Stepping outside the Advent box -celebrating Chanukah

Most people around me either think I'm crazy , or they just don't get it, but celebrating Chanukah with my family this year has been a blessing for us and I wanted to jot down some thoughts about why we did it and what I learned.

Jack learned about Chanukah in preschool and asked if we could "do Chanukah." I thought, "why not? Same God, right?"

Technically a Menorah had seven candles and was lit daily in the Temple. Since the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the term Menorah has come to mean the nine candles associated with Chanukah. Eight of the candles are for the eight days of the miracle, and the ninth is the helper candle. The eight candles are set in a row, lest they be mistaken from a distance for one large torch, and the helper candle is distinguished by its position either higher or lower than the eight. The helper candle lights the others, which do no work - they are simply to be enjoyed. We made our Menorah from tea lights in a narrow glass holder, which I hoped would be more portable since we lit the menorah at five different houses in eight days!

Also as part of this adventure, we downloaded two contemporary Chanukah songs by the Maccabeats, an acapella group from Yeshiva University. One of the songs was "Miracle," a cover of a song by Matisyahu, a Chasidic reggae pop-star I had long admired. While the rest of Christendom was caroling "away in a manger," my family was belting out "I flip my latkes in the air sometimes!"

The first blessing I received was the reinforcement (recognition) of the continuity of the God revealed in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. Yeah, yeah, Psalms ... Genesis ... David and Goliath. But the Festival of Lights celebrates the miracle of how one day's worth of oil lasted for the eight days it took to consecrate more. It celebrates the miracle of God's provision for God's people.

The Menorah is lit outside (ideally) or in a window because Isaiah challenges us to be a light unto the world. We light candles against the darkness because Zechariah reminds us that God's kingdom comes not by might but by God's spirit.

One of my favorite lines in "Miracle" is "I'm bound to stumble and fall, but my strength comes not from man at all." Keenly aware of my own shortcomings, I am encouraged by these words of God's steadfastness. Christians might have a different understanding of the person of God (in the Trinity), but not the nature of God or God's love for us.

The other blessing I received was affirmation for how important Christ is in my life. I've often thought that Protestants may have thrown the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, when we broke away from Catholicism. We generally lack ritual in any formal sense. I was drawn to the ritualism of Chanukah, the rules about where to light the Menorah, when to light the Menorah (at dusk, except on Friday, then just before dusk) and how to light the Menorah (adding a candle each night from right to left, but lighting them each night from left to right). Every mitzvah (instruction, requirement) had a reason, each designed to remind us of some aspect of our relationship with God.

Interestingly, the week before Chanukah began, Matisyahu (the reggae singer I mentioned) shaved his beard for the first time in ten years. In a public statement, he said that he had felt that the rigidness of Chasidic Judaism had been what kept him "right," and now he wanted to explore a different understanding of his divine mission and how God works in his life.

Perhaps similarly I realized that - for me - it was not enough to light the candles. When the miracle of the oil happened, the war wasn't over, but the Israelites were given time to stop, regroup, rededicate, and realize that they shouldn't have been winning at all. Chanukah gave me a chance to stop from the craziness of secular Christmas, the Advent season I'd kinda gotten used to over the years, and reflect. I reflected that Jews and Christians alike are awaiting the coming of the Messiah and God's kingdom. When I lit the candles, it was not enough just to be grateful for blessings, or grateful to some greater power. What is important to me is being grateful to the God who cares about each of us personally, and grateful for the steadfast love of God and the redemptive gift of Jesus Christ.

It wasn't the ritual that brought me closer to God, but the willingness to approach God differently, to see something new.

So, happy Chanukah and merry Christmas. Who's ready for Purim?

Compassion

My youngest child is in his last year of preschool. I know this, intellectually, but Tuesday evening he started belting out one of the graduation songs that they're already practicing. It's a random little song that each of the girls had sung at their graduations, and I felt as though I had been punched in the stomach. My baby is growing up.

On Monday, baby Melissa Hope Chapman succumbed to a congenital heart defect. We knew it was there, knew it was inoperable, but we thought we would have her with us for nine, ten, maybe twelve years. It was not meant to be.

