expectations for tomorrow

Oh sweet Irene... how I appreciate the cool breeze you have brought to Port au Prince, but how broken my heart is for the people in other countries who were so unfortunate to be blessed by your presence this week. For those of you worrying about us in the storm, you can rest easy knowing that we have only had clouds, a little wind, and a few rain drops. The Lord has spared Haiti! Praise Him!

I wanted to give you an update of the last few days here. First of all, yesterday we were finally able to reunite Manny with his Daddy! It was a bittersweet goodbye.. but I know that it was the right thing. As I said in my last post, we are here to reunite families, not tear them apart. We met his dad at the clinic where he was dropped off, and below is a picture of the meeting....

this is what we are all about!

Needless to say, I have slept like a rock the last two nights [notice I did not say "like a baby", which is like an oxymoron if you ask me]. I feel that I have officially accomplished #81 of my "101 in 1001" List which reads: Keep a kid overnight. On any given night, Manny and I were up 2 to 3 times. However, on his last night here, Manny went out with a bang! Here is a breakdown of our last sweet night together: 11:00 bedtime, up from 11:30 to 12, sleep from 12 to 1, up from 1 to 2, sleep from 2-2:30, up from 2:30 to 3, sleep from 3-5:30, then up at 5:30 for the day. Are you kidding me? At some point during the night while we were up, I was so frustrated, and I thought to myself  "this is how shaken baby syndrome happens.. because if I didn't have control of my anger I would shake this baby" haha. Then I was thinking to myself that when babies go home from the hospital there should be a handout on what to do if your baby won't sleep at night, and pretty high on the list should be "switch out with your husband every 2 hours".. which leads me to the point that if the moral, financial, or emotional aspect of having a kid before you're married doesn't deter you, the lack of sleep should! But of course, he looked at me with those big brown eyes and batted those long eyelashes at me, and smiled, and laughed for no reason at 6 in the morning, and my heart was stolen all over again. I'm sad that I don't have him anymore, but I know it is best for him to be with his Daddy!

You should know that your prayers are so important to me. You read in my last post about the spiritual warfare, and it continues. The 4 babies are still not back to the children's home. Many other issues are not resolved, and there are new issues arising daily. But tonight while I was reading the first chapter the whole book of 3 John, I was reminded of my purpose here and what that looks like no matter what is going on around me. 3 John 1:7a says "For they have set out for the sake of the Name..." This is what it is about friends. Whether you are waking up tomorrow in Knoxville, Lawrenceburg, Port au Prince, Clarksville, New York, Dominican Republic, Texas, California, or anywhere else, if you are a Believer and follower of Jesus then your [and my] only purpose is to live for the sake of His Name. I don't know about you, but that really narrows down my goals and lifts the weight of expectation off of me, knowing that I only have one thing that I am supposed to be doing and that is living for my Jesus. Breathe easier and sleep sweeter tonight knowing that is all you have to do tomorrow :)

Really quick, just for fun, I want to give you a couple highlights from my day:

1. My friends Sara, Kessy, and I were having a good conversation today about love and various other potentially uncomfortable topics, when Sara asked Kessy something that made him embarrassed. Instead of saying "I feel awkward" [which is definitely what Sara would have said], Kessy said "Ooohh Sara.. you just put my two feet in one shoe!" We found this incredibly amusing, because we had never heard it before. Apparently it's a Haitian proverb, and it makes all the sense in the world when you think about it. What could be more uncomfortable than having both feet in one shoe? haha.

2. Tonight someone asked me "what was your high and low of today?" and it made me feel like I was in a community group at Calvary. Missing you guys like crazy!

3. My sister's wedding pictures are finally unlocked, so I got to see them today! Mom, I think that we got a good Christmas card picture for sure. And Sis, everyone I have showed pictures to here thinks you were the most gorgeous bride with the most gorgeous dress they have ever seen... probably because you were! Missing my fam too!

Prayers for you tonight from Port au Prince! 

being a light, not a savior.

Well, tonight I had truly planned to blog early, go to bed early, and get some extra sleep. But then, facebook decided that now would be a great time to let me upload pictures [which it hasn't done since I got here] so of course I had to take advantage of that. I uploaded all the ones of kids who's adoptive parents have been waiting on pictures first because they are highest priority, then it let me get a few more in before it quit uploading. So, you should definitely check them out by clicking here.

