Haiti Day 3

So I have found my first couple days in Haiti to be refreshing and quite uneventful, until this evening.  Saturdays here are very laid back, the kids normally go on hikes. Sundays are church and fried chicken days and I get to play with the kids. Some have grown solo much in the last year. The real work starts early Monday morning.  I'm so used to hitting the ground running when arrive that I'm actually enjoying some slow moments to let my mind get used to life here again, so it's been amazing that I have had time to even work on a blog.  Had some very nice days of 85 and evening breezes and even a hard rain the last 2 nights, drives the mosquitoes in but keeps it cool. So not blistering hot yet :-). I find myself falling in love again with the sound of crickets at night, roosters at dawn and donkey brays in the morning and the cold showers.
I have to say as a whole the nation I think is showing signs of progress. I have seen more police presence than I have ever seen in my 5 years of coming to Haiti , more infrastructure being developed, more horses around - strangely :-), outlying  tent cities are becoming more permanent structures w/ goats behind them and more like new villages with markets within.  Things are still desperate throughout but i can see small bits of progress.  I will be able to feel a better pulse after clinic Monday.
Things at Canaan are interesting, a lot of the full time missionaries have gone back to the states for the summer and the leadership just came back from being gone for a month. The orphanage kids feel a bit out of sorts, which I guess is to be expected since Pastor Henry and Sister Gladys have been in the states.  It's so amazing how the kids have grown in the last year. Things feel a little strained, but on the whole things are growing. I have had some interesting dreams/ nightmares already and I'd like to blame it on the side effects of the chloroquine ( the anti-malaria medicine I take), but I'm not convinced. The new clinic has been up and going for 3 months, still needs a little more work, and even gets to have some power in the morning, woo hoo!. We had a team of 40 young adults arrive from North Carolina today, which has things bustling now, and the kids at Canaan are just eating it up.
It has been so good to see Elsie and catch up with her, I love seeing her take on this 'mom' role as she goes through the adoption process with Caleb. She is seriously my hero.  And Caleb's extended family is so happy to see him in Elsie's capable hands.  He's a handful but so cute and personable.
Oh cool news for all you who have hearts for adoption. Elsie has made an amazing friend here who has a Cresh. This is formal agency that is required for children to be adopted through in Haiti. And this friend has a heart not only for orphans but also for adoption and is fed up with the corruption and the high cost of adoptions, so is creating a way to adopt children from Haiti affordably. Hallelujah!!! So, if anyone is
Another fun connection actually, more of a divine appointment was in the airport on Friday.  I ran into old friend and KAA kamp nurse colleague Lori Tugwell.  I haven't seen her in 5 years at least ( since the last time she was at Kamp) and ran into her and her husband in the airport.  She has since adopted 2 children from Haiti and then is now ministering to a orphanage in Port and facilitating adoptions there.  How cool is that?  In the airport of all places. I can't wait to get back to the states and talk with her more about what she does in Haiti.  That is the interesting thing here, communication between villages is a little hard, with no hard lines of communication like phones, word of mouth only spreads village to village, and there are literally orphanages and children's homes and Missions everywhere you go.  I think there are 4 or 5 in Montrious alone, where I am, each serving a different need.  It bothers me sometimes to think how many foreign based ministries there are here.  I just get frustrated thinking that the Lord should have accomplished so much more if there are that many missionaries here.  Today as we were driving around looking at the town and then all the ministries around this righteous indignation rose up me, and I grumbled to the Lord that He wasn't doing enough for all the work all these people put in and for all the money American's pour into this country.  And as I prayed/grumbled I was reminded that sometimes I need to be humbled as much as the people need the aid. Meaning, it's the challenges I face and the broken people that bring me to tears, that bring me to my knees crying out for justice and mercy, that force me to hope for something to the point that it hurts.  It's places like this that bring me and thousands of others to our knees, as we finally really feel out of control, see things happen outside of the sphere we can fix, and realize we aren't all sufficient, He is.  This place makes me realize how much I need Him, how sovereign He is. And even though it may not always look like it through my eyes, Jesus really loves His children.

pre day 1, and ready to go

I’m going to consider this entry 1 of my trip, an emotion ridden one at that, though I’m sitting on my bed at 11 pm in St. Louis still.  I somehow feel I am already in Haiti.  Nowhere near tired, even though I am supposed to wake up in 5 hours ( thank you evening shift conditioning ), and just wired with wonderment of the coming days. 

