Home again!

Well, I'm finally home again.  The plane ride went well, and I got through security and customs just fine.  It is so good to be back.  It feels like I've been gone a year.  Everything is older and, in many cases, much bigger than when I left.  Those little eight week old pullets are now half- grown chickens, the calf is a lot bigger, and Russel seems to have about doubled his size.  I and my family are very thankful and happy that I'm home again.
     I am glad that I went to Haiti.  I saw the conditions first hand that so many people worldwide live in, and this has made me even more thankful that I live in America.  Not only because of the comforts, and ready availability of the necessities of life, but also because life here is far more stable than there.  Although we sometimes may find the multitude of laws here to be oppressive, it is a blessing to have many of them.  Like traffic laws.  While I was there I didn't see a single speed limit sign, only about four stop lights, and if people here drove the way they do there, everyone would be in jail for reckless driving.  Also, the Schmidts had difficulties planning for teams, because of the elections, and potential violence that could ensue over them.  So, an increased thankfulness for the privilege of living in America is one benefit I derived from my trip. 
     I will be staying in touch with the Schmidts, and will continue to post on here about them from time to time.  From now on though, this blog will probably be about home life- our activities, joys, sorrows, etc... 

     If you wish to support the Schmidts or sponsor one of the children* you can go to the Haiti section of the Harvest International website.  This is the ministry that they are affiliated with, and on the site you can see some more basic info about them, read Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt's testimonies, and make a donation if you wish.


Also, for more info and continuing news about the Schmidts, here is JoHannah's blog

     Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement.  Please continue to pray for the Schmidts as they serve the Lord there in Haiti.

*Note:  Betty cannot be sponsored because she is actually from a different orphanage- the Schmidts are just taking care of her for them, sort of like a foster home.  She is in the process of being adopted.

Day around the house, going home!!!!!!!

Well, the news connected to the last part of the title comes first- there is now a date fixed for my return, and my plane ticket is bought.  I'll be flying into Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday the 20th.  I'm excited to be going back to my family.  I didn't realize how much I missed them until we started talking about my returning soon.  The Lord really confirmed to us that eight weeks was as long as I should stay away Fifrom my family.  It's going to be that length of time to the day since I last saw them when I fly back in.  The Lord is good.  I am very glad that I came here, and witnessed, and to some degree, experienced, life in the poorest country in the Western hemisphere.  It has put things into perspective for me, and I've gotten to know the Schmidts, had the blessing and responsibility of caring for handicapped children, and been forced to think and act for myself a bit more than I have done in the past.  Perhaps someday I will come back.  I hope so, but don't know what the Lord has in store for me yet.

     On a different note... Mr. Schmidt was in Gonaives again today because of the container.  Today they did the "verification".  This is pulling everything out of it to make sure it's loaded with what the packing list (or whatever it's called) says that it is.  Please keep praying that they will be able to get this thing out of customs without having to pay too much money, or have too much stuff stolen out of it- especially the generator and tools.
While he was gone, Mrs. Schmidt and I fried plantains.  Here's the step-by-step process:

Fried Plantains

1.  Get your plantains.  

These are tough, green cooking bananas, with a texture and taste like a potato.  

In Haiti, this could be as simple as cutting

them off the trees right out your back door, or you could buy them 

off the side of the road.  Pastor Antoine's wife gave us ours.

2.  Peel the plantains.

Easier said than done.  They have tough skins, so you have to score them with a knife,

 and then pull them off.  After the first few you get into a sort of pattern though. 

3.  Slice.
 Slice each peeled plantain into a bowl of saltwater.  Slice at a sharp angle, apparently, the sharper the better.
I didn't really do these angled enough.

4.  Fry.
Fill a pot with several inches of peanut oil, and when it is hot enough (sizzles and kicks up a fuss  over a drop of water)
carefully, using a slotted spoon, fish the plantain slices out of the saltwater and into the oil.

5. Mash

Let them cook for about five minutes, then pull them out and mash them.

Mrs. Schmidt has a special plantain masher- two pieces wood joined by

a leathern hinge in the middle.