Manny continues to get stronger and stronger! We are trying to "unspoil" him, if thats possible. So he has spent the last few days doing some serious crying. Not even kidding, he cried 2 hours straight yesterday. It was the craziest thing I'd ever seen. When he made it the whole day while crying and not ever falling asleep or losing his voice, we concluded he is well enough to go home. Below is the most recent picture of him. [I promise he takes a bath every day and we change his clothes, but he only has like 3 outfits that come close to fitting him because he's so small, and I just happened to take pictures on all the days he's wearing this green and white outfit haha]

This week has really been a challenge for me, but the Lord has taught me a lot about my perspective. The situation is looking more and more like Manny will be able to go back to his Mom and Dad. Yesterday we had 5 kids from the Children's Home choose to go back to their parents who wanted them back. Initially, it is frustrating to see kids be put back in conditions that are less than ideal. Especially a kid like Manny who was so sick, he will likely get sick again and may not be able to get the treatment he needs. Tonight I was giving him his warm bath and then lathering him in baby lotion and baby powder, and it occurred to me that when he goes home he may be taking a bath in a bucket of rain water, or simply be placed under a gutter after the rain to rinse off, or be sprayed off on the side of the road at the well pump. He may never get another bath in a bathtub. It made me sad.

But then I was reminded by one of our leaders and mentors here that whether parents can provide as well as we can for their kids or not is not the issue that we are here for. We are here to show the love of Jesus, whether that is for a week, 5 months, or a lifetime. We are here to build families up and teach them how to provide for each other and survive here, not tear them apart because it looks more comfortable for them to us. Maybe Manny will have a little less to eat, and maybe the kids from the children's home will sleep on a less comfortable bed tonight, but they will be with their families. And we all know that there is nothing like knowing that your family has your back and loves you, and would do anything for you. Even if the situation is hard and life is not easy, it is best that they live it with their families if at all possible. This was a hard conclusion to come to, but I am so thankful for a God who gives me "peace that surpasses all understanding" [Phil 4:7] Sometimes I get to thinking that our goal here is to take in children and love them and give them a "good life". But I must remember that I have no way to judge a "good life" from a "bad life" and if these children know Jesus, nothing else matters. We are here to be a light in the darkness, to reflect the Light that is Jesus Christ. To give the people Hope in the One thing we can hope in.. our Lord. We are not here to be a savior to this country, but only to be a Light that reflects Our Savior! And it's as simple as that. Anything else we get to do as servants is simply extra!

progress & personality.

Manny crawling to me!

As many of you know, the last few days I have spent with the most precious baby boy in the world. Emmanuel [Manny] is 15 months old and weighs about 13 lbs, and currently has typhoid fever. You can read more about him here. [btw, for anyone who cares, I looked up typhoid fever and it's from salmonella poisoning from dirty water] On top of his terrible cough, rather persistent fever, and lethargy from the typhoid, Manny is extremely malnourished. You will be so happy to hear though that he is getting so much better! With a little more medicine and a lot more loving on, Manny will be just fine. Except for the fact that we have spoiled him rotten in a matter of 3 days and he no longer will sit in the floor by himself haha.

Tonight I have 2 lists for you! First, the progress Manny has made. You should know when we got him he was like a limp ragdoll that just laid in your lap and didn't really move at all. And now...
-he crawls on the floor, and when I say "vit vit vit!!" which means "fast fast fast!" he goes quick!!
-he loves to walk around by himself but you have to let him hold one hand to keep his balance.
-today he fed himself with a spoon for the first time with us
-he has started holding his own bottle as of yesterday!
-he cries violently when you put him down [b/c he's so spoiled haha]
-he laughs and giggles when you throw him in the air or tickle him
It is so amazing how quickly babies can bounce back! It's awesome to watch. He is a different baby from 2 days ago.

Second list is things that I have learned about Manny while caring for him the last few days, just so you can know him a little better:
-he prefers to sleep on his stomach
-when he gets sleepy he starts pinching tiny pieces of your chest
-his left leg is slightly curved and his left foot turns in a bit
-he only knows 2 words that I've understood: "Abwe"="drink" and "adem"="leave me alone"haha
-he LOVES water. [in Haiti babies drink water in their bottles instead of juice or milk]
-he sucks his bottom lip in place of a pacifier and it is precious... but I keep lecturing him on how he's gonna have buck teeth if he doesn't stop!

