Memo to Hurricane Tomas: GO AWAY!

With less than five days to go before I leave for Haiti, yet another new wrinkle has appeared. Hurricane Tomas is looking at the moment like it will hit Haiti on Thursday. I am scheduled to leave for Haiti on Friday afternoon.

With over a million people living in tent camps, I can not even imagine the devastation if a hurricane hits Haiti. There is literally nowhere safe to put the people who are living in the tent cities to get them out of the storm. Please join me in praying that hurricane Tomas weakens and changes course to miss Haiti.

At the Urban house, we've received some bad family news I am not at liberty to share, at least not now and not over the internet. Let me say only that the forces of darkness apparently want me to be anxious and afraid. Please pray with me that I stay grounded on the word of God and in the calm that God alone holds my fate and my family's future in his hands. We stand on God's promises and trust him.

Lord, we know you have the power to control the wind and the waves. We humbly intercede right now for the people of Haiti. Spare the people the destruction of a hurricane, we ask in the name of Jesus. Turn Tomas in a direction where it will not cause loss of life. We pray against the spread of cholera. We pray against the tide of hopelessness. We ask for solutions to the many problems of the land, especially the issue of housing for the people. Lord we place our hope in you and ask you Lord God to protect the innocent. Lord, we ask you to save us from despair and put our hope entirely in you.

TICK -TICK- TICK

The clock is ticking because I'm leaving for Haiti in six days. If you've been intending to donate to the fund to build houses for homeless families in Haiti, please do it now. Do NOT procrastinate one more day!

Many of you have asked me about the cholera epidemic in Haiti and how that would affect my plans. My answer: only God knows. Cholera is spread by unclean water, so avoiding contact with contaminated water and to a lesser degree contaminated food is key.

While in Haiti, I am staying at the Heartline Ministries Guesthouse, which is run for American visitors and by American hosts. They are very familiar with the protocols for safely handling food and water. God willing, I won't need to worry about getting sick.

But if cholera hits the Port Au Prince area, Heartline Ministries would likely become involved in helping the afflicted. So really, who knows? I'm trying not to think too far ahead. This is one of those time when I am trying very hard to place myself in God's hands and not worry over every possible scenario.

The good news is that more people are donating to build houses in Haiti--the bad news is that we are running out of time. Currently we are at about $1650 or 33% of the $5,000 goal

There are only three days left to donate through the Paypal route,(the Chip-In Meter) if that is your intention. The Chip-In Meter closes on November first, and we are practically there. Paypal is not the only method available--there is always the good ole' personal check. The blue graph on the far right shows the ACTUAL TOTAL, adding together the Paypal contributions from the Chip-In Meter and checks people have mailed in.

You are very welcome to send in a personal check. Checks should be made out to: Heartline Ministries and sent to:
Heartline Ministies ATTN.Pound4Pound Housing Fund
P.O. Box 898
Sunnyside, WA 98944.

Be sure to add that "Pound4Pound Housing Fund" on the envelope or the memo line of the check so that your donation will be specifically dedicated by the bookkeeper to this housing effort.

In the meantime, huge thunderstorms are dumping rain and wind on Port au Prince several times a week. Living conditions there are bad and getting worse--it's been over 9 months since the earthquake. Safe, basic housing would make a huge impact on the lives of families there. Please help.

The Big Diet Reveal

OK, three months of dieting. Drum roll please....I've lost 17 pounds.

I was hoping for more weight loss, but a little more than 5 pounds a month is pretty good. It's the best I could do without a personal trainer, nanny or chef. I feel I gave a good, honest effort and got some decent results.

If you are sponsoring me on a per pound basis, it's time to pay up. I'm continuing to diet and exercise, so those of you who feel inclined could maybe spot me three pounds and call it an even 20 pounds. I have a feeling I will be working quite hard physically in Haiti and will probably lose some weight there.

You can pay thorough the Chip-In Meter on the far right side of the page, if you have a Paypal account. If you would like to send a check directly to the ministry, please make the check out to Heartline Ministries and send it to:

Heartline Ministries
Attn. Pound4pound Housing Fund
P.O. Box 898
Sunnyside WA 98944

Heartline Ministries is a 501-C3 non-profit organization and you will receive a receipt for your donation that you can use for income tax purposes. It is very important that you write the Pound4pound Housing Fund on the envelope so that the bookkeeper knows to put it in the account specifically earmarked for building houses.

