Because Running Around Like a Decapitated Fowl Never Helps Anything...

As communications are improving because the cell networks are coming back online, we are receiving more information about our friends in Haiti.

This morning, we received this word

Dear Hope Families,

I just received word from Harry early this morning on the children. Again the messages are incomplete and very short. But apparently all the children are not together. Harry has not been able to reach Abel so we don’t know if some of the children are with him, but he gave me a list of the children that are not with Nadia. Again, I am assuming the rest of the children ARE with her. He is going to try and reach Nadia today and get all the children with her and take them to the church where he can care for them. He will also try and locate the rest of the children. I know this will be hard to read if your child is on the list below, but please know that we don’t have all the information yet. However hard I want to give the information as I receive it.

As I understand it, these are the children not with Nadia:

Zambrie
Nathan
Abigaille
D'Joe
Jordan Betuel
Jean Tony
Vania
Oliver
Jessica


We need to pray hard to find these children, everyone get your friends and family to pray.
I will continue to be vigilant in getting information.

My heart is with all of you!
Chareyl
(Wasatch Adoptions)

All the children on that list are children of our American friends and family. We know them all and two of them are ours (Nathan and Jessica) and one of them is Tia's (Oliver/Collin).

What do we do when the trickles of information do not confirm what we'd been hoping for?

We pray.

This is the prime example of when we need to "Lean not unto our own understanding" but we need to "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and in all thy ways acknowledge him and He shall direct they paths".

Now is the time to avoid those mental "snowballs" where one thought leads to another thought and soon you are beside yourself with worry and grief. Now is the time to trust.

As we've prayed, many times we have felt the comfort of the Spirit telling us that our babies are going to be OK. And I mean ALL our babies at our orphanage.

In the "gospel according to Lori" (meaning, don't quote me on this), I can see how this latest information could make both the early statements we heard about the children and their location - statements that completely contradicted each other - true.

First we heard that nearly all the children had been moved to the new orphanage by the airport. Then we heard that the children where with Nadia in Carrefour. Unless you've ever tried to move a bunch of children, I don't think you can appreciate how far those 15 miles are from each other.

Perhaps the first message will turn out to be correct and we'll find that many of the children were at the new facility. Just as we've found that Nadia is alive and in Carrefour, but she's not with the children waiting to be adopted by our American families.

We have to trust. We can't be on the ground right now. They've told us that unless we speak Kreyol or are trained in medical or urban rescue we would be in the way. There is no where to sleep but the ground and nowhere to get food prepared anyway.

We trust in Harry. He is an angel among men. He is doing superhuman things to keep the many, many people going at the Petionville Chapel. We trust in Abel - that he'll make it to back to wherever our babies are and that Harry and Abel and Nadia will find a way to get us correct information.

We trust in God. And that, with prayers we really mean, is all we can do.

A Prayer for the Children

(by Ina J. Hughes)

We pray for the children......

…who put chocolate fingers everywhere,

…who like to be tickled,

…who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,

…who sneak Popsicles before supper,

…who erase holes in math workbooks,

…who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those…

…who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,

…who’ve never squeaked across the floor in new sneakers,

…who never had crayons to count,

…who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,

…who never go to the circus,

…who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children…

…who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,

…who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish,

…who give hugs in a hurry and forget their lunch money,

…who cover themselves with Band-Aids and sing off-key,

…who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,

…who slurp their soup.

And we pray for those…

…who never get dessert,

…who watch their parents watch them die,

…who have no safe blanket to drag behind,

…who can’t find any bread to steal,

…who don’t have any rooms to clean up,

…whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,

…whose monsters are real.

We pray for children…

…who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,

…who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,

…who like ghost stories,

…who shove dirty clothes under the bed,

…who never rinse out the tub,

…who get visits from the tooth fairy,

…who don't like to be kissed in front of the school,

…who squirm in church or temple or mosque and scream in the phone,

…whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those…

…whose nightmares come in the daytime,

…who will eat anything,

…who aren't spoiled by anybody,

…who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

…who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children…

… who want to be carried,

and for those who must.

…For those we never give up on,

and for those who never get a chance.

…For those we smother with our love,

and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

Word on Harry and Some of the Children...

We received this from our Coordinator:

I just received first hand news from Haiti just a few minutes ago from Harry Mardy. Both Harry and his brother Guesno are okay. Harry has not been able to reach Nadia the orphanage director. He did get in touch with one of the Nannies at the new orphanage and all the kids there are okay. As you know Hope for the Little Angels was in the process of moving to another city and another orphanage. We know that some of the children were still at the old orphanage, I do not have word on these children and I do not have the names of these children. Also we had a couple of kids in foster care and I have no word on those kids. Harry did say that him mother did not make it and his sister Kenia did not make it. I think that some of you have met Kenia she has come to the hotel during the parent trips with Harry's wife Pascal. I am so grateful for the news we received today and I will continue to pass on information to you as I get it.