Hurricane Tomas

As many of you know, yes indeed Hurricane Tomas is headed directly at Haiti scheduled to arrive here on Friday. We have been watching daily to see where and when it will hit. As we drove by tent cities today all I could think about is how they will fare in this coming storm. I can’t help but think about all the people, children, little babies who will be wet and cold. Tents were not made to be lived in like this. It breaks my heart.

In the next couple days we will begin preparing the campus for the coming storm. Putting everything inside and also preparing medical supplies to go out to provide help where need.  Our medical staff will be Dr. Cheryl, Sarah, Lindsay, Dr. Marja, a visiting Paramedic and Grant, yes Grant Rumford! We found out a yesterday that Grant was praying about coming to help with the aftermath of the Hurricane. He will be arriving tomorrow morning and all us staff are ecstatic that he is coming for a few days, wish it was better curium stances but we are still excited to see him.

We can already see the storm coming from the south. Most of our weather comes from the west so as we look across the bay you can see rain. Our Internet is already starting to get bad so I will do my best to update via my blog and facebook.

Please pray for Haiti. Pray for a Miracle, pray that the hurricane would change directions completely. Have faith as small as a mustard seed and believe that God can move the hurricane because he is more then good!

On a happier note, Lindsay and I were able to get off campus today. This was the first day ever when we haven’t had any teams. Aside from a few medical team members the only team we had here left today and we don’t have any teams until the weekend.  There’s not much to do on campus so we decided to go on an adventure. We ended up going to the sugar cane museum for lunch; it was delicious!! Ruben kept laughing at me because I was excited at how fancy it was. It was pretty fancy for Canadian standards so it was exciting to get out and do something like that. It was a great day full of much needed chilling and laughter.

Love, Blessings and Tomas

Leeann

Current Cholera Outbreak

I have had many emails and facebook messages asking about the current situation in Haiti right now. So I thought it would be easiest so blog about it and since I haven’t blogged in a bit this is perfect.

So as many of you know yes indeed we have a Cholera outbreak in Haiti… we heard about it on Thursday evening and started taking extra precautions. St. Marc is about 1 hour north of Titanyen. I have heard of a case or two in a village about 20 minutes  north of us. There are 5 confirmed cases in Port au Prince.

Saturday we only had one team on the mission so we spent the morning preparing oue ward for what was possibly to come. We set up 19 cotts and buckets; we are ready if anyone comes in from the community. As of yet we have no patients and we are all doing well here at the Mission of Hope.

At church on Sunday a man stood up and talked about the outbreak and gave some advice. The Haitians are nervous and scared in situations like this but just pray that they have wisdom to know how to protect themselves from this outbreak.

Please continue to pray that the spreading would stop especially with the current living conditions of a lot of Haitians living in tent cities.

Will do my best to update soon!

Love, Blessings and Cholera,

Leeann

Ps. You can also ready my room mates blog about the outbreak… www.haitiisinmyheart.blogspot.com

Home Sweet Home

I’ve been home for 2 weeks and my days have been full of sweet reunions, good food, great memories and icing on the cake…. A wedding!

My first day home I was able to sleep in, stay in my pajama’s all day, drink milk and use as much bandwidth as I wanted with out the fear of being kicked off. I also realized that day that although Haiti and Oakville were very different places I consider them both home. If you asked me a year ago if I would spend 8 months away from home I think I would have said no way. I was very much home body. Funny how God picks you up from where your comfortable and shows you that you can make more then one place home. Home for me is somewhere you love and feel loved, a place you are familiar with and comfortable. Both Haiti and Oakville are that for me. I am very blessed and thankful to work with an amazing North American staff at the mission. A few months ago I would have said they truly are my family away from home but now I just call them family because Haiti is my home too.

Here’s a few pictures of my time home.

 Cruising with Michelle.

 Niagara Falls with Lindsay

 Apple Picking with my cousin Cole.

Good friends with the beautiful bride.

A lot of people have been asking me for an update on Pierre. I will do my best to update you from my last blog until now.

So Pierre did arrive back that night and stayed in Sarah and Diana’s apartment for the next couple days. We started treating him for pneumonia but he was eating well, his eyes were focusing a lot better and he was laughing and smiling. After 2 nights in their apartment he got moved down to the Hope House with all the other kids. I tried to go down and visit him almost every day. The kids at the Hope house call him old man they say because he has a lot of teeth and looks like a baby. He was still in the Hope House before we left but no one knows how long he will be there for. The night before I left I went down to see the kids and he had a fever but was still smiling. Continue to pray for this precious boy who has stolen our hearts. Pray that we will have the wisdom to do the best thing for Pierre.

