$2.50 in the Hand of a Child

Deep night, flaming stars, ruby embers, and smoke from the fire...

Last night, I decided to take a short walk and visit Wilda, a single mom in our community.  When I arrived at her house, I made my way past the tarps stretched out to form a sheltered porch in front of her house.  Her kids, ran up to meet me.  She was not home, but they were gathered in the darkness with two cousins around a fire they had built with some sticks.  A pot  containing a small amount of oil was over the fire, and Djanaika (one of the cousins...in fact, her beautiful smile welcomes you every time you get on the blog) was kneading some dough in a bowl to make some pat...which is basically fried dough.  I squatted beside the fire and thoroughly enjoyed listening to their child talk and laughter, mingled with the crackly smell of smoke.  One can learn a lot like this!  Just as they were telling me a story about an animal called a leza--which apparently glares balefully at you from the underbrush before rushing at you to cut at your legs with a sharp protrusion on its head <!>--their mother and aunts arrived home.

I moved to a chair on the porch beside Wilda, and her son Vladimi came and nuzzled up beside her.  

Vladimi is six years old, and this is a story about him.

His oldest brother, Djeffson (14, or so), is not with us tonight, because he is in school in Gonaives.  Wilda is the kind of hard worker determined to stare down a hard life right in the face.  Her kids are all good helpers, but Djeffson became the man of the house at a very early age.  The family all miss him when he is away.

Vladimi is the baby of the family, and to be honest I never could quite make out his character very well.  He is very shy.

Last night, he made a comment to his mother about some money sent into Djeffson.  He hoped it didn't get lost in transit.  His mother assured him it would get into Djeffson's hands.  I didn't think too much of it, at first.  

Soon after, Wilda related to me that Vladimi's father had given him a small portion of the garden in which was growing some millet.  When the millet was cut down, Vladimi asked his father for $20 Haitian dollars (the equivalent of about $2.50 US) on the condition that he would give his father all the millet flailed from the stalks of his section in the garden. He clasped that $20 in his little hand and walked home and gave it all to his mom to send to his big brother in Gonaives, so that he could pay for the taxi to take him to school.

"So shines a good deed in a weary world...."

Wilda told me that if his father gives him a pack of crackers, or some such item, he will not even open it until he gets home.  Then he breaks it open to share with his brother, sister, and cousins.  

In a hardening world, may God preserve such pure innocence and open generosity in his little heart.

One More Thing

I forgot to mention that Bonita and Krischelle (and occasionally maybe even Sam!) will now be contributing to the blog.  You will see the author of each post at the bottom.

Oh, and just so you know, the post times are still off... not sure how to fix that... It is currently 5:30 not 2:30.

A few items of business...

First, I wanted to let you all know that my office hours have changed.  Since we don't have internet at the house, I will be working in the office from 3:30 to 5:30PM while Ani is in school.  If you need to get a hold of us urgently please write to Bonita at bonita.sparling@gmail.com (yes I know I still have not officially introduced her... it's coming!) or Krischelle at krischelle.frost@gmail.com.  You can also call us on the office phone at 011-509-2258-4977 (this number actually works in the office so we no longer have to go stand in the sun to find signal :)). 

I also wanted to let you know that we have had a bit of a mailing issue recently.  While Krischelle was in the US in November/December she and my mom wrote close to 100 post-cards to those who have been supporting Lemuel to thank you and to let you know how much we appreciate you.  We are going to be trying to do this more often this year.  Well, the post office had a little mix-up and sent quite a few of them to the RETURN address on the post card instead of to the address the post-card was to go to!!!  We will be trying to correct this problem for future mailings but for now, if you have been supporting Lemuel and did not receive a post-card recently it is probably here among the stack in our office.

In further news, the team from the Village Church left around 5:00 this morning to head into PauP for a flight out at 3:00.  I assume they are somewhere between here and Canada now.  A special thanks to all those who came (Rob, Martin, Amanda, Dan, Janna, Sonja, Simonne, and Karen) and to all of those who made their trip possible.

God bless!

Five Offices in One... and more

The team from The Village Church in Milton has been hard at work putting the new drop ceiling in the Lemuel house for Bonita. 

 
The group working in the school had their last day today.  They reported that the children remembered the English verses they had learned during English Camp in December, so that is good!  I am sorry I didn't get any pictures!


Part of the process of changing out the ceiling means moving out all of the offices.  Basically we had to move Krischelle, Bonita and my offices into Manis'.  Add to that Ani's desk that was moved into his office when we moved out of the Lemuel house and that makes FIVE!

It was a little crazy at first, with all that stuff (well, the most important stuff) thrown into Manis' office.

 

Pastor Rob joined us for a little while to bring some entertainment to the office.

But with Sam's help, a little entertainment from Pastor Rob, and Bonita giving moral support from her chair (she is still recovering from Dengue and will be for a while) we got things worked out pretty (relatively!) quickly. 

I have been working on this post since last night but the internet was giving me FITS!!!  The pictures have finally uploaded properly so now moving on to today...

Today some of the ladies taught the girls in the embroidery class to make tissue paper flowers and origami!  Tissue paper flowers are commonly used here for decoration so to know how to make them is very valuable!

The men continue to work on the ceiling and Martin (one of the team leaders) has been kind enough to teach us a little bit about video editing!

We were planning a trip to the beach this afternoon (yes, those of you in frigid lands - be jealous!) but we heard there are sea lice and I am not risking that, so looks like the beach trip is canceled (nevermind, those of you in frigid lands, no need to be jealous).  Instead we will be having a little party along with the teachers from the school and some of the staff.  We will be celebrating the school director's birthday and also having an opportunity for the team to get to know more of our staff.

