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.

Little things....

The mountains on the other side of the bay.  It was very hard to see these mountains during the first couple days I was here, but in the morning, the sun comes up from behind them and they look so beautiful.

Mrs. Schmidt grinding the grain.  And no, this is not normal procedure.  Normally, the boys would do all the grinding, but we were trying to get it done quickly.

December 28^th

Poor little Jason got hives this morning. I noticed when I sat down to feed him that he had a spot like a bug bite on each cheek close to his nose. They looked very similar to mosquito bites. A little later he was scratching his legs and arms. This got my attention, and I called JoHannah's attention to it. We both thought that he must have had ants in his bed. It looked like they'd eaten him up. These ants are all over the place. They seem similar to sugar ants, but they bite. If we leave food uncovered, or not well covered, on the table for too long, they get into it, and are all over the place. She called her parents, and Josh and Jeremy examined him too. A few minutes later, bumps had appeared all over his legs and arms, and we could see that it wasn't ant bites at all, and Mr. Schmidt soon realized it was hives. I thought that I had Benadryll in my bag, but I didn't. Mr. S. couldn't find any either. Jeremy had been looking for some tape in the drawers that the first-aid supplies are kept in, and I had been looking for the Benadryll in them at the same time and had seen a bottle of allergy relief pills there. We gave Jason one, and put anti-itch cream on his legs, and though he was a grump, the itching seemed to have diminished greatly. He is asleep now in his bed.

I am typing this on the kitchen floor, because Mr. Schmidt has one of the generators running, but it isn't powerful enough to provide electricity to the house. Instead, it's hooked up to an extension cord, and a power strip is plugged into that. So, my computer is plugged in in the kitchen along with two others, and as I don't have anything pressing to do at the moment, and want to conserve my battery for when the generator's not running, I'm writing this now.

The boys are grinding grain with a manual grain mill. When they have enough flour ground, Jo and I will make bread, and hopefully cinnamon rolls too. JoHannah and Mrs. Schmidt are seated at the other end of the kitchen table going over a story that JoHannah is writing for the Vision Forum essay contest. I entered it a couple weeks ago, and mentioned that when we were talking about writing. Mrs. Schmidt looked it up online, and I think that I and whoever else has entered it just got some serious competition. I haven't read it yet, but I saw a few bits and pieces of JoHannah's other stories, and they look good. I'll be very interested to read this one.

December 29^th

Jason is back to normal now, but the medicine we gave him made him really sleepy, and he slept most of yesterday, and was very grouchy the rest of the time. Poor little guy, he felt so sick he didn't even want to eat. Right now though (12:35) he's happily playing in the walker after gobbling his lunch.

     Yesterday JoHannah and I made bread.  This is the second time.  I had never made bread by hand until I came here.  Since there isn't any electricity, we had to grind the flour by hand.  We all (JoHannah, the boys, Mrs. Schmidt and I) took turns grinding.  Mrs. Schmidt seemed to really get a kick out of seeing how fast she could grind.  It was kind of funny watching her.  I snapped a few photos so we'd be able to remember it.

A little history...

OK, so I said a while back that I'd explain who the Schmidts are, and why I'm in Haiti helping them. So far I haven't gotten a chance to do that, but now I'll try to, and also to say a little something about the children.

Tom and Ginger Schmidt were missionaries in Haiti for about seven years. They came home “for good” in '99, but after the earthquake felt called to return and open a home for disabled children- specifically those that had lost limbs as a result of the quake. They came back, found a piece of property, and now have the four children. My understanding is that another little girl should be coming some time in the near future, but I haven't heard anything about that since we got here, so don't know when that will be. Betty is for adoption- though this is not the Schmidts' policy- they are caring for her for someone else. They believe that Haiti needs to be changed from the inside out, and to do this the children must be raised in the fear of the Lord. Of course, the Schmidts know that they alone cannot make the children Christians, it has to be God working in their hearts. But the biggest problem in Haiti is undoubtedly Voodoo. The people are held in bondage to it. They are afraid to go out too far to fish because they think the water spirits will get them. If a mother has twins, they are afraid to let them both live. If a handicapped child is born, they view it as a curse from the devil whom they serve, and will throw in on a garbage heap to be eaten by rats and die. I know that I'm being graphic here, but this is what the Haitians believe. How can a country with these beliefs grow? That is why they need the Gospel so desperately, but simply sending missionaries isn't enough. The upcoming generation must be taught to love and honor God, and that is why what the Schmidts are doing is so important. These children are being taught about God- they are included in family devotions in the morning and often evening, they are prayed with before meals and bedtime, and they have the example that we are setting them. They may not understand much at this point, but the Schmidts are trusting God that these things will have an effect on their lives. One thing that is always included in the prayers is that each child will come to know the Lord.

Although I understand why people would think it best that the children be adopted out of the country, and though I would certainly have no problem with that in the case of these handicapped children, I appreciate the Schmidts long-term vision for raising a godly future generation to change Haiti.

A few more photos...

Miss Betty.  For some reason, I was having problems with this photo in the last post...

The veiw from the seaward side of the house.

The backyard.

Photos, and Sunday in "Port"

Caleb- most needy of the four.  Can't do anything for himself as of yet, but we have hope for him- he's more alert, and seems to be trying to look at us now.  He has trouble seeing and hearing because he received no stimulation when he was younger.  These senses seem to have deteriorated because they haven't been used for so long.



Maurice- quite thin, loves to eat, and has trouble holding his head up.  Is now reaching for items and grabbing things though.




Public transportation... oh, I almost forgot, there are also busses, and these usually are not only packed, but people ride on top or hang off the sides too.



Jason

Sunday, December 26

We went to church today. Honestly, I was a bit disapointed with it.  The Schmidts don't usually go there. The drive is rather prohibitive, as I discovered today, and they are still trying to get organized. 1 ½ hours doesn't sound too bad, that's what my family drives to church, but an hour and a half drive in Haiti (about 45 min. of which is in Port Au Prince) is entirely different. For one thing, one feels as if one is moving really fast at 40- 60 mph on a “good” road. (Meaning one that is paved, and doesn't have too many or too big potholes.) Then there is the danger of big trucks running into you, of people, goats, cows, dogs, children, etc. etc, running out in front of you, and the road is full of bumps and potholes. It is also very dusty. In other words, it's pretty tough.

The drive through Port-Au-Prince was most interesting. Once more, we saw any number of goats, cows, and horses as we drove, while people lined the streets buying and selling. There are also great numbers of public conveyances all over the place. These look quite unusual. They are converted pickup trucks, having a sort of roof over the bed. I have a few photos of them. Most of them are very ornate. People cram into them, and there are two seats at the end on the tailgate. Usually there are about seven or eight people sitting on benches along the sides of the truck bed, and two more on the seats on the tailgate. Then of course, there are usually some live chickens, turkeys, or other kind of produce that the people take along with them. Of course, this is a rather full truck, but I've seen quite a few like this. Naturally, it looks like a tight fit.

Mr. Schmidt says that what I saw today is actually a comparatively small amount of commerce going on. If that's small, I wonder what big looks like- it must be crazy! Really it was crazy today, just it's usually crazier. So far, I haven't really seen anything real surprising so far. I suppose this is because I've seen so much footage (mainly in documentaries) of third-world countries, that I was expecting to see things like this.

This has definitely been a learning experience, and will continue to be so. It does take a little while to get used to taking “showers” with a bucket and cup, having to be careful not to get the water in one's mouth as it could carry disease, and brushing one's teeth with a cup of drinking water. There are other things I could think of really easily, but this is certainly showing how good we have it in America.