Here’s a picture of Pierre and I the night before I left.

Love blessings & Home,

Leeann

Abandoned Baby.

Woah, What a day! Days an weeks fly by in Haiti, I sometimes think back and say where did January 30th go. I’ve seen and experience so much in the last 7 months. Things that make me smile and some that make me want to cry.

Right now I am sitting in my freshly cleaned apartment… Thanks Lindsay. While I went to Port au Prince today she stayed home and cleaned. Shes the best first room mate ever! She has truly been a blessing to me and my time here, I couldn’t imagine the last 7 months without her.
On to my day. This morning myself and 3 other ladies went into Port au Prince grocery shopping and looking for gadgets for the kitchen. It was a fun day of fellowship together and also indulging in the comfort foods of home. They may not have milk but I bought a case of Mango juice.

While driving between stores and on the way home as I look out my window I saw 3 story buildings sandwiched together and rubble being removed by wheelbarrow. Its so easy for me to forget about it all… the mission is pretty and I have electricity and running water but not 40 kilometers away are people 7 months later still living in the middle of destruction. Its mind blowing at times and I will never be able to wrap my mind around what these people have gone through and are going through. All we can do is try to show the love and hope of Jesus.
Upon returning home, I had just finished unpacking the groceries and Lindsay got a call over the radio saying that we had child abandoned in the clinic. Lindsay headed down to the clinic and I headed down soon shortly after. I walked into our ER room to find a precious little boy who we were told was 2 years old. He arrived at the clinic earlier that day with his mother who went through triage and found out he most likely has Muscular dystrophy. She probably felt overwhelmed at what this meant for her little boy who was very weak. He was later found under a bench in our waiting room. We prayed over this little boy that he would know Jesus and that God would bless him and heal him and keep him safe. The mayor of Cabaret, a police and a judge were all brought into this situation. Sweet little Pierre is in the hands of the government. We wanted to badly to keep him while we searched for a place that would be able to care for Pierre and his special needs. As the police and judge met with our clinic administrator this tiny little boy was chugging pedialight and eating banana and apple sauce. Pierre eventually went into the ambulance with two visiting nurses to a hospital in Port au Prince who we pray will take very good care of this little boy we fell in love with.

So I as I sit on my couch about to go do my share of the cleaning, I am emotionally drained from the day but I smile because by the grace of God I am here and I know with out a doubt I am where God wants me right now at this moment.

This just in: as I was finishing my blog I got distracted by the fact that our nurses that went out to Port au Prince were not back yet and it was 7:45pm. So I called the driver and found out they were about a half an hour away. Now they left at 3pm so they had been gone for almost 5 hours. Turns out they went to 3 hospitals who dened Pierre and then ended up taking him the Mayor of Cabarets house which is a 10 minute drive from the mission. Having heard this… Sarah our eager , caring medical team leader gained the courage to phone our Haitian Director at quarter to 9 and convinced him to let us try and go get this sick little baby who needs to get medical attention and will not get it at the Mayor of Cabaret house. PRAY right now! Sarah, Lindsay, Ruben and Ford are on their way to the Mayor of Cabarets house to try and bring this little baby here to be taken care of while we find a perfect place for him to go.

I will update you more in the next couple days but please pray for everyone involved with this situation.

I’m about to hit the hay… no cleaning done on my part

Love, Blessings & sweet babies,

Leeann

Rest in Him

This morning Lindsay and I left the mission at 9:30 and headed to the beach. It has been a crazy summer here in Haiti. For the past 4 weeks we have had approximately 60-100 people on the mission at any given time. Well you may think this would make for many interesting stories but the last 6 weeks in my new roll all feels like a blur.

On Sunday Claudel was talking about how he was praying when he was in the States and he was asking God what he wanted him to do with his life. Claudel wrote a song that really spoke to my heart. He sang it on Sunday, it talked about resting in God. I’ve been really thinking about my life and future these days and I feel like I have no idea what it hold for me but I am content in knowing that when I rest in God he takes care of my every need and directs my path in the way he wants me to go.

Each day at the mission is packed with excitement and joy!
I have been in my new role now for about 6 weeks and I am really enjoying it, my duties include preparing markets lists for both Haitian Market and the Grocery store every Monday and Thursday, overseeing the tuck shop merchandise, planning sleeping arrangements for incoming teams, working with the kitchen ladies to have meals ready.

