has an ambulance waiting and they take the two of them immediately to the Baptist Children’s Hospital in Miami. I talk to my wife about 6:30 Friday morning and after having been up for 24 hours, she says, through tears, “The parents need to get here to the hospital, she’s not doing very well.” (I’m paraphrasing her). So, I get in touch with Johnny Carr from Bethany who is down in Miami at the airport trying to be of assistance and he brings this girl’s new mother to the hospital. This little girl is very sick and the medical personnel believe at that point that she’s got bacterial meningitis. Now I’m not a medical person (though I’ve been married to one for almost 25 years) and I know that is not a good thing to have.
Friday night, this little girl ends up having emergency brain surgery. And there were people praying.
On Monday, her parents are told that there is a 99% chance that she will end up in a vegetative state and need to be institutionalized. But people kept praying.
Like I said before, a miracle sat on my lap tonight.
I’d like to introduce to you RoseLaure Horne. She’s 9 months old, crawls, can see, can hear, is learning to walk and her mother said that they took her for testing to see if she needed any sort of developmental therapy. She doesn’t.
She’s developing completely on target for her age.
Did I mention that there have been people praying?
A miracle sat on my lap tonight and it made everything worthwhile……
Today’s selection for reading is Job 41-42. It kind of jumps in at the end of the story of Job and starts with the part where God is yelling at him for being presumptuous and trying to tell God what to do.
Then after a pretty solid “tongue lashing” by God, Job comes back on and admits that he screwed up. He said a couple of things in Chap. 42 that really struck me as important:
1Job answered God: 2“I’m convinced: You can do anything and everything. Nothing and no one can upset your plans.
Read that again. Job admits that God can do anything and everything and nothing can upset his plans. Do you think that includes earthquakes? (Hint – yes it does). Do you think that includes all of the things that we as people think of but then say, “Oh, that could never work!” Do you think that rather than saying, “That would never work, we should say, “God, what do you want?”
A couple of verses farther down, Job gave quite a first hand testimony:
5I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!
I think that all of us who care deeply about Haiti and it’s people (especially it’s children) can say that we no longer live by rumors of You but instead live by first hand knowledge of God, His Power and His Plan for our lives, His Plan for His Children in Haiti and His Plan for the people of Haiti.
I’m praying that we will continue to follow and search for God’s plan for the rest of our lives and that we’ll be patient as He unfolds it for us.
Tom here, sorry I didn’t get something written up last night. After a full day of work and a night of meetings at church, there just wasn’t the time and energy to do it justice.
I have to admit, this is becoming quite something. As I told you, I’m reading off a random schedule that I found on the web and it said that today I’m supposed to be reading Psalm 60-62.
So what is Psalm 60 about? It’s a cry from the Israelites about how God shook the foundations and ripped open huge crevasses. Does that sound like anything that happened in Haiti on say, January 12 at 4:53 pm?
Here’s the verses that spoke to me of the plight of God’s people in Haiti:
1God! you walked off and left us, kicked our defenses to bits And stalked off angry. Come back. Oh please, come back! 2You shook earth to the foundations, ripped open huge crevasses. Heal the breaks! Everything’s coming apart at the seams. 3You made your people look doom in the face…..
11Give us help for the hard task; human help is worthless. 12In God we’ll do our very best; he’ll flatten the opposition for good.
Then when you read Psalms 61-62, it’s basically David’s prayer and testimony of faith and trust in God to deliver him and his people from their dark times and to do it according to God’s plan, not according to David’s plan.
So, we might get impatient, we might say, “God, hurry up and do things this way.” Or “God, why aren’t you fixing the situation with _____ (fill in the blank with your favorite acronym)”
I guess we all needed a reminder that God is in control and we just need to trust Him more and work with God’s plans.
Troy and Tara Livesay are friends of mine and are missionaries in Port Au Prince. Tara wrote the post (reposted in it’s entirety) on their blog at Livesay Haiti Blog. I’ve taken the liberty of reposting it here because I believe she’s absolutely dead on accurate with it.
One of the misconceptions about adoption (in this case from Haiti) is that Americans are “stealing/removing the future generation” of leaders from the country.
I have noticed multiple reports of this post EQ on major news outlets (Anderson Cooper repeated similar rhetoric in one report he did from a PAP orphanage) and have heard this argument bandied about by many folks that lack facts. So lets take a look at some facts:
In 2007- 191 children left Haiti to become Americans In 2008- 301 In 2009- 330 After the EQ 2010 – approximately 900 children left on Humanitarian Parole, seeking adoption and citizenship in the USA.
Take into account that most children stay with their families and are never abandoned. Then estimate that there are somewhere near 500,000 children institutionalized in Haiti. If 300 leave – or – even if ten times that many leave in a year – no one is removing the next generation. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The only thing happening is that a microscopic little band-aid is being placed on a massive gushing wound.
This idea that institutions produce the future leaders of a nation is curious to me anyway. Families offer stability and love. Love and stability create confidence. Confidence creates future leaders.