Of course, if you know me and see me in the regular course of a week, you can make the check out to Heartline Ministries and hand it to me and I will mail it in for you. But it might be quicker to just mail it in and be done with it. I need to get everything to the bookkeeper by November 1st!

I would really like to go to Haiti with an idea of how many houses we can build there as a result of all of us working together for homeless families in Haiti. $2500 builds 2 houses. I say let's build at least four houses for homeless families in Haiti.

Please don't delay if you have a pledge to send in. I leave for Haiti in eight days. P.S. We have at least $200 more than we did yesterday! We're at $1,515 raised or 30% of goal. It's time to really make those graphs move. Please help.

Just 10 Days to GO--The Update

Imagine camping with your family. Now imagine camping with your family, with no camping gear FOR NINE MONTHS. That is what is going on right now in Haiti. Most people are living under tarps and blankets cobbled together to form the most minimal type of shelter. My brain explodes and my heart aches when I think about parents trying to raise their children in these horrible conditions.

Over one million people are living under tarps and tents at this moment in Port-au-Prince. My goal is to build four families houses in Haiti. That requires $5,000. At this moment, we have $1,315 in total donations. That is about 26% of the goal. The scary thing is, I leave for Haiti in 10 days! That's not much time.


I have been struggling mightily with a way to give you readers an accurate update on the amount of money we have raised together to build houses for homeless families in Haiti.

The Chip-In Meter (and the associated orange bar graph) on the side of the blog is great for people with Paypal accounts, but it has some significant limitations. There is no way for the orange graph to record the money from checks that people have mailed in directly to Heartline Ministries. Thus the orange bar graph has been rather inaccurate when it comes to totals from all sources of funds. I've been trying to figure out a better way of visually showing that.

So now we have a new improved blue graph near the top of the right side of this blog. It is just above the Chip-In graph. This blue graph adds together the Paypal contributions and checks for a complete financial picture of where we are. (Thanks to my hubby Ralph for working on the graph this weekend, in spite of the fact that our three kids were in a conspiracy to not give him a moment's peace to work on it.)

Those who have paid close attention may have noticed something else...I have lowered the goal. The old goal was probably unrealistic for these current economic times. I really appreciate the people who have dug in their pockets to give a donation to build a house for a homeless family in Haiti. $2500 builds two strong wooden houses in Haiti. Having a safe house means that families can stop living under tarps, tents and bedsheets.

The wonderful women in my Tuesday morning bible study group took up a collection for the Haiti Houses, and generously donated over $450. Thank you so much! I really appreciate seeing your faith in action. Appropriately, in the bible study we are reading and discussing the book of ACTS--which is largely about missions. Thank you Marilyn (our teacher) and all the fabulous women who attend. You all are huge gifts in my life. Again, I thank you.

I must get the donated money to the Heartline bookkeeper before I leave, so really Nov. 1 is our collection deadline. The funds need to be donated through Paypal or mailed by then.

So get ready to pay! I've been dieting for almost three solid months. I'll do the official weigh in tomorrow and find out how many pounds I've lost and how much you need to contribute to Heartline Ministries, if you are sponsoring me on a per pound basis. Of course, all donations of any amount are welcome.

Remember: In Haiti, camping has nothing to do with vacation. Please help me build some houses for needy families there.

Carrying --Two Different Kinds

Yesterday I did something somewhat unusual (for me.) In an effort to get more exercise, I walked to the grocery store and carried the groceries home. I used to do that over 20 years ago when I lived in Boston and didn't own a car, but I rarely do it here in Colorado. Buying groceries for my family of five people usually involves more bags of groceries than I can physically carry at once.

This time, I bought only things on special sale and had just 2 bags, probably about 15 pounds of groceries. And boy, did my arms hurt by the time I got home! Seriously--ouch.

All over the world and in many developing countries, women walk and carry food. In most cultures, carrying food and water is women's work, and it consumes A LOT of their time. People who live in Haiti (and many other countries) don't need gyms because the daily tasks of life involve a lot more walking and carrying than life does here.

So in addiition to carrying a physical burden recently, I also find myself carrying a heart-burden for my friend Ross Harrop. I talked about Ross in one of my very first blog entries. Ross is the biggest smack-talker in the world, ever. Somehow he has turned this talent for being a goofball into a career managing the finances of our church. (I know, go figure!)

