Mother's Day

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my second mother's day as a mom. As any of you who have had small children can relate, it wasn't my dream day. The children are not old enough to say "happy mother's day" or give me gifts, but they are old enough to throw fits, need punishment, push my buttons, and make me want to crawl out of my skin (or at least out of the house for a few solitary hours). But a few days ago I got an unexpected present for mother's day, just a few weeks late. The kids and I were playing on the back porch and heard an accordion and some men's voices singing nearby. This isn't a rare experience here in Christianville, because the men's choir at church often rehearses in the afternoons. But on this particular day I felt that the kids needed to get out of the house and, since they both like music, we decided to walk over to see the men's choir practice. Normally they practice in the empty lot that used to be the eye clinic, but we found them this day in the school yard, sitting in one of the transitional classrooms. When the men saw us standing there, watching them from the doorway, they stopped practicing their individual parts and decided to put on a show for us. Fanfan, the dental assistant/accordian player/choir director, led the men in a mother's day song that they had been practicing for Haitian Mother's Day, which comes a few weeks later than ours. The men sang of their love for their moms. Nora clapped and Titus smiled, and the men sang on. Nora stopped clapping when the men drew the song to a close with a verse that said, "You are my mother, you have the right to punish me, so go ahead and spank me." I don't think she approved of that verse. I thought it sounded pretty practical, though.

A Visit to Seguin

After three years off the mountain, I decided to go back and visit again with all my friends in Seguin. There is an agriculturalist that works here at Christianville, and he was interested in visiting Seguin with me and possibly feeding the school children in the HCO school, so Ryan and I, Nora and Titus, along with Edsel (the agricultural expert) and Jimmy (a friend) took a long ride up to Seguin a couple weekends ago. I made the mistake of taking the Fond Jean Noel route up the mountain, because I knew it would have a good view, but I had no idea how horrible the route had gotten. It took us quite a bit longer to get up there than I had expected. Once we arrived, everyone in the local area came to see us. It was great to see everyone again. Margarethe made us some food, and we sat in Christnet's home and chatted awhile. Then we visited with everyone in the yard. Nora played with the kids, and Titus cried because of the cold and all the strangers.

I was able to visit with Papa Alexandre, the local voodoo priest, for awhile. He is going blind and not very healthy. I talked to him about accepting Jesus as his Savior, but he is convinced that he is a good enough person to make it to heaven on his own merit.

We were able to visit with Marie Lourdes and her newborn babies. She is still very weak and anemic, and her babies are small and having some troubles growing. Doctor Clayton is back on the mountain now, though, so she is in good hands and hopefully she and the children will get healthy and strong quickly.

As our visit came to a close, I sat on the porch and chatted with Margarethe while Nora played with the local kids. At one point, I noticed that she was sitting down with six other kids, and that four of those six were children that I had delivered. If anyone would have told me that one day I'd be sitting on the porch, talking to Margarethe like any other day, but watching my own child play with the kids, I'd have told them they were nuts. God is good. He blesses us much more than we deserve.

When it came time to leave, I felt a tremendous sadness come upon me. I miss Seguin. It feels like home. I miss my neighbors and my friends. I also feel the burden of the poverty and great needs that are ever present there. I am thankful for Kyle Martin and Clayton Bell, who helped Seguin this past year by reopening the clinic. I am hopeful that the new Haitian doctor that HCO has found will keep the clinic running well. And I'm thankful for Margarethe, who continues to stick it out in Seguin, despite all the hardships she faces there.

Marie Lourdes update

Happy News!

Marie Lourdes Auguste and her husband Emmanuel welcomed their family's newest two additions to the world on Thursday, April 28th. They are Manoucheka and Calipson Auguste, each weighing a little more than four pounds.


their little girl, Manoucheka



and Calipson, their little boy


Marie Lourdes was barely 8 months along in her pregnancy, and began bleeding. She needed a transfusion before the doctors would perform a C-section to deliver the children. Qasim sent word to Marie Lourdes' friends and adoptive family back in Seguin (she is an orphan who has no family of her own), and they all came up with excuses not to come and give blood. So in the end it was Qasim, Maslen (Bubba), Yves (TiBra), and Eli (PeeWee) who were the heroes that went to the hospital to donate blood. Thank you, Qasim, for showing unselfish love. Thanks also go out to Maslen, Yves, and Eli, who overlooked the stigma and horror stories about giving blood that are common in Haiti, and volunteered anyway.



Marie Lourdes is recuperating slowly from her surgery, and doing her best to get some rest, while breastfeeding and taking care of the two wee-ones. She is expected to be discharged from St. Michel hospital tomorrow. The babies are breathing well and feeding well, despite their small size. Please pray for Marie Lourdes, Emmanuel, the new babies, and the rest of the family that waits at home. They have a long road of recuperation and growth ahead of them.

Marie Lourdes and Easter

Last year at about this same time, I got a surprise visit from my Seguin friends, Marie Lourdes and Emmanuel. It was the day before Easter, and they came to get medical attention for Marie Lourdes, who suffers from a lot of health problems. They stayed a couple of days and got some tests done and some medicine. This past year, we've worked with Kyle and Dr. Jim and come up with what we thought were some solutions to Marie Lourdes' health problems. But, as things often turn out here in Haiti, our plans didn't shape up as we'd expected them to. Marie Lourdes got pregnant with twins. So, once again, it's Easter time, and this year, instead of a visit, I got a phone call from Emmanuel. "Marie Lourdes pa bon, mis". (Marie Lourdes isn't good). After asking about the situation, I found out that Emmanuel took Marie Lourdes to the hospital in Jacmel because of some pregnancy related issues. Danny went to visit Marie Lourdes and passed me around on the phone to her and the doctor (it's really good to have him back in Haiti and free!) It appears that she will have a c-section soon. This isn't great news, since the twins aren't due for at least another month. Please pray for Marie Lourdes, Emmanuel, their unborn twins, and their six children on the mountain that are awaiting their return.