Changing the argument into something other than truth is the way to advance an anti-adoption agenda, it does not change the real statistics. If we’re going to allow that argument any time or attention, we should also stop that man above from having so many of the world’s cows.
Tom here, remember back shortly after the world changed? Remember when we were scrambling to get as much stuff as possible and get it to Colorado so they could get it down to Haiti? And remember how that all is just getting out now?
Well, as part of what we were doing then, a couple of times, I put a link to Amazon.com on the blog and told you that if I earned any commissions from that, I’d spend them to support GLA?
Well, the other day, I got notice from Amazon that there was $600.48 in my account waiting to get spent. So, Dixie and I went shopping…..
The details are below about what we got, but let me tell you just a couple of things:
When Dixie told the ladies in the kitchen that they were getting a new pressure cooker (compared to the one they are using right now which is a broken 5 quart one), they literally started dancing a “jig.” I asked Dixie if she got it on video, but she said that if she comes around with a camera, they stop dancing. They will be able to prepare food for the kids and the volunteers a lot better this way.
As anyone who is following what Dixie is writing knows, we’ve got a lot of small kids at GLA right now. Let’s just say that 5 new bottle warmers will be a 500% increase in the number of bottle warmers that they have.
The camera they use to take passport photos has a “virtually non-existent” memory card. This one will make things work much better.
Thank you for your support. I wanted to put this out there in an effort to be completely open and honest with you on where your support is going and what a difference it makes. Suffice it to say, GLA will be a “little better” of a place because of those who clicked on the Amazon links before.
Oh, and thank you to Amazon as well!
For the kids,
Tom
Billing Address: Tom Vanderwell 3056 Viewpoint St Jenison, MI 49428 United States
Shipping Address: God’s Littlest Angels 2275 WAYNOKA RD STE D COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80915-1635 United States
Delivery estimate: May 11, 2010 – May 14, 2010 Shipping estimate for these items: May 6, 2010 – May 7, 2010
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"DataMINE 8GB SDHC Class 6 Memory Card Featuring DataSafe Technology for your Fuji FinePix JZ500 / JZ300 / JV100 / AV100 / F80EXR / Z700EXR and More Digital Cameras" $18.99
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Okay, today I was reading in Exodus (I told you the schedule I use is random) and came across this passage in Exodus 30:
11God spoke to Moses: 12“When you take a head count of the Israelites to keep track of them, all must pay an atonement-tax to God for their life at the time of being registered so that nothing bad will happen because of the registration. 13Everyone who gets counted is to give a half-shekel (using the standard Sanctuary shekel of a fifth of an ounce to the shekel)—a half-shekel offering to God. 14Everyone counted, age twenty and up, is to make the offering to God. 15The rich are not to pay more nor the poor less than the half-shekel offering to God, the atonement-tax for your lives. 16Take the atonement-tax money from the Israelites and put it to the maintenance of the Tent of Meeting. It will be a memorial fund for the Israelites in honor of God, making atonement for your lives.”
When I combine this chapter with what Richard Stearns has to say in The Hole in Our Gospel, I had two reactions to it:
On the one hand, all that Moses is calling for is a “minimum” of the Israelites money to go toward the maintenance of the temple.
In the chapter in Richard Stearns book about money, he said that in reality, Christians currently donate less than 2% of their income to support charitable causes and that 2% of those funds go to organizations that care for the poor, the downtrodden, the orphans and the widows.
I’ll be the first to admit that I am not one of the few who tithe as much or more than what the Bible calls for, but the thought comes to mind…..
If Christians everywhere were to increase their support of mission organizations by 2% of their income, how much of an impact could we have on those who are in desperate need of assistance?
And how many organizations would then have the funding that they could not only provide short term relief but could more importantly provide long term efforts that would help the needy break the cycle of poverty and be better off in the long run?
Please join me in praying that the hearts of Christians would be opened (and remain open) to the call to help those who are less fortunate than us.
Tom here, for my personal devotions, I found a “read through the Bible” schedule that appears to me to be quite random. I like that because in the past, I’ve gotten bogged down in some of the books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy and not stayed with things.
Well, as a follow up to the post I wrote this morning, I turned to my calendar and looked at what chapters of the Bible were on the schedule for today. It was II Corinthians 9 and 10. So, I started reading and was surprised at what I read……
Paul was talking in chapter 9 to the church about giving to support their poor fellow Christians. Let me quote what he says in vs. 6-8:
6Remember: A stingy planter gets a stingy crop; a lavish planter gets a lavish crop. 7I want each of you to take plenty of time to think it over, and make up your own mind what you will give. That will protect you against sob stories and arm-twisting. God loves it when the giver delights in the giving. 8God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done.
Was I surprised that Paul said that? No, the surprising thing was that it came, totally unscheduled, as the first chapter scheduled after I started a time of prayer and Bible reading about what’s happening in Haiti and how to respond to it.