As I thought on Wednesday about my plans to return to Haiti this fall, I thought about how hard it will be to go back without Melissa there. How strangely quiet the bunk room will be without her baby coos -and Jenny's coos back to her! And I thought about my little fellow graduating from preschool and how Jenny will not see Melissa through that, or any other, milestone. My heart broke a little bit more.

But here's the thing... as I put all the thoughts together into a big picture, I realized - and was humbled by the knowledge - that my compassion is strongly related to, if not limited to, my own experiences. I can only understand Jenny's experience to the extent that I can compare it to my own. And, having never been on that dark path, I can only imagine what she must be feeling.

A week ago, if you had asked me, I would have told you not to go on a mission trip to Haiti. I would have suggested you buy jewelry through me from the Apparent Project. I would have told you to do your research and send the money you would've spent on the plane ticket to a project you believed in. I would've pointed out that Haiti doesn't need you to build anything, she needs you to pay her native workers to build things so they can feed their families. And if you had insisted on going, I would've suggested that you go on vacation to a Haitian resort and pour your money into their struggling tourist economy.

But today I feel differently. Today I say "go." I watched Jenny go and fall in love with a baby, and a people. And the only way to truly sympathize with the situation in Haiti, or any number of other people and places, is to make their experience your own. See for yourself, feel for yourself, and open yourself in a way that changes you. Rid yourself of the need to imagine the hunger, or the hope. Go. Fall in love. Let it break your heart.

Update on the Cite Soleil Orphanage

For those of you who were moved by the sight of the children in the Cite Soleil orphanage and their assortment of tents, I wanted to post an update.  Last week, torrential rains all but washed away the tents, leaving the children and their caregivers living in mud.  Thanks to the Chadasha Foundation, the orphanage was able to move into an actual house!  Here's a video of the children singing and saying Thank You to Jesus in front of their new home.  About minute 2:30, the children and adults kneel to pray, each saying their own prayer out loud.  I don't understand a word of it, but it brings to my mind the scene from Pentecost where "they each spoke in their own tongues."  As we celebrate Pentecost this weekend, I will be celebrating God's gifts to those children, and the blessing I've received from them and their experience.

Confessions upon my return

I cant stop thinking about Haiti. Not in a heart-broken, longing way. Nor in the difficult-to-adjust to being home kind of way my teammates warned me about. Just in a wow, let's not forget this kind of way. I will tell anyone who shows the slightest interest about my adventures (there's your fair warning) and I'm selling jewelry and metal crosses everywhere I go (just in case you're interested...), and I'm mentally planning my next trip - although i haven't yet broken it to Ben.

See, here's the thing. Every night for a long time I've gone to bed with a heart-thumping feeling that feels very much like a panic attack, except that I'm not panicked. I've always chalked it up to being overtired. I have been sleep-deprived for ten years now, after all. But guess what? I didn't get that feeling in Haiti. Not once. So I'm thinking maybe it really is panic, or anxiety. I mean, I fall asleep mentally listing all the things I should've done today and didn't, trying to burn into my memory the thing that must happen first when i wake up so some kid doesn't end up at school without their lunch or I don't arrive at a committee meeting without the printouts I need.

So my question is, can I capture that calm while I'm home? The feeling at the end of the day that I've served God and mankind to the best of my ability and tomorrow holds what it holds - in God's hands? Maybe I could, but what would I give up? Feeding my children? Doubt it. It would certainly appear to the casual observer that I've given up laundry to no greet affect!

So here is the answer. The wise Frank Broyles told me years ago that true ministry blesses both parties, that we don't minister to, but with, others. And I see clearly here that this is true. I could not go around Haiti administering scabies treatments alone. Heck, I couldn't diagnose scabies! And so I was in ministry with that amazing group of women and men. But more importantly, when I was in Haiti, a group of beautiful women removed my need to cook and to clean (and to do laundry), and so my hours were free to love babies. Wow, did they minister to me!

