Springtime

In the midst of home study/dossier paperwork, prepping for a competition/Crossfit Open/gym life, day to day ups and downs, internal battles and external struggles, I find simple reminders like this so grounding.  So I looked around and found some seemingly ordinary things...

Like loosing a first tooth!

Like listening to your friend share her newfound love for Haiti!

Laughs and drinks with fabulous friends!

And being reminded of this.  That I'm thankful for the choice we make to love each other every day in the midst of difficulties and joys.

And having a few extra minutes to add a little character to the back door.

I've noticed over the years that if you can manage to find joy in the ordinary and sometimes that is so difficult, this incredible thing happens.  The ordinary start to look and feel extraordinary.

Life feels pretty extraordinary these days...

Bullet points

You knew it was going to come this, right?  It always does... :-)

*A few days before spring break, after Daylight Savings time. 
10 minutes before we are suppose to leave for school.  

Poor guy just could not get himself out of bed.  

I pulled clothes on his comatose body and we hustled like crazy with minimal yelling. I managed to get everyone to school on time.  I was feeling all awesome and stuff. All rockstar mommish.

Then I got a call from Elyria, Caleb's school.  "Hi, Sarah.  Today is the chicken noodle dinner.  Caleb needs to be in his choir clothes."  Oops...

This also meant on a day(Tuesdays) when he normally has hot lunch at school, he would need a sack lunch, which I did not pack.  

Oops...

This also meant I was suppose to bake 2 pies for the dinner.

Oops...

That feeling of awesome quickly drifted away and all I could do was pack a lunch, get his choir clothes together and shake my head.  Some days, winning means making it to bedtime in one piece.

* We headed to MO as soon as spring break started.  Elijah was visiting St. Paul and I had a few Haiti talks lined up and we had an entire cow's worth of beef to pick up.   

The visit went well.  It was bizarre.  I can't think of any other way to describe it.  I was a mom of a potential high school student.  You guys, I am just a few years out of high school. Really. I am.  

But, they tell me he is old enough for those shenanigans so I guess I'll let him go.  

*There is always something exciting going on at my parents'.  Like chickens laying huge eggs and my mom commenting on checking the chickens to see if one of them was bleeding out from laying a egg this size. ;-)

I sent this picture to Isaac to illustrate the difference in my sister an 8 pounder vs. him, a 12 pounder.  Poor momma.





We had some cousin time with my oldest brother and his family.  My niece is just so fun.  I love talking to her cause there is always something going on in her little world :-)

*We went and watched Mockingjay at the high school one night.  At one point, the only kids there were Muehlers. It made me giggle.  So many Muehlers :-)

I love this sweet picture of my Laura.  Isn't she a beauty?  She is.  Inside and out. We have known each other since I was a freshman and she was a senior in high school. Old friends are just the best.

*I am almost done with home study paperwork.  You guys!  Did you read that?  Id say 80% done.  That feels like a real accomplishment.  

*We are almost through the CrossFit Open, which means nearly nothing to anyone except CrossFitters.  It's a worldwide competition and we have some of our athletes doing really, really well.  It's fun and exhausting.  

*We have had quite a few new members lately and they are all awesome.  I love the whole meeting new people part of the gym.  It's my favorite.

I think that's all for now!