So, today, my thoughts and prayers are today are focusing on that question. How is God calling me to respond to the disaster in Haiti? Am I doing what God is calling or not?
Thanks for praying for those who need help in Haiti, those who are helping and those who are wrestling with what they should be doing……..
One of the things that I have so enjoyed over the last four months is the opportunity to talk with so many people (by phone, by e-mail, etc.) and to see the literally thousands of people who have been pushed out of their comfort zone by what’s happening in Haiti.
As time is passing and we’re a bit farther from the initial disaster, I’m also sensing a growing number of people (present company included) who are struggling with the “what now?” question. As in, okay, I’ve donated money to GLA, I’ve prayed for the situation in Haiti, but what now? I mean, I know the situation isn’t over and won’t be for a long time. I know that there are a lot of people and a lot of children who are still suffering.
But what does God require of me?
In large part because of what I’ve been reading in Richard Stearns book, I’m going to go out on a limb and ask you to do something with me.
For the next three weeks, I’m going to commit to spending at least 30 minutes 5 to 7 days a week in Bible reading and prayer, praying specifically for the needs of the people in Haiti, the people who are working to help them and for those who are struggling with the question of how they can or should be involved in the Haiti rebuilding.
I’m going to write about what I’m reading and share it here and I’d love to hear from others who find things they’d like to share. If you’d feel comfortable sharing it in the comments, please do so. Otherwise you can e-mail me directly by clicking here.
Let’s commit to that for at least the next three weeks and I think we’ll all be amazed to see what God has planned and the opportunities and doors that He opens.
Thanks for reading, thanks for listening and thanks for doing your part in God’s plan for Haiti.
I just got this e-mail and I thought I’d share it with you. You might think that it’s not a lot of money, but then think about it from this standpoint…..
What they raised for God’s Littlest Angels by having a yard sale is pretty close to what the “average” income is for a Haitian for 6 months.
Thanks Kristin and kids!
Hi Tom,
Since the earthquake, our family has fallen in love with the people of Haiti and the children at God’s Littlest Angels. As a mother of five small children I felt helpless but wanted to try to do what I could. Our kids suggested a yard sale, but we didn’t really seem to have enough "stuff." So we posted a request on facebook and asked people at our church. We received a lot of donations and we had our yard sale this past Saturday and made $277.75! We were very excited and have sent the money through Chip In this morning. I am attaching three pictures. Our prayer is that the money will be used to better the life of some of the children in Haiti.
Tom here – I don’t know if you recall, but on tax day (at least in the US), I wrote a post here about how we needed assistance getting some donations from Gillette Wyoming to our office in Colorado Springs. You can read the original post here.
Well, I’m happy to say that the GLA supporters have once again come through and we’ve made the connections and the first run of “goods” has been made.
It’s truly inspiring to see how many people, literally all over the world, are willing to step up and do their part, no matter how small, to help.
Tom here – it has truly been amazing how support for God’s Littlest Angels in Haiti comes in from all over the world. Below is the story and pictures of one of those fundraisers a LONG way away from Haiti. Enjoy, I know I did……
Dear GLA and Team!!
We are Raoul and Janneke Leemhuis from the Netherlands. We have a son Jonah who is know just 2 years old. We adopted him when he was 4 days old from Philadelphia where he was born. This was an open adoption, so we have contact with his Birth mother and we also met her. Because we had to do all the paperwork by ourselves we are now very well known in the “adoption world”. Because we really like to have a brother or Sister for Jonah we were surfing on the internet, and also looked at the N.A.S website. The N.A.S does the Haitian adoption in the Netherlands. So that’s how we know about GLA. We were very impressed by it. And then it happens, a earthquake hits Haiti. Terrible news flashes us by and we are very sad. Every day we looked at the website of the N.A.S if there was any kind of news……Then we read that the children of GLA are coming to the Netherlands with an airplane A.s.a.p. wow this is “good” news. The way GLA and the N.A.S were handling this admired us!! It teaches us that everything is possible if you want to. So me and my husband sat down and talked to each other about it. Oke, what are WE going to do about it?? Are we going to sit back, or do something? Together with our friend Ingrid Van Weert, we brainstormed a fundraiser called Bicycling for GLA. And that’s where it all began. We put articles in the newspaper, start an website, and we also start a real foundation!! The newspapers gave us a lot of attention, we even made it several times on the front-page hahahaha. We got a lot of response from people. That gave us strength to keep going. What a feeling….the local GYM donated spontaneously 750 euro!! A little girl baked cookies and gave the money to us etc etc. God is good. And then on the 27th of march we had the ATB ( bicycling ) for GLA!! We were a little bit nervous….what if there is nobody coming??? But no, on 10.00 am 40 people arrived and checked in for GLA ATB tour!!! We were very Happy!! They all started together for a beautiful ride in the forest.
