Friday, January 12, 2018

Remembering 8 years ago

My heart is heavy and I'm not in much of a writing mood, but I felt compelled to at least acknowledge that today marks 8 years since the big earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of Haitians and misplaced millions. I wrote a more wordy post on this day last year, but for today I will just say that my heart goes out to all the Haitians that are remembering today with pain. While Haitians resilience is remarkable, this really was a horrific day in their history. I will be honoring the victims as well as the survivors with a minute of silence (and prayers in my case) at 4:53 as requested by the Haitian Embassy, which is the time that the earthquake struck. I also am looking forward to watching a live Facebook broadcast tonight by Williamson (with Arise Project for Humanity) as he recounts his experiences that day. You can't leave an interaction with him without feeling encouraged, so I am looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

No adoption news or feelings to share. Not today.

Thursday, January 4, 2018

Next time

December was a difficult month. Several personal and family struggles made the already busy month physically and emotionally very challenging. For a good part of the month I hoped for a ray of hope to come from Haiti (in the form of good news). It did not. However with all the difficulties occupying our hearts and minds it did leave less time for sadness about not being able to finally hang an additional stocking on our mantle and worry about if our little girl was being held or fed on Christmas Day.

I am grateful that the holidays did offer glimpses of joy and magic that is only found at Christmastime. I truly am grateful for my family and for the memories we were able to create together over the holidays.

Today as I updated the kids photos in the entryway I looked at the spot reserved for our daughter by this Haiti print and realized that before the next time I replace these pictures a photo of her should already be there. That made me smile. Also, as a sidenote...I bought the metal trees you can see a little bit of in the corner of this photo a couple Christmases ago and they were made in Haiti. Metal art is popular there and I love my little trio of trees...

Another bright spot over the holidays was getting this card in the mail...
This cutie is Nelie Chery. We have the honor of sponsoring her education through Haitian Roots. The last 3 years we have been excited to receive a card around the holidays from her with an updated picture. She is so adorable and I look forward to when I will be able to meet her when we travel to Haiti someday. I'm sure her family is so proud of her!

Also, something else from Haitian Roots...they did a fundraiser where you could sponsor the painting of a flower on a mural the kids would paint at the school and put someone's name on it. We purchased a flower for each of kids and also one for Nelie. We liked the idea of her being able to see her name on the mural at school over the years as she attends there...and we thought it would be a fun gift idea for our boys to see their name on the mural's flowers too! You can see Noah's name on the orange flower in the bottom, center of this picture...

Obviously Max & Lincoln here...

And cute little Nelie...

I also opted to purchase many of our Christmas gifts this year from Haiti. I was so pleased with how beautiful they were and I love the idea of supporting artists there who are receiving a fair wage and helping to stimulate the economy in this country that I have yet to visit, but that my heart has already grown to love.

I am really hopeful that we will receive good news from Haiti soon. Somehow the passing of the holidays and the beginning of a new year has refreshed a bit of my optimism. Perhaps it is my conviction in being able to say that I am quite confident that this is the year we will meet our daughter...