I didn’t realize how involved we were with the working mechanisms of the orphanage until we got to the PAP airport. It feels like it’s the first chance Dixie and I have truly talked….. I mean really talk to each other about more than just the situation in front of our face… Long and short….. this trip has been good!  How could it be anything but good, I spent 3 weeks with my bride in the Caribbean!

Pictured Dixie, Harley, & Louinet at Tirivier Haiti looking over the Artibonite River

We have been on the ground at EGO for 14 days, 10 hours, 43 minutes, and 30 seconds. It has taken me 11 days of this time to figure out that the kids are beyond me. Just when I think all systems are running smooth, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t get it. The system has become an “underground sub system”. Suddenly I remember my first trip to Haiti; it took me 9 days to figure out I was a “blan”. Simply put, a “white guy ”.

Haiti is a different culture. You say, duh! I should know that. The orphanage is a sub culture nestled in the Haitian culture. I should have paid more attention to my socialology teachers. Let me explain. Dixie and I come from down the road “Nan Wo” Haiti. We become substitute Haitian mom and dad to 69 kids, and 30+- staff. (sub culture meet sub culture) To all of you who have kids imagine your kids are wired to a different understanding of life.. “Give me some candy… Give me a dollar, give me a drink.” Well, so far it sounds just like any 3 to 5 year old, right? In Nan Wo and Desselines the children have very little supervision and they are left to fend for themselves. As to the orphanage, if you allow, “No” can mean “Yes”. Dad says, “Stay off the golf cart!” (the line in the sand) So the child only gets half on the cart and falls off into the mud once the cart takes off. “Dad, I did not get on the cart. I was only half on.” Some of you say that sounds just like my kids. I’m sure one of my 22 children sounded like that at least once. So put this into the mix. Your kids don’t speak your language (you may already think that to be true). You speak English, they speak Creole. You tell them to clean the chicken coop….. they don’t want to do it in the first place and they don’t understand a word you just said. In fact, you don’t understand what they said back to you, or in my case, my selective hearing refused to hear it. You think, “Man, they get it now, tonight the job will be done with excellence and on time.” Then you discover you don’t even completely know what their job is in the first place. Do I milk the cow every morning or every other morning? I’ll feed the chickens their week’s food all tonight so I can skip feeding for the next five days. Try this with your dog when you go on vacation. Its cheaper then boarding the dog at “Happy Paws”!

Best way to describe EGO is that its like climbing a mountain, and each mountain peek reveals a valley with a new peek rising up in the distance. In Haiti they call it “mountains beyond mountains”. Is this what they are talking about? These kids have grown on me….. Dixie, can we adopt Marko? Ill only be 70 something when he is 18. Abraham and Sara were in their late nineties when they had their first child. What do you think, Dix?

Thanks for your prayers….

Harley and Dixie

Dixie and I should have watched some classic orphanage movies to prep us for this trip… Little Orphan Annie, Newsies, or Oliver Twist.

The day Marla and Ken left for the United States one of the boys got ‘deathly sick’ with a scraped knee, or was it a sore throat. At any rate, 2 days later the epidemic started to spread through the boy’s dorm…..boy number two could not go to school because he had a sore throat, or was it a scraped knee, the best “awe, my clothes are dirty”. I can just hear there muffled Creole voices discussing how well this sickness thing worked to skip school. Of coarse, all of the staff including Dixe and I, were clueless as to the spreading illness until one morning I was on a toilet-leak hunt on the orphanage grounds……(if a toilet runs none stop the water pressure goes down). “Dixie, why in the world are these boys here? Shouldn’t they be in school?” You bet ya, they should be in school…. The boys learned you don’t mess with Madam Dixie ‘dmama’ and went off to school.

Pudence and Kervens take care of the goats and the cows. The milk cow has a month old calf which is to be separated from its mom at night so the boys can milk it and give the milk to the cooks to use as seen fit. Once again as soon as Marla and Ken jumped into their car, all the rules changed. Pudence and Kervens saw no reason to separate mama cow from the calf any more… thinking “the calf needs the milk and milking the cow by hand is a lot of work any way”. Day 3: I was poking around the kitchen as I often do and some how the subject of milk came up. The staff told me there was NO milk! Pudence could not milk the cow because it had a baby. Time for another Harley talk with the boys and a supervised evening milking. These guys do a lot of work to do the animals the right way, all by hand. Next morning, Pudence shows up at our door sporting a huge smile as he showed me the pail full of the morning’s milk.