The people were very excited by the route. They even want to do it again sometimes!!! Wow what a compliment. In the forest they had a time- out with soup, and when they arrived at the check in they had coffee and sandwiches ( soup and sandwiches were also sponsored ). They raised about 800 euro’s!!! And they also going to put money on the foundation account!! What a day. On this day God was watching us, because the whole week it was terrible weather, it was cold rainy and sad. But on this day the sun was shining and the temperature was nice, people were happy…..
So we sat down again and brainstormed another fundraiser…a benefit evening for GLA!!
Where to begin???? We wrote a lot of emails to people who maybe could help. I posted an request on HYVES ( some kind of Face book in the Netherlands). What a reply we got on this! In no time we had a really nice band and a location. We also had an auction this night with really nice things to auction. A local artist Rob Koenders ( who really makes nice paintings and art ) was doing the auction. I made a Power point presentation about GLA and people could watch it on a big screen. People were really surprised by the necessary to fundraise for GLA! They were shocked. We talked about it, and people were very open to hear your story!! Here in Holland life goes on…so this was an nice opportunity to tell the story about GLA. We all together raised about 1800 euro. Just look at the pictures and you know what we mean with a big success for fundraising for GLA! The next goal is to buy medical supplies for GLA. I’m a nurse at the local Hospital and have the opportunity to buy medical supplies and medicine. But know we really have to brainstorm how to get it in America!! It cost a lot of money, time and expertise. Maybe people who read this can assist or help us. This is our short story about our fundraising, we hope our English is good enough to read! Thank you for your time, and you hear from us again……because we still keep brainstormingJ!
these last 2 pictures are my Husband and me on it!
Tom here, I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon who is a missionary in Haiti (not at GLA) and we were talking about the “stories” of what is happening in Haiti and what a powerful example of God’s strength in hard time it is.
Then, tonight, I’m on the computer and I read something on Facebook that I wasn’t totally finished with and I was already trying to get in touch with the author to get permission to repost it here. Make sure you read the whole thing. I know you’ll be touched by it like I was.
At first, she laughed, but then she gave me the go ahead to do it. Let me tell you a little bit about the author:
She’s been working at GLA for around 6 years now and has tirelessly devoted herself to the good of the children.
For some reason, all of “her kids” end up being really cool kids. I think she just rubs off on them. Maybe it’s her “Satan Sucks” t-shirts? Nah, it’s just Joyce.
In all of the time I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her upset, frustrated or angry. I’m sure she does get that way, but she’s one of the most “joy” filled people I know.
Now here’s the scoop (and I’m saying it so she doesn’t feel like it’s her “push”):
In the last 3 months, the staff at GLA has been through a LOT (that’s an understatement).
They have also had the privilege of sending a LOT of kids to their forever families.
But that hasn’t been without pain because rather sending a few home to their forever families at a time, they sent virtually all of the kids that they have grown to love home at once.
Well, we’ve got an opportunity to show her how much we appreciate all they do for the kids:
In May and again in August, Molly and Joyce have the opportunity to travel a bit and reconnect with their kids.
I think it would be awesome if we (the collective readers of the GLA blog) could do a couple of things: 1) Help pick up some of the expenses for these two travel opportunities and 2) post a note in the comments to this post letting Molly and Joyce know what a phenomenal job they are doing and how much it means.
Oh, and the travel opportunity in August is to the GLA Reunion that’s going to be held in Michigan (my wife and I are organizing it). There are already people coming from California, way up north in Canada and the Netherlands, so don’t say you’re too far away to come see a whole bunch of Haitian kids and Molly and Joyce!
Now, without further introduction, here is Joyce Trainer’s Story…….
This is my story…. Not just my story, but the story of Haiti – the story of devastation – the story of life By Joyce Trainer
January 12, 2010 – I had just finished off my school day and was upstairs working on lessons for the next morning. It was 4:53 pm, just minutes before we were planning on heading to the main house for dinner. The earthquake started. We had felt a few earthquakes before in Haiti but they hit softly and we just continued on with our day. This one was different. About ten seconds into it the shaking was hard enough for me to know we weren’t safe inside. I jumped out of my chair and ran toward the door. I opened it, struggling to stand and ran right into the wall. I headed down the stairs with Molly right there next to me. When we got downstairs we hopped over broken baby food jars that covered the gallery floor. I remember stepping on pieces and feeling nothing. We gathered the children outside and sometime during all this the shaking stopped. The children sat down in the yard as we spoke with the nannies about where to place the kids since the car in the yard had been moving back and forth. I jumped up on the side of our wall and looked at the quarry on the next mountain over. It was pure smoke. My first thought was that the quarry caved in and that’s what caused all the shaking. I was assured that it was not the quarry when the next shake came. Looking over after the dust settled, I remembered where the back hoe always sat. It was no longer sitting in its spot. Then I prayed for the man who worked the machine. Reality set in.