6.  Cook again.

Put the mashed plantains back in the pot and fry for another five minutes or so,

then pull out, place on a plate covered in paper towels,

and salt.  Enjoy!

I hope that you all enjoy reading about the little things in our lives as well as the big ones.  There should be some news soon on here about a major answer to prayer.  In a word, it appears that the Schmidts may have their Haitian director, pastor, school, helpers, and location.  More coming later...

Here is the other part of that video I mentioned... I had to get offline before it finished uploading, so that's why I'm posting it now.

These some short videos I took at the Haitian church we attended this past Lord's day.  The quality isn't the best because I was trying not to be too obvious with my camera.  The pastor is the man playing the accordion.  We are very excited to have met this gentleman, as he is very eager to help with the orphanage, and can get them the helpers they need.  More coming on this later... Thought that you all might find these videos interesting, and once more, thank you so much for all the prayers and encouraging comments.

Another day at the beach...

We spent a couple of hours today at a very nice beach with Mr. Sam.  He called Mr. Schmidt this morning and invited us.  It was a little bit difficult to access, but was worth it.  Once more, the locals seemed to think that we were some type of traveling show for their especial benefit- they hung around and watched us and asked questions the whole time we were there.  Here are some photos.

The locals made themselves right at home with us...

These children were chasing and killing crabs.  I'm not sure why, it didn't look like they were doing anything with them.

It was funny watching them throughout the day though.

A typical day at Shiloh Children's Home

A typical day for us starts at about six. Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt are usually up a little before that. About the time I finish dressing, Jo wakes up, and gets ready for the day. Then about ten minutes later, the boys get up, but we don't see them a whole lot at first because they're getting Jason out of bed, changed, and dressed. Jo or I will be working on Betty at this point, and whichever one isn't taking care of her will be getting the children's breakfasts ready. The mornings are pretty cool, and I've been drinking a cup of

tea (so have Mrs. Schmidt and JoHannah, and sometimes Jeremy too. They drink herbal or fruit tea though- Mrs. S. can't have caffeine.) The children get baby cereal with powdered milk, with some applesauce in it, or sometimes just yogurt instead of milk. After we feed the children, we have breakfast. This is sometimes eggs, sometimes cereal (corn flakes), occasionally oat-bake (one of my favorites,) and sometimes something else. 

     Usually after breakfast, we do devotions. If we don't do it after breakfast we do it in the evening. In the morning this is the Psalms of the day. In the evening we read the Proverb of the day. What we do is we read the Psalm for whatever day it is, then skip thirty chapters forward and read that one, then another thirty psalms, and so on. Everybody reads, and then Mr. Schmidt asks whoever read to choose a verse that particularly stood out to them, and then asks if anyone has anything else to say about it. He'll also usually talk about it a little bit too.

After devotions, the boys sweep and mop the floor, Jo clears the table and often washes the dishes, and I usually do the laundry. When the three J's are done with their jobs, they work on school. Mrs. Schmidt is on the computer, and Mr. Schmidt is doing odd jobs, except when he has to go somewhere, like today- he had to take a trip into a little town to see a Haitian pastor about getting some reliable help. The children are on a mat in the living room. It's one of those mats that's a bunch of detachable squares with numbers and letters in them. The children love it and it's really good for them because it gives them a chance to try to crawl, and interact together. While the laundry's washing, I'll work on the computer, or work with the children. When the wash and rinse are over, I hang it all out, except for the boy's clothes. It's usually done around 10:00. Soon afterwards, JoHannah makes lunch. I generally help her with it. We eat rice and beans about every other day. On the opposite days we have spaghetti (with sauce out of a can!) or if we have potatoes sometimes we'll have shepherd's pie. This is basically mashed potatoes on top of a gravy or sauce that has a lot of canned vegetables in it. It's really good though. I agree with Mrs. Schmidt- everything (almost) tastes good in Haiti. This is probably because I'm extra hungry though.

After lunch, Mr. Schmidt turns off the generator. We put the children down for their naps, and then is free time. 

