Out With the Old, In With the New!

I’m kind of sad, and yet VERY excited to be writing this post.

You’ve probably noticed that in the past couple of months my presence here has been scarce. I just looked at my post list and it’s literally been a post every two weeks or so. Don’t worry, I’m not here to tell you I’m bailing out of this whole blogging thing. Actually, quite the opposite.

The main reason that things have been almost non-existent here is that I’ve been working on a project behind the scenes. I know I’ve mentioned on here that work stuff is changing for me, and part of that is taking over the mission web stuff. Huge learning curve for me! But, as part of it I decided to learn and work out the details while I developed a new site – for myself.

I’ve literally been working on this off and on for the past two months. And, today is the day! Just minutes ago I took down the “under construction” page and released leslierolling.com and Soul Food to the world. (Wow, that sounds melodramatic…)

I could go into a long explanation here as to why I wanted to do this, but it would be better to just go there and read all about it on the Welcome post that I wrote just for those of you that have been so faithful in following along with us here.

I won’t be taking this space down, so you can still come here and re-read stuff you’ve liked, or reference it. I’m sure the grandmothers were just about having seizures thinking about all the kid stuff that’s on here. Don’t worry! It’s still here. I may eventually, after a good amount of time, password protect it so that our kids can still access it later in life, as well as family. But, for now it will stay and you can still visit. I just won’t be adding any new content here.

So yes, feeling a wee bit sad because it feels like the end of something, but I’m mostly excited because it’s really a beginning of something else. Sometimes we just grow and change and need something fresh. Something that will grow with us better over time.

Thank you for spending time with me, and us, in this space. I hope you’ll go now and check out Soul Food. I love it. I’m excited about it. And I’m excited to share it with you.

~Leslie

Sweet November

It’s been a while. Again. I thought I would pop in and make my presence known so no one thinks I’ve disappeared or don’t care.

I find myself sitting here and looking at the calendar and it seems crazy that we’re already into the middle of November this week. This time last year I was well into getting excited for Christmas and the holidays. I think, looking back, I was really struggling with having a sense of contentment. I was having a hard time with my work load because I just wasn’t excited or engaged, and yet knew I should be. I was missing family and really excited that my parents were coming (hi parents!) for Christmas, their first visit in about 5 years. I think I just needed something to be looking forward to because I felt like I was just plugging along.

This year though, is very different. It was baking hot here until the middle of last week. I was posting on Facebook later in the week that I had to wear a long sleeved shirt for the first time in a VERY long time and people we’re laughing at me. I know it seems strange when I say that I was chilly and the thermometer still read 80*, but that’s what happens when you’re acclimated! It would probably also help to mention that the last part of last week, and still this week has been regularly overcast. The temps have dropped to the lower 80’s but the most significant change is that the humidity has dropped. Where we were regularly seeing it hover between 75-85%, last week on the coolest day it was down to the high 50’s. That’s a huge change in how the air feels!

Yesterday I was at a local resort exercising in the pool with a friend (some sweet friends blessed her with their passes when they left the country so we get to go for free!!!) and as we walked in there were crunch leaves under our feet that hadn’t been swept up, and the sky was grey, and the air was cool. It felt like fall! And we noticed it and it made us both exhale a bit and be so thankful for that sweet moment. Later, after swimming for about an hour, a breeze started to blow. Just a light one. But, it was enough that I had to keep my wet self under the surface of the water and Olivia’s teeth were literally chattering. I got out to towel off and got excited to see goose bumps on my legs. I don’t think I’ve every had goose bumps on my legs in Haiti! It’s just been such a nice weather treat, especially because last winter didn’t seem to cool off much. The rain stopped, but the temps stayed in the high 80’s and so did the humidity. When it cools off it literally feels like the cogs in our brains start to turn again, things get clearer, we’re more alert, and just function better.

So, as we move through November, I keep feeling grateful that we’re actually getting some kind of fall, and remembering that this is how it usually feels (funny how one year can make a person forget!) and my heart feels really calm right now. Which, when I look at everything going on around me, seems kind of funny.

I am thinking about the holidays, but I don’t feel the need to dive all the way in yet. Last year was really busy once the end of November hit, again, I think because I was searching for some kind of normalcy and wanted to do all the things! This year I just feel like I want to slow down, step back, and enjoy. Chris’ parents are coming for Christmas this year and we’re so excited, and very much looking forward to a relaxed couple of weeks with them. Chris turns 40 at the beginning of December and I’m looking forward to celebrating him with our friends here. We also have some plans for fun things with our staff and our missionary community, but none of it feels pressing or overwhelming.

Perhaps part of it is that things have just gotten busy around here. Rather than just plugging away we’re in full on management mode, which requires more of my time and brain power, and it feels like things are getting accomplished. Don’t get me wrong, things were getting accomplished before, but they had become routine. Chris and I both do really well with managing things. Where I am organized he is logical and methodical. Those things compliment one another so well. Add Peggy to the mix and we now have someone that can come behind us and fill the holes and I can’t tell you how much that helps. Rather than feeling frazzled because I might be forgetting something she’s right there asking about those things and then taking care of them. Such a blessing!

It’s very normal for things to take a couple of months to pick up speed after we get back from our summer vacation. We’re still in the rainy season, so deliveries to some areas can be difficult just because of mud. When September comes people start preparing for school fees and aren’t putting their money anywhere else. For the past few years school has actually started in October, but a week beforehand the government announced an earlier start that had everyone scurrying for things like uniforms and books.

Our filter installations have taken off in the past month and a half. Last month we were up almost 50% from months previous, and here we are mid-month and already at the 100 filter mark as of tomorrows delivery. That feels really good!

Earlier this year we were approached about receiving a Rotary grant for filters and since then have been in discussion and planning with the club in the US and the local club that would host it. We love Rotary and feel really blessed that they approached us. Those conversations stalled out for several reasons over the summer, but in the past 6 weeks have resumed and things are moving forward, and it’s exciting. This week Chris had a meeting here with some of the key local club members, and several members from the US who were in Haiti to discuss the next steps. The grant would mean filters for a lot of families!