The first precious steps

As I've said before, coming back from Haiti this time we knew we were ready to start the adoption.  House of Love and Hope was licensed and after talking with Josie some more, it felt like it was time. 
We were excited to say the least.  The week I got back I looked through a few of the agencies that do Haitian adoptions and emailed a couple about working with Josie.  At the time, our understanding was that agencies still worked directly with orphanages.  We soon found this to not be the case.  I talked with several agencies and they all said the same thing.  The Haitian government now does all the referrals and there is no more direct involvement between agencies and orphanages.  This was good in one regard, because HOLH is new to the system so they don't have a history with an agency that now had to severed.  We also found out that because we want to adopt older siblings that we can request them specifically.  We were thinking that we would be able to request the orphanage, but not the children.  Not sure if that is all in our favor or not, but we are hopeful.  Medical special needs, children over 6 and siblings all fall under a "special needs" category of children that they allow requests for.  This does not mean they will honor that request, but it feels like a chance!  
The agency that I thought we would want to work with was the first to get back to me.  They were wonderful and kind and we decided to apply through them without really looking at other agencies.  Lesson learned #1.  Ask more questions.  We did the application which was quite extensive, paid the fee and waited.  We were contacted in a few days and they said they had some concerns with our income.  Don't we all ;-).  We are well above the income requirements for both the US and Haiti, but for some reason they were hesitant and eluded to wanting us to take some more time and work on that.  We also found out that they had a waiting list to submit dossiers.  I assumed (Lesson #2: Don't assumer) that since they were taking applications they had dossier openings.  Those two factors made us decide to look at other agencies.  The way it works now is each agency gets 1 dossier submission each month and 5 special needs/year.  So some agencies have all those available or several available or you are on a waiting list to submit your dossier.  We didn't want to wait any longer so I found all the agencies that had immediate openings and went from there.  It was frustrating to feel like we made a mistake right off the bat, but I'll take all the lessons I need to get this right.  After talking extensively with 4 different agencies, I had a solid morning of panic.  They were on paper all great.  Pros/Cons all ended in a draw. I didn't want to mess this up.  It felt big.
After a text convo with some friends, I felt much better.  Funny how that works!  Reminders came in...Go with your gut. God is going to use whoever you choose.  And others.  I had been leaning towards one more than the others and it was simply because they were a pilot program.  Initially that felt like not a good thing.  Haiti is complicated and has a history of corruption.  Did we want to work with someone who didn't have a long history in the country?  
With the change in laws, we concluded that we did.  So I took a few deep breaths, cried a few more tears and applied to MLJ Adoptions on a Friday.  Monday morning we found out we were accepted and we were off and running.  Agreements, contracts, fee sheets all came through email.  
The home study is the first big hurdle and I met with an agency on Monday out of Overland Park that will do it for us.  The stack of papers I'm currently sifting through is manageable and we hope to get the dossier all done and ready by the end of the summer.  
Honestly, it all feels right and good.  I'm impatient and anxious sometimes, but mostly I just feel at peace.  My heart aches to know who our referrals will be.  I want to get all this paperwork out of my hands and into the Haitian governments so we can know that as soon as possible.  Patience has always been the name of this game.
We have several fundraisers in the works.  There will be big chunks of money required at different stages.  Those are the scary ones.  $6100 here.  $3000 there, $12000 here.   Our first big event will be Raise the Bar for Haiti in May.  We love doing events and this one is always really meaningful to us.  This year maybe more than ever.
Sometimes I stop the paperwork and just sit and stare out the window in awe.  We have talked about doing this for years.
It feels surreal.  
We're doing it.  
For real.  

Final days. FINALLY

Sometimes you just have to DO IT.  Buckle down and get stuff done.  Blogging included.

Our final two full days in Haiti were an unexpected gift.  Our original plan was to go work at Lophane's or other various things that required a bus to get us there.
While we were in Haiti this time, we were getting email updates from the Embassy about various protest or "manifestations" as they call them about the gas prices.  We heard anywhere from $10/gal to $20/gal is what it had gotten up to.  Regardless of how high it had gotten, it was too high.  Think about how riled up we get when gas hits $5.  Now imagine your power source was a generator that ran on gas.  And your water source was a pump that only ran if you had electricity (which is sketchy at best there) or your generator.  And now imagine you lived on $2/day.
That is in a nutshell the status of many, many Haitians.  So they planned a transportation strike for Monday and Tuesday.  This meant that no vehicles would be on the roads.  Road blocks were put up and there was talk of some rock throwing and vandalism if you did drive.  Motos were allowed to some degree and bicycles.  We thought it was best if we just stayed put at Gertrude's, which ended up being pretty amazing.  We needed every last minute to divide up and organize the donations you all sent.

