A week in pictures.

Together in Haiti for the first of hopefully, many times!

Haiti is better with friends like her.

I spent Sunday with my friend Nadine and her sweet family.  Her little boys are just the sweetest!

And Silliest! :-)

Prestige.  Every. day.

Rosie girl.  She is so special.

Litte Nadia!

Rosie and Mejenge heading to school

The view from Coracess, a new preaching station for the Lutheran Church in Haiti.

A temporary building, but beautiful none-the-less.

I really enjoyed getting to know Jean better this trip!  He is super computer savvy and has the best smile!

I can't really explain the joy that is Roby.  He says we are friends who became family and it's so very true.

Earthquake memorial over a mass grave site.

Haunting.

Annie!!

Divine Kids!  So sweet!

Pinata time!

Filling rice and bean bags.

Lookout Point with a few of my favorite people!

Dear Pierre.  

My beautiful momma enjoying a drink after working at Lophane's house!

Gin and Tonic in Haiti?  Yes, please!

Farkle Fun!

Gertrude!

The view from Lophane's second floor

No Bull in Haiti.  My camo shoes blended right in!

Rooftop resting in the sun.

Second floor of Lophane's

Apparent Project for a little R&R

A picture of the boys taking selfies :-)

Coffee lover.

The view from Apparent Project.  My new favorite hangout in Haiti!

These are just everywhere!  I want them, but I can't keep plants live so I just took a pretty picture instead.

My momma

Nadia looked so cute this day1

Christine!

Lillivois

These two could not be any cuter!  The view from the top of an abandoned orphanage was stunning!

More of my favorite people

Pierre's dad's music school.

Croix des Bouquet metal market.  So amazing what they can do!

This little guy's toy was so creative!

More farkle.  Pay no attention to the man in the salmon colored tank ;-)

The Brad and Angelina of Haiti.  Ha!  Love these two!

The drive to Roby's was UP!

The view from his home site!

Lots and lots of cinder blocks were moved.  150, I believe!

Walls going up at Roby's

Lots of neighbor kids came out to watch a bunch of American's haul blocks and cement!

Roby's brother and cousin.  

"The Boys"

Leonard.  I have so much love and respect for this man.  He carries the weight of many heartaches and pain, but his love for Christ remains the most evident thing about him.

Pierre and Jean heading out!

I bought a lot of things this trip and this bag was the only thing that would hold my larger purchase!

Mejenge doing her English homework.  I only helped a little!

Beautiful girl!

Packed up and heading to the airport!

Haiti is always hard to leave.

We had what was suppose to be 9 hours in Miami and turned into 11, but we made the most of it!  Seafood and South Beach!  I don't know why I don't live by the ocean.

There are a thousand more pictures that were taken by the group, and a thousand stories that could be told.  

The power of one

   I'm totally hijacking my mom's thoughts for this one.  It's too good not to share.
 
   This trip was honestly full of difficult moments.  Heartbreaking, devastating moments. Some of which I quick frankly can't or won't share.  At the end of it all though, this thought held true and steadfast.

The power of one.

My mom articulated it during her devotion time on the rooftop.

It's a glorious place-the rooftop of Gertrude's.  We come together there each morning and each evening to start and end with Whom it all starts and ends with.

It's precious time and my mom shared how with the exception of 3 in this particular group, they had all been brought to Haiti through my grandpa's time there decades ago.
The power of one. I looked around the circle and cried.  The ripple effect the Holy Spirit put on his experience and love for this little country was evident right there in real time and my grandparents didn't even know this side of heaven the impact it would have.

Then mom went on to note all the people in Scripture that God has used.  One person. Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, and ultimately Christ.  The true power of One.
 
He has used one person over and over and over throughout history for mighty things. What we may not value as mighty, God does.  He seems to often use the least equipped, the quietest moments, the whispered prayers to move mightily.  I love that about Him.  It sure takes the pressure off to know He uses people right where they are while still drawing them closer and closer to Him.  As a feeler, I like how that feels.

I'm really just consumed with this idea of one.  Don't worry about impacting the multitudes. He can do that. Focus on the One who lives in you and the one in front of you.  It's difficult, yes, but oh, so powerful.

Open doors

We are embarking on a fast paced few months.  I was offered and accepted a long term sub job at the middle school.  It all happened very quickly and it is certainly an answer to prayers.  We have been sitting on our dossier as we save money since we can't submit it until we pay off our current balance and we wanted to have the next $3000 ready so once the dossier was submitted we could move a little quicker.  This sub job will allow us to do just that.  The work load will be more than I've ever taken on, but I can't even balk at considering the opportunity it provides.
I'll be teaching PE and weightlifting to middle schoolers.  My favorite age to teach and a subject I am thankfully now familiar with and comfortable teaching.  I'm excited!


