behold the power of cheese...its

so back to the cheez-its...this baby who has refused to eat and pretty much been the epitome of pitiful since i met her (barely even crying and even managing to sleep in a way that seems pitiful) and i were hanging out and i stopped by my room for a handful of crackers..this child who has done nothing but lay there reached out her hand...so i gave her a flake that probably amounted to an eighth of a cheez-it cracker knowing that she had refused to eat anything by mouth so far and expecting the same result...by the time we got to the next room she was munching away and then sat up to reach back towards my room and whimper...this was by far the most action i had seen out of this kid so i headed back that way...confused as to what could be going on...but when she saw the cheez-it box she totally went for it...so i got her a bowl of what was mostly crumbs anyway (anything in the cracker/chip family is usually mostly crumbs by the time it makes it to our store shelves) and the baby who hadn't let us put anything in her mouth and has gagged everytime we put milk in her ng tube FED HERSELF cheez-it crumbs the rest of the night! so the next 3 days went as such...she would let us do pretty much anything as long as some cheez-its were involved...the baby who never wants to be put down would even gladly lay down quietly and sleep in her own bed as long as she had a mouth full of cheez-it crumbs...cheez-its might save this baby's life...i have always been a fan but this takes it to a whole new level...keziah and i went on quite the little walking adventure to find this baby some more cheez-its and are working on a letter to the company to see if we can get them to make a nutritionally enhanced form of cheez-it...or at least give us a lifetime supply...anyway...the pictures really say it all...

before cheez-its...


and after...

ti bird

so i am sitting in kerven's extra bed with a tiny little bird asleep (thank goodness) next to me....her name is rosetiana...she is 21 months old, 10 1/2 pounds, hiv postive...and not only does she have a major thing for rubbing her braids...she is apparently addicted to cheez-its...ti rose, or ti zwazo as i like to call her (little bird) came to faith hope love while i was still in gonaives with kathy and the team....i was already pretty anxious to get home to rue dalia but when i heard about her i really couldn't get here fast enough...she is so beautiful and precious but heartbreakingly sick...she just finished a 2 week stint in the hospital for malnutrition but after a week back at home she is back to where she was before the hospital...her little belly is so sunken in and she is so small and frail that it is hard to remember she is almost 2 years old...especially when you dress her in 6-9 month onesies and feed her 60cc of pediasure every hour through an ng tube...

go..going...gone...went? who invented english anyway...

so after much back and forth and one sleepless night i decided that i was in fact supposed to go up to gonaives (the worst of the flooded areas from september 2008...and 2004 for that matter) with the team that came from berry college/sunny brooks marketplace....it wasn't that i didn't want to go...i just didn't want to be away from here all week...but it felt right and it was...but what a week to wait and try to blog about all at once...and it seems like old news compared to what has happened since...but we will get to that....

so on sunday after church and saying good bye to the wonderful team from new vision fellowship kervens and i headed to the airport with emory and mary and austin betz (a really great guy from wisconsin who has come to help out with the wilson's work in gonaives for the next few months) to do the hurry up and wait dance...about two bottles of water in they finally began to emerge from building into the chaos that is leaving the pap airport...no matter what you do to try to prepare and organize the process it is a lot of grapping and yelling and searching the crowd...it was so great to see those lovely familiar faces of kathy and cory and sam and kevin...and then of course the 4 new and very overwhelmed ones from berry college! after some rearranging of bags and tying everything down we piled into and onto the truck and headed for an orphanage about halfway up...it was so weird and so lovely to be sitting on top of suitcases next to kathy brooks...oh how i have missed her! but it was a little tough to catch up in the back of a truck barreling down a dusty road...a week later i still don't feel like we have really had the chance to do that...but we have gotten to do lots of other stuff so it is okay :)

we spent the night at the orphanage which meant getting to meet lot of new kids and see our precious emily marie who lives there now that she well, fat and sassy! she spent some critical time here at faith hope love and was natasha's baby...how wonderful to get to check up on her! she can even say tasha's name now! the best thing about the night for me was probably when i walked into a hallway and about 30 screaming, laughing, soaking wet, naked children came barreling at me out of a bathroom at the other end...followed by a nanny who had obviously given up on trying to keep this crowd calm amidst the arrival of a gwo machin (big truck) and lots of blancs (us)! i wish i had a picture or video...but i know i will never forget the image...it was so priceless...
in the morning we headed out again and after a few stops for haitian goodies from streetside merchan and a potty break or two we were in gonaives...a place that has rested in my mind and heart, my thoughts and prayers so very often since my last trip last june, but a place i haven't seen since the flooding caused by 4 back to back hurricances last fall. some things were stikingly the same...others completely unrecognizable...it would be a week of continuous revelations as on each outing i would see some new evidence of loss, or some new sign of life going on...