A few minutes later Molly and I went back upstairs to try and make contact with people since the phone lines were down. As soon as we reached the top of the stairs the shaking started again. We ran back outside and sat with the children. We began to pray – we talked with the kids and asked them if they would sing with us. They closed their eyes, raised their hands and began to pray and sing through the shaking. Every two to five minutes there would be more. Our nannies held the children tight – not yet knowing the fate of their own children, their husbands, their mothers and fathers, or their brothers and sisters. They took turns walking out the gate to desperately reach a family member. Sonson, our yard worker, was the first to hear news. His big brother was killed as his house collapsed. Sonson took time to grieve quietly for a few minutes but he knew what needed to be done. He walked over to the yard of kids and picked up one of our smallest children and held them close. The child hung on, relieved to be in his arms and to feel safe. We continued our singing and praising throughout the evening while more phone calls were made and more nannies learned the fate of their families.
I remember a knock at the gate; it was Nicole’s (a nanny) brother standing there. I saw relief in Nicole’s eyes but when he turned to her and said “You need to prepare yourself for some news” she braced herself. Nicole’s sister-in-law was crushed under her home. She left a four month old child behind. Nicole grieved and called out to God outside the gate where the kids couldn’t see. She took the time she needed, came in and finished preparing the meal for the children. The night continued with prayer and singing. The younger children calmed down and were able to carry on like a normal day. Our oldest children were scared. They wanted to be held. They wanted to feel secure. They wanted it to stop. We wanted to make their lives as normal as possible so we stuck to routine as much as we could. The kids were bathed and put into bed. They slept hard through the night, waking up to shakes here and there but able to go back to bed. The nannies spent the night in prayer and songs and continued to try to reach loved ones. Gwo manman (head nanny) was concerned about her daughter who was in Port au Prince at school during the quake. She prayed though the night and told me she wouldn’t be able to live if she got the news that her daughter didn’t make it. Gwo manman had the phone up to her ear while praying all night. Finally the song she had been singing stopped. It was early morning by this point and we looked over at her. She listened for a moment and finally yelled into the phone “Carine!” It was her daughter on the other end. Tears began to roll down Gwo manman’s cheeks. She knew her daughter was alive. For the next few days our biggest concerns were getting a hold of our nannies. Each time the bell rang, we all ran to see who was on the other side. We joyfully welcomed our incredible staff as each one came in.
Three days after the quake Claudette came in and headed upstairs in a daze. I followed her up and told her how happy I was to see her. She smiled at me and said “Joyce I can’t find my mother and brothers.” Claudette had walked to Carrefour (near the epicenter of the quake) to her mother’s house to find it flattened to the ground. She asked neighbors and no one could tell her if there were people inside. She couldn’t stand not knowing so she walked to the nearby morgue and began the unimaginable – sifting through the bodies trying to find her family. Claudette explained to me how she picked up bodies off of each other to see the ones underneath. She found nothing. She sat next to me, crying, asking what she should do. I had no answer. I didn’t know what to say. She had left the morgue to walk back up to work because the kids needed her. Edlyne, who works with Claudette in the same care group, came up and told Claudette to go home and find her family. Edlyne was willing to stay and work for her and take care of the kids. Claudette thankfully took off looking for her family. She found them close by in a tent city trying to find a place to call “home.” God answered Claudette’s prayers.
Two days after the quake Laurie, Molly and I drove volunteers to the airport to try and get them evacuated. The sights stunned me. I heard things that were going on but I was not prepared for what I saw. I was not prepared to see homes crumbled to the ground, bodies lying on the side of the road waiting for trucks to pick them up, no one knowing who they were. I was not prepared to see the country I love and the people I am here to serve broken.
The exact death toll will never be known but it is said to be over 230,000.
Just a week after the quake we heard news that the kids in the adoption process going to Holland and Luxemburg were approved to leave. With all the government buildings in Port Au Prince destroyed all of our children’s adoption papers were lost. The embassy agreed to allow the children to go but it was on their terms. It was planned that the children would go on a military plane that evening and the parents would meet them on the other side. We gathered 42 of our children, had them say goodbye to their nannies and headed to the airport. Traffic was horrible but we spent the trip singing and distracting the children from the horrible sights. We sat in the field next to the airstrip for several hours until it was time to say goodbye. We lined up our children and they got on the bus one by one that was taking them to the airplane. We were told we couldn’t go any farther than that with them. Although we prepared the children as well as we could, they were still standing in lines – frightened. Most of them went willing with tears in their eyes and some went with a fight calling for us to come and take them home. We said goodbye to 42 of our outstanding children.
A week later it was time for our 83 “American” children to go home. This trip was much larger. Again they said their goodbyes to the nannies, but with plans to set them personally in the arms of their new moms and dads. We flew into Miami and spent just under eight hours in customs with all the children. Although they were tired, and ready to be done with the trip, they were excited about what waited on the other side of customs. We took them to a meeting room where all 83 families were waiting! Three children at a time, we united them with their forever families in the next room. They ran and jumped into their parent’s arms. We spent the day walking around the meeting rooms telling the parents everything we thought they needed to know. Then, one at a time we said our goodbye’s to these precious children who we have been caring for, loving on, teaching and living with for years.