Tomorrow Chad and I go for our psych evals.  I have no idea what we will be asked and that is somewhat nerve wracking, but we are trusting the process and that we'll have a completed dossier in a few more months!  It is starting to feel closer, tangible, emotional.   The kids dossiers will be compiled in the next few months as well.  That's an additional chunk for money, but at this point we barely blink at $3000 or $4000.  Not that we have it lying around, but it's just another step in the process.  I wish we could explain it better than a "process."  It makes it seem so cold.  Like we are somehow detached from the actual people that will be our children some day soon.  I think about them every single day.  Much like a pregnancy, I dream of their futures, how we will navigate our days, how their addition will affect the family, how they will grow and develop.  All of it.  I so desperate to write the part of the story where they are with us.  It can't come soon enough.

A Thousand Years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9ayN39xmsI

A rare solo workout at the gym today so I put a playlist on that I don't usually use.  It's not exactly "gym" music, but I wanted to kinda relax while I lifted. Anyway, I had this song in the mix and as soon as the first cord hit, I started crying.

It hit hard and fierce.

This is in a nutshell how I feel about our adoption.
I'm particularly emotional about it this week. There is a team leaving for Haiti.  Many of whom I have gone with before.  A few that went on my last trip a year ago.  It was this trip, one year ago, that I came back and Chad and I decided it was time to move on the adoption.  I am excited for them and simultaneously heartbroken. I miss our HOLH kids so much.  I thought we would be farther along in the adoption by now.

This song gets me every single time because I do already love them, always have.

Teenager

The conversation went late into the night.  From my perspective, as a mom of this teenager, it was surreal.  It was such a "grown up" conversation.  I was simultaneously remembering the really tough early years.  The sleep depravation like never before that he introduced to my 20 year old self and imagining his future so full.
He's in the gap.  This growing gap, moving farther and farther away from a mom that needs him to keep a schedule for him, clean his clothes, and remind him to brush his teeth and more and more towards needing a mom that listens to his dreams, encourages him to keep being a good friend, teases him about girls and reminds him they really can just be his friends and he doesn't have to bow to peer pressures.
It was so hard to leave him this time because of that conversation.  The transition to boarding school was hard for him.  He cried some tears and he wasn't ashamed to tell me that.  It hurt to know that, but I saw a strength and resolve in him through that.  He said he is thankful for the friendships he is building.  He understands now why we wanted him to give it a try.
I hated leaving him this time not because I felt like he needed me, but because I so badly wanted to be around him longer.  He is navigating relationships that aren't always easy and he's doing it well. He is navigating classes and schedules and practices without me to remind him of times or assignments and he is doing it well.  He is learning that your heart and home can very much be in two places equally.  He loves it there and misses us terribly.  He is learning to live in tension and from experience, I recognize the importance of that skill.  He is being reminded daily that this tension is ok, because ultimately this life is lived for Christ and for others and that so often asks from us more than we want to give.
I am so proud of him.  And I know he is a beautiful example of grace in parenting.  We have been given much grace and pray for much, much more as the years go on.

Solutions

There is something so infuriating about poverty.
It's reach is far and wide and debilitating and complicated.
There is no simple solution.
Here are the "solutions" I have heard and thought myself...
They need employment.
They need to finish school so they can get a job.
They need a stable food source.
They need shelter.

The problem lies in that each of these need to be established in order for poverty not to prevail in the lives I love in Haiti.  Take one away and the pyramid inevitably crumbles.   No job=no money for food or school.  No food=hunger, higher risk of sickness, mental and physical limitations.  No shelter=subject to the elements, no stability.  No school=no hope of a future, no window to the outside world.

See how that goes.  There is not just one piece of the puzzle.  I can't solve the world's poverty, but I can't help but think God has put Haiti on our hearts and minds so we can have a hand in raising just a few out of it's grasp.  Specifically, House of Love and Hope.  Here we have an opportunity to come alongside someone and help them walk out from under a heavy load.  Isn't that what we are asked to do?  Christ carries our burdens and I think He uses us in each other's lives for that purpose.

