Monday, December 2, 2019

2019: A Year in Review



In my adult life, there are three years that stand out as being particularly challenging:
2011 - The year my father was sentenced to life in prison and his true character became known to all of us - This all started right around our one year wedding anniversary.
2015 - The year my brother, Mike, died completely unexpectedly - We moved to Haiti just six weeks after his death, still heavy in our grief.
2019 - The year I truly learned about finding joy in the valley

As a kid, I loved looking at personalized Christmas cards and letters. The ones I enjoyed looking at the most were the kind with pictures and a summary of the year for that family, whether we lived close by or not. I still love reading the “year in review” updates around Christmas time, and I always enjoy looking back on the highlights and challenges at the close of each year for my own life. So without anymore of an introduction, please take a look at our year in review for 2019…

January: Anderlin celebrated his 7th birthday the same week we celebrated him joining his family to go live in WA. It was a really fun week, complete with our kids seeing a drone for the first time, making balloon animals, visiting Mr. Nick’s farm where our meat comes from, and just hanging out. Anderlin spent 40 months with us in the Hope House.

Anderlin's first day in the Hope House, September 2015

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Anderlin's last day in the Hope House, January 2019

February: Existing political tensions and fuel shortages that began to bubble up in July 2018 came back full swing this month. This limited transportation and access to basic resources, which caused a lot of daily stress in an already stressful environment. Along with other administration at Children of the Promise, I was part of the mandatory evacuation plan for a visiting team and some of our international staff.

Even during the unrest, Roni ran his annual marathon as a way to raise financial support for Children of the Promise. It was not as fun this year because he was forced to stay on the dirt roads for safety and had to do the same loop over and over without cheerleaders along the way, but he still did it with lots of smiles.

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Roni and his Hope House cheerleaders
March: After weeks of resource shortages, we had a break that allowed for close family and friends to come visit.

Bill and Mary Ann are seasoned Haiti travelers and have been a big part of my life since I was born. They are the heaviest influencers on my decision to step out and take my first trip to Haiti in 2008. They have supported us every step of the way in both short term trips and living in Haiti. They were our first visitors when we moved down here. Needless to say, they are pretty awesome cheerleaders and very important to our success in making this dream of living in Haiti a reality.

Jimmy is one of my brothers- a minister and advocate for sexual child abuse victims by profession. Jimmy, his wife and kids, and his church family have also supported us tremendously over the years of our work in Haiti. I went to Haiti on a week long trip with Jimmy in 2013 (that Bill and Mary Ann were a part of as well), but it was really special to have him down here this time, especially since he brought his oldest daughter, Eden, and because he could meet most of the kids we had been fostering for the past few years. Eden adapted immediately and did not complain about anything.

These four “wined and dined” us the entire time they were here. If anyone wants to learn how to boost morale in their overseas missionaries, talk to these four. They pampered us and did not do anything that caused us an ounce of stress. Roni and I got to choose what to do each day. After a really low season, we were able to have our cups filled back up and go show off some of the beauty of Haiti.

Best buddies watching movies before bed

F got to join us at the Citadel and rose his own horse, Toby, to the top


April: I turned 30, and Silas turned 4. We did not have time to celebrate these birthdays in extraordinary ways since we had a lot going on this month, but we did take time out to celebrate at home.

Silas with his presents sent all the way from his parents in France
Theo’s mom, Liz, came to visit while she was still waiting for his adoption paperwork to finalize. She came back as a very familiar face, and all of us were so excited to see her again. Theo didn’t know she was his mom yet to help with his future attachment, but he sure did love hanging out with her. I think everyone’s favorite surprise was her playing the bagpipes. We enjoyed many spontaneous songs at our house and at the pavilion in the front of our campus. 

Liz reading our four youngest a story
Amira (Jouvelande) had her adoption paperwork expedited due to the ongoing and unpredictable political unrest. She was able to go home after living 40 months in the Hope House. Because of the unrest, it was just a few days for her pickup trip, but we made them count. In between just hanging out, Amira’s parents made us a giant breakfast for dinner, and we had a well attended sendoff party for her. Since it hadn’t been too long since the last visit, all the kids were super excited to see familiar faces and make memories.

