And Life In Haiti Goes On...

(Dixie's Blog)

Last updated: 26 June 2009

26 June 2009

Laurie with Nikki and Penny.

Today is a very sad day for those of us at GLA.  Those of you who have visited us in Haiti know our big Akita named Nikki.  (he is the gold and white dog)  Nikki came to us almost exactly 10 years ago as a little puppy.  He was a very good and faithful companion and guard dog.  Even at his age, when one of the family came home from a trip he would dance around like a puppy and be so happy to see us! 

But the 1st of June, he slipped on the tile floor and fell and tore he meniscus muscle and tore his tendons in his back leg.  He went through 3 different surgeries and was at the vetinary hospital for many days.  Poor Nikki had never been away from home and he became so sad and sicker every day.  He has alway been our daughter, Laurie's, best buddy.  Unfortunately, John, Laurie, Steeve, and Mark are all in the States right now and so were not here to help me.

I brought Nikki home yesterday but he was not doing well.  He suffered all day and finally died about supper time.  When you live in an orphanage with this many children, it is difficult to find a good dog that you can trust completely around the children.  Nikki was good with visitors and children.  My heart is very sad and I will miss him very much. 

Nikki, our guard dog and companion was a very good dog with the children. Nikki laying on his bed in our office.

18 June 2009

This week has been very hectic at the orphanage.  We have lots of visitors here and several babies sick right now.  Every day is an exhausting day.  Last night, my daughter, Laurie, and son, Steeve, were packing to leave for the USA early this morning.  They had to catch an 8:30 plane.  But of course, they waited until 10 PM last night to pack.  That meant that we did not get to bed until midnight!

At 3 AM, Steeve woke me up to tell me that there was a HUGE frog sitting in our bathroom in the apartment!  And he was right, there was a brown frog that was at least 3 inches wide by 4 inches long blocking the way to the toilet!  We have no idea how he got into the bathroom because the windows were all closed!

Our cat, Daisy, got out of Steeve's bed to come and see why were were all up at 3 AM and saw the frog.  Her eyes got real big and she ran into the room and started playing with the frog which caused him to jump all over the room!

Of course, since Steeve woke me up, I need to use the facilities!  I am telling the cat to leave the frog alone until I was done.  But nooooo!  She made him jump and touch me and made me scream!  YIKES, I hate touching frogs!

We closed the door with the frog and the cat in the bathroom and tried to go back to bed.  Ten minutes later, the night nurses are knocking on my door to tell me that one of the babies was sick and I needed to come down.  It took me a while to get back up to bed and I opened the door to the bathroom to see what was going on with the cat and frog and the frog had turned GREEN!  I thought maybe he was dead but NO, he jumped out into the hall and now was loose in the apartment! 

By this time, I was so exhausted that I decided to just go to bed and let the frog stay in the hallway.  Of course, I was so hyped over the sick baby and the frog that I could not go back to sleep and 30 minutes later, Steeve's alarm went off and we had to get up to get him ready to go to the airport. 

Steeve went looking for the frog and found it back in the bathroom.  After chasing it all over the apartment trying to catch it in a bowl (yes, I did this because Steeve refused to touch it!), I finally caught it and took it out and set it loose. 

I started my day with 3 hours of sleep!  The sick baby was better today.  And I am now officially home alone without my family who is in the USA.  Well, if you can call being alone when I have 75 staff members, 80 babies, multiple volunteers, 2 dogs and a cat being alone!!! 

But I think chasing the frog around the apartment at 3 AM was a true "And Life in Haiti Goes On" moment!

7 May 2009

We have received a lot of children in the last 2 weeks, eight children altogether.  One of the babies that came is a premature baby named Jonathon.  He weighs 2 lbs 10 ounces (1.3 kg).  He was born on the 17th of April and had a twin brother who died on Saturday. 

Now, Jonathon is kind of a miracle baby.  After his brother died, his mother wrapped this teeny tiny baby in a towel and started walking trying to find someone to help him.  On the road, she found a woman who knew about us and that we helped babies.

