Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Oh Baby!!

Last week we were privileged to received a beautiful 5 day old baby boy into our home.  His name is Job, and his mother died in childbirth.  The father brought him to our hospital asking for help.  He said he had no family to take this child, and since he already had 8 children at home, he could not take care of this tiny baby.  It was obvious that the baby was already on his way to becoming severely dehydrated, so the hospital sent him to us. 
5 day old Job

Everyone was excited to have a new baby in the house.  None more than the younger kids.  They marveled about every little thing he did.  In the following picture I found a bunch of them huddled around Linda as she was feeding him...

Unfortunately, our joy of having Job in our home didn't last too long, but we couldn't be sad about the circumstances that took him away from us.  One of the national staff from our partnering hospital has been wanting to adopt a child for some time now and jumped on this opportunity to adopt Job.  We just love it when Haitian families step up to adopt children whose birth families are not able to care for them.  But, we were disappointed to have just had 3 days with him in our care!

One thing we did realize, however, is that we are out of baby supplies here at the HOH!  We have had 5 babies come through our home over the past year, and we've depleted our stock of baby things.  We were able to find a few bottles to feed him, but we are going to need to replace our stock soon to be ready for the next one.  If there is a small group, school, church, family or friends out there who would like to put together a "baby" care package for the HOH, please feel free to get in contact with us and we can give you details about what kinds of things we need, and how you can get them to us. 

We appreciate so much the help you have been to the ministry here at the HOH.  We are blessed to have partners who help us in many different ways.  For those of you who pray for us, here are some requests:

  • Jenny will be on her way to Canada soon, please pray for safety in traveling.  You will be hearing from her on how you can be in touch with her there, once she is settled.
  • Our students are heavy into studying.  For those in grades 6, 9, 12 and 13 there are government exams coming up in June and July and they are already studying for them.  They are hard exams and they would appreciate you praying for them.  We will get you a list of them closer to the day, but Linda is one of them studying for the grade 12 exams.
  • Linda's health is still a concern.  Her diabetes is back under control, and she is much more careful with her diet than before.  But through all of this the doctors have discovered another problem that she is having.  She has 4 fibroid in her abdomen, and the OBGYN doctor feels she will need to have surgery.  She does not want that, so she is trying several other options first.  We ask you to pray for her as she does this, that the medication she is on can dissolve them, or at least reduce them, and that she can avoid having to have surgery to remove them.
  • Continue to pray for our financial needs.  We are grateful for generous donations in December.  And ask you to pray that our monthly financial needs would continue to be met.
Many thanks, and Blessings to you all!

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Starting the year out with a Bang!

On Jan. 2, 2014, our friends from Miami came to the HOH with the express purpose of hosting a BBQ for the HOH family.  It all started about 6 months ago when they were here on a work project.  They had a BBQ for themselves and some friends in the neighborhood one afternoon, and brought Linda and I some of the leftovers.  There were hotdogs, hamburgers and ribs.  Good stuff.  We shared it all with the kids, and to our friend's amazement the food got split into many many pieces as the kids all wanted to taste this strange food.  They had never tasted anything like it. 

And with that the planning started for a special surprise BBQ just for the HOH so that our kids could enjoy their own hotdogs and hamburgers.  Jan. 2nd was the special day, and our kids had an incredibly good time.  When asked if he wanted a hotdog or hamburger (they called them long or flat meat), one of our older boys said, "Please give ma a hamburger, I've only ever seen them in the movies, I'd like to know what one tastes like".  Here are some pictures of our fun day...
Cooking up a storm, Mikerlange and Rosnel help BBQ the meat.

Renel, the mastermind, behind the BBQ taste tests the food to make sure it's OK for the rest of us.

Waiting for the food to cook, Ivinsky does his best to entertain.


Finally, Hotdogs and Hamburgers for everyone!

An afternoon of games and popcorn.

 
 A late afternoon meal of BBQ chicken, ribs & Steak plus good ole Haitian rice & pikliz (like a very spicy hot coleslaw).

The end result!

Thanks so much to our friends from Miami Shores Presbyterian Church, Central Presbyterian, and Friends of Humanity for a wonderful day.  

Now the partying has finished, and it is back to school.  The books have been dusted off, uniforms washed, and the week is now filled with classes and homework.  Please keep our students in your prayers.  Several:  Siliana, Chedlyn, John Wisly and Ivinsky have such a hard time with school, they could use your prayers as they struggle to keep up with their classes.  A few others have not been putting the effort they need to into their school work and did not get passing marks last semester.  Please pray for their attitudes toward school, and life in general.

Jenny will be traveling starting tomorrow and into next week visiting an Extreme Response ministry in another part of Haiti, so please pray for her as she travels.  Linda has been having some trouble with her diabetes the past couple of days, and has had to start on insulin shots.  Please pray for her that she'd be able to get this under control, and get her numbers back in a normal place.

Many thanks for all your support!

Friday, January 03, 2014

HOH Winter 2014 Newsletter

Here is our new Prayer letter. Please let me know if you have problems reading it and would like me to send it as an e-mail attachment to you.

Winter 2014 Internet by Jenny Reitz