Last Thursday a girl from Canada named Maria arrived at Mission of Hope. She came in April with the Canadian team and wanted to come back. She is a cook in Canada and will be working in the Kitchen with the Ladies for the next 6 weeks and praying about possibly staying longer. Pray for her as she transitions to life here and works with the ladies in the kitchen. She is already been a blessing as she has taken a load of off me so I can try to make other area’s of my job better and help Lindsay.

The last 6 weeks has been full of challenges for me. Learning the new ropes was fun and difficult at the same time. I have also learned some much creole, I still probably understand only 30% of what the kitchen ladies say to me but they do their best to talk to me and I do my best and we seem to get by. I’m so thankful that God was by my side through everything in the last month… I couldn’t have done it with out him.

In my job I get the opportunity to meet some incredible people. People who are truly special and others who just make you shake your head in confusion. This summer we have been blessed to meet a lot of wonderful people, genuine hearts just willing to serve. We had a Canadian team here a couple weeks ago and I didn’t think I would mean as much as it did but it really meant a lot. God sent them and it was just what I needed to boost my spirit.

As today comes to an end I am thankful for the opportunity to get away from all the business, even if it was just for a short time, it was a wonderful day of just resting in God, resting in his love and truth and all the goodness he has for me.

Love, Blessings & Resting in Him,

Leeann

IN OTHER NEWS: I will be coming home in September for 3 weeks. The first opportunity to see me will be at my Bowling fundraiser on September 18th at Hopedale bowl in Oakville… more details to come.

Prayer Requests:

Pray for renewed strength for Lindsay and I as we finish off the summer and prepare to go home.

Pray for Maria as she transitions to life in Haiti and struggling wit the language barrier.

Pray for Mission of Hope as we continue to seek to bring life transformation to every man woman and child in Haiti, through Jesus Christ.

I didn't forget about you!

Wow, it's been almost a month since I last blogged! It has been a crazy month. Started my new job and am busy from 7am-9pm some nights.

Here are some thoughts from my mom about her time here in Haiti.

Notes from MOM,

LeeAnn is amazing and she is amazing in Haiti. It was great to see her and sad to leave her, but I know she is where God wants her to be and that God is flowing through her.

Here are links to our pictures.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233156&id=666848948&l=b6bf6e68d4

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233044&id=666848948&l=4ff416735b

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=232971&id=666848948&l=5edb4d4c9d


It was an incredible experience. Sad at times but encouraging to see the happiness in these people even though they live in poverty. The Earthquake has done damage beyond repair and yes they are starting to rebuild, but there are many years of that to come. Everything is done manually there. When I compare it to the trip to Mississippi 9 months after Katrina hit, it really doesn't compare. The US has the equipment and ability to rebuild fast, Haiti does not have the equipment, but their people have pride and are doing what they can manually with sledge hammers and brick makers that make one brick at a time.

When I compare it to the people in our first Nations where some live in 3rd world conditions in Canada , these people who live in 5th world conditions seem to have so much more because they are making due with what they have and are finding happiness, some of the people in the first nations seem to like to compare themselves to the city people and then complain about what they don't have rather than being Thankful for what God has provided. God has provided to each of us differently and we all have something to be Thankful for. Mission of Hope is an incredible organization and they are very much there for ALL the people of Haiti.

While we were there, there was a taptap (Haitian form of transportation, similar to our bus, but not) in the next village. This particular taptap would have probably held approximately 30 people. As it sped through the village it encountered a cow that got stuck underneath it, which in turn made it loose control and hit a cement truck head on. Mission of Hope was the nearest medical clinic to bring these people to. 5 people died at the scene of the accident. ALL the people at Mission of Hope kicked into High gear to try to save the remaining lives. 4 people accepted Christ that night.

The worship at the church held about 750-1000 people and it was filled with the spirit of God flowing out of each person attending as they praised him. They sang familiar songs, but in Creole, so we worshipped together, each in our own language. I was given the privilege to teach Sunday School while I was there, through an interpreter of course and it was an incredible morning where we talking about Shining Jesus like the stars shine in our Universe.

LeeAnn has picked up Creole extremely well and often would go back and forth between English and Creole in one sentence. God is equipping her. When she would introduce us to her Haitian Friends as her mom and dad, we would be greeted warmly with hugs. I would tell them that I was there to bring my daughter home to which they would reply "oh.... NO, we need her here". I kept telling the interpreters that have patiently taught LeeAnn Creole to stop, or she would never come home!!!