And so when it comes right down to it, my trip to Haiti was an indulgence. My family endured my absence, the women cared for my physical needs, and my team let me do the one job I really really loved with those scabies treatments. And so was it hard, hot work? Yes. Was the gratification purely selfish in what I gained each day? Oh, yes. Will I do it again? Absolutely! When do we leave?




(me, laughing when the waiter brought me four hot dogs. But it easily could've a couple other dozen occasions that week. Thanks, team, for an awesome week!)

Some final thoughts

I am on the plane to go home and a few things have occurred to me. One, I had a very sheltered trip. We lived as a team, we ate as a team. We drove around in a covered tap tap with a door that bolted shut. On the way to the airport this morning, since our tap tap went to the Dominican Republic, three of us rode in the back of a pick-up truck. At every intersection, we were approached by young men asking for money.

We stopped at a convenience mart on the way home from Canaan to buy cocas. The translators went in, and so did Stefanie, but i was too tired to get up. I'm wishing now that I had. Also, if we had eaten at a restaurant other than the resort, I think i would've had a different experience. Next time I will know to seek and ask for something just a little different.

The other thing that occurs to me as I fly home, is that I want to go home different. I have seen things that I had previously only seen on TV, I have held children who are fortunate if they get to eat every day. I have seen government corruption that i hadn't imagined. (did you know that if you ship something to someone in haiti, they have to pay a "receiving fee" that might be three times what you paid for the shipping?) I have seen with my own eyes the desperation of extreme poverty, and the power born of hope and a little help. And yet, I'm worried that I will slip back into my old life, and old comforts, and my old whiney habits, and slowly the lose the impact of this trip.

On the other hand, I don't know what could or would be different about me. I suspect experiences like this need time to sink in and become wisdom. I only know that I have been touched, and I want to be changed.

Big things in small packages

Two significant things today, even though I never left the house. First was a visit with Andrea Brewer. To understand the morning, let me first say that I've come to an understanding of "Haiti time." "Hurry up and wait" would be appropriate for my reaction to it, but that's really not Haiti time. Haiti time just is. Nothing happens when you think it will, or when you want it to, but it seems to happen just the same, and when it needs to.

A huge lesson in this came to me this morning in the form of Andrea Brewer, as in "the Brewer place" mentioned on my first day here. She had brought two of the children from their home to go with Jenny to have echocardiograms done as follow-up. (may I just stop here to say how awesome it is to be doing follow-up care for these kids and not just swoop in and swoop out?) She showed up at 8:30, right on time, but they didn't leave until noon. I could tell you why they didn't leave until noon, but it's not a single incident Iike a flat tire. It's more about waiting for someone who's waiting for someone else, and in the meantime someone who was there left so when the first someone shows up, now you're both waiting for the second someone. And no one cares, or gets bent out of shape, except us crazy Americans and our ridiculous desire for promptness (a.k.a. control).

And Andrea helped me get perspective on this, as she beautifully and graciously sat in our kitchen with E in her lap, and chatted. It was a tremendous joy to me to have a chance to sit and talk to her and hear her stories, and we wouldn't have been able to if they'd left right on time. So it was a gift, wrapped in a frustration that was mine to get past.

The tidbit I'll pass along from what she told us was that they don't feed Haitian prisoners. If your loved one is locked up, you take them food or they starve. Crazy, huh? But truthfully, what she told us is her story, so I'll encourage you to read it for yourself at their website at Reachhaiti.com. You can sponsor a child, and I can personally assure you that I've met these children, and the Brewers are doing a wonderful thing.

I would also like to point out that she's a bit of a celebrity. She was quoted in this article on CNN during the cholera outbreak! CNN article







The other significant thing that happened today is that Jenny went to court and now has legal guardianship of Melissa. Can I get a woot woot? One more step closer to bringing her home.

Today I woke up in Haiti.

The guest house is quite comfortable. There are five fans in our bunk room, and a cooler of coke (in the bottle!!) in the dining room, and my own bed and space and a fabulous view of the valley and the sunset. Most days I wake to hear team members talking, or see the sun's up and wonder if I'm late for breakfast. It feels more like dormitory than foreign country.