We hired 3 new employees in the past two weeks as well. We haven’t hired new staff in a long time, and it feels really good to do so. We really sought our staff input this time around because everything is so communal here. They know the people in the community who have submitted applications, and can give character feedback. A while back they asked to be involved in the process because any time there are issues with an employee it affects everyone, not just us as leaders. The guys we hired came highly recommended by the staff that knew them, and we’re excited they’re part of our team now.

There are some other exciting things going on, and I’m itching to share, but not just yet. I promise I will as soon as I can! In the meantime, please be praying for Chris and I as we manage everything in front of us. Our workload has literally doubled in the past week, so it’s a lot to be thinking about and taking care of, and we just want to do it well.

Until next time,

~Leslie

Third World Rodeo

I know a lot of the stuff that I talk about on here isn’t actually directly referring to life in Haiti, but more life in general. Today I have a treat for you.

I hate twitchy animals. Anything that can scurry or slither is not something I want to be around for any length of time. I can’t help it, it’s just the way it is. And then I move to a country where we have mice and rats that we learn to keep at bay, and lizards that not only run around our yard, but that we also welcome into our homes because they eat the bugs. And, they’re usually more afraid of us than we are of them.

Until they’re not.

I just had a shiver run through my body as I was thinking about the next words to type.

No, I don’t do well with twitchy things. Especially not when they decide to be brave and run up and then back down my bare legs, or over my feet, or jump onto my head and run in circles. I kid you not – all of those things have happened, and every time it was a little lizard. Yes, I could have squashed it, but instead I resorted to flailing and shuddering. And maybe some jumping and dancing. There’s the shiver again.

Today I had some friends over. Friends that have been away all summer and finally (finally!) came back to me, and now my life is complete again. We spent a fun afternoon catching up with each other like ladies do. These friends are my “loud” friends. When we’re together the volume goes up right along with the laughter. We’re good at laughing at life, at each other, and ourselves.

As the afternoon drew to a close I went to hop in the van with one friend to take her and her daughter home. I was chatting with a neighbor through the fence while she buckled the kids in and threw her stuff on the front seat. As we both turned to get ready to climb in she said, “Um, there’s a lizard on the dash…”

Sure enough, he was just hanging out there. I had parked the van on the grass because the guys had been moving trucks around and fixing tires and there hadn’t been enough room to park where I usually do. There was a small tree right next to it and we’d left the passenger window open. The little monster must have run along a branch and into the window thinking he’d just found a palace.

I don’t remember what I used, but my first instinct was to start swatting at the dash to make our new “friend” run back to where he came. My friend grabbed her shoe and started whacking the dash from her side to help in the efforts. He wasn’t having any of that and rather than staying on track and just jumping outside, he jumped all right, but onto the seat. And then he scurried.

He scurried all the way under the drivers seat.

There was no way. Out of sight was NOT out of mind in this case, and there was no freaking way I was going to sit on him and just assume that he wouldn’t be running down my legs at any point in the trip there and back.

I whipped my seat into the farthest forward position to try to see him. I crouched down and scanned. And there he was, his two beady little eyes staring back at me. I may have yelled, “He’s here! And he’s looking right at me!!!”

This. This is what I didn’t want happening anywhere on my body*.

I reached down and grabbed a very meager looking twig off the ground, then jammed that thing under and around the seat whacking whatever I could until our lizard friend ran out and down and back over to the other side of the van, this time on the floor.

Now would be a good time to mention that loud friends don’t become quiet friends in a crisis – they become louder friends. Somewhere around the time that he hit the deck Peggy yelled “What are y’all making so much noise about out there?!?!” from our house. We were in fits of hysterical laughter with undertones of squeamish terror by this point.

I ran out and yelled that there was a lizard running around in the van. It was also about this point that I remembered that our guard and the neighbor I’d been talking to were only a few feet away watching all this go down.

I ran back to van to find my friend waving her shoe around on the floor to try and flick the lizard out of her side. I did the calculations. It wasn’t much space and I could tell the awkwardness of her flailing arm was because she knew that if she was successful there was a good chance she would get him out, but that he would fly into her in the process of making his exit.

And then it happened.

Unless you’ve had first hand experience with these lizards, it’s very shocking the first time you see it. What am I referring to?

The tail drop.

Yep, these little guys will just drop off a part of themselves when they feel danger lurking. The whole idea is that it’s most likely that a predator will grab for the tail, so they can drop their tail and still run away.

Apparently my friend was a worthy foe because that tail dropped. Right there on the floor board. And then proceeded to wriggle and squiggle. She got momentarily distracted by this phenomenon until I started yelling to keep whacking. She flicked the twitching tail out of the van, not hitting herself, and went back to work on getting our castaway out. Her attempts were futile. He headed for the underside of the dash.

We knew where he went, and we looked at each other, then at the piece of plastic that wasn’t very firmly attached to the bottom of the dash and both grabbed at the same time, and I flung it out of my side onto the grass. She whacked with her shoe and I flicked with my stick. I stuck the key in the ignition and raised my foot awkwardly to push on the clutch to start the van, thinking maybe the vibration and noise would drive him out. He was nowhere.

We looked. I jabbed with the stick. She saw him for a brief moment, hanging out on a wire, and then he was gone again.

We looked at each other across the seat, defeated.

“How brave are you?” I asked.

We reattached the dash piece. She put her shoe back on. I put my seat back in the right position. We adjusted ourselves. She rebuckled Alex, who had undone himself to watch our rodeo. We climbed up gingerly and buckled ourselves. Closed our doors.

As I put the van in gear I looked over, and there’s my friend, sitting cross legged on her seat.

And, all I can think about is how jealous I am, because a) I’m driving and don’t get the option of doing that without my feet on the floor, and b) I’m not that flexible.

We pull out of the driveway and onto the road.

“I’m just going to apologize in advance if I start screaming and whip the car over to the side of the road. And, I’m thankful that you’ll be totally okay with that.”

If the van has a funky smell in a few days, at least I’ll know why.