When Jonathon arrived at the orphanage, he was ice cold.  He was barely breathing and his temperature would not even register on any thermometer that we had and our thermometers went as low as 93 degrees F.  Immediately, we started oxygen, IV, and put him in the incubator to warm him up. It took almost 18 hours to get his temperature stable.

Then on Tuesday afternoon, Jonathon decided not to breath and his heart rate became irregular.  All night we stimulated to get him to breath and by Wednesday morning, he was exhausted and stopped breathing altogether!  Then the staff started giving him CPR and continued for 2 hours.  It looked like all hope for little Jonathon was gone.  he was unresponsive.  He was dark.  He was gone....

But God had other plans for Jonathon!  The staff decided to stop CPR but I had been praying for God to give us a miracle.  We did not want Jonathon to die!  God put a drug in my mind to try and after CPR was stopped, and all hope was gone, we refused to give up!  So I had them start it again.  His little heart was still beating, but he just was not breathing but a grasp here and there.

The medication was given and God heard all of our prayers and gave us a miracle!  Jonathon started breathing and then started moving and a few minutes later opened his eyes and looked around!  Then he started crying!  Today, he is doing much better. 

We started this ministry when a 1 lbs 15 oz baby was left to die because nobody thought she would live.  We did not give up then and we did not give up on Jonathon now because God hears our cries for help and answers!

28 April 2009

Last Saturday, we went to our property in Ft. Jacques and had a weiner roast!  John and Brad made a fire pit and laid out logs from some of our big pine trees killed when the hurricanes came through the area last Fall.  We took all of our foreign staff and some of the neigborhood kids.  I think there were 34 of us!  We also had an adoptive family from Canada who came along too!

It was nice being up there with all of the trees and the fire.  It was actually even pretty cold that night!  We roasted hot dogs, sang, danced, and just had some nice clean fun! 

A weiner roast brings a little bit of North America to Haiti and makes us feel like we could be back home!

John setting up the fire pit and getting the area ready. Hot dogs always taste better cooked over an open fire! This is the view of Port au Prince at night from our property.
We sang songs and just relaxed around the camp fire.
Yvonne Trimbel, with the mission Haiti for Christ, leads our bible study every Wednesday night aqt the orphanage.

Some of our volunteers enjoying the fire.
Molly, Joyce, and some of the volunteers enjoing visiting with each other. it was fun sitting around the camp fire and just visiting with each other. Everyone had a wonderful time.

 25 April 2009

Working at the orphanage is something that I love.  Watching poor, sick, abandoned children come into the orphanage and blossom under the care of our nurses, nannies, and volunteers is very rewarding.  Literally, we save some of these children's very lives!!

Adoptive parents can be very emotional.  Their emotions run very high and sometimes very low.  It is difficult them to be patient and wait for an adoptive process that can run on for months.  How can anyone understand a foreign government that does not have the same urgency to see these children in their forever homes as all of us do???  The families sometimes think the orphanage staff should be able to go to government offices and "force" them to sign dossiers!  I wish it was that easy!

So when we receive a letter from a family who are very grateful for their proposal, it makes us feel very happy.  The family that wrote the letter below only had 6 days before their adoption agreement expired and they could not renew it because The Netherlands has a law that you cannot receive a proposal after your 46th birthday! 

But as I often say, God's Way is Perfect!  We were able to propose a little girl to them six days from the mother's 46th birthday!  This letter tells of the mother's joy!  I wanted to share her joy with you today.

Dear Dixie, Stephanie, the staff at GLA and FLASH,

I am writing this letter to thank you all for Carmelina – a wonderful perfect match for our family and just before our permit ran out.

I had personally given up hoping for a match. Miriam (at the agency Flash in The Netherlands) and I exchanged emails in January as I asked about a possible extension of our permit. Miriam responded that an extension was not possible without a match. I understood and left the matter there. Of course you cannot produce children out of thin air and we had kept up with the adoption process challenges in Haiti through the newsletters so knew the situation was getting more difficult.

So I was not looking forward to my 46th birthday - which was just 6 days away - when all doors for adoptions would be closed just because of my age. (The Netherlands has a rule that once you reach 46 years old, you can no longer adopt a child.)  Then we received the life-changing phone call from Miriam. It was just after 6:00pm and I had come in from work and was peeling potatoes. My husband, Cees, was not in yet and our son Chistiaan was playing piano in the background, so it was hard to hear. When Miriam said who she was, I froze. Flash has never called us before.

