What if I'd Been Born Haitian?

This blog was written in the course of 24 hours at the end of our first month in Haiti. If you’re going to read the beginning you have to commit to reading the end.

Today was our second day at this horrific orphanage. Again, tears flowed as we watched the scene unfold. Haiti is a difficult place as it is; striking poverty is around every corner. This isn’t my first “developing" world voyage. (I’m not exactly sure what is “developing” here.) From Calcutta, to Kenya, to all over Latin America I’ve walked the dusty roads of developing nations, but I’ve found hope and even contentment in many of these faces of poverty. As we bobble down the pitted, dirt, roads of Haiti I search the darkened faces of the people we pass for any glimpse of hope I can find. Four weeks and many miles later, I am still searching.

We’ve been to some great schools, churches, and orphanages and seen smiles on the faces of the future of Haiti and glimpses of hope. Through Convoy of Hope, they are getting at least one meal a day with a full days worth of vitamins, water filters, latrines, and soon to come gardens. While here, we go in and educate them on the importance of clean water and the danger of drinking water that is untreated. We joke with songs in Creole and French about diarrhea, because diarrhea is funny in ANY language! But the worst-case scenario of consumption of dirty water is cholera and it’s no laughing matter.

I’m pretty sure you could ask any of our elementary students in the US, “what is cholera?” and not get any raised hands. When you ask it here, hands shoot up.

In our country, you ask 1^st graders what they want to be and among dreams of professional baseball careers you’ll hear, doctors, firemen, teachers, nurses, and movie stars! One time I asked my 3 yo Sunday school class what they wanted to be and one little blonde boy said “a combine” we asked, “you mean you want to be the man who drives the combine because you can’t be a combine?” Indignantly he crossed his arms and said with confidence, my grandfather said I can be anything I want to be and I want to be a combine!” At three he had hopes and dreams that could NOT be stolen from him! There are no dreams to steal in Haiti.

Here they may know what cholera is, but you get blank stares in every venue when you pose the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up!?” It leaves my mind reeling about the Jeremiah 29:11 plan for their lives, the hope and the future that is promised them, right now the only glimpse I can see of that, is a soon and coming King or the sweet rescue of death. To say I’ve overwhelmed at the plight of these people would be a gross understatement. I can’t see hope for them!

Tonight in church I saw hope. As we sang in Creole, Chris Tomlin’s “Our God,”
Into the darkness you shine out of the ashes we rise there's no one like you none like You!
Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!
Our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.
Our God is Healer, Awesome in Power, Our God! Our God!

I suddenly realized they had hope, that there are Haitians who know God and they have hope in the face of hopelessness, when all the odds seemingly appear against them they sing at the top of their lungs with confidence and assurance, "If our God is for us who can ever stop us!?" What I could not see, they had faith to see, HOPE. The greatness of God.

Sometimes I need to step back from a problem to see how clear the solution is, if I hold my problems so close and examine them to a microscopic degree, I am blinded by their vastness and I cannot see the enormity of my God. God is not the author of confusion, His plan for the people of Haiti is one for their good, one to prosper them, not to harm them. They are the apple of His eye. He has not forgotten them. We also sang tonight, "nothing is impossible with You," over and over and over and I thought about the impossibilities I had seen throughout the day. And realized these people don’t SEE the needs I see, they EXPERIENCE them, they LIVE them, day in and day out, yet they stand in here and sing with all their hearts, "NOTHING is impossible with You!" To say that their faith is greater than mine is a gross understatement.

Tonight’s verse was Psalm 23:6 “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life & I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” “Amens!” all around from the Haitian congregation. My mind was left reeling, as I thought cynically to myself, “Really!? Have you taken a look around?! Goodness and Mercy? All the days of your life? Do you know the definition of these words?” I began to think about MY definition of these words, and how it may very well be shallow and conditional. I am awed tonight by how big my God is and how great the faith of these Haitian believers is!

