Repenting

This has taken me over a week to post about. Because I thought I should let my unkind feelings settle down before I wrote anything.

Last week we went to deliver "stuff" to the people at our feeding clinic.

I should define stuff. 

Shoes that people I love had taken the time to buy and either ship to me or send down with others I love who carried extra bags so the shoes could get here. 

Dolls that Rachel's church friends handmade for the children. 

Hygiene kits my church friends lovingly collected, gathered, and helped me assemble. 

Vitamins a friend bought, which are not cheap, and brought down. 

Justin and I personally carried over five extra, 52 lb bags down to Haiti along with our kids and all their stuff. 

The people at Frontier Airlines were even helpful in "the deal" in letting the stuff fly free.

I had a lot of great hopes and expectations for this day.

This was my mistake. Whenever I get my hopes up or have a very specific outcome I am expecting and things don't work out as I view they should, my feelings are shattered. In the fight or flight arena I am usually a fighter. If not in words at least in feelings and I have been trying to wrestle these feelings out with God all week. I am trying to grow in this area. 

I think the bottom line for me is that I had great hopes of the people I love, who are supporting us, being able to help the people I have come to love and frankly need the support.  

But, instead this is how it went down... 

Here are 4 of the 52lb bags of "stuff"

Here are some of the amazing people that I love from my home church who literally gathered stuff to make over 200 hygiene kits (comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, washcloth and soap all in a ziplock bag). 

Here are some of the 50 some pairs of shoes that were bought or donated by my Grandpa and good friends from home. 

Here are most of the hygiene kits waiting to be handed out. 

And here is what ensued. Mobbing. Literally riotous mobbing. People shoving, pushing, taking from children, etc. Justin and I literally grabbed our children and stood out of the way with our mouths opened. 

Roselie who is a VERY good sport handing out the remainder of the dolls to little girls whose big sisters would snatch them away the minute the little ones got them.

                         CT's self portrait captures all of our feelings. What the crap is going on here?

CT's face is how we have all felt for the last week. A week of processing, pleading and repenting. 

It did not help that this week a child literally opened the back door of my car and grabbed my purse out. The fighter in me grabbed it back and scolded him. But, I wanted to go "home". Home to where children do not steal things out of my car and if they did the police would do something about it. And where parents are able to feed their children so they do not need to steal. And where I do not need to be scared that when I drove in that area again they were going to try and steal my children this time. I just wanted to go home and forget this side of the world that I have come to know. 

Justin found this scripture that helped us to remember where our hearts need to be

Mosiah 4: 16-20 (found in the Book of Mormon)

16 And also, ye yourselves will ^asuccor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the ^bbeggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt ^asay: The man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and will not give unto him of my food, nor impart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just—

 18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he hath done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

 19 For behold, are we not all ^abeggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?

 20 And behold, even at this time, ye have been calling on his name, and begging for a ^aremission of your sins. And has he suffered that ye have begged in vain? Nay; he has poured out his^bSpirit upon you, and has caused that your hearts should be filled with ^cjoy, and has caused that your mouths should be stopped that ye could not find utterance, so exceedingly great was your joy.

I had to once again step back and remember, I have been richly blessed in the things of this world. And maybe if I were in a situation where grabbing a pair of shoes that would sell on the street for enough money to feed my family, who was starving, I would do the same thing. Even at the expense of my neighbor.

 It reminded me of the night we had the little earthquake here. The first thought I had was there is NO way I can run through this house and save each of these children before the walls fall down!

Which ones could I grab the quickest?

 These are NOT normal thoughts in my previous culture, but these are everyday here. Only it is not just about earthquakes that are threatening to take the children but starvation and illness and other things that are too wrong to even mention. 

And here I was upset that my friends from home who gave so much were not going to get the proper thank you they deserved. Out of over 200 people, there was only one thank you. And it was not the word we were looking for just the look on their faces. Nothing, just sheer madness, sheer hurry and get what you can for you. 