I have been so stirred to pray about this trip and really prepare; more so than any other trip I have made to Haiti.  I feel as if I am already there, and honestly in my heart I have been there since last Friday.  I have spent the last 2 days trying to figure out what is different about this trip; thinking about past experiences in Haiti, past patient encounters, past miracles and clinic adventures.  And when I lay it all out, it doesn’t look much different than what I do each week at work, it’s still the medical needs of the day that walk in the outpatient door.  Some significant emergencies, most aren't an emergency at all, just a person or family need of help.  Albeit the people and the stories look and sound a bit different, but honestly, life in the ER is significantly more exciting and adrenaline charged. Both working in the US and serving in Haiti are equally challenging.   But amazingly serving in Haiti combines my two jobs into one, I get to be a medical provider and fully functioning nurse at the same time and educate my patients while I getting to openly share the love of Christ, provide for their medical needs and seek wholeness and healing in their lives.  As a result, this thing I do every year is like Dark Chocolate for my soul.   

As I have prayed I know there is honestly nothing I can do to prepare me for what I am going to encounter.  Each year there are different challenges and desperate situations, sick, sick people, who challenge me to hope, and seek the miraculous, and trust that sometimes God does know what He is doing with this world of ours.  I wish I could prepare for what’s coming this year, but all I can do is be ready to moldable and remember that my God is big and capable of much.  So instead I pray for the people, and for the faces I see in my dreams.  And I find myself stirred for a people who are desperate and in need of significant breakthrough, in need of something I can’t physically give them.  I am stirred to pray for this nation that is so corrupted and eroded and devoid of anything our world really needs.  I find myself hoping for strange things like the soil to be restored and fish to return to the waters and for them to find a GDP once again.  And I am moved by the empty stares of the mother’s who bring their severely malnourished child for me to help, as they sit there starving themselves. Strangely I know these stares all too well from my day to day work, just a different form of starvation from a different nation.  And while I love the patients I get to work with in the states, and the challenges they bring, these people, these Haitians, are so precious to me. With every child I encounter there it’s as if I get to feel the love that Jesus has for His children, and feels as if when we usher these families into the clinic I am getting to sit there at Jesus feet when He said, “let the children come unto me”. There is intense joy and satisfaction with each day, knowing I have completed a job or a task well done.

These are the times when I look at the direction my life has gone, comparing where I am now to where I thought I would be by now and stand amazed.  I am somewhat less accomplished and nowhere near where I thought I would be 10 years ago.  And yet I feel I have been divinely prepared, through my work in the ER, my love of serving and coordinating and being the missing piece in a system, through my masters training, my OR experience , my love for children, my love of the outdoors, my tolerance to extreme temperatures, my affinity for educating a family, my love of traveling and getting to know new people, heck even my straight hair that doesn’t require electricity for styling purposes.   And this causes me to know this what I am called to do, this is where my giftings Mwe adore' Ayiti

Bonswa,

Stephanie

Haiti bound

So it’s that time again folks.  In less than 2 weeks I am going to be heading to Haiti again.  It’s crazy to think that this is going to be my fifth time there!  I keep thinking I should visit a different country, and pursue some of the other calls on my heart, but every time I go, and every spring I start itching to go back and serve in this precious country that I love so much.  There is something about the country and the children there that, has just captured my heart, and I get to work and serve in a way that I could only dream of doing in the US.  I am going back to the same ministry that I have been going to the last 3 times, in Montrious.  A sweet little coastal town settled on the ocean about an hour North of Port au Prince.  I’ll be going for 2 weeks and working in a medical clinic and also doing malnutrition outreach for the children in the local village.  I work very closely with a nurse who is a full time missionary named Elsie and work based out of Canaan Christian Community.  A ministry in Montrious, Haiti, that is a huge resource to the community there offering medical services, a children’s home (orphanage), a Christian school, vocational training, and a church on campus.  Canaan has become very dear to my heart, because it is such an anointed and blessed place in the midst of such a hardened and desolate country.  God’s hand is clearly at work and visible around their chosen land, and I see miracles every time I go.   Amazing to think, knowing Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere and still recovering from the earthquake and flood from the last 2 years.  This place is full of least and lost little ones and I love being able to go and extend Christ’s love to these people.

The most exciting parts of this trip for me are: interacting and loving on the the children that live at the orphanage there at Canaan, working in the medical clinic and offering the healing power of Jesus  and then working with the malnutrition program called medika mamba.  Medika Mamba means peanut butter medicine, and is the reason I got drawn to Haiti.  The mamba is a fortified peanut butter product and is a nutrition program that when given with antibiotics, proper education, and  given daily in specific amounts can bring a severely malnourished child to full health in 8 -12 weeks. That 12 week treatment and medications has almost a 98% recovery rate, giving an amazing glimmer of hope for each family that it impacts as they see their little ones become healthy again.