It’s been over a month since I wrote this blog entry. I keep asking myself would I be a believer if I had been born to Haiti and not to American soil? If my most basic of needs were not met on a daily basis, would my response be worship? I honestly can’t give myself an answer, but instead of continuing to toy with the question or to squander all that God has given me and move into a tent in north Springfield, I’m choosing to be more and more thankful everyday for everything! I’ll never know if the end result of my being born to impoverished Haiti would be worship, but I can decide that it WILL be the end result of my being born into the great USA, a blessed nation indeed!

Black Friday

"Black Friday" doesn't mean much here in
Haiti! Well, except that all the people are black and I can say that because every time they see me they shout, "Hey Blanc!" I've begun to reply with, "that's not my name!" (nor is "Hey you!" OR "Give me one dollar!")

Bill picked us up this Black Friday morning, but not to go shopping! He took us to an LACC school here in Port-au-Prince! We had a blast! Then we loaded up and headed to Cite Solei. We'd heard and read so much about it that we were a little worried that we weren't headed out in and armored car! Seriously, watch the documentary Ghosts of Cite Solei and see if you aren't afraid for our lives even though we're already home!

Bill was a great host and calmed our nerves radically as he pointed ahead and said, "See that round about where the traffic is stopped? We're not going to go that way today because last week I had a team in here and the traffic stopped like that and someone shot the people in the car in front of us and took their things and the team was pretty freaked out!" The girls on either side of me wiggled nervously and I saw three different hands check to see if their doors were locked! I spoke up and said, "Thanks for taking us a different direction today! Is there anything else?" "No not really, " he replied, "except if you have a necklace on, one day a lady had one on and someone just reached in here and tore it off!" I slipped my necklace in my pocket and resolved NOT to ask anymore questions for the mental health (of my team of course)! "See that water tower up there? That's the entrance, you can always tell the entrance to Cite Solei because of all the smattering of bullet holes! Yep, big eyes all around! We pulled in...

No gunshots! No mobs! Just Haitian business as usual, granted it's 10am!

We pulled up to the school and headed straight to the kinder room because well, they're the CUTEST! They were soooo quiet!

I asked the teacher if they were always this calm- I wish I had a picture of the look on her face! (Chuckle!) Let's just say the answer was NOOO!!! ha! And within about 5 minutes we found the answer on our own!

Bill had told us that it took a week or two to get the food distribution set up in this school and that after the kids had been fed for a week the teachers called wanting to know what was in this food!? They reported much increased activity, behavior problems, loud children, rowdy children, fights, silliness! It's amazing how food will change the life of a child!

In the US if we stopped feeding our kids so much we wouldn't need as much Ridalin! (I kid! I kid! While in the kinder room I heard people talking in the other room in a language I could understand!!! I made my way into the classroom to find a team from King's Castle from the Dominican Republic, they were hosted by MLB's NY Yankee Damaso Marte which we got to meet of course!

I was more excited to see some fello King's Castle peeps than the MLB guy, but needless to say it was an AMAZING day for me!

Ima venture to say my Black Friday was better than your's!

Thanksgiving.

This is the school cafeteria, in Zoranger, Haiti. This is where 4 ladies prepare meals for about 400 school children. You see those cardboard boxes in the background? Those are Manna Packs. In my place of work I get to handle these bad boys A LOT! I evidently missed the box on my application that said "willing and able to lift 50lbs or more over and over and over again!"

(There's a lot about the job description of a missionary that you'd be very surprised about! Painting, radio and tv appearances, debris removal, shoe selling, roofing, some days you need a hairnet, some days you need a back pack, some days you'll need your best dress, you just never know, but it's all to make Jesus known!!)

I've been with Convoy of Hope for 14 months now. From Springfield, Missouri to the Philippine Islands, I've probably never been more than a few feet away from a Manna Pack.