~Leslie

PS – If you click on the photo you can go visit the blog where that photo was first posted. It just so happens that a Google search on “haiti lizards” brought that up, and the post was written by friends of ours up in the north. Haiti is a small place :)

Just Saying Hi!

I’m alive!

The first round of getting two of my wisdom teeth out in my first year of college was a cake walk compared to the past week and a half. Seriously. Giving those bad boys an extra 18 years to hide in and around jaw bones was pa bon.

I was thinking I would be down for a day or two then slowly start getting back into my daily stuff of life here, but no, my body had other plans. Instead, I spent all of last week and the weekend hanging out on our bed hopped up on a nice rotation of Tylenol 3 and super extra strength Ibuprofen. The swelling alone didn’t come down until the weekend. I didn’t get any bruising, which is probably the most surprising thing of all considering how hard they were working on my jaw.

I was determined to get back to work on Monday, and did, but realized on Tuesday after some crying jags that I wasn’t ready to not be taking the drugs. I think I really wanted to be okay and had a hard time accepting that my body just wasn’t there yet. I’m still taking the meds, but the intervals are spreading out, which is a good sign. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I can’t rush something like this because my body just won’t let me. Yesterday was  a much better day that involved well timed doses of medicine and a lot of work being done, followed by me promptly shutting down my computer at the end of the work day and going to take a 2 hours rest/nap. I feel so much better today, so I think we might be adopting that routine for the rest of the week.

My time laying in bed wasn’t wasted though! I’ve mentioned that I’m going to be working at taking over all things website for the mission in the coming months. I’ll be honest, this is like learning Greek for me. I get it, but there’s this whole language and world that is fascinating and yet completely baffling, and I need to dive in or it’ll never work. Over the weekend some things started to really come together mentally for me and I’m excited. Things that didn’t connect before, do now, and it makes sense. I have a lot running through my head because of it, and a lot of stuff to work on.

One project I’m particularly excited about, but don’t want to say anymore about right now. Yes, I just did that. “Hey, I’ve got this amazing thing, but you can’t see it. Na na na na na!” In due time, my friends, in due time. What I will say is that it’s creative and it’s going to satisfy a giant need in me :)

The downside of all this creativity flowing like a rushing river is that it kind of makes me cranky crazy. Yes, you would think that it would cause happiness, but it’s the processing that gets me going a bit nuts. I told Chris yesterday it was like him reasoning through a problem. He very much needs to be in his head, pace, and just work it out until he gets to this place where the pieces start to come together and he just gets it. For me, it’s the same process, but it’s this crazy flood of ideas where one thing leads to another and I have to try and process them all and put them where they need to be, while trying to figure out how to get to the end result. Until I figure it out I can be a bit of a bear. Once I start working out the details and can be hands on that crankiness turns into creativity and I get giddy. Then I realize that I’m the only one that might be excited about the fact that I just figured out how to do something in Photoshop and it’s kind of anti-climactic. It might also involve me whacking Chris from time to time and saying, “You need to be excited about this!” There are certain advantages to only sitting 2.5 feet apart for most of the day…

In family news, one of the most exciting things that’s been going on around here is that Little Mister no longer uses diapers. And there were angels singing! He may have been resisting at first, and not loving the process, but we are there! Do you want to know what’s even better? I apologize if this is over sharing, but as a mother of a boy I was dreading a year of having to help him in the bathroom. I’m so over this stage of kids needing me to help them do basic things. It’s so freeing when your kids start doing things they’ll be doing for the rest of their lives, for themselves. So, I was excited we weren’t in diapers any more, but not excited about the bathroom assists that would be our life. And then the miracle happened – he, in just a matter of 24 hours, learned how to do his business “like Daddy”. Mmm hmm. He may have been a giant of a baby to push out, and be wearing size 5 t-shirts, but that also means he is tall enough to stand up and get the job done. And it’s amazing and he loves being a big boy!

Did I mention that it’s amazing???

Do you know what’s even more amazing?

When you get to this stage and are so happy that life might be actually moving forward and then remember that there is still the dreaded night training – and then they just night train themselves.

Yep, he’s waking up in the night and asking to go the the bathroom. And then going right back to bed.

Have I mentioned that it’s amazing?

I just feel like we’re stepping into this stage of enjoying life with our kids in a new way. A way where they aren’t reliant on us for the basic feed, water and wipe duties, and shifting to rely on us for more emotional support and love and where we can form relationships with them in different ways. Where we can do different things as a family. Where our kids can be more actively involved in different aspects of our life here, rather than us juggling all the balls and watching them occasionally drop on our heads.

Chris and I know that we’re in the prep stages at the mission for a giant leap forward. We’re waiting on a few grant funding opportunities that we’ve just left in God’s hands, but are starting to move again and allow us to ramp up production again after several years of going oh so slow. We’re on the brink of being able to start the most major development project the mission has ever seen – building and moving to our new land. There are things in the works, but nothing concrete yet. Peggy is here and great addition to our team. She’s such a blessing. Our kids getting older means that we can feel less pulled in some ways and more involved in others and they can be involved in new ways. It really is exciting on so many levels.

I would love prayer this week for continued healing, but also because Chris just left this morning for a 12 day trip to the US to spend some quality time with his brother. He hasn’t taken a solo trip for “fun” in years. He was away earlier this year for almost 3 weeks, but it was all work focused. When Ben suggested he buy Chris a ticket to come spend time with him and so they could go on a motorcycle trip together I was all for it. Both of us are just better on so many levels when we get time to regroup. My trip to Peru earlier this year was so good for me. When we’re always around each other, and literally sitting only a few feet apart, it can be hard to appreciate each other, to appreciate our family, and this whole life we have here. Time away lets us rest and come back feeling refreshed and ready to go again. It clears my head and helps me be excited again. Pray that he has a good time away and that things just keep plugging along here.

Well, this lady has some work to do so I’m going to sign off. If you don’t see anything on here for a little while just know that I’m madly working out my creative juices behind the scenes. Or napping.

Have a great finish to the week!