Haiti - Canaan Orphanage Malnutrition Initative from andrew hudson on Vimeo.

I will be gone  June 17-July 2 and I am asking for your prayers while I am there, for protection, wisdom and divine appointments with the people I encounter in the clinic and in the local villages.  I will try to do some blogging while I am there, at joyfulsteph@blogspot.com. I will try to keep you posted about urgent prayer needs there. Internet access is pretty is to find, it’s more often finding time.  Also, I encourage you to watch the video about the Medika Mamba if you would like to know more, but know it is only part of what God is up to in this little place and an even smaller part of the great things God is doing in Haiti. Also, I have posted the link for Canaan Christian Community below.  I also posted the link for their paypal account if people would like to donate to the mamba program.   

Canaan website:  http://www.canaanchristiancommunity.com/index.php

Pay pal info:  http://www.canaanchristiancommunity.com/donate.php

Thank you so much,

Steph

John Mark McMillan | How He Loves: A Story

If I could hear a song everyday it would be How He Loves, By John Mark McMillin.  I just love the story he describes above, the vulnerability, the beautiful ugly of pain and suffering, the grace and love that we get when we are mad at the very one who loved and saved us to begin with.  Click here to hear the full song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiuPcrW01zo

big bites...

So this blog will be shorter, I promise.  The previous one was a well overdue explanation of the painting that I finished 2 weeks ago.  This is not near as complex, as I have since completed 2 more smaller ones.  They represent one of the names of the Lord, the Alpha and the Omega.  Alpha being simple, beginnings, and creation. Omega being the end or really eternal, complex and more than we can understand.  I am still trying to figure out if there is any more meaning than that.  Can't exactly find a scripture to fit them.

But started like all my other pictures, a glimpse of a vision, 2 in this case, a floating apple and a water drop on blood red water.  Both pictures are smaller than I normally paint, but such big challenging concepts to paint.  A I started both,  I realized I bit off way more than I can chew. I have no idea or experience painting water, and am told it's the hardest thing to paint.  Great.  Okay, time for more grace!  And grace received. The water drop (Omega), the more complex looking was so much easier than I though, and the apple floating (Alpha) in completely empty still water was incredibly hard and the empty water took me days to perfect.  I have to say they photograph better than they look  :).  Open to interpretation.

Painting and the Potter's House

So some may have seen on facebook that I have resumed my painting, after I posted the Potter’s House. For those that have never been to my house, this painting has been unfinished on my mantle for the last 5 years, and felt it was time to start it up again. I have a hard time committing to a big painting, because painting is a lonely business. The amazing thing is it such a wonderful private ministry to Lord and to my heart. It’s the constant exchange between us, the Lord and I, as I try to paint something that I know I am not good enough to paint and He encourages me to do it, and helps me through it, meanwhile bringing to mind people to pray for, and things to pray about. This unfinished painting the Potter’s House was a vision I had while going through a breaking period/transition period 5 years ago. I have since been busy with graduate school, and it sat unfinished, vision yet to be fully revealed. Until 3 weeks ago the picture had no rope tying back the curtain, the curtain not well defined, the fire muted, the stone floor unfinished and everything lacked detail and sharp edges. This wouldn't seem like a big deal except it 2ftx3ft so it appeared very undone.   But in reality this was the state I had to be in to finish it.  But let me tell you what it means first.