If you come visit me at my office, you'll make the trek through our 300,000 foot warehouse and you'll pass palets upon palets of these Manna Packs. On one of my first days in Nairobi, Kenya the missionary had us unload an entire shipping container of these. My first encounter may NOT have been one of love with the Manna Packs. Thanks Bryan Burr. My next team was headed to the Philippines and we knew we were gonna need some of these guys for our ministry there, so we loaded up a container full of Manna Packs to meet us in Manila. (They were just as heavy in the US as they were in Africa!) When we got to the PI, Japan happened. Our disaster response guys called us and asked us to meet them at the Convoy of Hope warehouse there in Manila. Know what we did?!? Loaded up a shipping container full of Manna Packs for the victims in Japan. (I think they may have been heavier in the Philippines!) Yep, NOT in love with the Manna Packs! Until Haiti.

The above photos speak for themselves, but once you see a Manna Pack in action, there's no regret, there's no remembrance of the aching back, or when they were dropped on your head, or when the rat ran across your foot in the container! (Well, ALMOST no remembrance!) But there's A LOT of Thanksgiving, thanksgiving for the donors, for the warehouse workers, for the truck drivers, for the logistics department, for the missionaries waiting at the port to pick it up, for the national staff who handle it, for the provision for the beautiful children who eat them, and for the opportunity to pull up to an orphanage, open the back of the truck and handle those cardboard boxes one last time. Manna Packs are light as a feather in Haiti!

Oops!

So, if you follow me on facebook, which why wouldn't you?! Seriously, I'm a hoot! So yeah, if you follow me you'd know that a few weeks ago, I took my team to climb this waterfall in Haiti.

It's called Saut d'Eau waterfall.

And today we googled it... maybe we should've done that sooner?! (nah!) Need to know basis remember?!

It's actually a very famous spot here in Haiti. A very famous VOODOO spot that is!Here are our findings:

"Haitian pilgrims gather at the waterfall at Saut d'Eau every year on the anniversary of the 1983 sighting of the Virgin Mary, alternately identified as the Vodou loa, or spirit, of Erzulie Freda, the Goddess of Love..The waterfall at Saut D'Eau is the site of the largest Vodou and Catholic pilgrimage in Haiti. Each year, thousands of Haitian pilgrims make their way to Saut D'Eau to bathe in the sacred water and revel in the presence of the loa, particularly Erzulie and Damballah the Serpent, father of all life and keeper of spiritual wisdom, who is said to live in the falls. The water is believed to be curative and many women come to Saut d'Eau seeking fertility."

Yep I took my team to the home of voodoo baptisms! oops!

What can wash away my sins? Nothing, but the blood of Jesus!!!

A Closer Look

I took this picture from the top of one of those mountains I was surprised to see in Haiti. While my photography is not so great, you don’t need a fancy camera to really capture the greatness of God’s creation. I mean I stuck my hand out of a moving car and snapped the picture and it could be a postcard, no?

We’ve spent a lot of time between the top of this mountain and that ocean you see down below. While at a glance it could be the cover of a brochure for any Caribbean destination, if you were to zoom in and take a closer look you’d see what we’ve seen. You’d see what lies between…

An impoverished nation, ravished by an earthquake, corrupt government, and voodoo. You’d be outraged by the injustice, you’d be compelled to some sort of action, you’d possibly give the shirt off your back, the shoes on your feet, or the lunch you had packed for yourself, you might write a check, or a letter to the President. You’d fight for justice like you’ve never fought before.

You might meet my friend Benita or Popeye-eye or Solemn Sam and fall in love, suffer a broken heart, and cry because you have to leave them in the despair they know as life! You will lose sleep. You may feel compelled to start the long, expensive, quest of adoption. You’ll love like you’ve never loved before.

You would see my friend Magdala who has sores and a belly full of worms from an unsanitary living environment, nearly blonde hair and not even the energy to cry due to malnourishment. You’d insist on footing the doctor bill and vow to find her a suitable place to live. But she’s only ONE. You’d call your dr. friends and plead their case. You pray like you’ve never prayed before.