Next to leave were our “Canadian” children. We arrived back to Haiti just to pack up our next group – less than 24 hours later. Our “Canadian” children said goodbye and we headed off to Ottawa. On the plane we had people walking around offering us boots, hats, mittens and even a few snow suits. There was no jet way so when we got off the plane the bitter cold hit us. I had Mustafa in my right arm and Gaelle walking next to me. When that door opened Moustafa thought he was going to die. He screamed as the cold wind hit his face. Never in his five years had he ever felt cold like that. I had to laugh as I wrapped a blanket around his face to shield the awful feeling. Again we said goodbye to 20 children who have changed my life. We watched as the kids began to bond with their new families. After spending the afternoon with them, it was time for goodbyes. We held the children that God so mercifully allowed us to care for and let them go to the families that God planned for them before they were even born. In February we welcomed 31 new children from an orphanage in Port Au Prince that collapsed. The children from BRESMA joined our orphanage after spending six weeks living outside in their compound. It has been wonderful having the house full of kids again.
The night Molly and I got back from Canada we had three children that were waiting to be united with their families in France. It was hard and unusual coming home and walking through empty bedrooms. I felt alone as I looked at their empty beds. Then suddenly I had an overflowing joy when I thought about the beds our kids were sleeping in that night. None of them were sitting in their beds here, wondering when the next shake was going to hit. And then it hit me, total and complete peace and it was the kind of peace that could only come from one place – our Father. Forward 3 months later…….
An adoption agency offered to fly Dixie, Laurie, Molly and myself to Europe and visit all the children we said goodbye to so fast. On May 18th the four of us are off to Holland, France, Luxemburg and Belgium to see children, those who recently left and children we said goodbye to years ago. We are so thrilled about this opportunity and cannot wait to see them all! I think about seeing Ronalson, who thought it was funny to pinch me when I wasn’t looking, Fabien who sang louder than anyone I’ve ever met, Cindy Love who never stopped talking, Woody who continuously asked if he could help, and so many more.
This August there is a gathering of children adopted from GLA being held in Michigan. Molly and I are hoping to attend and make a small road trip and see other children in different states. I think about seeing Rose Mitha and Rose Michelle again. They came to GLA six years ago at seven and five years old. They were too weak to even hold their eyelids open. They crouched in the corner hanging on to each other, refusing to allow us to touch them. Now at 13 and 11 these girls have grown up to be amazing children that love the Lord. We said good bye to them in the US group. The “Roses” have been at GLA the longest of any children. Molly, the nannies and I have lived with these girls for six years and now they are where God planned for them to be. They live in Tennessee with their amazing mother, father and two brothers.
I think about seeing my Sammy boo boo. Four years ago Sammy came to GLA just under two years old and near death. Dixie told me he was my special project. Where I went, he went. What I did, he did. He sat in school with me as I taught. He was my boy. Sammy refused to eat. He refused to sit. He couldn’t walk. He didn’t care to live. God put him in my heart and I desired to help him get well. Sammy would get strong for a while then get sick. One evening Dixie came and warned me he might not make it through the night. I held Sammy and asked God to save him. I asked God not to take him. God heard our prayers and strengthen Sammy. Not only did Sammy get well but he got fat! He had so much meat on him that he waddled when he walked. Sammy went home to his family in Tennessee three months ago with the other children. I think about being able to see him again, to hold him and to love on him.
Because I do not receive a salary from GLA, I need to raise funds to make this trip possible. I will be reporting on the success of adoptions from Haiti and how it is a vital part of saving the children of the world! We need a rental car, fuel, food and funds for some hotel nights. If you would like to designate funds to make this dream a possibility, you can donate through Trainer Ministries International They accept all major credit cards or cheque. If you give by credit card, you can call the information to Barb Trainer or e-mail your information. The card number, expiry and amount is all that is needed. Thank you so much for participating and being part of our humanitarian work. Sincerely, Joyce Trainer – Petionville, Haiti c/o Trainer Ministries International 13353 Woodcrest Drive Surrey, BC V4P 1W4 Canada 604-538-6530 or toll free 1-866-538-6530 ifma94@hotmail.com www.ifma94.org
If you haven’t noticed yet, there’s a new page on the blog! KIDZ Korner is going to start in the next few days and it’s going to consist of stories from the Toddler House. If you’re anything like me, I can’t wait to hear more about the kids at the Toddler House.
Molly Little will be telling us those stories. On behalf of all of us, Thanks Molly!
It’s so great to continue hearing about people who have a heart for Haiti and the fun ways that people are coming up with to raise funds for GLA! Here is what an adoptive family recently shared with us about what was done at their kid’s school…
Carline and Gregory’s elementary school (a K-3 school) did a Hats for Haiti day where, for a donation, kids and teachers could wear hats on a Friday (see attached flyer). I have also attached a picture of 3 of our kids leaving for school with their hats on. Vivianne also got to spend a day at school with the kids that day. The principal just wrote and said the final tally is over 700.00 that they are sending to Jean in CO. Wow!
