Belly Blows and Belly Aches

Today was one of those long and dramatic Haiti days. Our ladies were beading today and Beatrice informed me that after her husband beat her daughter unconscious last week and had tried to stab her this week, that she was finally leaving him. Whew... if that wasn't heavy enough, she informed me that there was a pregnant teenager that she had been taking care of in the midst of her own personal tragedies. She wanted to know if the girl could help make beads. I invited the girl in and got her started doing some paper beads. This girl, whose name is Ketia, is 18 years old and homeless. Her mother and father kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant and the boyfriend pleaded for an abortion. He eventually turned violent and just today I was told that he had yelled at her for not having enough food and punched her in the stomach.
I had her lay down and felt her belly. No movement. I felt and pushed and prodded.. knowing that at six months along, I should be able to jostle the baby awake and at least feel something. I asked the mother if she had been feeling the baby move. She shook her head. She didn't know she was supposed to be feeling anything yet.
So, I will wait until first thing next week and ask my dear friends at Heartline Ministries if maybe I could bring her over and borrow one of their midwives for an exam and a fetal heart rate monitor. I anticipate the worst but hope for the best.
In the meantime, one of our other ladies, Rose, who is rolling beads with a baby at her breast and an eleven year old daughter helping her out is sitting quietly. I had recently given some tylenol to the baby who has had a fever and the squirts for several days now. Towards the end of the day, her daughter Diana pipes up and asks me... do I have medicine for a belly ache?
I said.. well yes I do... where does your belly hurt? She points right to the center. I asked a few more questions without any real leads as to what might be ailing her until I just asked point blank... do you know why your belly is hurting you? Yes, she says.... because I haven't eaten in two days. Ughhhh. My heart thuds on the floor again. Well.. then I have just the right medicine.. how about some food!!!! A peanut butter sandwhich later and her belly was feeling much better. I guess it is no surprise really that our grocery bill tends to be one of our biggest expenses. I can't remember the last time we had less than a dozen at our dinner table. And I know that if we don't feed them, they won't eat. What a blessing to be able to invite these precious ones to the table. When we say our mealtime prayers, there is much more meaning behind the thanks we give when we know very well that it is purely a gift from HIM that we have food at all.

Sonia's story

The ladies have been working hard getting ready for Christmas. We have several jewelry parties going on and a local Christmas bazaar where we will sell and spread the word locally here in Haiti. Today Sonia came over a little earlier than the rest of the ladies to work on her paper beads. It was just her and me in the room, so we began to talk. She lives in a one room house that is about 8 x 10 feet. Her husband and herself and the baby sleep on a single mattress and the other four children sleep on another. She has already given one little girl up for adoption as she has sickle cell and couldn't afford the medicine. It was the only way to save her life.
My curiosity got the best of me today and I started asking her some pretty direct questions. Aside from the beading, both her husband and her are unemployed. My question is "how do they really do it.. how do they survive?". She said that anytime that she has a little bit of money, she buys food and makes it for all of her neighbors. This increases the chances that if she has nothing, that someone might share with her as well. In this way, she is able to feed her children maybe three or four times a week. (That's three or four MEALS a week). I asked her.. "but aren't your children hungry.. what do they do when they are hungry. Do they cry? " My American mind can't even begin to wrap my mind around my little one looking up at me needing food and me not having anything to give them.
She paused and looked at me. "Yes they cry".
"Well how do you feel as a mother when your children are crying because they are hungry."
She held her composure for a minute and said that "I pray. I pray that God would give us what they need so that we can eat". And then she said.. "but I have a nine year old son. And he is hungry a lot. And he cries and cries." And then she broke down and started sobbing. Tears started streaming out of my eyes as well. This women has become my friend. She is at my house at least three times a week and her son is starving. How do I respond to this. I am trying to help her. But what I am doing just isn't enough. It isn't enough to stop even the hunger pains of her babes. My heart searches the heavens as I recall the scriptures that promise us that we are worth more than the birds and the lillies and yet they have what they need. I cry out to God for Sonia that her plates would be full and her babies bellies satisfied.