You’d see bare feet and bare bottoms, and you’d email everyone you know asking for soles for souls and all the new undies they can send! You’d go home and empty your closet of the excess. You’d give like you’ve never given before.

Sometimes it’s much easier NOT to take a closer look. But I think we’re supposed to.

A closer look at our own family, a closer look at our co-workers, our church, our community. Maybe it’s to zoom in on the nations we share this globe with, maybe even our enemies! While the post card view is pretty sweet, and a closer look is not exactly for the faint of heart; zooming in will compel you to a greater cause, a deeper love, a more fervent prayer, a bigger blessing.

I was blind, but now I see.

How to get Giggles in Haiti

Believe it or not this mask is NOT how to get giggles in Haiti, I just knew his cuteness would make you giggle! Each week we head out to new school or orphanage. This past week we were in a town called Cabaret. I opened the program with, "I am from Convoy of Hope." The room roared with laughter. I gave my translator a look like, 'did you just say what I said or did you tell a joke?!' I repeated myself, I am from Convoy! More giggles. I checked my fly, I looked behind me to see what my team might be doing, no clues!

Convoy means two things here in Haiti... 1. food 2. gas

We ask the kids about their favorite foods and many times they just shout, "convoy." You manje Convoy (eat Convoy). They have no idea that Convoy of Hope is a faith based organization with a driving passion to feed the world thru disaster response, community outreaches, children's feeding initiatives, and partner resourcing!

They equate the word convoy with food. "Convoy is coming" means food is coming.

The second thing convoy means here in Haiti is gas... and not the kind for your car! Evidently after eating the convoy (food) there's a flatulence problem. And by that I mean....

Flatulence is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are byproducts of the digestion process of mammals and other animals. The medical term for the mixture of gases is flatus, informally known as a fart, or simply (in American English) gas. The gases are expelled from the rectum in a process colloquially referred to as "passing gas", "breaking wind" or "farting". Flatus is brought to the rectum by the same peristaltic process which causes feces to descend from the large intestine. The noises commonly associated with flatulence are caused by the vibration of the anal sphincter, and occasionally by the closed buttocks.

Yep Beans, beans, good for the heart....

So when the classroom becomes odorous here in Haiti, you might hear this, "Who convoyed?" (Seriously. I'm not making this up!)

So, when I got up and said, I'm from Convoy , I said one of two things....

I made a fat joke... I'm full of food, I'm from food, I'm made of food eat me.

OR I'm from a toot. I have to toot. I stink. (You get the idea I'm sure ... gas plus students =s laughter, so this is how you get giggles in Haiti, just tell them you're from Convoy!

From now on, I'll stick to I'm Mary Beth or sometimes I just tell them my name is Yor Beautiful, because sometimes you just need to feel good about yourself ya know?

A City on a Hill!

When I imagined Haiti, I imagined a desert land. I didn’t imagine beautiful green mountains being the back drop of nearly every view, nor did I imagine seeing the sunset over the ocean every evening. And while I’d heard about the voodoo here, I didn’t imagine I would HEAR the voodoo in the middle of every night or pass a voodoo temple nearly every day! I know, I know, you’re asking if I’ve ever heard of Google Earth, or Wikapedia, or seen a map for goodness sake!?

I’m the team leader, I research the important stuff who we’re working with, where we’re staying, currency exchange rates, safety issues, language stuff, transportation logistics, how close the nearest hospital is, and of course the availability of internet, nearest beach, and possibility of AC & indoor plumbing, but I don’t GOOGLE it! And sometimes I wish my team wouldn’t either! But oh do they! They know every disease, kidnapping, horrific event, and possible natural disaster we may face. One time a team member argued with me that he was sure we were at the wrong hotel because when he had used Google Earth to see it the roof was green and this hotel did NOT have a green roof! (Shaking my head!)