I have many more stories, each just as funny. I can’t help but wounder how much laughter there is in heaven as God and the angels sit and talk about Dixie and Harley and why they were late for church today.

I ask myself, “Would I do this again?” No worries. Dixie says EGO won’t ask you to do it again…. Simply put the above stories shouldn’t be out there in the public.

Thanks for your prayers….

Harley and Dixie

The kids were scared of the bull… so I gave them something to help them forget.

A BIG thank you to all of you who are praying for our time here at Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage. We have had our challenges, much like a substitute teacher would expect…. little do the kids and staff know Dixie & I have done it all. In Creole they call guys like me a ‘dezod’, meaning bad boy or trouble-maker. Dixie and I have seen things coming and have been able to turn them on there head for God’s glory. God has given us amazing grace, insight, and wisdom in many situations due to your prayers. Please don’t stop praying; we need it big time!

One of my highlights has been a chance to sit with a few chosen kids and do “English class”. We are working through a book “Creole Made Easy”. Susie, this has been great for me. I might catch up to you by the time this trip is completed. Ha! Haiti Hub / Creole made Easy may want to hire me once I’m done. I just might learn to understand and speak a little Creole. Truth be known, the kids are light years ahead of me and after an hour I have to stop because my head is spinning. As with everything, my ‘teachers’ are ready and able to continue for hours.

Today is a Haitian holiday “Flag Day”. It feels like the Forth of July to me. Cars started honking as early as 5am. Much of our Haitian staff and the community are off work for the festivities. Louinet’s Nan Wo school drill team and band teamed up with the mountain school drill team from Zemi. Drums, trumpet, horns and drill masters barking the steps as the participants marched for miles preforming their moves. What a sight this parade created as they marched and performed through our orphanage and the streets of Dessalines. National pride runs deep in this country.

Oh man, I got to go. The cooks just brought me a special Haitian lunch…. The children in this orphanage don’t know how good they have it compared to the country as a whole.

Bon appetite!

EGO Three 05-16-2016

Soccer is the sport of choice in Haiti. This is clear to see throughout the country. Here at Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage (EGO) the sport can be seen from the baby yard to the large soccer field on the Orphanage grounds. One of the older boys Pudens loves to invite his neighborhood friends to play soccer here daily if possible. I’ve seen country kids playing between rice fields with a ball made of wound up rags, Mountain kids playing on a plateau where the out of bounds line is a 500 ft slope to the next piece of flat ground below. When it rains kids at the Nan Wo school strip down to there underwear and play bare foot through the large ponds of water on their playing field. John & Gabe Robinson brought an American twist to this soccer crazed school boy’s soaked to the bone game.

Thursday was a big soccer day for the Nan Wo school. The match was played in Dessalines on a full-sized field; Nan Wo verses the Free Methodist school. I’m not sure where all the players came from. In my opinion, it looked like a good portion of the players on each team were well beyond the school age kids at our school. The match was to start at 3pm, our team arrived 3:30 in grand style on about 6 motorcycles. Warm up was postponed for at least 30 minuets due to heavy rain. 15 minutes after the rain slowed down both teams began their stretching, chanting, and basic psych-out warm up procedures. The Free Methodists were good at the sport of intimidation….. I was sure they were going to tromp us into the ground.

The game turned out to be a very even match. Both teams were every bit as good as many of the collage games I’ve seen. Fact be known, I forgot I was in Haiti…. sport matches can do that. The players played with their all, rough and tumble; the physical game produced charlie-horses, fake follows, impacts which knocked the air out of their opponent, etc. Field rash was the least of their injuries.

Much to my surprise, The Methodist kicked in a last minute goal, winning the match 1 to 0.

Louinet was very disappointed…. I figure, no worries, we will flunk all the good players and have a bigger team next year…..

EGO Two A Day at EGO 05-15-2016

So what in the world are Dixie and Harley doing in Haiti? Why are we helping at the orphanage down the road from our main Hope in Haiti operation? Neither Dixie or I especially enjoy babies as much as many of you out there. When some one hands me one my normal reaction is to set it on the nearest table for some one else to hold…… I’ll let you figure out the answers to the above questions on your own….

