Thursday, April 22, 2010

It's Paradise!

So sorry that it has been so long since we’ve updated the blog, time just seems to be flying by these days as they are filled with so much activity. Our head count here at the HOH is up to 97, and somewhere between 90 & 100 kids, things seem to just get really busy! I know that probably doesn’t make sense, but we’ve experienced it before. We generally hover between 80 & 85, then every now and then the count starts to go up, and somewhere around 95 we inevitably go, “Man, there’s a lot of kids here!” But we aren’t complaining, ever since the earthquake we’ve been praying and trying to get some of the orphans up here so we could take care of them. So far we’ve received 8, and there are another 11 or so on the horizon that will be coming soon if everything can be worked out for them.

The latest to arrive from Port-au-Prince (PAP) are three boys (pictured from L to R): Herby, Junior and Reginald. Herby and Junior came first, they both had lost their moms in the earthquake, both of their dads had already died before that day. Herby’s mom was in their house while he went out to carry in water for her to use. In the quake their house collapsed, and his mom was killed underneath it. To make matters worse his best friend Magloire lost his mom too, and was sent off to live in a far off town. (For those of you who don’t know, Magloire is one of the boys who arrived here at the HOH a couple of weeks ago.) Herby mourned the loss of his mom, and didn’t have his best friend there with him. Little did he or Magloire know that God had plans to reunite them here at the HOH! When the boys saw each other here at the HOH they jumped up in the air, they were so excited. It was an incredible moment, and we all were so touched by how God did this special thing for these two young boys who have lost so much.


As for Junior, his mom left him and Reginald his little brother at the house that day and went to sell in the market in downtown PAP. She never came home. They have no idea what happened to her. The boys were separated and sent to temporarily live with different family members. We got connected with Junior through a friend of ours and found out he needed a place to go as the family he was staying with couldn’t keep him any longer. When he arrived at the HOH almost the first words out of his mouth were, “I have a little brother, please can he come here too”. We sent off for Reginald and in a few days they too were reunited here at the HOH.


They are all doing really well here. Sonson, the first boy we had received from PAP, had the hardest time adapting here and we weren’t really sure what he was feeling now about things as more and more kids showed up from PAP. When I went to pick up Reginald at the airport, Sonson rode along to get him. All the boys in the car were having fun pointing out different things in our town to Reginald, and just as we were pulling up to the HOH gate I heard a voice behind me say, “And now you are entering Paradise!”. I had to turn around to make sure I was hearing correctly. Sure enough, it was Sonson — telling us exactly what he was feeling about the HOH now. What a blessing it has been to be able to add these youth to our family here.


Our days have been filled with visitors coming and going. They have fixed many broken things, we have both our cars up and running again, all the lights and computers are working properly again...it’s been a very profitable few weeks. One thing they have not been able to fix is our water situation, and we are not getting water anywhere at the HOH now, except for a few sporadic moments throughout the day. We try to fill up as many containers as possible in those moments, but the kids are back to having to “run” most of our water with their own legs from a cistern in another yard. It definitely is a good source of exercise, but it also adds a lot of extra work to our days.


We currently have a Physical Therapist here working with our kids, they’ve made a lot of progress, especially the ones who were injured in the earthquake. In just 2 weeks, Jenny will be heading off to Canada for 6 weeks. She’ll be in Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario, so if you are in one of those locations and would like to see her, get in touch and we’ll try and work it out (e-mail is the easiest way: jenny.reitz@crossworld.org).


Thank you so much for your support of this ministry. Whether it’s financial support, sending us things or simply praying and encouraging us, we thank God for each one of you…