I’m not sure it’s a real concentrated effort that I don’t Google, it could be that my computer instinctively goes to Facebook or Jon Acuff’s Blog when I turn it on. I mean I know everything I read on the internet is true, but let’s face it, if I had known before I came that Haiti has rats the size of possums and that I would see them with my very own eyes just feet away from where I lay my head to rest every night, I would have feigned illness and another team leader would have had to have been brought in! Me and the 3^rd world, we’re on a need to know basis!!

Wow! I got way off track… like I said I didn’t imagine the big green mountains. One night, my co leader, Becca Jantz to name names, did us the favor of taking us to her secret spot on the Mission of Hope compound where we stay. It happens to be a concrete slab half way up the side of a mountain, between where the water truck comes every day, the windmill, and the neighboring village. We went up at night, she had us turn off our flashlights and just listen in silence. We soaked it in, the part of mission of hope we stay in is literally like grand central station! It’s beside the kitchen, where the Haitian ladies like to SCREAM at each other (especially around 5am), where the loud American teams like to congregate at night, where the goats evidently try to kill each other, and sometimes packs of dogs like to come in, it’s beside the basketball court where very former athletes like to relive their glory days which involves a lot of grunting, yelling, and trips down the hill to the clinic! Oh and it's in the middle of an orphanage of Haitian children! It’s NEVER quiet! We got to the top and our devo time was to just be still! Best devo we’ve had, I think!

There was a breeze, no noise, you could hear the waves crashing, and see the lights of Port au Prince a good 20 miles away in the distance. When the silence broke, our youngest team member made a profound observation, what if everyone had a light? This whole place would be lit up! What she was referring to is one, most Haitians don’t have any sort of electricity (even Mission of Hope where we stay only has it about 2/3 of the time), AND she was referring to the fact that all along the dark mountain where we were sitting there were thousands of Haitian homes! We pass them everyday, but the ONLY lights we could see were from Port au Prince and from one lone fire in a neighboring village!

It hit me hard. It’s dark here! Voodoo, hopelessness, disease, destruction, poverty, it’s pitch black and when it’s THIS dark you think A LOT about light!

Verses about light trampled thru my mind…. God said, "Let there be light!" and there was light and He saw that the light was good! The Lord turns my darkness into light. Let the light of Your face shine upon us Lord. The commands of the Lord are radiant giving light to the eyes. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? He wraps Himself in Light and darkness tries to hide. I am the light of the world, whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. No wonder Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

All I could think about was… THIS City on a Hill…enshrouded by darkness. And all the people living on that hill in the pitch black dark that doesn’t end at day break!!

I began to wonder would happen if every home on that hill, had a light, I could nearly hear children singing, "This lil light of mine!" I mean seriously if every home on these hills had a light the nightfall would be obliterated, there are THAT many people, there are THAT many homes, it’s THAT dark! More than food, medicine, clothes, and shoes, Haiti needs exposure to The Light!!! In providing the former, we accomplish the latter, one child at a time!

When you pray for Haiti, pray for LIGHT. Pray that one heart at a time, one home at a time, one village at a time, that the lights would come on! That darkness would have to flee. A lamp unto their feet, a light unto their path. That blind eyes would see. Illuminate the path of the lost so they can clearly see the way to You! Let there be light, for Haiti!

Tales from Beneath the Mosquito Net

I have a love hate relationship with my mosquito net. I may lean a little more on the hate side on most days, but I have to still appreciate it ya know? One might think that you just string that bad boy up effortlessly, crawl in, and fall into a bug free sleep! But one would be wrong! #1 A mosquito net is powerless against bed bugs, but that's NOT what this blog is about, as I am unable to share my thoughts and feelings on the bed bug topic (appropriately) at this time.