Here is an antic typical of Ross. A few weeks ago, our family of five was late to church. (Ahem, we won't talk about WHO made us late.) My husband Ralph dropped us off at the church front door so we could miss as little as possible while he parked the car and walked in even later than the rest of us. Ross saw Ralph coming in late, and made a huge spectacle of it. He rushed over, pumped Ralph's hand and exclaimed in a loud voice, "HELLO! WECOME! You must be a newcomer to our church! We start at 10:30 a.m." Now, we have known Ross for about 14 years so we expect this kind of garbage from him, but that is just a very mild example of the type of stunts he pulls all the time.

The thing is, Ross also has the most gigantic heart ever, and he has been my biggest cheerleader in the whole Pound4Pound Challenge. Ross said he will pay me five dollars a pound for every pound I lose. Not even my mother has promised me $5 a pound! So right now, he owes me about $100 towards building the houses in Haiti.

The thing is, Ross just had a huge heart attack on Thursday and nearly died. His wife Jill (long-suffering woman that she is) is a nurse and got him to the hospital in time. He ended up having triple by pass surgery with a 95% blockage in one artery. Ross is only 55 years old, and his son had just gotten married a few days before he suffered the heart attack. Ross and Jill were in Florida for the wedding, so now that he is beginning the process of recovering, we can only love on him and pray for him long distance.

We are praying for you Ross. I mean it. We are. I physically get down on my knees for you every day.

But you still don't get out of paying me the $100 for the Haiti Houses, you big turkey.

Marjorie's Story

Marjorie is the 24 year-old Haitian woman pictured above, whose concrete-block house collapsed on her during the January 2010 earthquake. Because of her severe injuries, Marjorie's left hand was amputated by a British medical charity responding to the earthquake. That charity flew in all the orthopedic doctors they could find after the earthquake in order to handle the serious crush injuries caused by the scale of destruction.

Marjorie also had nerve damage to her right leg and a large gash on her head. After her operation, the British charity asked if Heartline Ministries would provide aftercare and other help for Marjorie, because they needed the bed for another orthopedic patient and Marjorie was not doing well.

Hearline missionary Tara Livesay went to pick up Marjorie in one of the ministry's trucks. Tara says, "Marjorie was one of the saddest people I had met. She cried the entire ride to Heartline and once there she sat totally alone, dejected and depressed."

"Honestly, she seemed without hope. It was obvious watching her that she had no desire to be alive and was deep in depression/mourning. After I dropped her off at Heartline, I got back in my truck and cried. I could not blame Marjorie for hating life and I felt totally helpless to cheer her up."

We can all only imagine the emotional trauma we would feel after losing a hand and suffering other serious injuries. Marjorie became one of the long-term patients in Heartline's care. Volunteer doctors and nurses who flew in from the United States kept volunteering for months and kept the newly formed Heartline Hospital open. There were so many patients with serious injuries, they felt there was no way they could close the hospital. The Heartline patients who stayed in the hospital also began bonding with each other, forming a new community of caring.

With loving and Christ-centered medical care, the patients began to heal. Heartline's staff made arrangements for physical therapists to come from the United States and work with patients who needed therapy, and arranged with other medical organizations to get prosthetic limbs to help the Heartline patients who needed them.

Patients designated time in the evenings where they would gather to sing and pray together. Severely injured people singing, clapping and praising God with gusto together is the most inspiring thing the American medical volunteers say they have ever seen.

Heartline worked with each patient to help figure out their future. Many had no homes to return to--their previous homes were rubble. Marjorie was one of the many Heartline patients who had nowhere to call home anymore.

Many of the medical charities who came to Haiti released patients who had suffered amputations and other serious injuries to live in crude tent camps, saying they were medical organizations only. Heartline felt they could not in good conscience release their patients to the horrible and unsanitary conditions of the tent camps.

Heartline co-founder John McHoul investigated and found that while most of Marjorie's neighborhood was damaged, the buildings closest to her house were still intact and structurally sound. If the rubble were cleared away, Marjorie's house could be rebuilt on the spot where it stood before the quake.

Marjorie lived in a very congested urban area where many buildings had collapsed and yet many remained whole. Much of the devastation was caused, in part, by poor construction standards for buildings. Because money is so scarce for most people in Haiti, people try to build as cheaply as possible and end up taking shortcuts--not using rebar to reinforce concrete walls, or thinning the concrete mixture too much with water and sand to save cost. The result after the earthquake? Well-constructed buildings standing right beside buildings that were heaps of debris.