Today a contingent of families left for the Dominican Republic for heart surgeries (arranged by Chadasha) that simply aren't available here. So they came in last night to be ready for their journey today. When I woke up this morning, i was hot - it didn't cool down as much last night as it has on past nights - and the smells from the kitchen were definitely more Haitian than some days. Plus the air was full of voices, foreign words and babies crying. It felt like I was waking up in Haiti, and it was awesome.

It kinda takes your breath away.

I'm talking about the shower. The guesthouse doesn't have hot water, and really the cold shower is refreshing, but when you first put your face in, it really takes your breath away. But it's worth it to wash away the sweat and the smell and the crazy crazy dirt. Today's dirt was amplified because our drive was so far. We went to a tent city called Canaan on the outskirts of Port Au Prince. In this picture, the shiny part in the middle that looks like it might be a pond is actually a section of actual tents in tidy rows, probably provided by foreign aid.
















Here's where we set up our clinic today:









It was an unfinished building, although it was unfinished in odd ways. But, since Anne and Jenny were sharing the otoscope ...









It's a bit of a shame that today was our last mobile clinic, because we've really fallen into a rhythm as a team. It's truthfully the rhythm we started with last Saturday, but it has revealed itself to be highly effective and solidified nicely.

Courtney and Evans take histories and write it on a piece of paper. They let us know if any patients particularly need to see Jenny.










Next, I take blood pressure on the adults and weigh the children, and then keep order until there's a free spot with Jenny and Kesse in Exam 1








or with Anne and Kensley in Exam 2







(although this is Evans in the picture, curiously). They get a diagnosis, which today was more intestinal worms than anything else. Yesterday it was tons of scabies, today intestinal worms and STD's. It doesn't matter what it is, if they have it they pass it around.

Next they go to the pharmacy, where they meet today's Bomb-diggity-of-the-day award winners, Karren and Kathy, plus Stefanie who whipped out her high school French to give medication instructions to everyone who came through.








They win the award because not only did they dispense multiple medications to almost every single person that walked through the doors, they actually administered many of them, too. They didn't sit down for even a minute, or have lunch, or use the restroom. Ok, in fairness, no one used the restroom because there wasn't one. There was a pit full of goat bones, but it was way too out in the open for any of us to be willing to straddle it. (hee hee)

I didn't get a photo of Stefanie today, which is a serious shame because one of the Haitian women staying at the guesthouse did her hair this morning and she looked really fly!

What struck me most about Canaan was that it oddly seemed more full of hope than any of the city part of Port Au Prince, and certainly more than Cite Soleil. There was a lot more construction happening as we rolled in, and, while I wouldn't trade my life for this one, doesn't it look more appealing than a lot of what I've posted this week?








The other thing I noticed was that the people we saw were much harder to keep in line, not because they crowded each other, but because they grouped around and visited together. They also didn't leave right away after treatment because they hung around waiting for friends. Stefanie had a harder time engaging the kids, but they were really happy engaging each other.








It was just a different sense of community. The thing I found most positive was - don't laugh - one of anne's patients had the primarily complaint of ... acne. And school children started showing up just to see the doctor. "stomachache - started today" or "headache - started today." It just felt less desperate to me than so many of the situations we've seen this week!




Canaan is not without its sadness


















But it was nice for our last clinic to end on a positive note.

WARNING! Adult content

We went to a tent city today, and treated more std's than all our other clinics combined. I think there may be some confusion on how to use a condom.

Holdin' Babies and Riskin' Scabies!

Those of you who know me well know that I am not a germaphobe. I use public restrooms, I don't use hand sanitizer, I let my kids lick shopping carts... so Haiti has been very tough for me. I forget to sanitize between patients or that that weird spot on his head might be contagious. But I think it helps, because I'm not afraid to love the babies. Or the toddlers. Or whoever might want to sit on my lap. This kid, for example:





He was sent to the pharmacy for a scabies treatment, but when I told him to come to me, he just plunked down in my lap! Courtney and I both got prophylactic scabies treatments tonight!