So back to beneath my net, #1 the typical bug net has four lil eyelet doomaflickies in which to place string in and hang over your bed, sounds good, 4 eyelets, 4 corners, right? Wrong! Because when you hang that bad boy up, the middle sags and as you breathe in netting you feel as though you're in your very own coffin! Not cool!

So let's just say you hang it, you duck tape that middle part up and then you crawl in ... you're set right? X (please make the family feud sound here!) One also needs to know that you must tuck in all ends of the net underneath your mattress as some mosquitos appear to have the intelligence level to come in the floor route!

One might think that at THIS point you're set! (I sure hope your remember you're tucked in before you try to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night because if by chance you don't you could rip down your net entirely and teach your roommates new words in the middle of the night!)

So... after a few uncomfortable nights, you figure out how to properly duck tape, tuck, and to stop all liquid intake around 5pm, you're set, RIGHT?! Well, NO!

Evidently the mosquitos in Haiti have gone to special ops training! First off, some of them sneak in when you get out of bed in the morning and hide out till bed time, so after all your net tucking, you're actually sleeping with the enemy! When you awake, somewhat light headed as you have very little blood left, you find the mosquito barely able to keep himself afloat as his gluttony has caused him a heaviness! Two days ago, I took my sheet, and killed my freeloading, unwelcomed overnight guest! There was so much blood on the sheet that you would have thought I had killed a person or at least a kitten (which I sometimes dream of doing!) Sounds gross to use your sheet for such doesn't it? Trust me, when you're in Haiti, that's all that sheet is good for, if you're using covers you have already contracted Malaria and have bigger problems to worry about!

Oh so you're not impressed, you don't thinking sneaking in at 6am and hiding out for 12 hours is special opps material, that I should have checked more throughly?! Well, then what do you have to say about this?

Last night, I taped, tucked, tinkled, and throughly checked the sheets before entering! I curled into a lil ball and drifted off into a benedryl induced sleep dreaming of (wouldn't you like to know!) Around 1am I awoke to a severe itching sensation on both knees...I wandered into the bathroom for a better visual, to see about 10 mosquito bites on each knee! What could have happened you ask?! Thanks for your concern! Well, there is a skillful art to sleeping beneath the mosquito net, at NO time can any part of your body be touching your net as the special ops trained mosquitos are awaiting. They waited patiently outside my net as I drew my knees upward and they rested barely grazing my cone of silence (we've established that one cannot be addressed while inside their net, it gives us the illusion of privacy!) and yep, they feasted on my exposed knee caps, like the vultures that they are!

Life beneath the mosquito net, well, it requires, grace and poise, brain and brawn, and the ability to sleep directly in the center of your bunk without shifting throughout the night! I'll let you know how that turns out, till then send benedryl, citronella perfumes, and chocolate (I'm an emotional eater!)

Futbol Haiti Style!

We spent Monday thru Friday of this week visiting a school of about 60 children. The school is nestled half way up a mountain beside a flowing river where people from the community bathe and do their laundry and it also supplies their drinking water. We gave this school 4 new water filters which will purify a liter a minute of that river water. We spend our days teaching about the importance of clean water, washing our hands, explaining to them why we built them latrines (before the latrines were built most people went where ever they were whenever they felt the urge!) Nutrition, Cholera, SIDA (AIDS), etc. it can get a little heavy! So we deemed Friday Fun Day! And after several of the students accepted Christ we decided to celebrate with a lil game of FUTBOL. Haitians LOVE soccer!

If this particular tourney had a name I'm pretty sure it would have been The Dust Bowl, as 60 students took the field in a mad frenzy dust flew, kids were trampled, and within 30 seconds the ball was in the river! Eventually however, the younger kids and probably some of the smarter kids went inside to the shade (why did no one tell me that it's ALWAYS 110 degrees in this country?!?) where more than half the interns were playing guitar and swapping English lessons for Creole ones! Eventually, we even broke them into teams (it just seemed like the right thing to do!), the boys all ran to Richard and the girls all ran to me so boys against girls it was! Then it was on like donkey kong!