Paige Porter Livesay, the 15-year-old daughter of two Heartline employees, ran a half-marathon in the United States this past summer and raised over $50,000 for Heartline's housing fund. Marjorie and her family received a new wooden house to replace their collapsed concrete one because of this fundraiser.

Together with Marjorie's family, Heartline employees and fellow patients worked together to construct Marjorie a new house, like the one pictured at the top of this blog. The houses are built from kits, made by Maxima Building in Haiti. The homes have been tested to withstand earthquake and hurricane forces. Marjorie even helped in the construction of her new house. In the picture above, Marjorie is looking out the window of her house while it was still under construction.

Missionary Tara Livesay says,"Of all the patients I met during those first weeks after the earthquke, Marjorie was the one that I thought about most. When I returned to Haiti...I met a different young woman; she had begun the long process of healing...She had learned to smile again."

Please help purchase more housing kits so people in Haiti like Marjorie can rebuild their lives. The kits to build two houses cost a total of $2,500. Whether you can give $5 or $500, please help me to raise the funds to build houses for the many homeless people of Haiti.

Too-busy People

I have to admit something that is hard to admit. I hope it doesn't sound like obnoxious complaining.

I am weary of people I care about telling me they are too busy to read this blog.

Most people in my circle of friendship are busy with really good things. Busy homeschooling their children, busy working because their families really need the money. I have several friends who are working second jobs because credit card debt is smothering them. Others are extremely busy working their home-based businesses.

And then family life intervenes: kids throw up, a hailstorm knocks the shingles off the roof, and the car refuses to start. I know. I know. I live in that world too.

The people I know and love are, in large part, too busy with their own problems to care about people suffering who live in a far-away country.

What I don't want to act is all entitled and self-righteous...with the attitude of "people SHOULD care because I do." We all know people who are just TOO intense about their favorite causes: too into their political opinions, too into animal rights, or rather over-involved in their favorite cause. Being PREACHY is a big turn off.

Quite frankly, I find it really annoying when people come to my house for a party, and then let it be known that if I really cared about the earth, I wouldn't be using paper plates and cups for my guests.

Being judgemental--it's very unattractive.

At the same time, I seem to hear the same phrases over and over and over. "I don't have time." And "It's the bad economy." And I am very frustrated.

I can only make decisions for myself. And I know that when I say, I don't have time for something...to pray, to study the bible, to read something that challenges me, I still manage to find time to spend time reading on the web, to spend time browsing on eBay, or to watch a talk show on television. Heck--Dancing With the Stars is my favorite guilty pleasure. It's cotton candy for the mind.

So far, the people who have pitched in to help build houses in Haiti are--in large part--the people who can least afford it. Two retired missionaries who are on support themselves. A single mom of three kids. These people don't have any more time or any more money than anybody else. Maybe they have less. But somehow they've made it a priority.

I leave for Haiti in less than a month. So far, there is no money to build even one house.

So it makes me wonder: is the problem me?

Maybe I don't have a very good hook publicity-wise. Fifteen-year old Paige Porter Livesay (the daughter of two Heartline employees) raised over $50,000 for houses in Haiti by running a half marathon. (I pray to God he never asks me to run a marathon or you are likely to see some very unpleasant, rebellious behavior that would rival the biblical Job.) A ten-year-old boy named Malcolm has raised money for a Heartline Haiti house through a walk-a-thon--to date he's raised over $2,200.

So is it that I'm not cute enough, or young enough or publicity-savy enough? I'm not 15 years old or 10 years old. I am a pudgy, over-worked, too-busy average American mom. I am not Angelina Jolie. I am not a beauty. I am not trying to do something flashy like break into the Guiness Book of World Records. I don't have a reality tv show. I sorta hate that I'm so unimportant and, well--average. I FEEL UTTERLY POWERLESS.

Beautiful and famous people can raise a lot of money and awareness. Rich people can write large checks. Young people can and do inspire. These are not bad things. Often they are very good things.

So far my appeal to overworked, too busy people doesn't seem to be effective. It's as though I'm saying, "Sponsor another pudgy, overworked, middle-age mom to build houses in Haiti." And people are saying, "No thanks. I'm too busy."

Ideas anyone?

He did not forget you, Collette

Heartline Ministries in Haiti decided that they would open an "instant" hospital within days of the earthquake. They found, however, there were so many injured people that field triage of the wounded became one of the hardest jobs. The materially poorest people of Haiti had little to no medical care available to them. Heartline Ministries drove their trucks into the slums of Haiti to help the wounded people who lived there.