Miriam very kindly did not keep me in suspense and told me right away that they had a match for us. I could not believe it. I don’t know what I said – I was speechless. I was so surprised, shocked in fact. I was totally not expecting it. The only thing I could think was that it was now too late to get our permit extended – the Ministry of Justice would never do this in 6 days. But then Miriam said it was already extended. Until 2011!!! I could not believe my ears. It was already extended. Whoopeee….

She then said we could plan a meeting – I thought we’d have to do it right away as we’d have to agree before my birthday, but that was not necessary either. You guys had this all figured out already – including all our names on the permit!

Then she said she could tell me a little bit more about the child. Of course I wanted to know, but I did not think we were allowed to know over the phone, so I didn’t like to ask. It is a little girl she said…my heart jumped.  Just what we wanted! And she is nearly 3. Nearly 3, I repeated, wow, nearly 3, how wonderful, nearly 3, how cute.

I got off the phone. I ran downstairs jumping and laughing. My son was watching TV (of course once I was on the phone he took the chance to stop playing piano!). I hugged and kissed him and laughed and jumped around. He laughed at me and kept asking me what was up. But he doesn’t know about the adoption so I just said it was really good news and that I’d tell him soon (and of course he soon forgot)….

So we scheduled the meeting as soon as we could – Cees, my husband,  was able to change his schedule on Thursday so we could go that week…

Then we “met” Carmelina, what a lovely name. Well, actually I had seen her in the GLA newsletter from March 2009, since her picture was in there and she was the only “nearly” 3 year old who was a new arrival. I had thought, well it just might be her. And it was!!! What a beautiful little girl, what lovely big brown eyes. How healthy she looks! But how sad for her to be separated from her mother.  It must have been very very hard for her mother to give her up. An act of love.

When Miriam asked us at the end of sharing with us all the information on Carmelina, “can I tell Dixie it’s a yes”, I looked at Cees, expecting he’d want to discuss it, and he just said very simply “yes”.  I was surprised and very pleased (of course it was yes for me J.).   

We feel it is a blessing.

So thank you to all of you who made such an effort in such little time on our behalf. We feel like Carmelina is a very good match for our family and we hope we are worthy of her. We do not know what it is like in Haiti, but we can imagine that her arriving on your doorstep on January 9th and then all the tests and evaluations and paperwork that needs to be done, followed by the proposal on Feb 20th was a heroic efforts on GLA’s part. That followed by Flash moving quickly to ensure the Dutch side was in order, also not a given by any means.

We recognize that the road ahead is still a long one and anything can happen in the meantime. But we have hope now. Thank you for giving us that and thank you for the care you are giving to Carmelina and the support you are giving to us.

Kind regards,

Angela, Cees and Christiaan

23 April 2009

Today, I started my day with 1500 emails in my In-Box.  1500!!!  I actually do work on emails every day.  I probably answer at least 40 per day.  And I still ended up with 1500 unanswered emails!  How can that be?

So today, I decided that I was going to go through my emails and put them in folders and answer the ones that needed answering.  Now, you have to understand that I have a few rules when it comes to cleaning out my IN-Box when there are so many emails.  Rule # 1: If it has been there more than 3 months, it automatically goes into a folder.  I figure that either the person that wrote me has given up by now or they wrote me again and I have already dealt with the email!  Rule # 2: Sort all of the emails by name rather than date they came in and answer the latest email from that person!  Heah, works for me!  Rule #3: When you get overwhelmed with the huge number of emails just Highlight and Drag the emails into folders and Do NOT stop and read them all again!  Rule #4: If you do not know the answers to the questions in the email...it is ok to ignore it! 

Following my rules, I was down to 14 emails at the end of the day!  Now, there will be some people that did not get their questions answered and some who wrote me the same email 6 times before they got their answer, but there was no way I was going to be able to answer 1500 emails when i get between 40 and 60 every day!

So if you wrote me an email and I did not answer, I am so sorry.  Try sendng it again and -hopefully it will not end up lost in my endless IN-Box!! 