Did the ball ever end up in the river again? Why yes, yes it did! How did we get it out? Well, funny thing is before I could even jog over to the bank to locate the ball, some lil guy would have already stripped down to his birthday suit jumped in and thrown the wet ball onto our "field" and the game would commence!

Richard and I played goalies and to be honest it was likely the safest position as this particular game of soccer resembled what I imagine MMA / UFC soccer tourneys to look like, the rules were, there are no rules!!!

I shouted in English to my Creole team and they shouted back in Creole as if we full well knew exactly what the other was saying! The boys scored a "few" times....you wouldn't think a barefoot could send a ball flying into your gut so hard the wind gets knocked out of you, but I'm here to tell you it CAN!

You also wouldn't think that lil girls in lil yellow dresses could score on boys with big feet so many times, but we sure did and no worries I taught them how to celebrate humbly! If running a circle around the filed screaming with our hands in the air every time is humble!

I seriously think it may have been the most fun game of soccer I have ever played!!!

The Hardest We've Prayed: The Haiti Goat Story

Ok... so close your eyes and imagine this.... well, I guess you can't very well close your eyes and keep reading so imagine it.... you're in Haiti, the country of voo doo, of chaos, where you have to have multiple armed guards at all times. It's dark. It's 3:30 in the morning. You're asleep in your bunk, beneath your mosquito net. And you hear this noise! Do not watch the video just turn off the lights let the audio play to better understand our degree of terror!

You are sure it is a man screaming help! Images of torture flash through your mind, it's literally right outside your window, he continues to scream, your teammates are awakened... and huddled together in their pajamas. Neither fight nor flight are an option. Welcome to hell... I mean living with goats!

We didn't know for several nights that the screaming was coming from the goats, to say we prayed harder than we've ever prayed before would be a gross understatement! 

Neosporin!

According to my Mama, Neosporin fixes everything!

Me: "Mommmmm! I burned myself in the kitchen!"

Mom: Put some Neosporin on it!

(actually she might just laugh out loud ... my chances of getting burned in the kitchen are pretty low, unless something is just really hot when I pull it out of the microwave!)

Me: "Mommmm! Carrie knocked me off the bed and I have rug burn!"

Mom: Put some Neosporin on it!

(or her more typical response, Carrie would never do anything like that!)

Me: "Mommmm! I fell up the stairs again!"

Mom: Good job Grace Ann! There's some Neosporin in the bathroom!

Me: "Mommmm! Dad sliced is finger off!"

Mom: Find the Neosporin!

(all these are pretty much actual and fairly recent true stories!)

And my most favorite is when I have a visible mark on my face or hand and my sister whips Neosporin out of her purse and lathers me in it without my request! (she's her mother's daughter for sure!)

Even though it doesn't cure all, it's good stuff! Hopefully if you ask my home church they'll be able to tell you about a message about Neosporin that I spoke to them a couple years ago! See, Neosporin has some dang good marketing... You've seen their commercials, a band aid armed w Neosporin goes on the kid's scrape and then when they pull it off... GASP! it's gone!!!

Even their slogan: Neosporin: A Higher Level of Healing! Every cut! Every time!

And they own the 3 C's of proper wound care: Clean it! Coat it! Cover it!

Well, all that to say... we came armed with Neosporin to Haiti... and have been covering this lil guy in it everyday! (Ideally that pic at the top would be right here, but well, this is why I don't blog often because I just don't know how to do certain things!)

His name is Rivaldo! He's adorable! He was in a motorcycle accident (whole families ride motorcycles together here!) I believe in one week I have now seen 3 motorcycle accidents with my own eyes!

Please believe we didn't just depend on Neosporin's higher level of healing, but are confident in THE HIGHEST level of healing! By His stripes!

Who called for the ambulance?! HE did!