Sonia is part of our artisans program at the Apparent Project. If you would like to buy some jewelry hand made by Sonia or some of the other ladies, please consider hosting a jewelry party or donating supplies for beading in order to keep these ladies in business. If you would like to donate funds as a love gift so that Sonia's family can eat for Christmas, we will make sure that that happens as well. Thank you!

Generosity crisis.. and how to really help!

Today I opened my email and almost fell over. We had a cheerful thank you note from the mail service provider that we use telling us that we had been charged $456 for shipping service for the month. This fee comes after the almost $200 we paid in customs fees on top of that. I went back to the company's website to remind myself that, yes, it does say that they charge $3.25 per pound to recieve anything on top of whatever random customs fees get tagged on to that.

I did the math and realized that on average, a 10 pound box of donated items is going to cost me about $50 out of pocket just to recieve. (not mentioning what it cost YOU to buy and ship as well).

It is a no-brainer to realize that this is just not good stewardship or good business sense on our part. The only positive thing in this set up, is that it gives the donor the hands-on experience of being able to be a part of buying the donations etc... and is much more meaningful and personal.

We thank you a million times to all the people who have been so generous over the past few months with all of the many gifts and donations that have come in.

At this point, however, we simply can't afford recieving anything anymore.

We have some alternate solutions.

One.. consider coming down here yourself. Fundraise for the plane ticket ( because you are coming on a missions trip to help us) and load your suitcases up with things that you would have shipped... even better, call the airline ahead of time and ask them if you can check additional luggage at no cost because it is for charity and relief.

Two.... simply send your donations to our stateside address located at the bottom. We will arrange a quarterly trip for Corrigan to come in and get as much stuff as he can down here in his luggage. We figured that an average airline ticket is about $350-$400 and that would be well under the cost of what we have been paying to recieve supplies.

Three... ask us how much it would cost us to buy the goods here in Haiti and then donate the same amount. In this way, we are supporting local businesses here in Haiti as well as getting things much cheaper than if customs and shipping were involved. An example. Even though it is much cheaper to buy a back of paper at Walmart ( 15 cents maybe on clearance), by the time you ship it, that paper is sure to cost us around 7-8 dollars to recieve. We can buy a pack of paper at the local grocery story for around a dollar. It is a win-win situation and helps us help the economy of the poorest nation in the western hemisphere as well.



Lastly... there are things that we really do need shipped- things that we simply cannot get here in Haiti. Please email us and ask us what those things are and we will be so greatful when those kinds of things are shipped in.

We are forever thankful for your generosity and graciousness to us and to the people that we are serving. Please don't stop giving.... it is our lifeline. We are just hoping to reconfigure the way things are recieved in order for every penny spent to make a lasting difference here in Haiti.



Blessings!