Around 3:00 we take all the children outside in front of the little houses, and while Betty and Maurice play in the playpen, Jason sits in the stroller and tries to pick up and eat rocks, and Caleb sits in another stroller, or is held by Mr. Schmidt. Mrs. S. is still inside on the computer talking on Skype or emailing things to the home office, and the boys do karate either there in front or around back on top of the cistern. Jo either reads or does schoolwork, or sometimes writes, and I sit and take photos or video of the children, or crochete. We are using a program  where each of us four older ones has one of the little guys each day, and we rotate. Today I had Jason. Week before last, Mr. Schmidt set the boys to dig a six-foot hole in the ground (which is mostly rocks with sand in between them) and JoHannah, Mr. Schmidt and I watched and talked to them. The hole will be for drainage for the shower they're planning to build near the houses.  Jason was quite interested. He wanted some of those tasty looking rocks that were being thrown out of the hole-to-be by the shovelful. This though was after we had discovered that he had managed to get a handful of chalky dust and rocks, and put the rocks in his mouth, and the dust all over himself. Of course, Jo dug the pebbles out immediately when we discovered this, but he was a little bit of a mess. He just has to taste everything he sees and can get his hands on. We used to put him in the playpen, and Maurice in the stroller, but after he tumbled out on his head trying to get to the rocks on the ground, we decided it was high time to move him someplace else. After about 1-2 hours outside we bring the children in, clean them up, and feed them. At about 6:30 we put them to bed, and then have supper, which is basically a snack or leftovers, and then have evening devotions.  Mr. Schmidt likes to go to bed around 7:00, and the rest of us follow pretty soon afterwards.

     This is the basic outline of what a typical day looks like for us here.  Of course, every day is different.  I hope that you all find this interesting!  Thank you for reading and for all the encouraging comments you leave!

Trip to Port...

So, yesterday Mr. Schmidt, Mrs. Schmidt, JoHannah, Caleb, Betty and I went into Port-Au-Prince(hereafter known as Port).  We were taking Caleb to have an EEG (Electroencephalography- I fail to see how they got EEG out of that impossible word... for inquiring minds, here's the Wikipedia article about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography).  We had this done so that hopefully we will understand how much he is able to sense things going on around him.  When we eventually got to the office (a matter of no small difficulty owing to the heavy traffic) Mrs. S. and I went in with Caleb, while Mr. S. stayed with JoHannah and Betty in the car.
  When we entered the office, we were about the only people in it, which meant that we wouldn't have to wait behind a long line, which was something I had been afraid of.  Mrs. Schmidt filled out the paperwork, while holding Caleb.  As she was explaining the way he acted while having a seizure, he had one.  It wasn't really severe, but it scared him.  He usually calms down pretty quickly though, when we comfort him. 
     The lady who took the paperwork gave him some medicine to put him to sleep, and then as we waited, she told us that we'd need to cut his hair.  That was interesting.  It was about an inch long, was very thick and curly, and we only had her desk scissors to cut it with.  At first Mrs. Schmidt asked me if I wanted to, but as I'm not renowned for great talent in cutting hair, I held Caleb instead.  When she was done, I held him for a bit longer, and then he finally fell asleep.  Soon it was our turn, and Mrs. Schmidt took him into the room where they do the test.  I wasn't allowed in, but she told me that they put 23 electrodes on his head, and seemed to shock him about five times.  We still haven't gotten the results, but he's been having more seizures, even though we're giving him more preventative medicine than before.  Please pray for him.

    

On the way out, we saw the site of the mass grave in which they had buried the people killed by the earthquake.  There had apparently been a memorial gathering held at this site on the 12th, the anniversary of the earthquake.  There was an arch set up, and a walkway, so that people could climb the hill, and look down on the site.  It was sobering to realize how many people were killed in just a few seconds, and to reflect on how fleeting life is.

New shelves!!!

Today Mr. Schmidt built two cupboards, one for the living room, and one for the girls room.  There had been a big shelving unit in the living room, but it was too deep and took up a lot of space, besides being next to impossible to keep organized.  Now it is only 16" deep, but is much wider. This makes the room feel so much bigger.  The one in the girl's room is

Mr. Schmidt, Jeremy and Josh working on the living room cuboard.

smaller, but now we can put our clothes in it, instead of having to work out of suitcases.  This will be much more convenient.  We also moved Jason and Maurice out of the girls' room, into the boys', and put Betty in ours.  So now Caleb and Betty sleep in our room, and the other two are with the boys, instead of Jason, Caleb, and Maurice being in our room.