Looks like any old ambulance you may pull over for in the US right? Well, that it IS! Months before the earthquake this was shipped over and NEVER used. It's too big to go down the small streets. It was an eyesore & scheduled to be shipped back when the earthquake occurred. 1,ooo's of transports later... this ambulance is now known throughout Haiti and will NOT be shipped back to the US anytime soon! Just one of the many miracle stories... did you know our convoy of hope warehouse had just been filled with meals days before the quake? did you know the US army had come to Mission of Hope our partners in Haiti and said you can have these two huge army bunkers if you'll take all the medical supplies in them just weeks before the quake? Thousands of patients were cared for there. There was an entire ward of amputees! There is a guy named Nyoke from Korea who is a doctor who does prosthetics and is living at mission of hope with us still fitting amputees with new limbs! Oh... and upon his arrival to Haiti to help, he didn't know Jesus... he does now!!!!

Poor St. Peter!

I've been meaning to write this specific blog post for sometime. It seems I can't escape it. I've seen it with my own eyes first in India, then in Unionville, TN, every month at my nail salon in Springfield, MO, and at San Pedro Hospital in the Philippines.

You see, this spring in the Philippines, in typical Mary Beth fashion I got sick, and if I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it BIG so double pneumonia in Davao City, Philippines it was. The double pneumonia has come and gone and the Philippine health care system was surprisingly just fine, but I can't forget this; the statue to the left of these words.

This statue of St. Peter & his rooster stand tall in the

lobby of San Pedro hospital. I'm sure poor St. Peter enjoys

not being able to get rid of that stinking rooster! I mean we

all like to be known by our biggest failure don't we!? I'm not

offended by the statue. We owe a lot to St. Peter as Christians!

Here's the deal. In India, I watched a father pick up a baby who was literally just skin & bones,

worse than any child I've ever seen on any infomercial or in any other nation. He picked up this

baby, it's eyes were empty and bore into mine as he walked in front of me. I saw that he had coins

in his hand, I thought, good! he must be going to get something for the baby to eat. We

followed him and I watched him throw the coins into a cage holding a tree & kneel and ask the tree

for blessing. Horrified I watched him return with the baby to the street. A father looking for hope.

I worked with families in Unionville, TN for a short time, one day a child had several viles. I asked her

about them and she said they were part of her religion. Curiously I asked further. These viles were

part of a wiccan ceremony ritual. Her family needed money and happiness she said so tonight they

were going to have a prayer meeting. A child looking for hope.

Every month I'm in country, I go to a cheap nail salon on Glenstone. That and McDonald's cokes

are my treats! I am greeted by a dusty plastic Buddah idol. It's no wonder Buddah is fat, every time I

see him he has donuts, some sort of meat, or other food offering in front of him. He never seems

to eat very much of it though. The same person who puts those out in the morning has to throw

them away at night. It makes me sad, and not just the wasted donuts! A people looking for hope.

And now this leads me to San Pedro Hospital in Davao City! Short of breath I leaned against St. Peter

one day while visiting my pneumonia doc! Although the lobby is quite large I noticed everyone who

came through the doors insisted on getting really close to me. Don't they know we Americans have

space issues? Later I saw that they were all coming in to touch St. Peter, poor guy, his paint was

tarnished because of the excessive touching. I wanted to tell them that I got up close and personal

with St. Peter each visit & he didn't seem to be helping my double pneumonia. A people looking for

healing!

My mind wanders back to the temple in scripture where they found all the idols and the altar to

the unknown god. People have been looking for hope in all the wrong places for some time it

seems. Please take THE HOPE to as many people as you can, you may think they don't want to

hear about Jesus, but they're throwing coins at trees for blessings, trying to find happiness in viles &

wiccan rituals, feeding plastic idols, & rubbing the paint off poor st. peter for healing! It's no

time to be quiet & tolerant, it's time to give people the hope they're looking for!