Thanks to everyone at Lower Nazareth Elementary school in Nazareth, PA for raising money for God’s Littlest Angels! Sounds like you had fun doing it! God Bless!!
Tara is a friend I’ve never met (though I feel like I have – and my wife has on more than one occasion). She and I share a number of things in common:
We both have more than 1 kid from Haiti.
We both have a son adopted from Haiti who’s name is Isaac.
We both care passionately about adoption, especially about adoption from places like Haiti.
Troy (her husband) and Tara are missionaries with Heartline down in Port Au Prince (yeah, that’s right, down in the “thick” of things.) They write about their life, their kids, Haiti, and being missionaries on their blog at Troy and Tara’s Blog about Life in Haiti.
One of my daughters said it well when talking about Troy and Tara, she said something along the lines of, “They make being a missionary a cool thing!”
Tara wrote a post on their blog with some thoughts about adoption, especially as it relates to adopting from “other” countries and as it relates to the topic we’ve brought up before in the series from Family Life called “Children from Hard Places.” If you didn’t read it before, please do.
Now, with no further announcements, the guest post from my friend, Tara Livesay:
Troy and I are in Houston with five of the kids. Britt and Chris are caring for Lydie in Waco.
We’re so enjoying our time together. It has been very fun to see Phoebe in a new light. She seems pretty pumped about being with the "big kids" and having ditched Lydia. Even at three years old, she knows this is a special weekend and she was chosen to come along. Usually she is not very verbal at all. She never has been. She is talking more this weekend than we have ever heard. It is so fun, she sounds just like Elmo – it is marvelous.
We don’t often write about it, but of our children Phoebe is the only one that has consistently shown some signs of attachment challenges. It is so interesting because she has been with us since she was just ten weeks old.
I’ve been reading more and more about the damage that can take place even in the womb during stressful pregnancies and the bond between a mother and a child is very real and something we cannot understand or fully grasp. Phoebe has residual hurts. Whether that stems from a stressful pregnancy, being left in an orphanage, or something else all together … we cannot know. I love her and celebrate moments like this weekend when I see her blossoming and trusting and so so happy. I pray for healing in her little heart and that we can be for her what she needs us to be, both today and tomorrow.
I wish it was a perfect happy world where the need for adoption did not exist, but we all know we’re a long way from that world. In the United States and all around the globe children are waiting on us to respond. Adoption is not easy. The process itself is incredibly difficult and painful. Helping children heal can be a horrific thing to witness. But – I don’t think that changes anything, I still believe we are called to respond.
Adoption is both complicated and beautiful. Each of my children are wonderfully complicated and beautiful. I grieve that my children spent 14 months, 9 months and 10 weeks institutionalized and largely neglected. I know that hurt them and is a permanent part of their story. But I rejoice that love heals many wounds. I pray for children waiting in institutions. No one will ever convince me institutions are an okay place for children. Every child deserves an opportunity to be cared for, cherished, loved.
Aaron Ivey is a good friend. Paige loves this song of his about adoption and it has been playing (blaring) at our house a lot these past few weeks. Every time Isaac hears it he says, "Mama, this is that song about fighting to get us home – right??" He loves that image of being fought for … I do too. I have a Father who fought for me, and continues to fight for me. I want to do the same for my children.
Enjoy it – (it’s awesome) and please,pray for the millions of children going to sleep tonight with no mommy and no daddy and no one to make them feel special and loved.
I’ve had a number of people e-mail or call me recently asking for more details on what the status of adoptions is at GLA and in Haiti. I figured that if some of you are asking the questions, there are a LOT more who are wondering but haven’t asked.
So, I talked to Jean and Dixie about it and below is the response that Jean has been sending to people.
I hope it helps answer questions and remember that even if it’s not what you wanted, God is in control and He has a plan. And His timing is better than ours. I can testify to that from when we adopt our two kids from GLA in 2004.
Tom
Hello!
Thank you for your interest in adopting a child from God’s Littlest Angels. Here’s the facts about Haitian adoptions at this time:
IBESR has stated that referrals may be given for children who were already considered legal orphans before the earthquake.
GLA had only one child who met this criteria and approximately 20 dossiers waiting for referrals.
IBESR has also stated that if the birth parents relinquished a child directly to the orphanage, the children can then be proposed to families. But we will work first with families with their dossier already at the orphanage.
We will not be accepting any new dossiers until we have taken care of the families already waiting.
We do not know for sure what the criteria will be, nor the process, nor the cost. The government is just beginning to function again. We do not know how long the adoption process will take. We can’t send out applications or information packets until we have more information and available children.
UNICEF has control of all the newly orphaned children. We have no idea if or when they will release them to the orphanages.