Trip to Gonaives and some photos...

The children at one of the orphanages with the things bought with the money.

Rice fields

Miss Betty last night.  The white stuff is yogurt.  JoHannah was feeding her, and she (Betty) somehow managed to knock the cup so that it spilled the yogurt on herself.

A little girl that I was watching today in Gonaives.  Her brother and sister were selling things on the side of the road not far from the car.

Today Mr. Schmidt took JoHannah and I to Gonaives.  It was about a two hour drive, but the road was pretty good in most places. Mr. Schmidt says that the road used to be terrible- it was full of potholes and things- and that it took over three hours to get there.

A large part of the drive was through the rice-growing part of the island. He pointed out the seed beds were the rice is started, the fields it's transplanted to, and the drying and threshing areas, were it is taken after being harvested. There were animals all over the place, grazing the fields after they were harvested. They looked better here than in other places I've seen, probably because there was more food.

We were taking some money to a couple of orphanages in Gonaives that was donated to them for Christmas for the children. The orphanages are run by two pastors. I got to meet one of them, but the other was away for a few days, so we met his wife instead.

Today is JoHannah's “gotcha day”. This is the day she was adopted, and the Schmidts celebrate these days for the three children. Josh's was a few days ago. The boys are making a special dinner in honor of it, so that Jo doesn't have to cook.

Prayer requests...

Several people have asked me about specific prayer requests that we have here.  Right now, the biggest one is that the Schmidts can get reliable help.  They have been praying about this for some time, and I was a partial answer, but since I'm not staying permanently, they need more help.  They want this to become a Haitian work- not just the Americans doing everything for the people of Haiti.  They have hired local ladies to come and help in the past, but they stole things on a regular basis, and they had to fire them.  There is a lot of work to be done, but right now they are so busy just surviving that they can't really get organized.  As Mrs. Schmidt said:  "It seems like all we do all day is feed the children, change diapers, feed ourselves, and do laundry!"  In other words, we're so busy with the necessary mundane things of life that we don't have enough time to do other things that are important to make the orphanage run properly, and get organized.  So, the biggest prayer request is for dependable help.

     Prayer request number two is that they will be able to get the container out of customs.  The container, besides having supplies, also has a big army surplus generator that is designed to run around the clock, unlike the ones we have now.  Right now, this container is tied up in customs, and there are some problems with getting it out.  If they could get it though, it would be a great blessing.  However, with the disturbed state of the country, the Haitian government is moving very slowly.

      The third prayer request is that we wouldn't  experience any problems because of the elections.  The Haitian elections were held this past year, and there was apparently a lot of fraud in counting the votes.  The people were extremely upset, and there was a lot of rioting in Port Au Prince.  The government agreed to a recount, and now they are talking about having a runoff instead of announcing the recount.  This is because of the way people are talking, basically saying that they want their candidate (a popular singer) to win, or they won't be happy.  We aren't too worried since we are a good distance outside town, but we've been stocking up on things that we'll need in case things are bad.

   So, if you all could keep these few things in mind, these are the specific prayer requests for Shiloh Children's Home at this time.