The Apparent Project



Please send donations to



The Apparent Project

4623 Denton Lane SE

Lacey, WA 98503

Johnny and Lovely's mother

There was a knock at the gate this afternoon. Two smiling little faces and an empty bottle of Clorox greeted me behind the barrier. Bam Ti Dlo? Give me a little water?.. they asked. These two beautiful children are familiar faces as their mother has been over to the house before asking me if I can help find her little girl who was adopted to the states as an infant and never heard from again. Later she had asked me to help pay for her children’s school books, and her four kids are regular attendees at our Saturday feeding program.
My heart skipped a beat when I saw that they were asking for water. Things are bad when you have to go door to door begging for your water. And just earlier in the week they had knocked at the gate to ask for some food. Not totally unusual, but it had been the first time for these kids.
I decided I needed to investigate. If a family of five is begging for water to be carried off in a Clorox bottle, how far does that go in this Haitian heat… maybe six hours?
So I threw a big 5 gallon bottle of Culligan in the back of the car, some leftover rice and beans from lunch, and piled the kids in the back seat and drove down to their house.
The white curtain in the front of their one room cinder block house was blowing in the wind. I called out to see if I could come in and a 5 year old girl came flying out of the house and threw her arms around me. I heard a feeble voice call out in Creole that I was welcome to come in and I walked into something so sad that it brought tears to my eyes.
The room was dark and dirty. A soiled one inch thick mattress was on the dirty floor.. a bed for five. No furniture at all, only a few cardboard boxes held everything this family owned. The mother was lying mostly naked on the mattress with only a pair of underwear on as she called out to me to help her.
I went and felt her forehead. She was burning up. Apparently she hadn’t been able to get out of bed to feed herself or her kids for four days now. The only food that I knew for sure they had eaten was the food that I had given the kids three days ago. She had a headache and terrible fevers, which probably means that she has malaria. Something so common here it is almost thought of like we do the common cold.
I gave her the water and the food and she was so thankful that she was crying. I am not medically trained, but I know enough to at least try to give her some Tylenol for the fever. I told her that I would be right back with the medicine. Then my spiritual sensors kicked in and I knew I had to pray for her. I asked the children to join me as I know God’s heart is so tender towards them and I so wanted them to be a part of praying for their mother , so I crouched over this frail little naked woman and told her children to put their hands on her along with me. I asked her seven year old daughter if she wanted to pray. Bondye. Ede Manman. God. Help Mama. I then broke into a fervent prayer in English for this woman’s health to return and for her to be able to have what she needs. Simple things like food and water. Nothing dramatic happened. Simply a few tears.. mostly mine. Nothing really ever happens when I pray. But I know I am called to it and I long for the day when my prayers for physical healing will shoot like arrows to heaven and God’s grace will reign down. It will happen. He will do it. I keep praying because I can’t wait and I know that I am always one prayer closer every time.
I left to get the Tylenol amazed again by my life in Haiti and how much more my faith is becoming with each knock at the gate. Lord Come.

Finally, about the zombie....

Those of you who are familiar with Haitian culture and Voodoo know that Zombies are among the many cryptozoological specters that Haitians believe in, including shape-shifters, "Lougarou" (flying people that remove their skin or make themselves invisible, often compared to wear-wolves and vampires), and other "jab" (evil beings / demons). The majority of our Haitian friends have given us detailed reports of their encounters with these things, challenging our own sense of Western intellectual superiority and reminding us that the handful of contemporary western developed nations are the only cultures in all of history that have NOT believed in such things. So a few months ago when Carlin (an orphaned teen who lives with us) sat down on the couch and announced nonchalantly, "I saw a zombie for the first time today", I anxiously wanted to go see for myself.

The Haitian Zombie is a documented phenomenon with a very rational explanation. Voudou priests have long said they could raise a person from the dead, stealing their soul and controlling their body in order to perform various labor tasks. Investigations have shown that this does actually happen, but not according to the stories offered by the Houngan or Bokor (priests). What really happens is that the priest is involved in the "death" of the would-be Zombie, poisoning the victim with near-lethal levels of powdered blow-fish venom. The victim slips into a brain-damaging coma, with breath and heartbeat slipping beyond detection. After a slow sleep in the grave, the houngan can come back within a few days and administer an anti-venom to the chemically labotomized victim, bringing them back to a regular level of respiratory and cardiac activity, but with a permanently compromised mental capacity. Investigation of this process was the theme of the popular book & movie, "The Serpent and the Rainbow."

Because of the zombie tradition and the cost of burial plots, most Haitians do not allow their dead to stay in a graveyard for long after their burial ceremony. They have them buried for the funeral and then cremated shortly after, because they don't want their deceased family members to be resurrected as slave monsters. What's more tragic is that some families actually behead or stab their deceased relatives at their funeral just to make sure they are dead.

I asked a Haitian why they fear Zombies and she said, "because they've been dead before." I replied, "But you aren't afraid of Jesus and you believe he was dead before, right?" My friend agreed, but then added, "But if we saw him, we'd be afraid of him."

Well this particular zombie, the one that Carlin took me to see, was not all that frightening. That's him in the picture up above. He was sitting on a piece of cardboard, emaciated and looking incoherent, slightly rocking and batting at the air. He seemed to not be able to lift his head. I thought to myself, "Well if he's dangerous, I'm not sure who he could possibly hurt." I didn't know what was wrong with him, but I was pretty sure he was a "moun" (person) and not a "jab".