So here is where I see a problem.  Over the years that we have travelled to Haiti people have been beyond generous with their donations of supplies, money, and prayers.  It has been amazing.  The problem is these donations come and then they go.  Think about it when you get a lump sum of money.  Maybe it goes to a project.  You build a deck or redecorate a room or go on a vacation.  Maybe you pay off a bill.  Most likely if you have a steady job, that lump sum goes towards something and it's gone.  But what if you were given a lump sum, say 2 months worth of living expenses, every 6-9 months.  And you didn't have a job.  Or a vehicle.  And you're the mother of 23 children and several others have depended on you to employ them as caretakers or cooks.  How do you survive that?  How do you manage that?  You cut expenses, right?  So 23 kids don't get to go to school, but that increases your daily food costs tremendously.  So you cut food costs, which means those 23 children aren't eating 3 times a day.  Their pyramid of stability is crumbling.

It's seems hopeless.  Today started out like that.  Feeling hopeless.
House of Love and Hope is currently in this cycle.  Donations come, kids eat and then it's gone.  A job is found, but it's not steady work if it continues at all.
So as so much of Haiti goes, school and food one month and neither the next 3.  School for a few months, and none the rest of the year.
I'm searching for a viable solution.  A sustainable one.  One that isn't dependent on donations or charity.  One that the orphanage can take ownership of.
I couldn't sleep last night.  I kept thinking there must be a way to solve this short term while we look for a long term solution.  And for whatever reason a chain letter giving tree came to mind.  What if I found 10 people who would commit to being a sponsor long term.  $50/month.  And what if each of those 10 people found just 5 people who would do the same.  And each of those 5, found 5 and so on and so on...What kind of ripple would that have?  What kind of stability would that provide for those 23 children who currently have so very little stability in their lives?  So, today that was rattling around in my head so I did some research, talked to Grace, talked to Kim.  Lots of ideas and talking.   Then Grace shoots me a text to check out www.fighttothrive.com  They just so happened to have started following her on IG today.  And guess what they do?  Help orphanages find a sustainable income source.  Weird, eh?  So she contacts the founder via FB and the three of us chat for a bit.  He passes on some great info and now our wheels are really turning.
So here's the plan in it's infancy...short term 2-4 years- provide enough through committed donors to give HOLH a baseline of stability.  Food, education, transportation.  During those years, work to develop a source of income for the orphanage.  Ideas still coming in on that...Sew?  Raise chickens? Bake bread?
That's it.  Obviously, it will be more complicated then that, but that's the gist of it.
Hope is rising...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYC5m6JW0tY

Happy New Year

I'm sitting at my parents's house this first day of 2016 and despite my best efforts to avoid thinking about the past year too much or contemplating the coming year too much, I am doing both.
It's not that it wasn't a good year or that the coming year won't be full of wonderful things and memories, its just that there is a cloud around me lately that I can't quite shake.
This time of year I usually attribute this feeling to seasonal depression.  And that may be all it is, but something isn't settling well deep with in me and I'd like to find out what it is that leaves me feeling just a little sad despite the joys, a little distant despite the proximity of so much good.
So here's the good that resides in my life...
I have a husband that pursues me and fights for me.  It's miraculous, really.  As much fun as I can be, I can be just as un-fun and he sticks in it with me and encourages me to keep plugging along.  And isn't that what we signed up for?  Isn't that what marriage should be? Yes, but the reality is not everyone gets that so consistently and I do and I think that's a gift.

I have an oldest son who is a product of two very, very young people who thought tackling parenthood early and often was no big thing.  He is entering the age and stage that I find myself in love with.  I love these teenage years.  He is quiet and calm and funny and kind.  I see him as evidence of so much grace.  So much trial and error.  He is gone more than he is home these days with St. Paul as his primary residence now.  I get asked often how he is doing or how I'm doing and I have to say, we're so good.  Am I sad without him home? Yes.  Does he miss home like crazy? Yes. Do those things make us think we aren't doing the right thing?  Sometimes.  We see him thriving and connecting and growing there and it keeps us moving forward.  We're happy to see him independent and responsible at such a young age.  It makes those 20 year old parents feel better about themselves.

I have a daughter that makes me so proud and so scared and so happy.  She is all the good things that I am not.  She is task driven and organized and loves to sing and dance.  She is neat and tidy and loves bright colors.  She bakes and cleans. And none of those things trump her thoughtfulness.  I am in awe of how easily she thinks of others.  How much she cares for those she loves.  I wonder what she'll do, how she'll make an impact. She is not bothered by social status, popularity, or what is "cool."  She gravitates towards people who are loyal and kind.  She is a beautiful soul and I'm anxious and nervous to see how she blooms in her world.