The Village Team Here!

Yesterday a team of 8 people arrived here from The Village Church in Milton, Ontario.  Some are working with the third, fourth and fifth grade in the school while the rest are starting renovations on the Lemuel House where Bonita will be living. 

Speaking of Bonita, she is back here on the Plateau.  It will take a long time before she completely recovers from the Dengue but she is at least able to be up and around some. Thank you all for your prayers.

I will post pictures as soon as I get a chance to take some :)

Prayer Request

Dear All,

I am really late in sending this out but things have been pretty hectic here with Manis and I moving, getting the Lemuel house cleaned out for a team next week, and trying to figure out how best to help Bonita - that is where our prayer request comes in...

Last Thursday Bonita started not feeling well.  She had just finished her antibiotics from her tooth infection so it was kind of weird that she be sick again so soon.  We watched it for a few days but she only seemed to get worse.  On Monday we decided to call the plane to come get her as she was too sick to take the road and too sick to stay here.  She was kept in a hospital in Port-au-Prince for most of the day yesterday and was given IVs as she was very dehydrated, despite drinking constantly.  Last night she was allowed to go home with Schmids (missionary friends of ours) because a doctor who lives near them was going to continue IVs for her.  They have been unable, however, to find a vein so she is on oral rehydration fluids. 

This afternoon they got the results from her blood tests and it is confirmed that she has Dengue fever... a miserable virus that wipes out your immune system and takes months to fully recover from.  My heart aches for her as she has had one set-back after another since she got here.  I know she would greatly appreciate your prayers right now.  I am not sure if she is able to check emails but any words of encouragement in the comments below or to her email I am sure will be appreciated when she can read them. 

Thanks everyone for walking with us through all of this and for the support of your prayers.

Update on Bonita

Thank you all for your prayers for Bonita and her tooth.  I will copy in what she had to say about it in her latest email

My tooth started to hurting a few weeks ago. I am used to tooth pain, so I ignored it (note: learned not to do that again!). The day before our BIG New Year’s celebration at the church I had pain shooting up my head and my face started to swell. My whole body started to ache with fever. Deborah Dennis, from Emmanuel Church (a partnering church in Canada), came for the celebrations. She helped raise some of the funds so the church here could hand out food packages to over 100 families in our community. I really wanted to be a part of this celebration but instead I lay in my bed listening to people singing and worshiping God. It not only is New Years here in Haiti but it’s also their Independence Day. For the church it’s a reminder that in 2004 Haiti’s 200 year contract with Satan was over and the churches prayers were answered when the rededication DID NOT HAPPEN!

The following days my condition worsened and soon we would need to decide if I would need to go home or not. We have no access to medical treatment here and in Port I wasn’t assured that they would be able to remove the tooth as it was a back molar that has been capped already. People here in the community really started to pray. I sensed I wasn’t to go home but things were looking rough. Yesterday morning around 4AM I felt a tapping on my head. I got up to see what critter got in under my mosquito net! I saw nothing. Then my face got really cold and then it felt like it was coming out of numbing from dental work. I got up and touch my face...the swelling was gone and I was out of pain! I’ve had so much energy these past two days...it was like I was never sick!

Praise God!

Now that she is feeling better I will be formally introducing her on the blog soon :)

For those of you who were looking for the video Deborah Dennis mentioned, I am sorry but it wouldn't upload with our internet here.

Hope you all are enjoying the first week of 2013!!!

PS Somehow the time that it says I am posting is really off... it is currently 6:54AM... not three something in the morning!

Bonne Annee Haitian Style

I arrived in Haiti in 2012 and already it is 2013..Bonne Annee from Haiti. It just seems like I was packing and preparing for my travel to visit Lemuel and already it is Tuesday, January 1st, 2013. My name is Deborah Dennis and I am visiting Lemuel on behalf of my church, Emmanuel Baptist Church, in Canada.
How did you spend your New Year's Eve? Here in Haiti New Year's is the big celebration. Last night around 9:00 pm.the church community and people from the wider community gathered in the church and outside the church where they sang, prayed, shared testimonies and also had a cultural part to the program. Manis preached and played guitar while Lukeson took me to the service and made sure I had a nice time. He is a very nice young man who wants to study in the Dominican to be a doctor and told me some men from my church who have been here on work teams, Josh and Russ are his best friends. Mark too.
Judy, Manis's wife, lead a Haitian style song during the service and below is a video of her leading and the congregation singing along. You can tell Judy knows Haitian style as she grew up in Haiti as a missionary kid.

Although I left around 1:00 a.m., they continued to celebrate until late into the night. Then, this morning, the church committee handed out 150 food packages to the community. Each bag contained bags of rice, flour, sugar, oil, beans, and some bullion cubes which would give each family several meals. As January First is both New Year's and in Haiti, their day of Independence, Lemuel wanted to give out some food as a thank you to the community on this special occasion.

On Sunday, the day after I arrived at the Plateau I got up early with the sun around 7:00 and got ready for church. I don't usually dress up too much at home but here I was told that Haitians were their best to church. I was prepared to be very hot but with a nice breeze it was surprisingly comfortable. For me, being in the church was made more special as I knew the work team from Emmanuel had helped put up the roof and put in the doors. Sam preached and Manis lead the worship. I could sing the songs in French which made me appreciate my high school French classes. They also sing in Creole which is similar to French but not enough for me to be able to sing them. Here are a few pictures from the service.