I told Carlin we should pray for him. Carlin looked a little nervous. There was a crowd beginning to gather. I knelt in the dirt next to him along with Kelsey Little, one of our guest volunteers from Judson College, and we prayed for him. There was a crowd around that seemed a little

confused. Why would we talk to a zombie? Why would we touch him? Why would we pray for him? They told us that prayers would not work, his soul was already gone. Kelsey lifted a bottle of water to his lips and he drank deeply, then we paused, not knowing what to do next. Then it became very clear: either we were going to leave him here in the dirt to be a spectacle, or we were going to take him home. I looked at Kelsey and said, "What do you think Shelley will say when we bring a 'zombie' home?" We laughed a nervous laughter and then loaded our new zombie friend into the back of the car. He did not talk and could barely move his legs to assist with our lifting him into the car. As we lifted him into the car a crippled and impoverished man wearing nothing but tattered shorts came up to us leaning on a crutch and speaking in English, "God bless you for what you are doing! My wife and I have been bathing him and feeding him, but we don't have much to give." These poor people had been doing their best to sustain this man with their limited resources. They had literally given him the clothes off of their backs.

When we got home I told Shelley that we had brought the "zombie" home. The Haitians at our house looked panicked, and Shelley looked shocked but a little excited. "Can we keep him?" I joked, not knowing what else to say. There was a wonderful short term team from Chicago that helped care for him, one of whom was a full time caregiver for people with special needs in the states. She helped me massage his tense, atrophied muscles and we laid him on a bed and changed his pants. He soiled the bed a couple times, but relaxed. We prayed for him for quite a while and he seemed to relax as we spent most of the night pampering him in whatever ways we could think of. He had been a monster only minutes ago, and now he was being treated like a person made in the image of God. It was beautiful and a huge privilege to serve Christ so palpably.

After a few days we didn't really know what to call him. Many people came to our house wanting to see the zombie, and we obliged them, hoping that seeing him dressed, well fed and sitting watching kids movies and relaxing with us would help humanize him in their eyes. We didn't let any crowds in, just individual Haitians. They all told us we were crazy and that he was going to eat our children in the middle of the night. We decided that calling him "the zombie guy" was not respectful and would only fuel the fear and alienation that he had already been subjected to, so we called him "B" instead, hoping that he would someday speak and tell us his name. In the meantime we began looking for ministries that specialized in caring for people with special needs and we tried to research his condition. After some reading online we thought that he probably had cerebral palsy. One thing was certain: he loved the shower. After I would bathe him (he soiled himself regularly) he would sit in our rocking chair and pretend to wash himself with invisible soap for about 3 hours. I'm not exaggerating. This guy REALLY liked the shower.

After a few calls around town we found that all of the homes for handicapped and mentally ill people were full and we began to feel the crunch of having 3 orphans, a street kid, our own children and a man with cerebral palsy to take care of. The short term team left for the states and we were short-handed. The stakes were raised when I was bathing B and he dropped like a ton of bricks into the bathtub, frothing at the mouth and seizing. Shelley and I prayed for him while we waited for the seizure to end. It was a frightening experience. This picture was taken only moments before:

After B's seizure ended I quickly loaded him into the car and went to find the Sisters of Charity facility. This is the organization that Mother Theresa started, and they are famous for taking care of those with extreme needs. As I drove frantically, B was tense in the back of the car and was making grumbling sounds. I was nervous. The Sisters of Charity were difficult to find, and when I finally did find them I was told that I was in the wrong place... I had come to the house for dying infants. The gate keeper gave me cryptic instructions for finding the adult facility and I had to pick up another Haitian man to ride with me in the car to give me directions. When we arrived a nice volunteer from Boston told me "the Sisters aren't here but we'd be glad to help. They'll be back soon."