We were able to take some of the special needs kids out around the block.  Which you can tell is no small feat considering the road conditions.  It was a workout, but they loved it so much!  The young man I had was so happy!  He had this little beat in his head that he would thump out on his chest. We chatted and talked as we walked.  

 We still had so much rice and beans to divide up so we spent time working on that, as well.  Alana and her painting crew worked on the mural and the baby room too!

 The real blessings of the days came when we were able to walk to an orphanage just down the road.  It was about a 10 minute walk, but with no vehicles on the road, we had freedom to roam a bit.  We found out about the orphanage, Family Care Center, because Lauren, who has been working for Notre Maison for over a year is engaged to Chedner, who owns this orphanage.  Chedner is Gertrude's nephew.  

Lauren had told us about it and with our days free, we had the time and the extra resources to be able to visit a few times, bring donations and access some of their needs.  I firmly believe this was no accident of circumstances.  The whole God using imperfect circumstances for his perfect plan thing.  

These two boys were great artists.  They were drawing color pages for the younger ones to use.  

Their needs are great.

 But their smiles were big.

We went back the second day and noticed some of the children had put on some "fancier" clothes.  Lauren told us they knew we were coming this time so wanted to dress extra nice for our visit.  The sweetest.

Some fun happened on one of our walks back.  We got to play some basketball!  One of my favorite memories, for sure, mostly because it was unique to the circumstances.  The roads were clear so the boys were playing right on the street.  We asked if we could play for a bit and they were all about it.  We had quite the audience by the time we finished :-)

We were also able to just be with the kids at Notre Maison which is rare for these trips since we're always "out."  We took them down to their school yard and ran around.  Little Alvarez found some baby chicks and a momma along one of the walls and I walked over with him.  He was yelling at them, 'Ey, sak pase!" (Hey, what's up?)  Made me giggle :-)  We wore him and the others out that day.  I wasn't too upset with some snuggle time!

The extra time also gave us opportunity to get to know Lauren and little Nadia better, which I'm very grateful for.  I love her sense of adventure and trust in this stage in her life.  It is not easy to live in Haiti, but she is building her only little family there and writing a beautiful life story.

Final day started early and ended late.  We left for the airport Wednesday in the morning and got home around 1:00 am Thursday.  It is always hard to leave, but I came back this time feeling excited and with energy I hadn't really felt on previous trips.  I know it was adoption related in some degree in that we knew we were starting the process once I got back.  But also, I think, I'm getting it, little by little.  I'm learning to love two places and be at peace with that.  I'm learning to be present where I am in location and in circumstances.  I'm learning that these people are becoming our friends and not just a place we visit.  I'm learning to be still and watch as our story unfolds in Haiti.  I'm learning...

Next up...Adoption news!!  Woop, woop!! ;-)

Stories

Do you ever look back and piece together the decisions and life changes and events that got you to where you are right now?  I'm sure that means reliving some heartache, recognizing some good decisions and maybe some not so good ones, seeing how those things changed you and grew you into this person today.  
What I am finding so interesting is finding out pieces of these stories of our friends in Haiti.  The truth is, it's easy to be there for a week at a time and not really ask about their stories.  If you're like me (and maybe you're not), but if people want to really know me, they have to know some or all of my history.  Each event or life change brought with it growth and those all contribute to "who I am."  If we don't ask, most people don't offer up their stories.  This time we were able to hear more of the story and in turn were able to continue to build a real friendship with Josie and others.

Saturday in Haiti was my favorite Haiti day to date.  Some because I woke up in a place I have wanted to wake up in since I stepped through it's gate, House of Love and Hope.  Some because we learned more of Josie's story and why she is where she is today.   We spent time with her.  Not working on a project or just playing with the kids, but with her and as I told her, I didn't think I could love her more, but I do!