Fortunately, Heartline and the injured people had help from several volunteer emergency medical technicians who traveled from the United States to offer their assistance. The EMTs could assess the injured,and even get drugs for pain and infections started in the field. Heartline employees like missionary Troy Livesay drove the trucks and translated the essential information from English to Creole and back again. The most seriously hurt were taken to the hospital first.

In one of these neighborhoods, Troy found a young pregnant woman laying on the ground in a clearing with many other injured people. The woman was seven months pregnant and in terrible pain any time she attempted to move her body, but she was not yet in labor. Her name was Collette. The medical volunteers guessed she had internal injuries. However, in the midst of the mass casualty situation, there were many other injured people who appeared worse than Collette. It was getting late in the day, and --although it broke his heart-- Troy had to tell Collette he would return for her the next day.

Collette grabbed his hand and said urgently in Creole, "Please don't forget me." Troy promised he would be back.

When the medical team returned to the neighborhood, Troy was determined not to leave without Collette. He found her. As he motioned for a driver to pull the truck up next to where Collette lay on the ground, she waved her arms in the air and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus! You came back for me. Thank you Jesus!" She had been injured and on the ground for six days. Troy said he nearly burst out crying and could barely choke out the words, "I did not forget you."

So Collette was transported to Heartline Hospital, but she and her unborn baby were far from OK. Colette was diagnosed with a severely broken pelvis. The medical team at Heartline got her somewhat stabilized and controlled her pain. But Collette and her baby were in very serious condition.

The doctors suspected she would need surgery and her shattered pelvic bones screwed back together with metal hardware. Collette's baby would have to be delivered early, but Heartline's quickly-opened hospital did not have incubators or the kind of specialized care and equipment that premature infants need. How could Heartline save both the mother and the baby?

Dr. Jen Halverson, the head of Heartline's medical efforts had heard some rumors and television reports that the U.S. Navy's medical ship The Comfort was close to reaching Haiti. Collette and many other of the Heartline patients needed a level of care that Heartline Hospital simply could not provide--but the navy ship could.

Dr. Jen decided to try to find a way to locate the ship and get the Heartline patients to the star medical professionals there. They loaded eleven seriously injured patients, including Collette, onto four trucks and began driving in search of help. They traveled to an area of Port au Prince near the ocean. They stopped and asked directions from anyone and everyone. They found a road where someone told them they were headed toward some Americans.

They found an American military unit who was just beginning to set up camp. "Can you help us?" Dr. Jen asked them, gesturing to the eleven very seriously injured people in the Heartline trucks. The officer in charge said they had been on land for less than an hour, and they didn't have anything set up, but he would see what he could do. Tara Livesay, who had driven one of the trucks, prayed they had not loaded up these eleven injured people needing surgery and driven them around the city for nothing. Here is the story as Tara told it on her blog.

"All of a sudden out of nowhere a helicopter circled over a time or two ... then swooped in. It landed right out in front of us. Two studly helicopter military guys walked over and said they could take four people. We chose the four worst. They said 'We'll be back in ten minutes for more.' We could not believe what was happening. They came back ... and back. Three trips to the ship for the people of Simon Pele (the low-income neighborhood where the injured came from.) I asked a couple of the patients that I had connected with if they were afraid. They seemed to know that something big was about to happen. How humbling it was to watch the poorest of the poor ... forgotten by most ... be some of the very first patients to arrive by helicopter to a US Navy Hospital floating in the Port. I stood there weeping as they took the last group up."

"We left Heartline on Jen's hunch - with almost no location information and no certainty we would be received - and we found the American base, that had only been in place for 60 minutes, that led to the helicopter coming, that led to hurting people getting help."

"It felt like justice to me. Hurray for justice. Hurray for miracles."

Collette got a miracle. She was transported to the hospital ship where the navy medical professionals were able to deliver and care for her baby. The baby is a girl named Esther, who is alive and healthy today.

Unbelievably, Esther's C-section birth was captured in news photos from the Comfort that were seen all over the world. Collette and Esther were even featured in LIFE magazine. Once her baby was delivered, Collette received the life-saving surgery she needed on her pelvis and will be able to live a healthy and normal life. Both Collette and baby Esther returned to Heartline Hospital after several weeks on the navy ship so Collette could get follow-up care and physical therapy.

This is just one story of how Heartline helped the people of Haiti after the earthquake, acting as the hands of Jesus in an amazing situation. More to come.