~Leslie

A Pain In the Gum.

I won’t lie. I was feeling a bit anxious going into yesterday morning.

About two weeks ago my wisdom teeth started giving me problems, at least the two I still had. It started with pressure on my jaw and then the whole left side of my face feeling pressure, a headache and an aching neck. We went to our dentist in Gonaives last Monday, hoping he would be able to pull them out there, but without x-rays he didn’t want to go ahead because it’s an invasive surgery.

I should stop here and just mention something that some of you might not know – white people and black people’s jaws form differently. I don’t know about other races, so someone can feel free to chime in down in the comments if they want. People from African descent tend to have jaws that are larger, and therefore it’s very normal for wisdom teeth, or the third molar, to come down or in normally. Us white people, not so lucky.

Now, let’s put this in the context of Haiti. I am a white girl in a black culture. Going into to dentist office to explain that I have teeth that just never came in is stressful enough. I was worried that I would get resistance from our dentist simply because it’s not a common problem with 99.5% of his patients that he sees. Thankfully Dr. Miguel was great and completely understood. He has big posters of teeth and jaws on his wall and we were able to talk about everything with those. I’m also thankful that he knows his limits and had no problem telling us that he would rather refer us to a colleague in Port than do it himself. A quick phone call later and things were all set up for me to see his friend at the Dental University in Port au Prince yesterday.

I had been there before, last summer, to get x-rays on my front tooth so Dr. Miguel could do a crown for me (which turned out so well!), so there was some level of familiarity. But, I knew this would be different.

The university, like most places in Haiti, is not what you or I might expect. Some of the teaching areas are very basic and open air. The equipment might be older, but it still does the job. Despite appearances, they’re doing good work there. Upper level students must have been working on dental castings yesterday because repeatedly they came in to where I was having my work done to get Dr. Phillogene’s approval on things.

We waited in the waiting area, which is a nice deck lined with chairs. When it was time for the consultation part of things Chris and I went in and sat with Dr. Phillogene to start my file. We met his colleage, Dr. Felix (I think!). We discussed the issues I’d been having and then headed back for x-rays.

The x-ray room is about 5×10. The walls are nicely installed wood panels, I think plywood, with finishing. The window has re-bar bars on it with a screen. There’s no light bulb in the socket on the ceiling, but that makes sense if you consider it’s an x-ray room with a window. The darker the better. There is a chair to the left of the door, an x-ray chair. I sit down and there’s a piece of pvc pipe coming out of the floor that’s just the right height to use as a foot rest. I think it might have been there to allow for a drain of some sort, assuming that they were maybe going to use the room for something else other than an x-ray room at some point. On the wall to the left of my chair is a very old x-ray machine. It only gets plugged in when they need to use it, because this is Haiti, and power is crazy here and it would probably get fried if it was left plugged in. There’s another, slightly newer x-ray machine in there, but they aren’t using it for some reason. Maybe it’s the back up? Over in the corner to the right is a basic table with a portable “dark room” unit on top. Inside is a cup of solution to develop the x-ray films and the doctor or tech just pulls everything apart inside and then dips the films in the cup to expose them. After a minute, they get pulled out and the window is used to check out the contents.

We do my x-rays. It’s obvious that the top tooth is pushing into the roots on the one before it. I’ve felt the pressure for a while now and am looking forward to getting it out. We redo the bottom x-rays 4 times because the bottom tooth is so close to the surface that it looks like one of my regular molars. Initially it was so confusing that everyone thought the pain I had was from just the top and that I didn’t actually have a bottom one, but after some closer looking the dental work in my last molar showed that the wisdom tooth was right there, and explained why my gum was getting soft in that place. It was trying to push up, but giving me a lot of pain in the process.

X-rays are done and I get settled in for the work.

I should back track here and tell you that the last time I had this procedure on my right side wisdom teeth, the top one had already pushed down, and the bottom one was a challenge. It had grown too close to the bone and they had to grind off some of my jaw bone to get it out. I didn’t get put under, but rather had local anesthesia for all of it. Yes, I hurt after, but it wasn’t terrible and within 24 hours I was eating soft foods. I didn’t swell up too badly and I didn’t bruise at all.

I got frozen and they went to work. They were doing the removals in their teaching room where they have 8 chairs set up in one big room. I’m guessing, from our previous visit, that they have days where they accept patients and upper level dental students get to work on teeth with supervision. We were the only ones in the room yesterday. Yes, their equipment might have been a bit older, but everything was clean and sterile and they were diligent about all of that through everything. I lost track of how many glove changes happened.

I would really love to say that things went smoothly and it was easy, especially with the location of my teeth, but I can’t do that. Nope. Apparently another 18 years actually makes things more difficult. It gives your teeth more time to grow closer to your jaw bones and to grow into the roots of your other teeth. No, there was nothing easy about yesterday.

I did end up getting some of my left jaw bone ground off. I guess it’s good to keep things equal, right? I wish I was exaggerating when I say that they had my mouth open for about 3 hours. Not just me laying there with them looking at things. That was 3 hours of grinding, digging and prying. My mouth has been contorted in ways I didn’t know was possible. Eventually my very obstinate teeth gave up and let go, but they did not do it happily.

Now, I know that some of you might be thinking something along the lines of this whole thing taking a long time because of ill experienced dentists. I’m going to shut that down right now. Yes, they may have not had extensive hands on practice with wisdom teeth (even the poster in the room showed all molars in place, none impacted) but they were very thorough every step of the way. They didn’t do anything until they were satisfied with the x-rays, and they deliberated over every step for best practice options. They worked hard. They listened when I told them I needed to be shot with more freezing. They did a good job. At one point I thought about asking for my phone so I could get a picture of their two heads bending over me with the concentration I was seeing, but I thought that might be a tad distracting and weird :)

No, I very much appreciate Doc Phillogene and Doc Felix for what they did for me yesterday. They earned every Gourde we paid. I wasn’t an easy patient in the sense that things were straight forward. In fact, on the way home Chris and I were laughing (as much as I could laugh) at the fact that they were kind of on a high because of the procedure they’d just done. I can’t imagine they get many opportunities, if any, to do it, so it was that high of having accomplished something and helping someone at the same time. It made me happy to have provided them with the experience. When I gave birth to Alex I was asked if it would be okay for a second year med student to observe the birth. By the end of it she was taking pictures for our family, and the next morning my delivery doc thanked me for allowing her to be there because my birth had been completely natural, and Alex was a big baby. She was happy that this med student got to see that so early in her studies, but also to see that as a woman. I felt thankful that I got to be part of that, and I felt the same way yesterday. Maybe I provided an opportunity to learn. Maybe those dentists will be able to teach others and help others because of that experience.