Today's orphanage was in Cite Soleil. You can google it if you'd like to be scared for me, but I'll just tell you that it's the largest slum in the northern hemisphere, and perhaps - since the earthquake - the world. When the earthquake hit, local legend has it, the prison guards thought the world was ending and they opened the doors and let the prisoners out. Equally likely, they escaped in the ensuing chaos, but either way they're reputed to be hiding out in Cite Soleil which was already dangerous and run by gangs.








There are 400,000 residents in Cite Soleil, and not a single building. All the shelters are either tents or cobbled together from found parts. I knew this, and i was still blown away to pull up to the orphanage. Fortunately, i recovered when i was greeted by this little guy:





Although I find a little irony in the fact that this tent says "US AID"






When this is their school:





And this is their kitchen:






Lots of heartache today. Youngest on the list is twin girls. They must be a year old judging by their skulls (Jenny made that call) and their teeth (Courtney) but neither of them weighs 10 pounds. They are skin and bones, and they have barely any muscle strength at all. The woman in charge of the place said their momma is a prostitute, and the daddy was feeding them sugar water mixed with bread. They've been at the orphanage for five months, but they don't seem to be getting better. Anne - who wins "bomb diggity of the day" for her heroic actions - came out of a twenty-year retirement to draw blood from both girls so that they could be tested for AIDS, among other things. We will likely go get them tomorrow or Thursday, when the paperwork can get worked out.





Seated between us is a fifteen year old boy. The confused look on my face is just my listening face. He is definitely a leader in the community, and had been there since he was four (although his mother died in the earthquake). When Stefanie handed out dot-to-dot coloring pages, I caught him quizzing the younger children on their numbers. I was impressed with how readily he grabbed that teachable moment. He spoke some English, which he said he'd just picked up. I said that he must be smart, and he agreed. I asked if he wanted to go to university, and he said he just wanted to eat three meals a day.

The children sang us a welcome song when we arrived, and they were so delightful and happy and charming. Several had scabies, and various ear infections, but were for the most part remarkably healthy and had good teeth! Sadly, they were all very malnourished. They were loved, they were cared for, they were taught, and they were happy. But they were hungry.





Michelle, Wilna, and Chris went out during the clinic to buy bags of rice and beans for them. I don't know if these kids dressed up for us or not, but their clothes were pitiful. They were way too small or way too big, many of them were ripped, and lots of them were simply inappropriate - velvet dresses and camo Sweaters(!). Check out little guy here wearing two different shoes ( and playing a mean bumpy-metal-sheet-and-spoon ).





This little girl is wearing a doll's dress from the My Size Barbie collection. And, no, I didn't just catch her at a bad moment; this is what she looked like the entire time. It is possible that she wasn't familiar with blancs, or that she associated doctors with shots, but that would make her a stand-alone in this crowd of camera hounds and lollipop lovers. Dissociation this extreme usually comes from abuse so bad that you simply choose not to participate in reality.





But, it was an honest to goodness happy place, so I want to leave you with the image I carry with me.

The Haitian half of our team!

Ok, the first thing I want to mention is that I there are three women who work the guest house - cooking us lunch and dinner, cleaning, washing our laundry in a tub in the yard if we ask them to - who are not pictured here. They don't eat with us, and they don't eat until we're finished eating even when we don't eat until nine o'clock. They're friendly and pleasant but they're always busy so I just couldn't ask them to stop cooking just so I could take their picture and put them on display.

Next up, Kensley. He met us at the airport. He drives us around, and he cheers us up. He also speaks four languages, which comes in handy because I seem to say gracias as often as I say merci.








And here's Kessy. Tireless, endlessly helpful, and always in a good mood. He's a fabulous singer and I love the way he loves the children (so naturally and easily) everywhere we go.








Here's Wilna, track and field star:







And there's Zeke, aspiring musician and strong-man ( I bought his album, so we can all listen to it when I get home). I asked him what he really thinks about Americans, and he said we make things complicated that don't need to be. Sounds like he doesn't like drama, either!








Plus Evans, translator and aspiring bodyguard for the new Haitian president. He talks about it as though it's a done deal. Evans went to school in the US, and when i asked him why he wanted to come back here, he said that there is so much being built and created here, that he wanted to be part of that and to make a life for himself.