New garden

January 5^th

Today Mr. Schmidt has been working on creating a garden patch for me. I am by no means an expert at gardening, but I'm going to try. He bought a hoe for me the same day he got the generator. He's been raking the rocks that the yard is made of out of the garden area that the old yard man had. The back yard is not very big. A wall surrounds the whole compound, a space of about a quarter of an acre. This includes the house. In the front center of the wall is the gate. The driveway leads up to within about ten feet of the front door. To the left of the drive, if you stand facing the house, are three small buildings of wood. One is pink, one yellow, and one green. On the opposite side of the driveway is a building that looks like a pole barn. In fact, it looks a lot like our barn at home. In three of the corners of the compound there is a cement building. The one on the right as you come in the gate is an outhouse. This is used for diaper disposal. The one on the left is empty right now- it needs fixing up and to have a mouse and rat proof door put on it. Hopefully someday soon it will be available for storage. The third building is the one in which the generators are kept. This is called the depot. It is in the back left corner. About five feet to the right of the depot is the cistern. From the cistern, a couple feet further to the right is the water tank. It is up on legs so that we can have gravity-feed water. This makes life a lot easier. Still further to the right are the plantain trees. In front of these, in between them and the house, is the garden- to- be. Mr. Schmidt says that maybe we could get some better dirt to put in it. Hopefully I can get seeds, and then manage to get them to produce.  Any advice on this point would be appreciated!

I'll try to have more photos on here ASAP.

We have electricity!!!

January 3rd, 2011

Mr. Schmidt got a generator today. It is a gasoline one, and because of the high price of gas he would have preferred a diesel, but it's quite powerful, powerful enough to pump the water into a gravity feed tank, so we now have running water, as well as electricity. The generator won't run 24/7, but it'll be turned on frequently enough to give us water, and to wash the laundry. Of course, when it's on, we can charge the computers, so hopefully I'll have more time to write on here, and not have to worry about battery.

Note:  Some of you may notice that the date I put in some of my posts doesn't agree with the day it was actually published.  This is because I don't have access to the internet just whenever I want.  So I'll often type whatever I want to say while the generator's running, or I have a full battery, and post it when I get a chance.

Day at the beach

Betty wasn't too sure about my hat...

Finally, a breadfruit!  I have wanted to see one for a long time (ever since reading "The Coral Island" by R.M. Ballantyne, in fact.

Breadfruit tree.

On New Year's Day, we went to the beach.  It was fun!  I took care of Betty for most of the time we were there.  Mr. Schmidt took Jason and Maurice in the water a little bit.  Jason loved it, but Maurice just tolerated it.  Jason though had a rather bothersome activity the whole time (and I mean the whole time) we were there.  To use Mr. Schmidt's words  "Jason has a one track mind, and right now that track is on rocks in the mouth!"  In other words, Jason, who can use his feet with almost the same facility as his hands, kept picking up rocks with them, and attempting to stick them in his mouth!  Little rascal.  He was hard to do anything with because he was so focused on getting rocks.  And since almost the whole beach was made up of them, there were plenty to pick up. 
     Betty had a blast too.  JoHannah took her out in water that was about four feet deep, and floated her around a little there.  The child floats like a cork, so all that one has to do is keep her head out of the water, and she just floats right on top.  I walked around with her a good bit and got some photos.

     At one o'clock, we had lunch at the hotel that owns that stretch of beach.  We had paid to get in, and this covered lunch as well.  It was a buffet, but wasn't really well filled.  What was there was really good though.  There were some delicious home-made french fries, canned beets, fried plantain (a cooking banana that tastes sort of like a potato) some type of yummy chicken dish, and last but by no means least, a goat dish with sauce.  My favorite was the meat dishes- I liked them pretty much the same. 

     Mr. Schmidt had stayed down at the beach to watch over the children, and so we served him a plate of food, and when the boys were done they went down to take care of the children, so that he could come up and eat.  When he came, he told us that a bunch of Haitians had gathered to watch him with the children.  Sure enough, when we went down, I discovered that we seemed to be viewed in the light of a traveling circus or something.  No less than twenty people had gathered round to watch the show as these strange Americans (three of whom looked like Haitians) took care of the handicapped children.  The most puzzling thing, was that the three Haitian looking ones only spoke English, while the two older white ones spoke Creole.  This was very odd.  And besides, no one that they knew of took care of children like this.  There was no way that they were going to miss this, so the upshot was that we were stared at the rest of the time we were down by the beach. 

     We went up to the pool that belonged to the hotel after about half an hour of steady staring by the people, and I took some photos of a breadfruit tree.  This tree is really neat, and I'd read about it before, but never seen one.  There were also a bunch of coconut palms all over the place.

     That beach was beautiful!  Hopefully we can go there again sometime soon.