I realized a lot of other things while lying on the chair yesterday.

Our society likes to soften the blows of reality. We like to remove the hard stuff whenever we can. I’m not being critical, just stating a fact. We avoid pain, and we avoid even knowing the details sometimes. In this specific example, it’s common practice to be put under rather than have local anesthesia so that you not only don’t feel anything, but also don’t remember it. I get it, oh boy, do I get it! There were times yesterday where I thought, “This is why. This is why they knock you out. They do it so you don’t have to feel the insane amount of pressure put on your mouth from them trying to get leverage. They do it so you don’t hear the tools grinding against your teeth. They do it so you don’t have to watch them trying to figure out what to do next. You just get to wake up being sore and thinking this is just what it is.”

And then I would think about all the Haitians that might never get to go to a dentist in the first place. And then about those that might and wondered what quality of care they would get. I thought about all the people I’ve met here with missing teeth, knowing that many of those probably came out with no anesthetic. And I felt grateful that there is a teaching university in Haiti with guys like this leading the way. Aside from doing a job I could tell they cared about doing it well. It wasn’t a show for me. I was just a patient with a problem.

I thought about the fact that being awake for the whole procedure helped me appreciate all the work that went into helping me feel better, and how grateful I was to be able to actually get this taken care of. Often we get asked about the hardest things here, and I frequently tell people my biggest fear is that our family wouldn’t get the medical care we needed in an emergency. Yet, time and time again God has provided access when we need it. I couldn’t imagine having to live with wisdom tooth pain until we came home next summer, and we can’t afford to pay for dental in Canada or the US anyway. Having Dr. Miguel in Gonaives has been a huge blessing to our family. When he did my crown, he only charged us $350 US for the entire procedure, including the root canal, the form work, ordering the crown from the Dominican Republic, a temp crown and then the final work. Chris just had a root canal finished up for $150. My wisdom teeth? $220 for the whole thing. Such a blessing! God provides.

I also thought about the people that God has made Chris and I to be. I fully realize that this life we live is not for everyone. There are many that, just reading this, would feel stressed out. But, we wake up each day knowing this is where God wants us to be, and because of that I can push aside any of those feelings that I might have over any given situation and know that it’s all going to be okay. Is it stressful to go into a medical facility and think that it’s definitely below what my North American standards might be? Yes. But, I can do it. And I can be okay doing it. I’m thankful for that. I’m thankful that God knew we could do this.

So, here I sit, taking tons of Ibuprofen and Tylenol looking like I got in a bar fight and wishing I could eat everything in sight but sipping on chicken broth. And I am thankful. Yes, it hurts, but I know that is now temporary and that in about a week I’ll feel mostly normal. There won’t be any more pain and I can move on.

~Leslie

Getting to Start Over

Yesterday was one of those days. You know the kind. You wake up having an idea of how you plan to use your time and what’s on the “to do” list for the day, but then you hear the record scratch of things taking a completely different direction. The train has basically derailed and you just get to go for the ride.

As I went into the day I had plans to finish taking certain things off my old computer and then cleaning it off so we could use it for other things. One of the things that I really wanted off of it was all my autofill contacts from Outlook. Let me put it this way – five years is a long time to be using autofill and not entering addresses in your contact base. 

Apparently there are ways to transfer the old files to a new Outlook version, but after fighting with it all morning not a single one wanted to work for me. Beyond frustrating. 

After fighting with that for way too long I decided to switch gears. Somewhere in the midst of that stuff the old laptop shut down. I was working unplugged, and it did what it normally does when the battery dies, so I didn’t think anything of it and just plugged it in to charge. A few hours later I went to start it up again and couldn’t get past the Lenovo screen. It just sat there. Chris mucked around with it for a bit then took the hard drive out to put into an external drive and the drive worked fine. I can plug it in to my new computer and see and access everything on it. We decided that it was best to just put the old one a way for a bit. We may try to see if we can get it to boot sometime down the road, but not now. It’s not a priority. It was frustrating because we were excited about having a spare computer that we could use for non-essential things like watching movies.

So, it was one of those days where I felt like I was getting nowhere. Nothing was working. In fact, things were doing quite the opposite. 

It was one of those days where I just had to let go of some stuff because I couldn’t do anything about it.

I wasn’t making headway with importing addresses, so I had to walk away. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out, and maybe I won’t. If we’ve emailed in the last 5 years and you want to hear from me it might be a good idea to send me an email… ;)

Maybe one day we’ll be able to boot the old computer and use it again, but not this week. There are other things to do. 

When Peggy arrived and we were talking about what a typical day looks like here I said, “You know how it is, you can go into a day with a list of things you want to do, but then 5 other things pop up that take priority, because this is Haiti.” 

You don’t get to pick and choose. Just just have to go with it. 

And then you remember that tomorrow is another day.

As I was venting and saying choice words yesterday afternoon just out of sheer frustration Peggy gently reminded me that everything happens when it’s supposed to, if it’s supposed to. Yes, so true. 

Tomorrow is another day, and each day has enough trouble of its own. But, even with trouble, we get to wake up each day and start over. 

Whatever bogged me down yesterday, doesn’t have to bog me down today. I’m not saying that there won’t be stuff that I have to continue to deal with, but rather that sometimes having a night of rest and fresh perspective helps me to see things through different eyes.

Is it annoying that I now have to rebuild my contacts one by one. Yep. But, not the end of the world. 