Amira's first day in the Hope House, December 2015


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Amira's last day in the Hope House, April 2019
May: We celebrated F’s 7th birthday in style. For the first three years in our house, he has chosen a birthday party at our house, complete with tacos and a sombrero. This year, he had the choice of staying two nights at the beach or having a party at our house. Of course, he chose to stay at the beach. After Anderlin going home, he really started to hang out a lot more with Michael, so we took Michael along as well. He was really our friends, Grace and Chris, also came out on the day of his birthday for swimming, dinner, and ice cream. We all had so much fun and have made memories we will never forget.
Hanging out watching a movie in our suite after swimming all day
A perfect day in the sand, complete with fresh limeade and cold Cokes
The birthday boy

Best buddies


We had two very special visitors who arrived at the end of May and spent time hanging out with all of us in the Hope House. We got rained in for a good part of the two weeks, but we did enjoy a full day at the beach and a full day at the pool while it was sunny.

A perfect day at the pool with a very special friend


June: This month was a whirlwind with work and life. Protests and roadblocks were bad again in our area. I was in town one day traveling by moto taxi when gunfire broke out, and it was absolute chaos. It was a good reminder of the ongoing turmoil that has seemed to always be bubbling at the surface this year.
I had some health concerns that ended with me going to the emergency room in the middle of the night. Thankfully it was nothing serious and ended up being something very easy to manage. On the way home, it took about $100 USD in bribes and four Haitian men to get us through the roadblocks and gangs. This is the first I knew a truck could go down a goat path so effortlessly. It is a night I will forever remember.

We rarely go out as a whole house. We got a break in protests, and Michael decided he wanted to have his birthday celebration at the pool this year. When we asked him who he wanted to invite, he named everyone in our house. B stayed behind since he does not enjoy pool days, but we took the rest of the Hope House crew and had a perfect day at the pool.

The birthday boy and one of his many moves

The whole crew


July: Riverwood Church of Christ is a HUGE supporter of ours in every way (financially, spiritually, emotionally). My brother, Tim, is a big reason they have come to visit us in Haiti three years in a row. It’s a week we’ve looked forward to every time- one that always leaves us feeling loved and encouraged. This year was going to be a hard week because Roni and I were struggling and feeling exhausted in every way. It ended up being Michael’s last week with us, and a child’s “last week” is always challenging for our hearts. We decided it was God’s perfect timing and that we could be lifted up and supported that week to have the strength to get through that hard goodbye and that we would make memories with our kids doing fun things like VBS, movie nights, remodeling their bedrooms, going to the beach, etc.


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Riverwood 2019 Haiti Team
The week was perfect until July 9, the day of the accident. That will be another story for another day if you’ve not heard it by now, but it was horrific. My nephew, brother, husband, and many close friends and new friends were in that truck that flipped over. We are still dealing with the trauma in big ways, but this is the first real life miracle I know for sure that I witnessed. Every single person made it out alive.

The tap tap

Roni all cleaned up, the day after the accident

Michael’s family very graciously changed their dates to come pick him up because of the accident. They knew Roni wasn’t physically well due to his concussion and that none of us were emotionally well. It wasn’t the way any of us planned for those few days to look, but we all supported each other and got through it and even had some fun in between all the hard parts. Michael is now living in TX with his brother and parents. He lived with us for almost 48 months, starting before the Hope House was even built.

 Michael's first day in our care, July 2015


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Michael in TX with his family, July 2019
Because of the accident, we pushed our vacation to the States to an earlier date, July 20, three days after Michael left. Roni needed a CT scan, and we both needed to regroup and recharge. My brother, Tim, and his family generously opened their home to us with an indefinite timeline. Friends and family fed us, cried with us, laughed with us, loaned us two cars full of gas, drove several hours to come see us between crazy work schedules, flew down to Nashville to see us, gave us a night away at a resort, offered hours upon hours of counseling, and many, many more things.

August: We knew that by moving our trip timeline up, we could potentially miss Silas’s pickup trip. We never, ever wanted to not be here for one of our kids’ final days in the Hope House, so this was really hard for us to trust that it would all be okay. We did not make it back in time but know that his sendoff went very well and that he had a lot of support to walk him through that in our absence. Silas is now living in France with his mom and dad after living 40 months in the Hope House.

Silas's first week in the Hope House, April 2016

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Silas's last day in the Hope House, August 2019
In the States, we continued to get counseling and find some rest.

September: We had the opportunity to fly up to MN to connect with the stateside staff of Children of the Promise. This is something we hadn’t done since before moving down here in 2015. It was a week of figuring out our roles moving forward now that our job of house parenting looked drastically different (coming back to three kids as opposed to seven or eight). We had plans in place to continue growing in our administrative positions and to slowly phase out of house parenting as our kids continue to go home. It was a great week of reconnecting with staff on their home turf and getting back into “work mode” before coming back to Haiti.