Plus Michelle, missionary in residence who cannot keep her hands off whatever baby is around:







And Chris, Executive Director of Chadasha on whom Jenny spilled cough syrup, and Orville, Chadasha board member:














These are the people to whom I have entrusted my life, from knowing which neighborhoods are safe when, to physically standing between me and the stranger on the road where we walk. And they live this life every day, all year 'round. They are amazing.

Love

The foundation that our team is supporting is called the Chadasha Foundation. They are based in Knoxville, and have a Huntsville branch called Project Sharewood. They run the guest house, provide translators, set up the mobile clinics, etc. They have also recently opened a children's shelter here in town. It's a shelter and not an orphanage because of licensing requirements, but truthfully most of the children have parents who simply cannot keep them. There are ten children at the shelter. Anne and Jenny kept busy doing check-ups on the kids. Kathy, who was once a kindergarten teacher, taught a thirteen year old girl to add by carrying. Stefanie and Karren played ball, and painted nails, and read books. Courtney and I held sleeping babies. All day. I'm not exaggerating. As soon as one would wake up, we'd start looking for another one. I can't think of a better way to pass a quiet day than sitting on a lounge chair on a veranda holding a sleeping baby.





The Chadasha Children's Shelter is located in a part of town that doesn't reliably have power. Chris and Orville worked all day to install an inverter, a device that would store power when it was available from the city (usually at night) to be used when it was not available. They didn't quite get it finished, but there was at least power to the house by the time we left.

It rained like crazy in the afternoon, which did nothing to relieve the stifling heat. It really just got muggier, and buggier. I know now why Haitians don't like the rain: mudslides. The roads were a horrible mess as we were driving home, and places that seemed like bridges when we were crossing this morning now showed themselves for what the really were - places where the sides of the road had been washed away by rushing water. It was scary, and unpleasant. The unpleasantness was magnified by the fact that AFTER we had loaded into the tap tap, Chris noticed he had locked the keys in the cab. So we sat in the pouring ran while he jimmied the lock. We got absurdly wet, although perhaps not as wet as he did!


*** stop reading now if you're not interested in the Heartbreak of the Day

There was a set of twins at the Chadasha shelter. They are fourteen months old, and when the mother brought them in to a mobile clinic, they were buck-naked and covered in mud from head to toe. That was two weeks ago. Look at them:





Look at how plump and healthy they are. The mother is sixteen, and is eight months pregnant. She loved them, you can see it, but she was overwhelmed and about to have another mouth to feed. What options did she have but to hope someone would offer them a better life? [note: someone already has. They're in the process of being adopted.] The part that really gets me is that they were covered in mud. I was told about them when we arrived on Friday, and I was horrified, but now i have a few Haitian days under my belt and I think, "how could they NOT be covered in mud?" I have the luxury of electricity and running water, and i can't keep clean. How could she possibly? I think their health is a testament to what a good job Mom was doing under the circumstances, and her sacrifice speaks only to her love for them.

Filthy, dirty mess.

Sunday morning we went to worship at a local church with whom the foundation has a relationship. The Senior Pastor and his wife were not there, as she was recently abducted, ransomed, and returned unharmed, but not exactly whole. The minister was great, although he spoke in either
French or Creole so I only understood "esprit de dieu," "guarantie," "ressurecion," and "transformacion." Then again, what more do you need from a sermon?







It was fun to try to figure out what was happening during the service. They had the songs projected on to a screen, so we could sing along and roughly know what we were singing. At one point, about 40 people got up and lined the front of the church and down the center aisle so they could shake hands with the pastor and the elders (men and women) and we rightfully concluded that these were new members. My least favorite part of the service? That





we showed up late and were seated as a column of white folks in folding chairs down the aisle. My most favorite part? Taking Communion with my Haitian brothers and sisters. They passed the elements as we do in our traditional ceremony, but they stood as the received the elements. I loved the respect they showed. Funniest part? The time for recognizing visitors.





The pastor said several times, "visitors? visitors?" and looked right at us, but none of us spoke enough French to say anything. Finally one of the elders stepped up to the mic and welcomed us in English, which made everybody chuckle.