A Day at EGO…..

5:30am The newly weds are awakened by Lourdjina who may of “slept some” in room two. That is to say I don’t get her up crying or not until my clock hits 5:30am (remember we are 3 hours ahead of you guys at home so if ya want to wake us up with a call ya got to get up at 2am your time)

Harley gets Lourdjina up lays her on the couch, grabs the keys to the house gate and unlocks it for the boys.

5:45am – Pudence, Franky, and Kervens come to grab the keys they need to do their farm chores; milking the cow, collecting eggs, and feeding the chickens.

5:35am +- Dixie gets Lourdjina and gives her meds and puts her onto her G-tub feeding which takes about 60 minutes to complete.

6am – one of the cooks comes for the keys to the food storage rooms… Depot One, Two, Three, and or room 2…… Ya confused yet?????

6am – Fridays, Rosina comes for Market $$$$ Dixie passes out needed funds according to supplies to be bought…..

Often Harley runs to the freezers to give the cooks 2 frozen chickens and/or frozen fish which they use to make the children’s meals.

6:30am – Richard & Ricardo bring Francius for his am meds.

7am – the children’s staff come to get Lourdjina and Makendy for their day at preschool.

Oh ya, I forgot Dixie feeds Makendy and I breakfast during all the above choas… also forgot showers, diaper changing, bathes, etc, etc.

6am Monday & Thursday – Clairemonese comes to get Medical Clinic keys and needed funds to run the clinic…..

8:30 to 9am things quiet down to fixing toilets, more depo trips, and who knows what.

1:30pm HIGH LIGHT Harley gets a Haitian lunch.

6pm – evening keys, evening meds, and a drink of tea for Harley.

7pm – Lourdjina & Makendy come back for their evening meds and a good nights sleep…hopefully.

7:30pm – I find Rufus “one of the dogs and lock her on the porch so Tasha won’t eat her during the night. She could literally be dead in the morning.

8pm – We force ourselves to stay up at least 30 minutes before we drift off, awaiting a new day!

Thanks all for your prayers!!!!

We even survived Sunday……. The Lord gives the staff a relaxing day… Dixie and I get Lourdjina & Makendy all day and night….. It’s unbelievable but I like it hear.

I have Internet this trip!

Dixie and I have been involved with Ebenezer Glenn Orphanage over the years in many ways.

Brief history:

• The involvement actually goes back to the 1989 when Dick & Dixie were on staff being supervisors of the orphanage . Dick & Dixie built the house we are now living in on the orphanage grounds.
• Dixie has keep relationship with the orphanage over the years…..
  1. On one of Dixie’s walks out in the farm lands of Nan Wo she came across a one month old infant who’s mother had died The aunt was not able to care for him. Makendy was severely malnourished even at one month. He was soon to be one of Haiti’s lost children. Dixie orchestrated his move to EGO.
  2. Dixie’s loves to walk…. if you can call her pace a walk…. As she walked through the country town of Kafou Borin a young mother repeatedly tried to give Dixie her 1yr old daughter whom obviously had a special need. This request went on for 3 years when it became apparent the child would die if not cared for in a better environment. Pastor Louinet and Dixie paid Chamounmoun, a wonderful woman who took her into her home, to care for Lourdjina for 1 year when it became apparent she needed more specialized care. God’s grace moved Marla of EGO to change a former decision and take Lourdjina into the orphanage. She is a handful, with a sweet disposition.
  3. Ken of EGO has built cabinets for the Nan Wo kitchen & school office. After repeated ‘NO’s, Ken has now lent Harley his whole orphanage along with the new John Deere farm tractor. Don’t worry, Ken, I’m being carful with all.
• Dixie & I are interim directors of the EGO for the month of May, spelling Ken & Marla for a needed furlough to the USA.

We are having a blast. I’ll explain in my next post.

We are now in Port-au-Prince waiting for a ride.

One of the Haitian workers from the Orphanage “Jocelen” is coming to the United States with Ken & Marla. She has never been out of Haiti anf is getting her visa for the fist time. The attached picture is an Haitian Internet Cafe where she is getting her needed paperwork off the web.

You’re right, the “Internet Cafe ” is a 1970’s Jeep Wagoneer