When we visited the two villages that were on either side of Mission of Hope God provided me with a personal Child interpreter that I was so Thankful for. The children are so sweet and just want to spend time with the people that visit and like any child, absorb the love and attention that was being shed on them.

ALL the children in Mission of Hope orphanage (Hope House) are incredibly special children, each with their own story, that you can truly see the love of God flowing to them and through them, and we had an amazing time with them all each time we ventured down there. We wish we had, had more time to spend with each and everyone of them.
Mina and Ana (the van der Mark's Haitian twins) that LeeAnn has been teaching for the last 5 months) are sweet growing fun little girls and we were so blessed to get to spend time making cookies with them.

The Johnson's (the family that runs Mission of Hope) are an incredible family and are all, always very encouraging and welcoming. Their heart pours the love of God, out to each visiting team member, each staff member (including LeeAnn) and every Haitian. They make everyone at MOH feel like part of their extended family. Please keep them in your continued prayers.

Me again! I had an awesome week with my parents here... wish they could have stayed longer... they will just have to come back.

I will do my best to try and blog this weekend about the happenings in my last month in my new job...

ALSO STAY TUNED FOR SOME EXCITING NEWS!

Love Blessings and business!

Leeann

Manman mwen ak Papi mwen ap vini deman!

What a week it has been already! Saturday I started my new job and the last 5 days have flown by. Saturday I woke up and had to prepare for the teams that were coming in that day. So I was running around trying to get the Guest Dome clean and making sure I had enough beds ready. I was so exhausted physically and mentally that I was nauseous so I decided to sit and right as I put my but on the chair the team pulled up. AS IF!!! (that was for you Brianna) Anyways so I got back up and ran down to the Guesthouse to greet the team meanwhile Lindsay is at the beach with a Team and Jeremy is doing a river walk with the other teams. So I showed the teams their rooms, got them settled in and told them they could wonder the property and go visit Hope House kids. I text Lindsay and told her to come get me when she got home from the beach because I was going to lie down and I went and crashed on the couch! What a day!

Sunday was pretty good! I woke up and put out breakfast for the teams, had a quick shower and headed down the hill on Lindsay and I’s ghetto ATV. After church we took the teams to Gwo Papa Poul (GPP). Side story- I text “BB”(the owner of GPP) Saturday night at 9pm and told him we had 100 people coming, this is the most people I have ever gone with to GPP in my whole 5 months… lets just say Lindsay and I were not looking forward to this and had very little hopes for it to turn out well. So We had soo many people we had to take 2 bus loads, I headed with the first bus load and we sat up stairs and they brought up the drinks and then the food started coming out too! Lindsay arrived with the second load about 30 mins later. I didn’t go down stairs until after I collected the money and brought it down to BB and Lindsay asked how it went I my response was “ACTUALLY- really good! How bout you?” We were really impressed. We had 100 people fed and happy! Good work GPP!

Monday to Wednesday are a blur! Going to the grocery store was a highlight. Other then that my job involves making sure the kitchen ladies have what they need to make food and getting supplies from the warehouse, answering a million questions a day and driving around a lot on my ghetto ATV running errands! I dropped in to bed the last couple night but was relieved that today was a little slower then yesterday!

I want to publicly say a HUGE thank you to Brianna and her family who have been a huge help to me. Between the 4 of them they have fixed the shower in the upstairs of the guesthouse, cleaned out my storage room in the guest house, set up a water cooler in the guest dome, put garbage cans in every room of the guest dome and are now organizing the guesthouse section of the warehouse! They have been incredible I don’t know how to thank them enough… what they are doing is going to make my life so much easier!

So now I will explain the title of my blog… Translation: my mom and my dad are coming tomorrow. For the last week or maybe longer I have been going around saying this creole phrase with the amount of days left until they come. Ana and Mina have been saying it too! The above is what I have been saying today! Tomorrow the day has finally arrived when I get to show them my world! I couldn’t be more excited! I can’t really sleep right now that’s why it is 12am and I am writing a blog!

I can’t wait to introduce them to all my new friends, my favourite foods, favourtie places, let dad eat all the watermelon he can eat in a week (can’t wait to have watermelon seed spitting contests with him), mom eat all the mango she can eat and letting my daddy drive me on the ATV. (hes kind of excited about that too!)

I can’t wait for them to see all the reasons I have fallen in love with this place.
For now I am going to try to go to bed and I will write again in a couple days and maybe even have mom write a blog for me!

Love, Blessings and Manman mwen & Papi Mwen!

Leeann