We flew back to Haiti on September 8. My personal luggage was accidentally sent to the Bahamas and never recovered, and I am still battling with American Airlines to get a partial reimbursement for what I lost. It was HARD coming back to the same airport I said goodbye to my brother and our friend as they were medically evacuated to FL after the accident. It was even harder coming back to a house with two less kids (Michael and Silas). Our emotions were all over the place, being rocked by grief and trauma from all directions. The country had become very unstable again, kicking off the violent protests that haven’t eased up much and continue today. We came back to a very different Haiti than it was when we left.

To add to the difficulties in September, we ran into some great challenges within our organization that led to us stepping down from our administrative roles. This has been a dramatic shift in how we spend our time.

October: B turned 6 and Roni turned 34. Unfortunately, we did not have any celebrations as we had planned.

I came back to Haiti very happily pregnant with our first baby. I had two prenatal appointments- one in Nashville and one in Haiti. Everything was on track and going well, and I even got to see the heartbeat flickering on the computer screen at my appointment in Haiti.


On Roni’s birthday, I began bleeding at home, which ended up being a two day process to complete a miscarriage at home at just over 11 weeks pregnant. That weekend, we did not have electricity (we are on a fuel rationing schedule), so there were no comforts such as cold water, a heating pad, running water for a shower, fans, etc. It made me have a great appreciation for Haitian women who are no doubt tougher than I am. I am so grateful for my husband, our friend who runs the maternity center, all the midwives and OBGYNs who helped during the process, and the hospital staff who kindly allowed for the generator to be booted up for the ultrasound to confirm that I did not need to have a procedure done.

November: We continued to be on “house arrest” most days because of the ongoing violence and fuel shortages. Somehow in all of this unrest and chaos, Theo’s adoption paperwork was finalized. We celebrated his last few days here with his mom and grandma. We didn’t get to leave campus this time, but we had a lot of fun hanging out on campus and went through many, many bubbles while playing outside together. Theo is now living in CA after 46 months of being in the Hope House.

Theo's first day in our care, January 2016

Theo's last day in the Hope House, November 2019
After Theo went home, Roni and I were able to go stay in Cap-Haitien to get some space and rest for three nights at our favorite hotel. We were treated like VIPs and really enjoyed getting to see friends. For most of our time there, we didn’t have some things that are maybe considered basic comforts- electricity, wifi, hot water, or TV- but we sure did enjoy our time away and the change of scenery.

December: We continue to be homebound most days. Schools are still not operating for the most part. Hospitals are not operating at full capacity. It is definitely challenging to push forward as we see so many suffering, even those who we love and interact with daily. We are very fortunate to live in an area that is not affected by food or water shortages or violence in any way.

We plan to have our annual Christmas lunch with our nannies, our kids, and our nannies’ kids. We have started decorating for Christmas and even made a paper chain this year to count down the days. We are down to two kids, and they are very excited about all things Christmas. They are also happy to each have their own bedrooms after sharing tight space for so many years.

Christmas Eve lunch - 2018
Our master decorator with his small tree, Christmas 2018 - This Christmas spirit will be hard to beat this year!


In 2019, we have experienced more grief and trauma than I ever knew was possible. I have often heard about finding joy in the valley, but I never grasped that concept until I was forced to live it out this year. We said goodbye to five kids in the Hope House, some of whom have lived with us since they were released from the NICU. This is the finish line that we’ve been working towards for the past four and a half years. We have loved each of these kids as our own, failing miserably every day, but promising to keep trying and to keep loving them the best we could until they left our care. Looking back on each of our kids’ “pickup weeks” and seeing how each of their families has become family to us, we can’t help but to rejoice while we are still in the valley of grief. We are so grateful we get to be a small part of each of their stories, and we’d do this all again a million times over even after knowing how hard it all is at times. Every single one of “our” kids’ families have stayed in touch with us since they’ve gone home, and it makes our hearts swell with pride when we see how brave the kids have been as they adjust to their new normals. We are still in this race trying to get two more of our kids to the finish line with us. Please hold all of us in the Hope House in prayer as we continue to try to find joy in the valley-- in grief, in trauma, in uncertainty and instability, in hard moments waiting for mamas to come back for pickup week, in missing our friends who are like our own children or siblings, and in all the other challenges that our hearts are working through.

Merry Christmas from all of us in the Hope House!

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* Full names are not used for children still in our care in order to protect their identities and to adhere to adoption laws.