during the week the group as a whole would work on some damaged roofs, shovel some mud, visit, pray with, and treat some ill and injured members of the community and help with the daily food distribution at jubilee and raboto...one of our big jobs of the week was finding children who had been tested by an earlier group for vitamin and iron deficencies...the children who were in critical ranges needed vitamins...so we just had to find them, give them the meds, and explain to them and the crowd around why the whole bottle should be give to this one child...not all the kids in the family or the community...pa problem! it went really well though with some major help from kervens translating and some great guidance by the holy spirit...we were able to distribute almost all of the bottles and to make some great connections with the children and families of jubilee...

the feeding programs proved to be a big challenge for the group as a whole and a major place of learning and growing for us all...what a thing to do every single day...god bless the hands that have taken that on...may they be daily strengthened for the tasks before them....the big thing that i learned in that place was how much more we are saying to these children...that they get way more from us in that building every day than rice and beans...and it is really important to be concious of what i am giving the people around me with the way i live...everything communiates...what am i saying?

i also learned a lot about communal living sleeping on the roof every night...good times....

i was a beautiful and devastating time of seeing the beauty of the people of gonaives...seeing the devastation they have endured...seeing the fire and spirit with which they have endured it...there is so much to say and i know it will keep coming out as i process the whole experience...so i guess keep checking back...

one thing that was interesting and good was how ready i was to get back to my babies here in port...i missed them so much! and the night before i got home i found out we had a new baby...21 months old and 10 1/2 pounds...hiv positive...which brings me to my next story...

notification and navigation

so some of you may be aware that every town i have ever moved to has started a road widening project right around my arrival on a road i had to use frequently...which usually resulted in me dealing with construction the whole time i lived there and then there being a much nicer road for me to travel on once i had moved away...people have invited me to come live with them so they could get their road paved etc...so seeing as the road system is a big issue in haiti we jokingly remarked that maybe my moving here would be how haiti got their roads fixed...

fast foward to last night...we were sitting around talking and heard some noise outside...some members of the group we have in right now helping us around the house wanted to know what it was...just the sounds of haiti...you never really know...but two of us could swear we hear spraypaint cans being shaken...this morning we found this...which is apparently how the government notifies you that they plan to widen your street...and take down your wall as well as your living room and dining room and half of your backyard to do it...in a month...

so that should be interesting...its really fun to try to explain that to the group who has just spent three days putting building stuff on the other side of that wall...good thing they are amazing wonderful people...and i am not just saying that b/c they brought popcicles...

in other, less destructive, news...yesterday i took my haiti driving to a whole new level...navigation...we had to make a trip to the hardware store (to build the shelves that might now be torn down by the mayors peeps) and will (pastor from above mentioned amazing group) really wanted to drive in haiti...so i rode shotgun and gave directions...even though i had never been there...i know that doesn't sound so amazing but you need to know a few things...i am no navigator even in the states...finding your ways along the streets of haiti is a trick with a hole in it as my daddy would say (and often in this case with literal holes!)...there are no maps...

so after having taken only one semi solo outing in haiti i took two blancs on a little adventure...we stopped at the grocery to cash a check...get a few things...and chat with the locals...i actually ran into someone i met at the sugar cane park in true "jesup we socalize at the grocery store style"...to the hardware store...translated a little creole...and then strapped some lumber to the top of the truck in true precarious teameffort style and then home again....and we made it! it was a really happy day for me...i felt like it was really finally truly HERE somehow...anyway...

i love this place...i love my life...i love you all.

funny thing about blogging...

is that i usually remember to do it...or stop to do it...when there is nothing going on...when there is stuff to say i am to distracted by actually doing it to write about it....anyway....i have officially been here for a month as of saturday...sometimes it feels like it couldn't have been that long already and sometimes it feels way to familiar to not be the life i have always lived....weird...





the big news would have to be my first solo driving experience! keziah, emanuel, and i took johnny j and LOVEinsky (i officially decided this is how you should spell his name) to get them enrolled in an aids clinic...kez had to meet some people at the airport so i took her there and then went back to the hospital ALONE to pick up emanuel and the kids...it was a great success...i did make one u-turn but that was just b/c all the kids who beg at your windows distracted me from making the turn...i did know to make it! and besides, anyone who knows how i feel about u-turns knows it would have been as good a time for me if i hadn' t gotten to make one...the boys have lots of appointments coming up as they get going in the clinic so i think this will be a trip i will be doing in my sleep eventually...



i feel like we made a huge breakthrough with frantzo, the child who was affected by a stroke...in spending time with him we have discovered that he knows a lot more actual words that we thought and the appropriate uses for them...now if i can just get him to take that finger out of his mouth and use them more often and more clearly he can get what he wants without having to cry ALL THE TIME! he loves music and he can sing the e-i-e-i-o song....he will sing it forever...so i have made up motions that require both hands to go with the animals and he copies me which gets him using that left hand that we need to strengthen and improve motor function on...he loves it! his birthday is this week...he will be three...and i am really excited about the possibilities!

