Lifeline Sponsorship

So the last few weeks have been incredibly busy.  The days have been filled with schooling the children, a medical trip to Haiti Lifeline Crèche, an orphan care awareness event at church, and a presentation to the children at our single moms ministry.  The theme that is pervasive in it all is that the children at the crèche (an orphanage that adopts out) in Haiti need to have more sponsorship in order to have their basic needs met.  Tomorrow is another day in Haiti.  Another meal for the day, kind of day.  E-mail me if you are interested in sponsorship for $40.00 a month. TCSmith3@frontier.com      

A Hard Pill to Swallow

A hard pill to swallow indeed. Tomorrow Tyler and I take the last dose of our malaria medicine of the short term once a week regimen that we do when we go to Haiti. 6 pills and we have malaria prevented for us when we travel there. Let’s see, our children there and the people of Haiti live in abject poverty, with little or no medical care. They live in an open air environment with insects biting them all the time. They have little nourishment, little water, very little clean water and the list goes on and on. The good news-they do have the love and hope of Christ, and a hope that their physical situation can be better… that it will get better. For us, for now, we gallingly take the pill. We also plan and hope with our girls and with the people of Haiti. I am planning to return in late October to Haiti to take vitamins, worm medicine, and other supplies to the orphanage. Stay tuned and pray with us as we humbly desire to make a difference for these dear ones.

Our Beautiful Sweet Girls

This week has been incredible.  It has been full of love and joy beyond measure. Now it is full of grief that we know will only be for a time, but is cutting just the same.  We have seen such loss, malnourishment, and poverty that it is beyond description.  The devastation that remains in Haiti since the earth quake is unbelievable, unlivable, and uncalled for.  The children without parents that continue on in difficult surroundings with little to eat, diseases that are so easy to prevent and treat, and with other diseases at their door, confounds our hearts and minds.  Our main goal of this first trip to see the girls was to communicate our love to them and to file official paperwork with the US Embassy to Haiti.  Our sketchy Creole did not stop us from communicating much love to our sweet girls while we were here. 

Thank-you to those who have given to us financially, to those who have been praying for us, and for those who have been of encouragement to us along this journey.  Thank-you to my parents for watching our crew back in TX.  

Nicole, the woman who runs the orphanage where are girls are, works so hard and does so much with so very little.  The 80 children at the orphanage get 2 meals of rice and beans a day and a cracker snack in the eve with some diluted milk.  They do not have proper medical care and prevention, and are certainly malnourished.  They are well loved and disciplined and taught.  They are given hope in this life and the one to come.  They have much joy much like what is testified by so many of the Haitian’s that we have met on this trip.  Outside one of the many tent cities where people have made makeshift homes out of tarps, was posted this quote from God’s word, “One thing I ask and this I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.  For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock.” Psalm 27:4-5.

Fun Tidbits

Sweetest Moment:  Our girls saying your my Mama and your my Papa and hugging us tight.  Looking at the book we made them and hearing them talk about their family, naming their brothers and sissy by name.  Screaming with delight when they saw the pictures of themselves from a year ago.

Firsts for the girls: Eating anything other than rice and beans, eating candy, gum, jumping on a big bed,  dinking juice, swimming pool, squirt gun ( this was well loved), playing with babies (not real ones), lip gloss, shoe options J…

Funniest Moments: going to bed the first night and having two heads go under the sheets then keep popping up looking at us, giggling.