So, to all of you who support us. I thank you because my belly is full everyday, I have clothes to wear and a roof over my head and medicine when I am sick. I am not choosing what child I need to put up for adoption, although some days I am tempted. I thank you for serving because you are in the place to do so. I thank you because I am in the place to thank you. 

As far as these beautiful Haitians we love, they thank you in their own way too, by being the vessel through which we can all learn about service and the true love of Christ.

Because as Johnny pointed out,"You are the only ones upset by this, all of these people are just happy they got something. This is just how we act."

The Apparent Project

Some of the most inspiring people we have met here are the Clays. Shelly came to Haiti to adopt and in her own words, saw a large problem with her spending 20K to adopt from Haiti a child whose mother had to give them up because they did not have money to feed them. So she started the Apparent Project. 

Their mission-

Through our artisans' program, educational programs, and relief work we are dedicated to:

Helping parents rise out of extreme poverty in order to keep their children

Responding to Haiti's orphan crisis and the needs of parentless children

Making the needs of Haiti apparent to potential helpers through media & the arts

Inspiring adoration of our loving Father God with hope that one day he will be apparent to all.

I hardly know this woman and yet I could not agree more with her or her mission.

 

Since beginning her journey she now sells to Donna Karen, she her latest catalog in the picture below. She has visits from people like Bill Clinton and Oprah . People come to visit Haiti and write Articles about her. 

She is such a testament to me that with Faith, and a Vision God makes miracles happen.

The merchandise. Jewelry galore. 

Burlap bags.

One of the work rooms. The artisans can bring their children with them to work. The women in the background are sewing. 

More artisans.

Where it all starts. Cardboard boxes, etc. When I get home I will start collecting your empty cereal boxes to ship, or better yet hand deliver myself, so if you live near us. Please start collecting!

The process. They cut the cereal boxes into long triangle shapes.

They then roll each triangle to create a "bead" which are glued and dried on skewers.

A whole bunch of beautiful beads drying on skewers.

Women sitting putting the jewelery together. 

Some of the finished product. This is the slew that I bought. My goal would be to come home and sell it to raise money for our feeding clinic and also to give some back to Apparent Project, because I think their mission is truly inspiring. 

So let me know if you see something interesting that you would love to buy!

Class Notes

So school is out. I told the kids I am sure there were people who would still like to read a note from them every week. There were a little weirded out about having it on the internet for all to read, little do they know this is not new. I hope someone will enjoy Haiti from their point of view. Sometimes it is so different from the way we view things. And sometimes it is too much the same, have you seen how some of these kids spell, whoa!

Hi my name is CT. I am the oldest child in the Henwood Family. I am writing about the last two weeks. The first thing I want to talk about is the physical therapist that came here. I thought she was really nice. In fact the only thing wrong with her was she was scared of tarantulas. I don’t really understand girls how there so scared of such gentle giants. Next I want to talk about the assassinated chicken. I did NOT agree with that choice. In fact I tried changing my mom’s opinion about it. But she was stuck with the dumb idea of assassinating the poor chickens. Again I tried another one of my strategies…jumping in front of the chickens. But then I considered jumping in front of the chickens would get my neck snapped so I decided to not. Alright lets move on before I get mad and throw the computer. To walking down the creek bed.  So we walked down the creek bed and found a 2 foot deep and 10 feet In perimeter lake. I wanted something cooler so I went searching for a lake. I found a curve in the creek bed so  we went down it. Then IS kept saying there’s no water there no water. And a bunch of other things sisters say. But finally we got to a giant water fall And IS was like ow I knew there was water here, I knew it. And a bunch of other girl stuff. 

                       PEACE TO THE WORLD! 