We opened the back of the Forerunner and a couple of the larger men who appeared to be full time assistants for the Sisters of Charity came over to the car to help me unload "B". One of them was visibly moved as the back hatch opened to reveal B crumpled in the back on top of some pads we had put down. I was relieved, seeing that these people were really going to love him, but I was unprepared for what happened next. The assistant, teary eyed raised his head and shouted to the others around, "It's Ti Nikki! They have Ti Nikki!" And immediately I knew I was standing on holy ground. A miracle had taken place. Of all the places in all of Port Au Prince for me to take "B", God had led us to the one place where he was not "B", but had a real identity. He was known. He was loved. He had a story.

It turns out "B" was actually named "Nikki" and had been regularly cared for by the Sisters of Charity because of his cerebral palsy and his parents poverty. His parents had died a few years back and nobody knew where he was. They anxiously asked me where I had found him. When I told him that people had been throwing rocks at him and calling him a zombie, they said, "that won't ever happen again... he's home now," and with smiles on their faces they wheeled him off towards a table they had prepared with a big plate of rice and beans, Ti Nikki's favorite.

Another day

Today was just strange and very long.
Here are some things that happened.

1. We decided to fill the kiddy pool on the roof and were not willing to bucket the water up one bucket at a time as that would clearly take half of the morning, so Richard actually got into the water tank on the roof and handed out buckets to me one at a time. It was quite a site to see Richard in there for one, but the fact that he was skinny enough to fit in the water tank was even funnier.

2. I fired one of our staff and felt 100% like Donald Trump and didn't like it one bit.

3. Zebedee cried half the day... and stubbed his toe, and fell down, and didn't like it when Keziah kissed him, and only would wear his basketball outfit that he has worn now for three days.

4. I taught the girls here how to make tortillas and refried beans. (Not that I knew how to.. but now I do) and we had a fabulous taco dinner straight from Mexico. I think the whole process took just about 3 hours.

5. We picked up a team of three from the aiport and had a great time getting acquainted with them. Six more to come later in the week which will bring our total household number up to 20 by the end of the week.

6. The dog chewed through the screens that we just had put up yesterday.

7. The wind was so strong it knocked almost all of the other screens out of the windows.

8. Jackson got his hand slammed in the door.

9. The guys installing the sreens tried to make me pay them $30 US dollars for two pieces of plywood... I declined and they gave them to me for free.

10. About 25 people knocked on our gate today and I am thinking I have to figure out something to do about it soon...

All in all though, we are enocouraged. We have reached the end of our financial capabilities here and sent out an email asking for help. Many people responded which was very encouraging. We are so excited about waht is next for us as we get settled into our house here and are making plans for the next phase of our great adventure here in Haiti.

Top 10 ways you know you are a white missionary in Haiti.

The top ten ways you know you are a white missionary in Haiti

10. You exchange currency with Syrians in the back of a mini mart on a regular basis

9. You have spiritual moments that revolve around the electricity coming on.
"Thank you Jesus! The lights are on... wait... awe, crap."

8. You know black people with Polish names.

7. Orphans have given you instructions on how to season a cat.

6. People have smacked your arm just to see the cool colors of your bruises

5. The local band's instruments are a Tuba, a drum and about 20 short pieces of PVC pipe and bamboo.

4. The black people you know tease other black people for being blacker than they are.

3. You've watched a parade that only consisted of 12 people, and it ended in the death of a chicken.

2. The guy who fixes your car makes the parts all by himself from raw materials.

1. You are not sure if people think your name is "Blanc" or "Banm ti cob"


Top 10 ways you know you are a white
missionary to Haiti visiting the United States

10. You have cried in the aisles at a Wal-Mart

9. You know exactly how heavy a 50 lb piece of luggage feels.

8. You feel like you are in Disney Land when you look down a suburban street.

7. You start speaking in Kreyol to the first black person you meet.

6. People ask you, "How have things been going in....uh.... were you in Africa?"

5. You compare the prices at fast food joints to the prices at Epi D'or.

4. You brace yourself for non-existant potholes in the roads.

3. Your body convinces you that you are on Antarctica or the planet Hoth.

2. You have shopping lists for 27 people.

1. You think everybody is named "Blanc" or "Banm ti cob"