Saturday morning the kids have a tutor come in and work with them on homework until about noon.  That left Alana and Josie and I to eat a slow breakfast and oh my goodness, did she feed us well!

Boiled plantain, carrots and onion and this delicious salty fish with onion and greens.  This was breakfast!  And of course, the best coffee.  Delicious.

Roofing supplies!

While the kids worked, we went through donations, showed Alana around the house and chatted.  

A power source.  It's basically a battery pack.

Lots of donations!  We filled her medicine cabinet and then some! 

This was a really meaningful moment.  One of the children had a pretty bad asthma attack and respiratory issues are common here.  Being able to show her how to use the nebulizer and know it would help the littles when they are sick was so awesome. 

In the afternoon, we took off for Josie's house to pick up her boys. Josie is an awesome driver, which is no small feat in Haiti.  We stopped on the way to the house for sugar cane!  I'd always wanted to try it. It was very fibrous and juicy.   You kinda chew/suck on it and spit the fiber out.

While we were at Josie's we chatted and Alana asked how she came to have an orphanage.  I had heard bits and pieces but it was always when there were lots of people around or amongst the busyness of the orphanage.  Here it was just us in her living room.  She was able to share with us her story.  It's not my place to share it, but it is born in heartache and full of God's faithfulness and her desire to be a mother.  She has two boys of her own, a nephew she loves and cares for and another young man who came to her when her boys were young and she has raised with them.  With the 21 children at the orphanage who are all very much her children too, we joked with her she has 25 kids!!
All that she does is for them.  Her job she currently holds pays for the staff.  Her days and nights are often spent trying to make ends meet for their care.  She communicates with the staff daily and stays at the orphanage at least once a week.  I am amazed at her love.  Inspired by her faithfulness and trust.  She has big dreams to not only care for these children now, but as they grow up and have to make a living.  

On our way back from her house, we stopped at a supermarket, which was interesting.  It was right by the Embassy so there were people from all over the world shopping there.  As we headed out and around a corner, Josie's tire fell into a hole.  Not just any hole, a huge hole that went to the sewer underneath.  As she sat there for a second, several men hollered at her from the curb and another driver passing by said something to her.  We asked and she said the men on the curb were offering to pull her out for $50!!  And the man driving by, said don't do it!  You can get out yourself.

It was so crazy, but Josie, put her truck in gear and revved us right out of there and we were on our way.  I love her :-)

Back at HOLH, we played and ate and hung around while the kids got ready for bed.  It was my favorite.  They circle around and sing and pray and hug each other and crawl into their beds.

Sunday morning was beautiful!  I was in awe as 19 children all got ready for church.  I have had rough times with just a few and this was just incredible.  After breakfast, everyone washed up and the older girls helped the younger girls with hair.  The nannies helped with picking out dresses and clothes.  I tried to help here and there, but there was really no need.  

The tap tap came and a few of us piled into Josie's truck and off to the church we went.

After church we passed out rice and beans and watched the children's choir practice.  It's just the sweetest thing.

Eventually we had to leave.  I kept it together in the bus on the way back to Gertrude's, but once we got there I asked Heather to go to the roof with me.  I had a flood of emotions and I just needed to let those out.  My love for Josie and those children runs deep and we will continue to be a part of each others lives for years to come.  They are all so special.

I was kinda zombie-like for the rest of the day and quite tired.  We headed to Leonard's for dinner and church later in the afternoon.  Leonard's wife and family and just so sweet and I got to see Nadine for a bit that night.  Seth preached a short sermon and Nadine translated, which was super cool.  We handed out rice and beans here too and then headed back to Gertrude's for the night. 

What a great weekend.

I can't seem to make these posts any shorter!  I still have two more days in Haiti to write about and an ADOPTION to get up to date on.  Some days I just don't feel like writing.  I'll get caught up eventually :-)