Is it annoying that the old laptop doesn’t want to work right now. Yep. But, we can’t and don’t want to do anything about it right now. 

When I woke up this morning I tried to come into the day with a fresh start in mind. I have a list, I’m crossing things off. Something that I was thinking was going to take a few more days is now done. Other things, I’m doing what I can but I can only do so much when I’m waiting on others to do their part. And the rest? It’ll happen when it happens. 

I think one of the greatest things I’ve learned since moving to Haiti is what flexibility really looks like. 

Flexibility isn’t adjusting your calendar when you have all the options to do so. Flexibility is rolling with things when you have zero choice in the matter, and trying to do what you can, then leave the rest. It’s seeing the advantages in the situation when it seems like none are there. It means learning what you can and being grateful. 

What am I grateful for?

I’m grateful that we took the steps to get me a new computer when we did. Like I said a couple posts ago, there was no crisis this time, so it felt weird. And, here we are two weeks later with the crisis completely avoided. I feel really grateful for that! Aside from a few bumps, it’s no big deal. I had already done all the work for the most part, it was just a couple little things that we can do without. 

I’m grateful for my husband and the fact that we balance each other out and carry the load when the other is having a hard time. When I was having a minor meltdown yesterday he just went to work on what he could do, and let me feel frustrated. No telling me to suck it up, and lots of sharing in the frustration where he could. 

I’m thankful for Peggy, who gently spoke words of wisdom, encouraged, and then helped Olivia with her homework when I was trying to get dinner ready so I didn’t feel burned out. Such a sweet blessing. 

I’m thankful for a comfy bed and good rest. For many years I’ve struggled with back and joint pain that would leave me feeling exhausted in the morning and it’s dissipated a lot in the last year. I sleep more soundly now than I have since we started our family, which I think is mostly because there are a lot of nights where neither kid is waking up anymore. Being able to sleep through the night…priceless!

I’m grateful for coffee. Not in the “I need it to give me a jolt” kind of way, but in the way where I fully appreciate the work that goes into it. Yonese buys our coffee green in the market, then hand sorts it and roasts it. The smell of freshly roasted coffee is amazing. Getting to drink her coffee every morning is such a gift. We. Are. Spoiled. I also have a fun wood plate on my counter that holds shakers or cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin spice mix, yummy Coffee mate from Chris’ Mum, and a couple bottles of homemade flavor syrup. With my microwave and a cheap $10 battery operated milk frother I get to have lattes every morning. It’s my special little thing. My morning treat. And after almost 9 years of being here I savor it not only for the deliciousness, but also for the little bit of normality it brings.

I hope that if this finds you struggling today that it might be a reminder that tomorrow is a new day. You can wake up and start all over tomorrow. And, you might be able to see things more clearly or differently. And, maybe things will still be just as hard, or harder tomorrow. But, at some point they will get better. Keep moving forward. Tomorrow is coming.

~Leslie

Can I Be In Love With A Lappy?

Okay, this is going to be a slight diversion from our regular programming. Wait, do we even have regular programming? Huh. 

Anywayyyy…

When we were home in the summer and I was meeting with our board member that is helping me get all the stuff that I need to know for the website, etc, and he looked at my laptop and said, “How old is that thing?” 

Five years.

Okay. He’s a software guy. He looked at me and told me that it would probably be a wise decision to look at getting a new one sometime soon because once I got all the programs loaded that I needed it would not only slow down my old one, but there was a very real possibility that the old one would end up crashing from all the work it would be expected to do. And, this girl ain’t got time for that!

One day a couple of weeks ago I was chatting with him on Skype and we ran through a list of things and ended up talking computer replacements. And that night I got one. It was all so fast and it didn’t involve some sort of crisis like the blue screen of death or being told my photos were lost and gone forever. It almost feels wrong or frivolous when you don’t buy a computer because of a crisis. Am I on my own with that one?

So, Peggy arrived on Thursday with my new little friend, and yesterday I spent the day loading and transferring things and mucking with settings. Moment of truth here – I only got about 3 hours of sleep the night before because I was thinking about all the work it was going to be and having to get acquainted with Windows 8. I am so not joking. At 1 am I was lying in bed watching tutorials on the iPad with my earphones in so I wouldn’t wake Chris up. Crazy, right? I was reminded of an interesting personality trait that I have – when I’m in the learning process with something my brain goes into overdrive until it starts to get some form of mastery, then it totally chills out and acts like we’ve been here all along. Photoshop – dreaming about it until I got several days into tutorials and now I think about it, but in a “hey, I can totally do that” sort of way.

So, yesterday was lappy day and I hate the process. Inevitably there’s something that’s not going to work right or files won’t transfer or you just look at this piece of plastic and microchips and wonder what the heck all these programs are for. All in all? Not too bad, actually. I had some bumps trying to get it to connect to our third world internet system, but once I got through that things moved ahead nicely. File transferring? Fastest and easiest that it’s ever gone (I’ve been around the block a few times). In fact, it was so easy that I felt like something was wrong. it was too easy. I may have uttered the words, “Technology is amazing!” more than a few times. 

I know we’re still getting to know each other and that I shouldn’t make any major judgments until the third or fourth date, but I think I’m in love.

What did I get?

Well, after several failed attempts at mainstream laptops in the past Chris insisted that my last one had to be a Thinkpad, because Thinkpads have always been industry leaders not only in performance, but in durability. I didn’t love the choice at first, but 5 years people! And, the computer is no where near worn out, it just won’t work well for what I need going forward. The only things we ever needed to do to it were get a new battery, and upgraded my memory a couple years ago with a solid state drive. No matter how well you treat a computer here, Haiti is hard on them. It’s the humidity and dust, and it can’t be avoided. Yes, they can be more spendy, but when you consider the cost of having to fix a computer here or replace it, as well as the frustration of not having one available, it’s worth it. 