speaking of songs...i was rocking a little girl to sleep the other night and i was singing to her...i started singing the "hush little baby..." song and i realized that it is much easier to come up with things that rhyme to buy the baby and the what those things will do or stop doing to cause me to buy baby another thing when the child doesn't speak english...i was gonna buy her a monkey's tail...but if that monkey's tail won't swish...mama's gonna buy her some slimy fish...and if those slimy fish smell bad....mama's gonna buy her a launching pad...you get the idea...you just have to be able to sing it without laughing or she will never fall asleep....

poutchino has started a new medication and so far has been seizure free since then...he is so interested in walking and he pulls himself up and hangs on to whatever he can find to get around...that is really great news b/c it means he has an interest in being more independent and learning more...he is also vocalizing more...no new words but more sounds and sounds that seem to indicate different desires...he is so beautiful...someone who lives near me should really take him home. anyone interested?

i am really trying to learn creole...kez helps a lot and so do the nannies...and kervens....even the kids help me! i even had a creole lesson in the local store we shop at (one stop)... the cashier, manager, and even a security guard were all helping coach me on what to say - it was hilarious!


being here...being with the kids...meeting their families...walking down the street...looking at their stars...driving on their roads....waiting in these hospital waiting rooms....it all makes me see life so much differently and just see it so much...well...more...

catching up....

so we have been praying for rain and the past two nights we have been blessed with lots... and just as a fleeting memory from october coming to mind about a leak issue in the infant room was coming to mind i hear nannies in the hallway...i went downstairs to find our very own indoor waterfall and about 3-4 inches of water throughout the entire basement...which is where all the kids sleep! we hauled as much bedding as we could, diapers, and babies into the living room and then kez, dannae and i went down outfitted in our headlamps for some all important recon (read to check for anything else that needed to be removed, turn off lights, and play in the water)...most of the kids were just kind of confused at being hauled around in the middle of the night and kervens slept through the whole thing! he awoke to find his schoolroom full of babies and nannies and us trying to keep kids out of...well everything...he didn't mind though since his first two tests were postponed! he was a big help cleaning up too!

other excitement around the house has been the addition of a new baby, eleazar pierre (read ZZ)...he is 15 months old and 14lbs...today after getting the kids back into their newly cleaned space we took him, kimberly, and pierreline downtown to medlab for some bloodwork and tb tests...he did great considering that on his 3rd day with us three giant white people took him to a strange place and let people poke him with needles...the fact that he isn't eternally upset is a success i think!

we had our two nannies who have been out sick return to us today...we were very happy to see ser claudia feeling better but we were so upset to find out that ser jesula had walked all this way so soon after her surgery...after letting her visit with the kids and giving her a good friendly scolding about taking care of herself and not worrying about us we drove her home...and insisted she let herself get well...that woman has such a beautiful heart...and it was good to see her...i definitely miss her spirit in the house!

poutchino's seizures have continued but he has been 2 days now without one which is good...he is also doing lots of pulling up and trying to walk which is great...you just have to keep a really good eye on him now! several of the other kids are showing some great signs of development with verbalizing and motor skills...now that so many of them are healthier we can focus on the fun stuff...like walking and talking...and dancing of course! :)

school with kervens is going great...he has handled the transition very well so far and been really patient with me as i navigate this new territory...he is such an amazing kid and i think we are both going to learn so much...and mabye even have some fun :)

homeschool mom...

so kervens and i just completed our second day of homeshooling and it is going well...he and i are sorting through what works and what doesn't and we are discovering the many challenges of education where resources are limited...i have "known" that was true for some time now but becoming a teacher myself in a developing country has given me a new appreciation for all the educators throughout the world who equip students using mostly their own creativity and resourcefulness! they work is so valuable and they are to be treasured!! i would love any imput that anyone has in this area...i am sure kervs would appreciate it too!



in addition to school with kervs we are trying to bring the "big kids" upstairs at least every other day to work on motor skills, color and letter recognition and other skills that will prepare for them school since richardson will start next year and isna and clo clo won't be far behind...they are all doing really well...and they ask daily "casey i want school...and i want dance" i just have to figure out how to get them to stop asking a million times in a row!



poutchino's seizures are getting progressively worse...we had a doctor in who thought there might be a connection to his o2 levels and the seizures...thankfully a group who came back in november brought an o2 concentrator so we have been able to put it to use! we are also considering that he may need a different or additional seizure medication...i have been wanting so much to do more interaction and therapy with him but this situation makes me a little hesitant...i am trying to work with him in very short intervals so that he is getting the interaction but not getting overstimulated... please pray for this little one and for dorothy and the doctors for wisdom...being responsible for his care weighs heavy on mama dorothy...she wants to do all she can to keep him healthy...



ser ava has put lunch on the table for us so i guess that is my cue....



show love...much love!