After lunch, we went to see the gravesite (see previous post) and had lunch at a resort. It was very strange to come to Haiti and minister to some of the poorest people in the world and then have lunch at a beachside resort, but I'll save my righteous indignation for another time. It was an odd lunch, that took so long i actually fell asleep sitting up in my chair waiting for my food! The funniest part of lunch was that most of the meals were in the twelve to twenty dollar range, but they didn't have anything that I ordered. "we're out of shrimp, we're out of salad..." so I eventually gave up and ordered a hot dog and fries. It was only five dollars, so I figured it must be a small portion and i ordered two. when it came, he brought me two plates - with two hot dogs each! Can you imagine my face when the waiter set down four hot dogs in front of me? Hee hee hee... [ and no, I didn't eat it all...]

When we got home from the afternoon adventure, we tackled one heck of a job. Each team that comes bring medical supplies, and generally leaves the excess here. Sadly, it appeared that several teams (is seven considered "several"?) left and just left duffel bags full of supplies on the floor. Under Karren's (or Kareem's, if you prefer) careful supervision, we pulled all the expired meds from the shelves, and restocked from what was in the bags on the floor. We sorted surgical stuff to go to the Dominican Republic on Wednesday with the heart patients (more about that later), packed first-aid kits to leave at each of the orphanages we go to this week, and even alphabetized the antibiotics. It was nasty, dirty work, as everything here is filthy.

May i digress here just for a moment? Everything here is filthy. The air smells of smoke all the time. As we drive along the road, we see piles of burning trash literally next to stalls where people are selling food. There are swarms of flies on everything in the markets, but Ashton tells us that if it doesn't have flies, you don't want it, because there's something wrong and even the flies don't want it.

The roads are horrible. In my own experience, going to my grandmother's, you drive on the highway until you turn off onto the four-lane, until you turn onto the two-lane, until you get to the dirt road that takes you to the house. Not so here. You go on and off paved rows seemingly randomly, and most of the roads aren't paved. There are pot holes everywhere and the tap tap is constantly weaving around to avoid the worst of it, but you can't avoid it all. It's a bumpy ride no matter where you're going and dirty, dirty, dirty ... road dust, smoke, and general filth. And then in the guest house, cleaning out old teams' stuff that was covered in filth and sometimes roaches, we just got dirtier. My teeth felt dirty. I stood in the shower (with no water pressure) and cried. I don't know if I'll ever be clean again. My hair is so nasty, I may have to shave my head and start over.

Here's a picture. Courtney said, "you will try to show pictures to your friends when you get home, and I don't know how, but the photographs suck the humanity out of the situation. She's right, but I'll still try.

Darn, you, autocorrect!

In my last post, auto correct morphed Karren's name into Kareem and i can't change it from here. I am, in fact, in Haiti with a short pharmacist and not an over-sized basketball player.

Meet the team!

Fearless leader, Dr. Jenny, and faithful sidekick Melissa (who is in the process of becoming officially adopted by Jenny's family). Unflappable, silly





Nurse Anne. Acts as nurse practitioner here, as some things you see over and over again. Ringworm, for example. Comic relief, fabulous photographer.



Kathy and Courtney.

Kathy (right) is a professional short-term missionary. Her job, officially, is to organize mission trips for her district, but she has a reputation for going on rogue trip with others (like this one). Cheerleader, "momma."

Courtney (left) is a nurse and she's the bomb-diggity. This is the second of two trips that she didn't want to go on, but she came because God told her to. She has a dry sense of humor that keeps me on my toes, which helps when you're trying to get a urine sample from someone who does not habitually use a toilet. Pragmatist, rock.





Kareem is a pharmacist and has a giant brain. She is the finishing touch on our patient care, and the final say on organizing the closet. Nurturer, Steadfast.





Stefanie is a lawyer and she is a bad-ass. I don't know all the details of her first trip here, but it definitely had "so the journalist was going to Jimani, and I just got in his truck." She is prepared for everything, and doesn't take anything from anybody, but don't let me paint her wrongly - she is kind and generous and I want to be her when I grow up. Treat-fairy, translator.








The Haitian members of our team next; let's see if this loads!