After a bunch of research looking at all the Lenovo Thinkpad options, as well as reading reviews, I got a Thinkpad T440s. People, this thing is slick! It’s meant to be a workhorse but it’s also fancy. By fancy I mean it’s about 0.8″ thick and weighs 3.5 pounds. I got a great deal on one that has maxed out RAM and a big solid state drive. We’ve just had too many drive crash issues that we won’t go without now. Because TIH (this is haiti). I love the keyboard, it’s super responsive and great to type on. I just love everything about this little guy so far. 

Windows 8? I completely understand why people would hate it. And I’m really happy that I read and watched the tutorials on the Windows website before I went into things. If I hadn’t, I would have hated it too. The thing is, it’s actually pretty brilliant and intuitive if you consider that it was designed to be used with touch technology. And, they give you all the same options with a mouse. Most people freak out because it looks so different and they don’t have the same desktop view, but the desktop is still there and it’s easy to get to. You just have the option of navigating between the standard desktop and the Start screen where you can have everything consolidated right in front of you. You can have live updates for things like Facebook and news feeds right there. You can see your calendar and get reminders, have all the applications that you use the most right there rather than having to go through menus to get to them. You can personalize it as much as you want by moving things around, resize the icons, group and label things. I’m still getting used to it and know that it’ll take a bit of time, but overall not a bad experience. 

So, that’s me! Me and my lappy. 

Have a great weekend!

~Leslie

 

These Kids…

I thought that after the last post it might be fun to finally share some of my pictures. If nothing else at least the grandparents will be happy ;)

Our kids both have big personalities. Alex, when he’s in the right mood, is such an easy subject. Olivia is in this stage where she tries to perform for the camera so it’s hard to get good, natural pictures of her right now, but every once in a while she gives me something to work with. One of the advantages of having white walls in and out along with big shady trees outside is that we get amazing light in our house at different times of the day, as well as out on the deck. I especially love the light in our bedroom. Most of these were taking on our bed. They definitely weren’t edited to the extent that they could have been because I think that there’s something sweet about keeping kids natural to an extent, remembering bumps and scrapes and food on their faces.

I LOVE that picture of Alex so much. I don’t even have words.

 

Little Mister insisted on playing with the swim goggles.

 

 

Miss O loves being dramatic :)

 

God Only Knows

I’ll be the first to admit that I can be one cranky bear, especially when I’m feeling overwhelmed or just “off”. Typically it’s triggered by tiredness or something like that. Ahem, 91 and your humid friend, I see you both lurking there in the corner…

I’m a huge advocate for doing what you love, because I believe that God has created us, and that he’s made each of us with unique gifts and skills and that it brings him great happiness to see those things that he’s planted in us being used in many ways. Helping people. Loving others. Creating things. I could go on. I think you get my drift.

Coming from that place it’s hysterical to me that I’m sometimes the last to figure some of this stuff out in regards to myself. I can have conversations with friends and family and point out things in them and encourage them to run with it, knowing it’ll be an amazing thing, and yet I can have all those things in front of me and have a hard time putting the pieces together. 

Or, maybe it’s not that I can’t always see them, but that I can see those pieces and just feel like I can’t do anything about it.

That’s where I’ve been sitting for the last few years. I know I’ve talked about this in some detail in the past few months, but it’s a process and I’m processing right now, so this is what you get.

Here’s the thing. I think that I’ve always been a creative. A person who needs to be making and dreaming and doing. As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized little quirky things about myself that I now see are all glaring indications that I’m a creative type, but I’ve just dismissed them as quirks and never put them in the context that I’m putting them in now. Things like loving texture and always having to touch things. Looking at scenery and getting more excited about the way a sun beam is shining down than about the whole scene. Collecting stationary, not because I actually want to use it but because I love the feel of it and the graphics and all the things. Being a mixed bag when it comes to narrowing down any kind of “style” because one minute I love things that are bright and bold and the next I want wood grain and rusty metal. I’m the one that has sun patterned floor tiles at my husband’s suggestion – but am totally fine with it for this house – and baby blue cupboards. I’m not afraid of color. 

And I’ve been stuck at a desk doing admin work for the past, well, my whole working life pretty much. 

I remember the day a few months ago as I was processing through Peggy arriving on staff (which is tomorrow, by the way, and IT’S TOMORROW!) and what that would mean for things here going forward. As I was thinking about it, it was like scales were peeled off my eyes and all of the sudden I saw it. 

I saw all the pieces of this giant puzzle that is me come together and I finally stepped back to see the bigger picture. All these needs that the mission had, it was me  that was supposed to fill them. Until we had Peggy lined up I wasn’t in a place to even think it was possible. I had been creeping in that direction and loved it, but never thought it would be me.

And now, fast forward a few months, and I’m sitting here settling into this new phase and it feels like coming alive. I didn’t realize how much I’d stagnated in the past few years. It’s not that I wasn’t doing something good, because I was. I was doing a lot of really good things for the mission that needed to be done and I needed to be the one to do them. It was just time to step forward and bring all of these pieces together for something more.

You see, as long as I can think back in my adult life I’ve been hovering around things like graphic design and photography and visual arts in general, as well as writing. I know what I like. I have visions for end products, but haven’t had the time or the tools to do any of it. Programs were too expensive. I couldn’t take time away from a “real” job to go to school for specific training. I like to write, and do it as a side gig here on the blog. I just wasn’t in a position to pursue any of it in any seriousness. And, I’ll admit it, there has been a part of me that has thought some of that was frivolous because I had all this “important” work to do. 

But now here I am. 

This past January I got my new to me camera, and while not every picture is amazing (talk to any photographer and they’ll tell you this is actually the norm) there are many times where I load stuff into my computer and I get giddy because some of my stuff is good. I’m proud of it. And I realize I might actually be able to do this. 

As we transition Peggy to taking over a lot of the admin stuff my desk has been cleared of so many of the mundane tasks I’ve been bogged down with and in the past two weeks I’ve been pouring over things like learning Photoshop and everything that goes with it.

And you know what? I love it. 

I am absolutely in my element. Chris keeps finding me at my desk working through tutorials and watching videos and playing around. He keeps commenting on my dedication to wanting to learn all of this because we both know that it’s going to lead to a giant step forward for the mission in everything from our print materials (already been working on these over the past couple years) to our website to video and social media – all major needs. 