If you want to go ahead and start preparing their paperwork, this is the criteria that was in place before the earthquake:
Age 35 – 50
Married 10 years
Single mothers must be at least age 35
No biological children. Presidential dispensations were given for families with up to 2 biological children. We do not know if this will continue to be the case.
Previously the cost was $12,500 for the Haitian fees. The cost of preparing your dossier on the US or Canadian side varies. We cannot give a quote for those fees. We do not know if the fees going forward will be the same, more, or less. It will also depend on how long the adoption process takes.
We have had hundreds of requests to adopt. Once we can begin moving forward with new adoptions, we will post the details on our webpage. www.glahaiti.org.
Hi, Tom here. Yeah, I know, long time no talk to. But, let’s put it this way, I spent 10 days on vacation and now I’m much better connected with my wife and kids.
So here’s what we’ve got going. Kristi Kluck and their church in Gillette has pulled together a bunch of things for GLA and we’re trying to work out a way to get them from Gillette to Colorado Springs.
Here are some options we’ve got:
Kristi has someone from their church who can bring the stuff to Denver but they can bring it tomorrow (Friday, the 16th) so they would need somewhere in Denver to drop the stuff off and then we’d need someone to bring the stuff to Colorado Springs.
It’s very last minute, so if that doesn’t work, then plan B would be to find someone who is “coming through” anywhere close to Gillette and heading down to the Denver or Colorado Springs areas so that the stuff can get to our warehouse.
If you know anyone who can help with either one of these “steps”, e-mail me at Tom – I can help! and I’ll put you in touch with Kristi and we’ll get it done.
Thanks in advance for anything you can do to make it less expensive for them to get their stuff to GLA.
At the beginning of March, Christal and Vince Holland from Alberta, Canada started working in their community to collect donations and supplies for Haiti and God’s Littlest Angels. Here is what they had to share about their experience…God bless you guys!!
“When we started collecting for GLA, our goal was three pallets. We were able to take our SEVEN pallet collection to Edmonton, AB at the end of March. They had at least five times that in Edmonton when we arrived!
What an amazing experience we were able to have. We had many local businesses help us out. We worked with good, Christian people from many different congregations and denominations, who all wanted to be a part of something for Haiti.
A wonderful woman from a local church, got her women’s group together and they made baby quilts. She came back a few days ago and told us that their goal is to have 100 baby quilts made for GLA, by the time we do another collection, later this year!
A local business owner donated nearly 100 large, plastic pails with lids, so that we could safely pack toiletries, food etc. in them and so that the people in Haiti could use them afterwards for washing, water etc. He also donated new tarps, tools, rope and solar lights.
Many of our customers would come in the store, hear what we were doing and write a cheque for $100, $500, etc.
The local elementary school set up a week long service project, where they took information from the GLA website to teach the children about what was going on in Haiti. They collected brand new school supplies, canned goods, toys and books for the children of GLA. About fifty children brought their collection to our warehouse, to personally deliver it and were thrilled with what they had accomplished.
What we’ve learned through this experience is that by serving and loving our fellow man, we are the ones who are so blessed. What a beautiful opportunity it has been to get to know the wonderful volunteers and staff of GLA, through emails, blogs, phone calls etc.
In a world where there is so much negativity, sadness, poverty and strife….goodness is found when you reach out to find it. God is mindful of our needs. We are truly grateful.” Vince and Christal Holland
Hi, it’s Kate from the office again! We are planning our next container of donations to be shipped to Haiti. It is going to be shipped from Clinton, IL on May 14, 2010. We are still needing donations for the container.
Things that we are still in need of are:
Rain gear, protein sources, adult blankets and towels, building supplies, hand tools, tents, tarps, rice, beans, and medical supplies.
Volunteers are needed to help sort and pack May 10-13, and to load the container on May 14. If you are able to help, please email me: kate@glahaiti.org or call 719-638-4348.
Send any donations that you would like to go on our Illinois container to:
Hi, this is Kati, I wanted to give an update from here in windy Colorado Springs!
As most of you know, all donations to God’s Littlest Angels comes through the US office before it goes to Haiti. All receipts and newsletters are sent from here, volunteers are coordinated, adoption paperwork is started, and donations are sorted and shipped.
Since the earthquake we have been very busy! There have been many volunteers in our office helping with earthquake relief. They have helped sort and pack in the warehouse, load containers, and do office work. We are SO thankful for all the help that we have received!
These are just a few of the volunteers and workers who have been to GLA since the earthquake! We have had all sorts of people here. One group drove from Kansas to work in the warehouse for a week! This week we had a family who drove to Colorado from Wisconsin with a truck and trailer full of donations! We have had people come from Canada, Oregon, Texas, Illinois, Montana, Michigan, Colorado, and Gus, Dad and Steeve flew out from Haiti to help!
If you sent a donation in January you should be receiving your receipt in the next week. We are working on February now. We have been able to catch up some thanks to our many volunteer’s help.
If you have any questions regarding your donation or receipt, please contact me at kate@glahaiti.org.
Keep praying…………
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God Bless!!