13 April 2009

Melanie WRIGHT, our update coordinator, has been sick for a couple of weeks.  She sent March's updates, but was very sick the last week of them.  A few days ago, she turned very yellow and we think she has Hepatitis A.  She will be unable to work through April and into May.  Some of the staff will be covering for her while she is sick and we will send out photos and very VERY short update information.  Please keep Melanie in your prayers for a quick recovery.

11 April 2009

This week I had to go to Port-au-Prince to the main Customs Office.  We have a container waiting in the port and the customs duty that they asked was almost $4000!  I dreaded having to go down to the office because it is clear down by the wharf area and back in a terribly dirty and run down area!  Of course, before we could go to the office, we had to pick up the agent whose office was across town from the Customs Office! 

It took 1 1/2 hours to drive from the orphanage to the Customs Office!  The traffic was horrible!  As we were winding through back roads to go to the Customs Office, I realized that Ernst was taking me by the area called "Belaire"!  Belaire is where many kidnappings took place during Haiti's dark period following the 2004 coup d'etat.  When I expressed concern, he said that it was a nice area now and the gang members were gone.  I can tell you that I was glad when we passed through the area and were downtown!

We arrived at the office and then sat and waited for 2 hours!  At least it was air conditioned in the office.  In fact, the air conditioner was blowing so hard that my hair kept blowing all over the place and security in the room would not let me stand up and go to a different area in the office!  A kind man sitting by me finally changed places with me and he blocked the air from blowing directly at me.

We finally got into the Director's office and he listened to our story about being a orphanage and not being able to pay $4000 for the container.  We probably talked to him for 3 minutes and he told us to write him a letter asking for a discount on the custom duty fees.  Then it took us another 1 1/2 hours to get back to the orphanage!

Nothing is ever easy in Haiti!  I've said it many times.  In December, we went down and he approved a discount without anything in writing!  We'll know to have our letter with us next time.  I came back home, the agent sent me a letter by email, I put it on our letterhead, sent it via the driver the next day, and the agent took it to the director!  Of course, everyone closed their office on Thursday at Noon and will not open again until Monday or Tuesday of next week because of the Easter holidays!  Pray for our container to come out next week so we can get our generator and new washing machines and dryers!

The volunteers spent most of Friday coloring eggs for the Toddler House.  The kids will have a special Easter day celebration.  We pray that all of you also have a special Easter Holiday.  Remember the meaning of the holiday.  Jesus gave his ALL for you and me!

April 1, 2009

Our trip to Baie d'Orange went very well.  We went with 18 people which was great because the extra hands were needed when we started giving out the food packets to the people.  We had enought food packets to give to 700 people.  We also went with 80 packets especially for children which included oil, rice, sugar, corn meal, beans, milk, and cookies!  We also gave 6 families goats!  We had hoped to give 35 goats to families but not all of the goats showed up for the distribution!  We have made arrangement to go back and meet the official in a local market town about 1 1/2 hours walk away from area.  They will then herd the goats back to Baie d'Orange.  I think that sounds like a LONG walk but the people assured me that this wasn't very far at all!

18 volunteers went to baie d'orange to help with the distribution. GLA trip to Baie d'Orange Haiti in March 2009 Melanie our update coordinator at GLA holding one of the babies at the malnutrition clinic.
Tool, seed, and food distribution at baie d'orange, Haiti. Pastor Joel Trimble filmed the area for his show La Bonne Nouvelle which shows in Haiti and the USA and is filmed in Creole and shows Haitians what is going on in different areas of Haiti. One of the babies at the malnutrition clinic in Baie d'orange, haiti.

We went to Baie d'Orange on Saturday and then spent the night in Jacmel that night.  We were to return to GLA on Sunday afternoon.  But while in Baie d'Orange, we noticed that only a few children that came to the food distribution were really severely malnourished.  When I said this, I was told that on Monday there was a clinic for the malnourished children in the area.  So, on the spur of the moment, ten of us decided to stay and go back to Baie d'Orange on Monday! 