The thing is, I find myself thinking, “I’ve gotten through everything else. Now I get to go play with Photoshop. I get to do…” And I have to be honest with him about the fact that it doesn’t feel like work. That I’m excited to get at it and pour over it for hours on end. I’m giddy about it because it’s unlocked this world for me that I’ve been hovering on the outside of for so long. It’s bringing all these parts of myself together. 

I think a big part of not exploring some of this stuff sooner was just plain fear. It all seemed so complicated and overwhelming. I could never figure all of that out. But, I can, and I am. And it feels amazing. It’s amazing because in the process of engaging my brain, my spirit is coming alive. This is part of who God has made me to be, and he loves that I’m figuring it out. He loves that this creativity that he’s planted in me is being woken up and that I can use that to love his people. I can use the love of beautiful things and communicating that to people to honor him. 

Does it get any better than that?

And, why did it take me so long to get here.

Well, I actually know the answer to that. It just wasn’t time. I needed to be doing other things, good thing, before this so that when it was time to be here I could see God’s hand in the whole plan and I could more deeply appreciate arriving here. And I do. It’s so beautiful and I love how he orchestrates things. Bringing details together to make something even better. 

God hears the whispers and hopes of our hearts. He feels our groanings when we know we’re in process. All those years of being crabby and overwhelmed were my spirit saying, “This isn’t it. I’m here, and I’m doing it, but this isn’t it.” The process has allowed me the time to learn more about who I am, and it’s allowed Chris the time to learn who I am and what I need. He sees how happy I’ve been in the past few weeks and he loves it. He just keeps telling me how happy he is to see me so engaged and excited. My brain has been in high gear again. It feels amazing.

I share all this with you because I know we all go through periods where we get stuck and it feels like we’re slugging through mud. I want to encourage you, keep slugging. It’s especially hard when you know that there’s nothing bad about the place you’re in. Even harder when you know what you’re doing has a lot of value to it. God wants to take each of us to the place where we can fully be the people he’s created us to be. He hears the small whispers of our hearts, wanting something more, even if we don’t know we’ve whispered them. He cares about those things. 

“Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

I’ve lost track of how often God has provided for those small whispers. Things that I never utter out loud to another human soul. And it’s always so humbling when he does provide and I see it. I feel so cared for. Sometimes the reason things never get spoken is because they feel silly or frivolous, but he cares. 

I’m learning to own this new phase and that’s hard at times, but in other ways it feels like coming into my own. 

It’s hard to wake up in the morning and change my internal conversation and to remind myself that what I considered “fun” and things to do when all my other work was done, now get to be my work. Daily I’m having to remind myself that this is what it’s going to look like going forward. That’s not to say that I won’t have other admin stuff do, I will. It’s just that this is going to be what I get to do for work! Seriously?!? 

 

This summer when we were at my parents house, one of the first things my dad said to me within hours of arriving at their house was, “So kid, when are you going to write a book?” And for the first time I actually said, out loud, “I really want to, I just know that while the kids are small I just don’t have the time, but I really want to one day.” And then I realized that I had just owned that for the first time.

It’s not just that I want to write, I need to. It’s part of me. It’s not just that I want to take pictures, I need to. It’s part of me. It’s not just that I want to do visual design work, I need to. It’s part of me. All of it is how I see the world and how I communicate and I’m finally in a place where I know I can own that.

I have a huge learning curve ahead. A lot of work ahead of me. But, it’s so exciting and freeing to be in a place where I finally have the tools and the time and the opportunity to explore than in depth. 

Random Update

Edit: I was having internet issues last night when I tried to post this, so I apologize to those of you that are confused about why I would have written a post with nothing more than “b” as the title. 

It’s 8:30 pm and 91*. In case you don’t know what that feels like, it feels like sitting in your own sweat. It feels like sweating when you’re hardly moving. It feels like chugging a quart of Gatorade because once you open the hatch your body realizes that you’ve sweated so much that guzzling the stuff might be your lifeline.

I wish I was joking, but I’m not. It’s dang hot right now. And we keep getting little hints of rain, but then it doesn’t amount to much or doesn’t cool things off. Today Chris muttered the words, “Don’t worry, September is coming.” He was trying to be optimistic, like, “Hey, we’re heading toward the finish line!” but I had to remind him that sometimes September is the worst month of all, then October sneaks in and one day you realize that you aren’t sweating from just thinking anymore and that maybe life with cohesive thought is possible.

It’s hot.

Other random happenings…

We’re raising a tadpole in a jar in our window sill. His name is Freddy. Olivia scooped him out of a puddle in the work yard two days ago and he was literally the size of a mustard seed. He’s happily swimming in his jar and enjoying the view of our kitchen. I had no idea tadpoles grew so fast.

We’re potty training. Little Mister was bribed with candy every time he sat on the potty and tried, and three days later we’re doing pretty darn good. There might actually be light at the end of the tunnel, which is refreshing considering that on Friday he informed me that he was going to wear diapers for the rest of his life.

Chris and I have been walking around with perma-grins on our faces for the last week and a half for several reasons work related. Some of it we can’t talk about yet because it’s in relation to the study I mentioned last time. Today we had a visit from DINEPA, Haiti’s water authority. In the past we’ve felt frustrated with the organization, but they’ve had a change over in staff and strategy. Today’s meeting was happening because the consultant working with them wanted to visit the most well functioning filter projects in the country and we came highly recommended by several people and other organizations in the household water world. I may have had to pick my jaw up of the floor when he told me that their main reason for visiting was to understand what we do better, and then figure out how they can help us ramp up what we do so we can do more of it. I’m still baffled. We’ve been so encouraged by that and the other things going on because it’s meant years and years of hard work all coming together to make something that is working really well. I really want to write more about our model and why it’s working and what the markers of that are in the development world, but that needs to be for another day.

Now. Now I’m going to take the 3rd shower of the day, drink some more Gatorade, and watch a show with my man.

Happy middle of the week friends!

~Leslie