I hope to be able to put more pictures up of him soon, but our internet really doesn't like to load photos, so we'll see. Thank you so much to anyone who has thrown up some prayers for sweet Manny's health... God is moving! Tonight I'm asking special prayers for his future. It is currently uncertain what his living arrangements will look like... it's a long story but basically there has been some confusion and switching of stories between his mom, dad, aunt, and some other guy who claims to be his dad. Essentially right now the mom may want him back, which is good I think because we aren't trying to tear families apart on purpose. But, like I said, there is some confusion so we are waiting for identification and forms of proof [such as a birth certificate] of parenthood before we do anything with him. At least for tomorrow he will still be with us! We know that Jesus knows Manny and holds him close... and that He knows what is best for him. Prayers for peace and good decisions are so important! Thank you!

I hope all is well, wherever you are. I'm praying for you tonight, and I'm so thankful for you. May the Lord bless you and keep you!

Love,
Chelsey

by our love.

Tonight I am having trouble thinking of a line to begin this post with. My thoughts are all over the place, so bear with me. Lack of sleep does that to you haha. Last night I spent the night in the cholera hospital [don't worry, I wasn't the patient or the nurse!] with baby Manny who has typhoid fever. His admitting problem was diarrhea, but then the medicines to stop it worked a little too well, so we had the opposite problem which won us another night in the hospital. Michelle had to come home to stay with her little boy, so I went to the hospital around 8 and stayed the night.

At first glance, the hospital looked very dirty and if I were a germ-a-phobe [which I'm not] I probably would have washed my hands raw. But once you're there for a length of time you realize that there is no way germs are living there because every little bit someone comes by with bleach water and douses everything down, including your hands and the soles of your shoes. My first thought was "what if someone is allergic to bleach?!" because all of the allergies are a huge concern in hospitals in the US, then I looked around and realized that that was at the very bottom of the list of concerns for this place.

Anyway... the night went smoothly. The hospital is one long room divided into 3 sections [not sure by what criteria]. We were in the 2nd section on the baby side which had about 15 cribs packed as tightly as possible, with a space just big enough for 1 cafeteria style chair between each crib. This was where I sat [which explains my aching tailbone] from 8pm last night to 11am today. Manny slept through the night and since we were just waiting on a stinky diaper, we didn't have to wake him to give him any medicine. Let me give you a breakdown in the major differences in this hospital experience and one America:
1. There was no air conditioner, just huge fans. We brought 2 of our own personal fans also. Thankfully, at some point during the night it cooled down so that we could turn the fans off and not be roasting.
2. The lights stay on all night long. Huge, gymnasium style lights. Good thing Haitian kids could sleep through a tornado, because between all the kids crying and screaming, people talking, and the bright lights it was as noisy as one.
3. At the top of the walls before they meet the ceiling where we in America might have glass windows, there is nothing. So the cool night air comes in=hooray! Every mosquito in Haiti comes in too=not hooray! haha. I literally killed 8 mosquitoes just sitting in my chair. My friend Erica let me borrow bug spray, which put like a force field around me, which meant I didn't get a single bite! That was until I decided I would be cooler without shoes on so I took them off, and then a mosquito bit me twice on the big toe [the worst!!] so I put them back on.

Manny slept through the night and I was able to get about an hour or two of sleep in also [sitting straight up or with my head leaned on his crib, but sleep nonetheless]. I took a couple books, my Bible, and my journal so between all of that the time didn't creep too slowly. And I got to love on Manny when he rolled around which made the whole night just that much better. Really quickly, I want to tell you about one 5 minute conversation that forever changed me.

First, I should tell you that no one in the hospital [staff included] spoke a lick of English. The conversations I had would go pretty much like this:
Nurse comes to bedside and wakes me up.
Me: Bonswa. [good evening].
Nurse: Bonswa. asdlfkjadfgoiaertnalkasndfoaifgaretoiufg [a lot of words that I did not understand]
Me: Mwen paller Angles. Mwen pa paller Kreole. Mwen regretsa. [I speak English. I do not speak Creole. I'm sorry.]
Nurse: (look of annoyance, checks chart, checks Manny, peaces out).
It would have been waaaaay funnier if I had had at least one other English speaking person to laugh about it with.

Anyway.. at one point I was chilling out reading my Bible beside the crib, trying to stay awake, when a nurse with a particularly sweet face came over. I said "Bonswa." Then went back to reading. She talked to Manny for a minute [he speaks Creole, as much as a 15 month old baby speaks]. Then she said something in Creole to me, to which I went through my statement about English only, sorry. Then she said "Do you speak French?" I was surprised to hear the English! I said no, I'm sorry. Then she said "Do you speak Spanish?" To which I said no, I'm sorry, and laughed sheepishly because thats really the only choice when you feel like the most uncultured person in the world haha. Anyway, she giggled back and I said "Do you speak English?!" She said "no, only a little. Is this your son?" I looked at Manny, who is clearly Haitian, then at myself, who is clearly not, and just said "no." She said "oh, are you from America." I said yes! I'm here until Christmas." That seemed to be as far as we could go. The nurse standing beside her said something and she said something back, back and forth back and forth, me just looking from one to the other like at a tennis match. They were looking at me periodically, obviously talking about me. I just stood and smiled awkwardly because what else can you do? Then she looked right at me said "You love Jesus" in more of a statement form rather than question. I shook my head yes, and then she smiled and walked away. I didn't see her again, but this seemingly purposeless encounter circled in my brain over and over as I sat and watched Manny sleep. Even today, I have gone back to it several times. It is one of the only times in my life that I have actually SEEN John 13:35 that says "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." This is a promise from the Lord, that our love will be the sign that we are His followers. And I now know that to be true! How beautiful!

It is now 11:26pm here in Haiti [we are on central time] which is relatively early if I were in the States. But here we are pretty much Haitian Grandmas and I should have been asleep 2 hours ago. So I'm going to go! Oh, I forgot to mention that Manny is sleeping in a port-a-crib at the foot of my bed tonight and he will probably be up around 6, so we'll see how that goes :) I hope all is well, and thank you so much for your prayers. They are literally priceless. I'll write again soon! 

meet manny [& #41 & #45]

I write to you tonight from the living room of the house that I will call home for the next 4 1/2 months. I am sitting on the couch with 2 huge fans blowing relatively warm night air right at my face... they feel surprisingly good. I know many of you will be relieved to know that I made it safely to Port au Prince. After traffic on the way to Nashville, an hour delay in Miami, a random lady saving my butt by faking like I was with her at the airport because I didn't have a Haitian address, and then a 45 minute battle with everyone and their mom to get my luggage, I arrived [in true Haiti fashion] about an hour and a half late. I was so blessed to be greeted by huge hugs from Sara, Ashton, Wilna, and Michelle! My heart was filled with joy to see Sara running toward me outside the airport :) It's so good to be back!

Manny in the hospital

As is not uncommon in Haiti, we packed 6 adult people into a 5 person car, and I got in to realize that Erica was holding a precious baby boy. My first question was "where did he come from?" Michelle said "we got him today.. he's got typhoid fever." Apparently, his mother brought him to the clinic because he had severe diarrhea, where he was diagnosed with typhoid fever. After that, his mother said she could not provide proper care for him, and Michelle [the American mother of the family I'm staying with here] agreed to take him. Thats how big her heart is! Its amazing to watch. His name is Emmanuel, but we are going to call him Manny. So, we took this precious baby to the cholera hospital [although we are pretty sure he doesn't have cholera.. but they were the only hospital open late in the afternoon and we knew they could rehydrate him]. Manny is 14 mths old and weighs 6kg which equals 13.2lbs. Imagine how big a 14 mth old American baby is compared to him! He is spending the night in the hospital tonight and sweet Michelle is right by his side. What a sacrifice to make.. spending the night in a cholera hospital with a baby you just met today.

On the plane today my heart was a little heavier than I expected it to be when I came back to Haiti... heavy mostly for my family. If you don't know my family, you should know we are extremely close and my 4 siblings literally are my best friends. It's hard to think about all the things that I will miss out on while I'm gone. But I was listening to my ipod on the plane and just as my heart began to sag, the song "Constant" by Francesca Battistelli came on. The lyrics that really caught my attention go like this:

"Okay I really don't like change but I can't stop it.. I'm moving forward any way but with the promise.. You're the Anchor for my soul and thats all I need to know... You're my Constant!"

It really gave me comfort to be reminded that yes, things are changing but thats the way this world is. It's like shifting sand and always will be. But My God is the same yesterday, today, and forever!! [Hebrews 13:8]

Anyway... I guess I'm going to shower and hit the sack! Traveling wears me out! Not sure what tomorrow holds for me yet... but when I know, you'll know :) Prayers for Manny are super appreciated, as well as the orphanage and the girls I'm serving with here [Sara and Erica]. Prayers going up for you tonight too, sweet friend. Goodnight!

p.s. obvs today I completed #41 and #45 on my "101 in 1001" List which read: Visit a foreign country and Fly by myself. Orevwa!