 
A malnourished child in baie d'orange haiti. We feel so sorry for the elderly in baie d'orange. Many times they are left out of food distributions and only the children are given help. But the elderly need our help also and we hope to see them helped more. We handed out sandwinches and cheese along the road. Many people were not invited to the distribution because there just was not enough to give to everyone in need.
People in Baie d'Orange waiting to go into the church.
 As we traveled in Baie d'orange area, children stood out in their yards begging us to help them.
Even in these difficult economic times, must of us are still eating and living pretty well. Please give just the cost of a cup of coffee each day so that this little guy can live!

There are two clinics in the area but neither are permanent clinics.  The one we went to had 400 children that they see each week!  This was only for one small section of Baie d'Orange!  They divide the children up, so some come on Monday, some Wednesday and the rest come on Friday.  They are checked for illnesses, weighed, and given PlumpyNut packets.  These are peanut butter and powdered milk with lots of vitamins and the kids love them!  I would love to get a source of PlumpyNut individual servings so that we can help the children more!  I feel a great need to help this area build a permanet clinic building.  These people must travel 2 1/2 hours or more to Jacmel to get medical care.  We found out there are 9 health agents in the area, but their supplies are very limited.  The area is very large and the communities of houses in the area are very spread out.  

Around Jacmel the fishermen catch fresh fish, lobster, and conch every day!
This little girl was so precious and posed for us on her way home for school.
 These two little children were at the malnutrition clinic.
Hazel and Mary Pat from Canada helped hand out food packets for the children.
 A mother with her malnourished child benefited from the rice and milk that GLA took to the malnutrition clinc in Baie d'Orange Haiti. Over 500 tools were given out to the people of Baie d'Orange Haiti

Many of the children at the clinic have red hair and some are swollen from lack of protein.  We took 6 bags of rice and 250 cans of milk for the staff to give out to the children and their families.  We know it is not much, but it was all we could do and every little bit does help.

On the way to Baie d'Orange, our truck lost a bolt out of the wheel and the tire wobbling all over the place!  We did not know what to do!  We asked the people, who ride horses or walk everywhere they go, if there was a mechanic in the area.  Of course, they said "no", but there was a man who owned a pickup truck about 5 minutes away.  Maybe he could help us!

When we arrived at his house, he laughed and said that all of his tools were 2 hours away and sorry, he could not help us!  So we went very very slowly and headed down the mountain.  Now, remember, the wheel was wobbling and the steering was loose. The mountain road has sheer cliffs off one side of the road!  It just got worse and worse and my nerves were wearing very thin.  Finally, I reached my husband, John, and he told us to stop, take the tire off and see where the bolt might have come from.  At that moment, I stopped my car and told everyone in it that we needed to pray.  I prayed for God to send some Angels to help us.  We needed some Angels because we were out in the middle of nowhere without a way to fix the truck.  Wadson, one of our drivers, was in the truck.  I was in the Montero with 9 people.  Everyone was afraid to ride in the truck!  Five minutes after we prayed, God sent us two Angels in Mack dump trucks!  It is TRUE!  They stopped and told Wadson to get a stick of wood and stick in the hole where the bolt had come out!  Wadson did it and it was a miracle!  The tire stopped wobbling and we made it down the mountain after 4 1/2 hours.  We were safe and the hotel had a mechanic who came and fixed the truck enough to get us back to GLA the next day.  So if you pray for Angels, be prepared for the unusual!  Of course, it makes us kind of worried to think that these big dump trucks that we meet every day on the road might be put together with sticks and wire! 

A bolt came out of the A Frame of the truck making the tire unstable. This was probably caused by the bumpy rough road. We were stuck. The closest mechanic was 25 miles away and a 4 hour drive at the speed we were going! We prayed for God to send an angel to fix our truck and 5 minutes later2 Mack Dump Trucks arrived and they helped us fix the wheel enough to get us back to Jacmel. So when you pray for an angel, be prepared for whomever God sends your way! We were in the middle of nowhere but still people came out of the bushes and fields to see what was going on!
Even little children came to watch the foreigners who were stopped on the road! We thought this was unusual to see public latrines along the road to Jacmel! it was a good idea but who uses them??? During the hurricane boulders were washed down the mountains and laid up against houses and the road to Baie d'Orange.

 

Find older entries in the Archives section of this page.