The story of the painting is this, the setting is the Potter's House,  the subject of the painting is green pot, the squares are windows into the future. The trinity is evident as purple curtain being Jesus love in the foreground  and His redeeming blood in the background. The Holy Spirit, the yellow breeze blowing in and through the entire room, there is not one thing that isn't impacted by It's presence. The Lord  is in the form of a fire place, a place of warmth and comfort from afar but with a jealous smoldering lava like fire within, that many fear approaching. The Potter's House is the place where the Lord creates His treasures/children or recreates them. This pot (me) has been molded before but is now cracked, needing mending because it is unable to fully fulfill its function. It knows that in the potter’s house there is a kiln (fireplace) with which it will bake as hot as possible without breaking it. The floor it sits upon is the stone it will be dashed upon to be crushed back into the dust that it needs to be to be moldable.  The stone represents truth, often our cracks and blemishes are because of the lies that have hurt and marred us, and the truth of God upholds us and refines us and eventually repairs the lies in our hearts. The windows of the future represent the following: the immediate future is the lowest window, water or the healing; the crushed pot will be mixed with the water to make it into clay before being fired in the kiln. The middle window is the creation that it will become, a totally new creation, new purpose, new life and new fruit, in other words redemption. The next window up, is the final step, the goal result all anticipate but the final step, eternal life.
The Holy Spirit, the swift breeze moving through, gives the guidance and strength and encouragement for every step. However, the pot fears the pain, the molding, and the fire, so it is hiding behind the curtain, hiding back behind curtain, cowering if you, will behind Jesus love. The thing the pot forgets is that it is grace that allows any of this to happen, grace is where the healing, the salvation, and the recreation starts. We often forget that we don’t deserve His healing, His breaking, His fire, His redemption or His eternal salvation. The golden rope holding back the curtain is His grace. His grace is His wisdom, His tender patient love while we wallow in self pity and pain, His knowledge, and the continual recognition of our need of Him. If the rope weren’t there it wouldn’t see the good (the 3 windows) that is to come, wouldn’t be moved by the Holy Spirit, and wouldn’t get to experience the painful healing fire of the Lord or His Power.
The amazing thing about completing this painting is the hardest part was the rope. How do you paint make a gold rope that looks like holding back a thick curtain this is actually gold and has tassels... This was how I had initially saw it and was putting off painting it, I had no clue how to do it, and had didn't know the rope was grace until I finished it. I’ll be honest and say I am not very skilled at painting. I have a skilled Lord. I repainted this thing 3 times, nearly gave up, tried other ideas, to no avail. Finally I told the Lord I couldn’t do it, He said, “I know,” I reiterated that I really wasn’t good enough to make it look like it should, He said, “that’s okay, let me show you My grace.” So colors got mixed, I began praying and painting, and in a different way than I have ever before. My mind wandered as paint went on, I started thinking about the rope itself, what it was doing, how if affected the picture.  In the midst of feeling like I had totally screwed up the whole painting, I realized that was it, the Grace that the Lord was showing me, was the very rope itself.  So I kept going, then I stopped, realized  it was....done??? I stepped back amazed, it was grace. I myself had experienced the same grace, in a simple painting. I didn’t want to do, I wanted to avoid it. I didn’t deserve His help, but He did help, and it ministered to Him and He ministered to me.  It made me realize the whole time I had been focused on the broken pot as the subject of the painting, but He had a different story to tell, the real the subject is His grace.  And I can take no credit for it. The potter’s house sounds like a happy place to dwell, the fire looks warm, and the curtain so comforting, and it can be comfortable to live with our broken vessels.  But up close we are not really experiencing His grace and love until we is acknowledge our weakness and that we don't deserve anything that we find His healing hands and His fire, the real work and power that He can accomplish in us.
2 Cor 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, 
to show the surpassing power belongs to God, and not ourselves.

Connections and Dreams

So a bit of a misadventure in returning back from Haiti.
You know my initial idea in the timing of this trip was it would be great to get my clinical skills back in shape before starting my new job as a PNP in teh Emergency Department here. The timing was just a little tight. I was to fly in at 8 pm Sunday night and start my job Monday morning at 8 am. Not much turn around, but I've done worse.
Well, apparently Haiti decided to give the gift of Camphylobacter or E Coli or Salomonella or something in that infectious family. I suspected issues on Satuday but wasn't worried. But while on my layover in Miami I knew I was in trouble and my quick 4 hours of flying back to Saint Louis on Sunday actually took me a day and a half and a lot of Pepto Bismol and Gatorade. What a miserable flight back too. I honestly don't remember ever being that sick for so long. Four days of misery and I had to miss my first 2 days of work, but antibiotics and the Lords healing hand are wonderful things.
Those first couple days back in the states I hardly remembered being in Haiti because of just being so sick. By Wednesday I eventually started getting better, my strength was back. But it was Wednesday when I realized that I came back to the US too soon. My heart grieved Tuesday and Wednesday as the reality sunk in of how much I love it there, and I recognized that the trip was done. Those were a bit sad and lonely days as I wondered about my patients I cared for and friends there. But I began repositioning my heart from the place of serving to a place of travailing and interceding for these people. There is still so much to be done in this place and the country still has so far to come. I can't get over the fear that political unrest is not far off. So much of the upperclass appears to be back to business as usual while tents abound everywhere, buildings in Port remain in shambles, and aid is pulling out.
Oh how they still need help. So I pour out to the Lord I dream I have of a healed and restored country, and I pray the same prayer I have prayed for four years, "Oh Lord, would you heal this land, would you restore life in the waters and green plants in the hills, revive their spirits with Your love and Your hope as they see you restore this desolate land and that they will return to You wholeheartedly. I have hope Lord that Your mercy will abound for these people and that You will come to them" And now I sit and wait, wait for the revelation of the next adventure the Lord has for me. Wait for the restoration to come to this people, wait for the awakening of their Spirits and hope to abound.