Too Old to Blog?

Has it really been three months since I've blogged? Many people accuse me of being a "bad blogger", and I admit it, I am. My sister has a theory behind this. She says that I'm too old to correctly blog. I missed the window of good bloggage by a couple of years. This might be very true. For instance, I had no idea that if a person doesn't blog once every couple of weeks, people get tired of looking at the site and will stop following the blog. Hmmm. So I guess once every three or four months is probably bad, then. Interesting. Once again, I'm resolving to blog more often. We'll see if I'm able to stick to that.

I'm trying to remember what happened in our lives these past three months. Titus got bigger and started thinking about rolling over, every once in a while. Nora didn't gain any weight, but she grew up into a little girl who uses words and likes winnie the pooh and hangs out with the kids in the neighborhood when they come to wash the car or pick mangoes from the trees. Ryan and I got sick and had to cancel a long-awaited trip to Seguin at the end of March. I am hoping to reschedule and make it up there before our trip to the States this summer. It seems there's always something keeping us from visiting friends in Seguin. Thankfully, my Seguin friends have come to visit me recently. Margarethe spent a few days at our house during Mardi Gras. She brought her three kids and her sister, as well as a bunch of produce and a live chicken. She asked me whether I would like to cook it or if I wanted her to. It was a joke, though, since she knows what live chicken tastes like when I butcher and cook it (a little like jerky, but not as moist). She and her sister made us a great haitian meal. We had a good time talking and catching up, although I had an emergency at the clinic come up which kept me running and cut down on our "girl time". Her kids enjoyed the gadgets and toys at our house. The swings, blocks, and dvd player were their favorites. Sonson will be nine years old this summer. Craziness! My sister is right... I'm OLD! He is growing up into a great kid, and Joseph is really fun to have around, as well. Margarethe's little girl, Marie Phara, is talking and potty trained. I tried to get Eleanor to learn some skills from her, but I don't think it worked. The same weekend that Margarethe visited, we also got a visit from Chrisnet and his wife. They and their four girls are doing well. Chrisnet's wife, Dieula, needed some reading glasses so Ryan hooked her up with some. I can't believe Chrisnet still thinks of me as a friend, after I nearly ended his life in a watery grave in the river all those years ago, but forgiveness is his specialty.

The formula fund is alive and working well in Seguin. A haitian man named Qasim is in charge of it, and administering it well. I would post some pictures of the kids on the program, except that Qasim's flashdrive has too many viruses and crashed my computer last time I tried to download some pictures from it! There are two girls here in Christianville that I see regularly who have benefited from the formula we give out at the clinic here. One is a little Down's Syndrome girl who was found under a bridge in Carrefour at four months old. She is now 2 and has just learned to walk, which made her caregivers so happy. The other is a little girl born the same week as my Nora, named Isabella. I don't ever see her in the clinic anymore, because she's too healthy. I see her in church, though, and I can tell from the noise and disruptions she makes that she is doing just fine!

The boys in the Jacmel Boy's Home are hanging in there. They have gone through a hard year with many changes and stressors, including Danny's imprisonment. They were overjoyed, like the rest of us, to see him freed. They are doing well in school and we are able to see them every month or so. I think even Jackie will be taller than me soon.

For those of you who stuck with this blog, despite its disuse, I thank you. And maybe I'll even post something new next week....

Thoughts on Grace on the Anniversary of the Quake

Yesterday I had the privilege of giving a devotional message to our patients, on the anniversary of the quake. I felt the best message would be one on grace. "Are we alive today because we are better people than those who died last year in the quake?", I asked my patients. They all agreed that was false. So why were we spared? I have no answer for that one, except God's grace. An undeserved gift. And it's that same grace that will usher Daphne and other christians who were killed in the quake into heaven's eternal peace. Salvation, just like life, is an undeserved gift. All that is required of us to find that gift is to accept it. Accept that Christ's work, His death and resurrection, is all that was necessary to atone us. That's hard for a person who likes to be in control, like me. Often, I would rather be given a list of do's and dont's, and told that if I stick to the list, and am a good enough person, I could be spared traumatic death in natural disasters and would never suffer horrible tragedies or hardships in my life and would die peacefully in my bed as a very old woman and would then be ushered into heaven, all based on the fact that I was so good. But that's not how it works, and if I think about it for any length of time, I'm glad it doesn't work that way. Because if it did, I would find that I was never quite good enough, or never certain of my good/bad status, and always fearful of what would happen to me and what my eternal destination would be. Instead, there is grace. God's grace that says, "Even if you don't deserve this, I'll give it to you. Just trust in the goodness of my Son." He is good, indeed. Thank you, Lord, for your undeserved grace that saved us in the quake, and saves our souls for eternity.

Titus and the Holidays

Ryan, Eleanor and I have been in the States for the past couple of months getting ready for the arrival of our newest family member, Titus Christopher Price. He was born November 6th, weighing in at 8 pounds 12 ounces. He is healthy and growing and teaching us all how to think outside the box regarding sleep. We've had a great visit here in the States with friends and family and now we are eager to introduce Titus to his Haiti home. We head back to Haiti next week, and are praying for an uneventful trip. No earthquakes or riots, please!
Here are some photos from our Stateside holiday trip: