i think this last week was maybe my favorite week in haiti yet. 

why, you ask  because THREE CORDS started up!  with the help of my amazing friends here: christy florida, abby lynch, and diana weibe, we were able to paint the room next to the prosthetics lab, decorate it, and get it nice and ready for the women to come to work this week.  and they did!  and here's the thing: they LOVE it.  i think these women would come to make these beautiful creations even if they weren't getting paid, because it is so fun for them to get to work with their hands.  we as humans were made to create, and be creative, just as our God is.  it is just so fun to watch these women pick out their colors and put so much heart into each little project they begin.

THREE CORDS is the name of the company, named because our main product, a braided headband, has three cords, but mostly because of the verse in the Ecclesiates that says "a cord of three strands is not easily broken...blessed is the man who when he falls down, he has somebody to pick him up."  we talk a lot about how this is what our relationship with God and our community should look like.  with God and our fellowship of believers, we cannot be broken... instead, God is making us new every day.  these women are truly tasting redemption as they regain the confidence that they have worth in Christ.  in haiti, when you are an amputee, you are led to believe that you are no longer whole.  you are seen basically as a vegetable, who is unable to do anything except beg on the side of the road.  Before this, most had not left their respective tent city ONE TIME.  they were always in their tents, with absolutely nothing to do.  they couldn't even dream that they would ever be hired for anything, as there are thousands upon thousands of two legged people that can't even get a job because haiti has no economy.  now, if you can imagine, these women are SO thankful for this opportunity to work, to sit with a group of women on a regular basis who have similar circumstances as them, so they can encourage each other.  i wish you could see them sing and pray and laugh as they work.  it is truly amazing!

here are some pictures of the beautiful craft lab and the beautiful women that work in it!  the last picture is me walking in a tent city visiting some of my friends.

(diana here)


I don't have much time to write, but there's a few things I wanted to share with you as I am so excited about them!  


First, some of you may know, but when prosthetic patients are here, I have been helping them make a little cash on the side by teaching them to make braided hair bands and selling them for them to short term missions teams.  It has gone so well, and they are so popular each week, that I have been approved to start a little business with some of the amputees that live close by!  They will come a few times a week every week (not just when they need prosthetic care), and will begin getting a consistent salary!  This upcoming week, we are painting the room right by the prosthetics lab to make it beautiful and welcoming, and we hope to get it started right after that!  Here's a picture of some of the amputees working a few weeks back:

Now to the little girl.  Now, I know I've said this before, but last week was my all time favorite patient EVER.  Her name is Solandine, and she is 5 years old.  She reminds me a lot of myself as a little girl, because she is so shy and hardly ever talks (I had to repeat Kindergarten because I didn't talk! Haha).  Anyways, she came for the week with her dad, and I loved loved loved loving on her all week.  


Solandine is a tough child, that God clearly SAVED from the earthquake.  She was under her house for 5 DAYS, all by herself. For the first three days, she cried out for her daddy, but her dad could not find a rescue team or tools to help him try to get her out.  The fourth day, Solandine stopped making a sound.  He thought she was dead.  The fifth day, he finally found a team to move the rubble, so he could find the body of his child.  When they started tapping with hammers, Solandine in her quiet little voice called out, "Daddy, don't hit too hard; I'm still here!"  Can you imagine this moment if this was your child??  It brings tears to my eyes each time I think about that.  Here is this precious precious child, before, during, and after her prosthetic fitting.

In other, much less exciting news, Jay and I finally get to move into our own place this week!  When we moved to Mission of Hope, we first lived with another family for a few days, then in a tent for a few weeks, then to another staff member's apartment who was gone for a while.  But now, I am so excited to have our own space, paint it colors that make it feel like home, and decorate it with beautiful Haitian art!   I will try to take before and after pictures for you all. :)


Thanks for reading. and for loving and praying for us.  <3

This past year has been quite the ride. For both of us, it has been the craziest 365+ days of our lives, and we are so grateful that God has continued to sustain us, lead us, and show his faithfulness to us. We have experienced great joy, great difficulty, and seen great clarity in God holding us in his hands.

And it all started by reading a little book. In the spring of 2008, we were living in Jacksonville and both Diana and I read a book by Gary Haugen called Just Courage. The basic premise of the book (which we highly recommend) is that we are invited by God to live our lives in such a way that we require him to be faithful and for us to be dependent on him giving us courage. Every day. So we prayed that God would lead our lives to make us depend on him for that courage.

We had no idea where he would take us, and most of the time we didn’t even know (and often are still unaware) of just how much courage God provide our hearts with. And he does it for every one of his children.

Disclaimer: Reading the book mentioned above does not guarantee you have to live through an earthquake in Haiti.

As we look back on this past year since we moved to Haiti, and as we look forward to the days, weeks, and months ahead, we are grateful for the courage God promises us.

There have been times of great fear, and times of great unknown. The day after the earthquake was the worst and hardest day of our lives, with hopelessness and despair gripping this country. We experienced fear. I experienced it when we flew back to this island the week after the quake to drive in food and supplies, and Diana was afraid of her husband driving across the border where people had been shot for food. Diana was fearful when she flew back to Haiti that week to bring Mindylove to the US, and as her husband, I was afraid of my wife flying into the center of a capital city within a country in complete and utter chaos. Yet in all of this, there was indescribable, unimaginable courage – courage that we were largely unaware of, but that was gifted to us as God so led.

We love Haiti. And we love living here. We thank God he has opened the door for us to be here. And yet, often my mind races back to the hardest times living here. I recall the many tears we have cried. I think of the hopeless faces with have encountered. I think of the horror of earthquake aftermath and the car accident trauma in our hospital. I think of the sick people no human can heal, and the millions of hungry people we cannot feed. I recall the frequent injustices we see firsthand that make my heart sick. I think of the draining nature of all of it, and I wonder at how a human heart can survive pain like that.

In that wondering, I am brought back to thanking Jesus for giving us courage. He commands us to “be strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:9) but then he actually provides the courage for our hearts as well. And we know this is truly good news.

And we have witnessed truly great news play out. We have seen God rescue orphans, and have watched amputees walk again. We have been able to be a part of God feeding the hungry, and we have witnessed his protection. We have made lifelong friends, had hearts melted by countless children, learned a new strange sounding language (yon lang ak son dwol yo), laughed a lot, welcomed many dear visiting friends, and we have received a gift of real hope of seeing Haiti transformed.

We want to thank all of our friends for praying for and encouraging us this past year, and we hope that you will continue to pray for us. And if you don’t believe in prayer, or God, or him giving us courage, we pray that God would draw you to himself, and make you dependant on him, and his courage, for every day of your life. 

Also, if you have a few hours free, order that book, Just Courage, and read it. I hope it will help you see the freedom we have been given ever more clearly.  

Today I'm going to introduce you to the people that I got to work with all last week.  They are beautiful.  Their stories are filled with so much sadness and pain, but they are beginning to live life with joy again.  I wish each of you could experience this with me, as you would fall in love with my new friends, too.  They have changed my life.

Meet Fabienne.  Fabienne was a professional dancer before the earthquake.  During the earthquake, she was stuck under rubble, and had to have her leg amputated.  She had her surgery at Mission of Hope, but because the prosthetics lab was not open yet at the time, she got her leg from another relief group.  Then, she came back and got physical therapy at Mission of Hope with her new leg.  She came back to visit us this past Friday, and here she is... dancing again!  It puts tears in my eyes.  She is precious.  And you cannot even tell she has a prosthetic limb.  She dances with such ease and grace.  I wish I got to spend more time with her, but it was just a quick visit.  After about five minutes of being with her though, I realized that it was HER that I had seen on a PBS news clip that featured a Haitian dancer amputee!  

Here she is again... teaching me to dance! :)

Meet Douly.  This is the second week Douly is with us, and I've had the privilege of seeing him open up and laugh a lot over this past week, which has been amazing!  The first week he didn't smile at all.  After a few days, I learned that during the earthquake, Douly was in his house with his 4 siblings, and all of them died that day when his house collapsed.  There were no adults there, and I'm not sure how long Douly was there alone, with his crushed siblings around him.  Another sad thing is that Douly's mom left when he was 4 years old, as did his dad.  He lives with his 25 year old aunt, Nadege, who was also taking care of the other 4 before they died.  I got to connect with her a lot this week, and it was really special.  I couldn't help but compare myself to her... as we are the same age and nearly have the same birthday too.  How vastly different my life is from hers... becoming the mom at age 20 when her sister leaves.  Then, dealing with the loss of all but one, and spending 6 months wondering if he will ever walk again after losing a leg.  She has no job, and hasn't been able to finish school because she can barely get enough money each week to feed her family.  However, she is SO full of joy and life, and I felt so blessed to be around her.  She braided my hair while all the other amputees watched so intently, and we danced and made braided hairbands.  Back to Douly.  After his week of physical therapy (I am the PT when we have no one else!), Douly was walking SO WELL!  From Monday to Friday he was drastically better.  Now he's walking with a cane that I cut for him that's about 2 feet tall with star stickers all over it.  He loves it. 

Meet Geraldine!  She is one of my favorites!  She's 11.  My favorite thing about her is how shy she is.  So many times throughout the day, she will try to hold back a smile, and then I just say, "Geeeeraldine.......!" and she bursts out with laughter.  She was back this week for her second leg, as she outgrew her old one.  She was so so happy with her new one!  Here she is dancing, after watching Fabienne (above) dancing.   It is so neat how amputees encourage each other and show each other that they really can do all the things they used to do! :) :)  

Last week was an incredible one in the prosthetics lab.  4 more haitians went from one leg and crutches to two legs.  :)
We had two little boys, one 4, Junior, and one 7, Kervins.  I am in love with both of them!!!  
We also had Desire, who's been waiting to marry his fiance until he found someone to make him a leg... this puts tears in my eyes as I write!  These two were truly in love, and soooo happy and grateful that Desire finally got a leg!  He was a pre-earthquake amputee, and his leg got taken as he was walking down the road and a car hit him.  Lastly, we had a sweet old man named Jean Pierre, (sorry, no photos), but I truly loved him too!  He was told after his surgery that he'd never walk again, as there were complications with the amputation.  BUT, he was a miracle case who got up the first time after putting his leg on, and walked all around the lab with no crutches or parallel bars, and NO PAIN!!!  Miracle. :)  


Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do.  :)

Junior (before).

Junior after. :)

Kervins before (he's secretly my favorite, so here's two for good measure :).

playing ball.

Paragraph.

Desire and soon to be Madame Desire.  i love these two!!!

... a video of our prosthetic patients singing worship the whole way home as we take them home to their tent city.  some of the lyrics are: "Jesus is with me... then WHAT should I fear.  Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing!.. Even if my house collapses.. Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing!... Even if I lose a leg.. Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing!..."

Most of you that know me (especially you, mom) will be very surprised when I tell you this,  b/c there’s about nothing on the planet more out of my comfort/non-fainting zone.

Thursday night was just like any other night after a long day of work.  I was just sitting at a table with some of the summer interns, just popping open a cold coke.  Then, someone came up on a truck, yelling to all of us that there’s been a HUGE accident right outside the mission.  Apparently, a cow caused a 3 car pile-up, one of which was a huge tap-tap (public transportation in Haiti- about 20 ppl crammed in the back of a pick-up).  When I heard the news, I really didn’t want to go down to the hospital.  If you know me at all, you know it just takes a measly shot to make me pass out.  But for some reason, I thought I should go.  I knew they were going to need translators, and I thought I could help a little.  I prayed God would make me strong, and that he would save these people’s lives.  I heard that accident was terrible.

I’m not sure all the details of the wreck, but within about five minutes, our ambulances began pouring in with more and more Haitians that were bloody, crying, throwing up, and with mangled bodies.  Double broken femurs.  Feet hanging off by a flap of skin.  Head injuries.  Open flesh everywhere, with bones popping out.

It felt like the earthquake. Again. 

We didn’t have enough doctors (we had two, and no orthopedic docs), or nurses (again, two), and about 20 people that were non-medical like me, running around and trying to get supplies, morphine, etc to those that needed it.  There were about 20 Haitians lying on stretchers outside our clinic, with docs running around evaluating who needed to be transferred to other hospitals first.  The man with the feet hanging off was first.  When he arrived at General Hospital in our ambulance, they refused him.  They said they couldn’t handle his case, b/c their Operating Room wasn’t “sterile” enough.  This is THE MAIN HOSPITAL in the country.  And they don’t have a sterile OR.  The man needed both legs amputated to live.  He was going to die if they didn’t at least TRY.  But they wouldn’t.  By the time we could get him to a different, private hospital, 2 hours later, he had died. 

All through the night, people from the MOH team and short term team members were transferring all the patients out to other hospitals, whoever that would take them.  As far as we know, everyone else made it. 

But my heart still aches for the man that had to die.  I feel angry.  If the same accident happened in America, he would have lived.  No hospital would refuse him.

My heart feels burdened for the Haitians, who have absolutely no idea the comfort that we live in in America. Or the medical care.  Or the physical therapy.   Yesterday, I was thinking of this contrast:  In one tent city I go to, (that is fortunate to have ANY physical therapy), about 50 patients wait all day long to be seen by one physical therapist, outside, in about 100 degree weather, with almost NO MATERIALS/TOOLS.   Patients don’t know what they are missing.  Compare this with any PT center in America.  Air conditioned.  With ramps. Parallel bars.  Every kind of elastic with different tensions you could ever dream of.   No sacrifices are made.  Patients are given the best.

Don’t Haitians deserve the same?  It’s so hard for me.  Why is America so privileged, and Haiti is so destitute, forgotten?

Post earthquake, there are 1000s of Haitians that still need SO MUCH help, yet help is slowing down remarkably.  Even as far as the prosthetics lab.  We can’t find people to come down for much of the fall.  I feel really discouraged right now, and need prayer.  Haiti needs prayer too.  Lots of it.