I have a middle son who makes my heart melt.  He is quiet and goofy.  He sees space and color and creates things.  He loves basketball thanks to his big brother.  He feels deeply.  He is a namesake for our two brothers who passed.  I don't know if that affects us somehow each time we say his full name, but we say it often.  He is so smart, but unassuming in it.  I don't know if he fully understands his potential yet.  I love his sense of humor(it is much like his dad's...under his breath and more for himself than an audience).  I can just look at him and feel happiness.  I wonder if he knows he has that kind of power. To make others feel good in his presence.  The world needs that.

And our baby boy.  With great difficulty comes great love, right?  He loves to think big and live big and dream.  He loves to play games and ask questions and find answers. He finds joy in giving gifts.  He is brilliant in a way that makes me nervous.  I am often in awe, good or bad, of this little powerhouse of a person.  He confuses me daily, challenges me sometimes hourly and makes me want the biggest and best things of life for him.  I want him to feel loved, show love and care about people more than I want anything else in this world.  I am most proud of him when I see flashes of love in him, even when he won't acknowledge it for what it is.  He doesn't see, hear, or feel his world like most people do.  I am trying so hard to understand this and give him the tools to navigate well.  I fail many, many days.  I have cried more tears over him, been more frustrated as a parent with him and am more sure than ever that I don't know what I'm doing most days.  And I can't help but think that this stage of parenting is preparing us all for what lies ahead.

We have children in Haiti that we don't yet know.  We don't know what challenges will come, what heartbreak awaits.  We are anxious to find out.

The good goes on and on...from our families that are such a firm foundation to grow from, to our friends who have entered our lives just when we needed them, to a business that provides constant challenges and opportunities for growth with each other and our member.  The good is far and wide and so I want to search for the origin of the unsettled feeling I have and try to understand it.

I want to let go of some things that I've held on to this past year.  Some hurts that still rise up.  Some relationships that I want to reinstate and strength and some that may need to wane.  I want to grow in Christ where I sometimes feel a void.  I want to see Him where I know He is.  The unsettled feels less so when I'm aware of that.

A new year can't help but make us reflect.  I wonder why I fight it sometimes.

I need to write.

I just need to write.  
Anything.  
Its therapeutic for me and I haven't been taking the time.  

It's easier to just keep posting to FB or IG a quick blurb and photo here or there, but there is relief in expanding those thoughts onto the screen.  

I think I haven't wrote about somethings the past few months because I felt like I'd have to sensor them too much to matter.  I still haven't decided if I'll backtrack or just move forward from here.  Nothing terrible or groundbreaking, really. 

So there, I wrote something.  Now maybe I can write something again soon. 

Breaking the blogging drought because this matters.

I haven't had much to write about that mattered.  So I just haven't been writing.  Daily musings seem silly.  Stories about what the kids are doing or not doing hasn't struck me as blog worthy this past summer.  I'm just wanting to live it.  Not blog it.  I'm sure I'll get in the groove again at some point, but first, this...

Yesterday came an exchange over email with Josie.  In case you don't remember, Josie is the director and by all intents and purposes the mother to 21 children at House of Love and Hope in Haiti.

We write back and forth regularly.  After four trips to Haiti and countless emails, I consider her my friend.  I always ask about the kids and this time I asked when school started for them and if they were going to be at the same school as last year(kids sometimes switch between schools for a variety of reasons-cost, location, etc).
Her reply back was joyful and hopeful and prayerful, but in and amongst that was this:

The kids aren't going to school because they don't have the money for books, uniforms or transportation.  

Truth is and it's a hard truth to wrap my own over-indulged life around...they are struggling to feed the children at the orphanage. Josie had never asked for help with food before this summer. Kim and Cassie took money down in July for them.  But it's food.  It goes away.

So school gets set aside for basic human need.  And it's stated so matter of fact because sadly it's the NORM.  Imagine, if you will, you have three children, $2 a day(sometimes), no vehicle, and very little to no education in a country with no social services.  
You are now the average Haitian on a good day.  
Now imagine you have 21 children to care for, no vehicle, an education, but your job doesn't pay enough to feed that many children, let alone send them to school.  
You are now Josie.  
So what do you do?  You pray A LOT.  You work A LOT.  You love A LOT.  You hope A LOT. And if someone asks, you tell them, yes, we don't have money for school, but you don't ask for help. You just say thank you for aid already given and pass on your love.

I'm in a bit of a predicament. I struggle with rallying people around "my" cause.  These are my friends and my loves and who am I to ask for you to give to where my heart resides?  The reality that sits heavy on me is we hope that two of those children are some day ours.  