Hi my name is IS. We had a girl named Hannah and she left. I really miss her. My Nana and Grandpa came. It was so cun. We went to the beach and did puzzles. And Adrah came. We went to orphniages and we went to the beach. We are hoping to brig Roselie home. We are watching a little boy named Velo. He is four. We gave the higean kits to the feeding clenick. IT was like a war. The shoes were gone in like 1 seckand. We are going to a lot of orphaniages, it is soooo fun. I really miss my frends, but is is still really fun. But, I still have to do my home work when my class i out. We went on a big hike to the creackbed, it was so fun. We played in the water adn went on an even longer walk. We have grate Haitian food that Roselie makes like rice and beains and saus pwa. And I do not like soup joumou. Are house is very big and we have close lines inside. As you can see we are having a fun time.
Love, IS
              

Hi how are you doing, are you having a good time? What are you doing?
We slaughtered a chicken. I had a disgusted face. I ate it and it was really hard to chew. I do not want to do it again because it was disgusting. Nana and Grandpa came to visit us, and Adrah. We showed them Epidor, it is like McDonalds except that is how they spell it. They tried to spell McDonalds but they could not so instead they spelled Epidor. We showed them the broken down houses, when we were driving across the airport we saw a tap tap, a tap tap is when you get in a car and when you stop you tap. It is exactly like a taxi or a bus. we showed them the beach. I found one of those big sea shells, conch shell. We went to the orphanage, I kind of like to go there. We always bring suckers. There is this place called the snack shack kind of like at the pool, you can get candy there. We have a new kid and his name is Velo and we did not adopt him and he does not like our dog and our dog is Roxy. We used to have another dog and her name was Tally, but we gave her to our guard named Johnny. We went on a hike that is called the creek bed, and there is a bunch of water there. There is a bunch of giant rocks and a pit with water in it. Mom thought there was a landslide, but there was just a waterfall. We saw some lizards, we saw some big rocks that we could dance on. CT wants to be like Michael Jackson.
Good Bye-
TJ

Love at First Sight

There are two little girls who live next door. One is a little younger than BJ. 

I am not sure what it is about this girl but, ever since they first met he has been in love with her. 

They hug, they kiss, they giggle. Its adorable.

 On Sunday, IS spent a few hours over there doing hair. 

My Favorite Day

I think Saturday was my favorite days in Haiti, of course I think that every few days. 

We hiked down to the creek bed where there were small puddles of water, as the children got wetter the clothes started peeling off. 

Pretty soon they were walking around mostly naked like the rest of the Haitians. 

Again the picture does the real thing absolutely no justice. This is a natural waterfall, I do not think any man could have designed it more beautifully.

As always we ended up with a few extra kidos helping up the waterfalls. The waterfall was up a narrow canyon surrounded by rock. Many adults were worried for us and telling us we should not be walking up the canyon in case another tranbleman (earthquake) came. One man was so mad at the Haitian kids going with us he spanked them. 

I LOVE this picture.
This is what Haiti will always remind me of happy adorable extra children, family time, outdoors, peace, tranquility, just an indescribable inner calmness. 

BT's helper. It seems that wherever we go an older child will "adopt" the babies. They carry them everywhere. Here is BT's friend holding a leaf in the waterfall creating a drinking fountain for him. It was so sweet and kind that I let him despite the fact that he will probably get diarrhea.  

 BT and his special friend. I am not sure they could look any more different and yet you can see they have the same kind gentle soul. 

SF and her friend. SF has very mild cerebral palsy. Her gait can be painful to watch at times, especially in this rough terrain. I try to make her work through it. 

The Haitians think I am awful and immediately pick her up, then they look at me like 'seriously lady, what is wrong with you?' SF also does not eat anything by mouth and has a feeding tube, imagine their disgust when we don't feed her in restaurants either. 

We ended they day with some "real" swimming at the pool. 

Haitians

Saturday we went on the most awesome hike down to the creek bed. 

We were of course the only Blans around. It was great to see Haitians doing what they do in their own environment. 

Shouldn't all 6 year old children carry a machete? 

 Some people standing outside their home

 A woman doing her laundry.

 Our hiking mates

 I loved this little girl with her white baby doll

 Velo and his friend

Preschool

I have always said I would never home school (not that I have anything against it, its just not for me). I also always said I would never run a preschool. 

Never say Never.

Now I do 24/7, and the preschool part of it is great.

I'm still unconvinced on home school.