And when it's your child that isn't getting enough food or can't go to school then you do things you may not do normally.  So I'm doing something out of the norm.  
Maybe it's tacky or tasteless.  
Maybe I'll offend someone. 
I don't know.
I'm straight up asking for money.  
And a lot of it.  
They need a vehicle.  
$20,000 would buy them a large enough one that all the children could cram into and get to school and church.
So there it is.  
$20,000.  
Maybe you have a few hundred laying around.  Maybe you can go without fast food for a few weeks and donate that.  Maybe you can sell something. Maybe your church has a mission fund that they could put towards this(I'd love to come and talk to your church!). Maybe you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who has $20,000 sitting around.  
There are a lot of maybes.  
The thing about giving for most of us is we can give our money away and in a few weeks, we'll get more.  The next paycheck comes in, bills get paid, money gets saved or invested or spent. That's our "first world problems" in a nutshell.  And yet, I still hang on to my first worlded-ness like a stubborn child.  I don't want to give up a thing.  I know how it goes because I do it.  I can justify any purchase, any expense, because in our bubble some things are "necessities."  I get how hard big giving feels despite having seen and touched the need firsthand.
So, the truth is I don't know how that much money could even be raised.  I don't.  But I'm trusting that God does.  
Maybe you could share this with your people and they could share it with their people and God could move big mountains and we could collectively do something amazing.  

If you have a maybe in mind and want to donate, go to http://hope-for-haiti.net/waystohelp.htm and donate through PayPal or by sending a check to this address below:  Just write in the comments that it's for a vehicle for House of Love and Hope.

Hope4Haiti
PO Box 99365,
Troy, MI 48099-9365

Thanks, tribe.  Pray for this.  Above all else, pray for this.

Crazy May!

This month is always SO JAMMED PACKED!  Every year.  And at the end I am always so thankful for the memories and craving the summer.
We started off May with Cory finishing up his Wax Museum project.  He worked so hard on it and did an awesome job being Phineas Gage, who I had zero idea about.

He apparently was a railroad worker who due to an explosion got a metal rod through his brain and survived.  The things you learn from 3rd graders :-)

The first Saturday was our annual Raise the Bar for Haiti event.  Last year there were 13 teams.  This year, 33.  It was awesome!  Busy and hectic, but so good.  We had the best volunteers and judges and our athletes that competed did really well.  Putting on an event like this is always fun and exhausting!

 All Schools Day/May Fete festivities! Super fun few days in our little town!

 Dance performance for Little A.

 Parade!  We handed out some Pathos cups pre-parade this year and then watched our little Lion ride his Kindergarten float :-)

 8th graders have  Mad-a-Thon that was all kinds of crazy for Big E.

Token carnival picture

Farewell BBQ for our friends the McMannis'

BFF parade picture is becoming a tradition.  She is all kinds of beautiful, inside and out.

Our baby as Spotted Tail in his Kindergarten graduation play.

We headed to Dallas for a quick weekend escape to watch Regionals.  Always fun!

Kindergarten graduation.  So amazed at this boy and this school.  I have all kinds of feels about him moving next year.

8th grade recognition.

 

I can't even talk about this right now.

A great group of buddies!

 His girl, Janae.  Sweetness.

Best friends :-)

 

Last day of School for Corky. So thankful for his teacher this year!  She made the transition to public school for him a dream!

 Love the friends he's made!

8th grade rec party.  It's like prom with khaki's. 

 This girl is all kinds of awesome.

Quick trip to NE for Erin's confirmation.  A whole lot of Muehlers!

Prepping for a MASSIVE garage sale in mid-June.  Lots and lots of things.  We're hopeful this will put a big dent in our adoption fees coming up!

We celebrated Cory Luke's birthday!  10 years old, you guys.  10!  He is sweet as can be.  He got a cool art set, had a sleepover with some buddies, pizza, cake and ice cream and we called it a day!

 Soul sisters

Some time in the past few months, she stopped being a little girl.

Dance friends!

I really do like this crew of crazies.  Caleb would ONLY get in the picture if Janae was in it, too.  We joke with Elijah that Caleb is some serious competition for him and he better watch out. ;-)

And the month isn't complete without a little(or a lot) of basketball. Elijah had a tournament down near Wichita. 3 games Saturday, 3 games Sunday and then we hauled him up to Kansas City so he could be at St. Paul for basketball camp this week.  Thankfully, Seth could get him there so it saved us a few hours of driving.  We miss him like crazy already.

So, I think thats all of May.  

When life gets that crazy, I try extra hard to be present in each moment before the next one comes slamming in.  It always makes me look at our lives and reevaluate it, too.  What can we say no to?  What can I do to simplify the house, the meals, the schedules so we can all have some time to slow down.  I crave slowness.  I am resigned to the fact that our lives aren't exactly conducive to slow, but we continue to fight for it!

Happy SUMMER!