WHERE TO SEND DONATIONS TO HAITI

I emailed the missionary that I know in Haiti and heard back from herwith a current address. Her name is Barbara Walker,and she is a woman of few words,but I have been in Port Au Prince Haiti and followed her around andseen her work. Barb has been described as a "renegade missionary" ,LOL, I think of her more as a "General". She is one tough chick and apowerhouse. Five yrs ago was the last time I was in Haiti with thiswoman who was over 60 yrs old at that time, and I in my early 40'scould not keep up with her. She works with the people and runs thruthe city working on adoptions and doing health care for infants all day long, and then works onpaperwork trying to complete adoptions until the wee hours of themorning; You have to be tough to live in Haiti. Barb does not livelike a fancy American in PAP,no she lives among the Haitians, works w/ them, lives like them(with ZERO luxuries), and helps them. With donations,she has built a small gated community called "Ruska Village",it would be considered too rustic for most of us Americans to livein,but by Haitian standards it is WONDERFUL. The whole village is onless than half a city blcok of rocky , good for nothing , Haitian land. Ithas about 12 little one room houses made of cement block. Cementblock homes are the choicest of building material in Haiti as thesehomes are able to stand up against hurricanes. Barb takes in orphansbrought to her and also young teen mothers. The orphans live in thehouses in Ruska Village until they are able to be adopted out andthey are cared for by the young women that are fortunate enough tocome to Barb for help.Of course she does not have room for all the babies and poor peoplethat come to her,but she also distributes vitamins to the pregnant women, clothing,food, baby formula and diapers.I can testify with 100% certainy,that 100% of any donation sent to Barb will go directly to thepeople. Barb keeps nothing for herself.Below is a copy of the note from Barb:
"Yes I am seeing more starving children coming in with their starvingMothers too. I have been keeping them both to get them back tohealth. My Haiti PO box is 2556 Port au Prince Haiti. I would love toget some photos of your babies. Thank you for asking. May God Blessyou with a very sp[ecial holiday. Barb"and then"Just remember we need anything BUT!! babies and rocks we have plentyof each. Yes we do Christmas gift boxes for all the children andLadies at the village.We do need liquid vit. foe the babies.Prenatalfoe the women that come to the clinic.We all enjoy photos of the kidsso If you have any Haitiens, please send photos too. Barb"
BELOW IS FURTHER INFO FROM JILL;--- ok,the name of the ministry for donations to the orphans and youngmothers/babies in PAP , Haiti is "Reach Out to Haiti" . You can makea check out to that name and Barbara will send you a tax receiptback. Her address in Haiti is:"Barbara WalkerPO Box 2556Port Au Prince, Haiti "Thats it , they dont have a lot of mail down there so no such thingas postal codes.Donations are always welcome,but they also would love prenatal vitamins for the pregnant womenand liquid infant vitamins. Barb cant get those at a store down there. AlsoChristmas shoe boxes for children and ALSO for the moms. Barbarasvillage has a community outhouse and a WELL for clean water which issomething that may sound basic to us, but to the orphans and womenliving in her village it is luxury. Of course they dont have hotwater,but cool(?) water from an outside pump to share is as good as goldthere. One thing they do have tho, that would surprise you,is satelite tv. The Haitians LOVE to watch tv. So even tho they livea meager life they are exposed to the western commercialism. They donow know about Christmas gift giving and such which is new to theirsociety. But if you would like to do a Christmas shoebox, for a youngadult woman in Barbaras village,believe me, she would be beyond thrilled.(the young ladies would be more thrilled than the children even) I am sure it would be theonlyChristmas box she would have to open. For ideas of what to put in it,one big thing, Haitians LOVE cologne, lotions,a summer shirt, maybe a toothbrush andtoothpaste? cheap JEWLERY, anything shiny and over the top,the girls would be as excited as if you got a 2 carot diamond forChristmas:)It *is* really expensive to mail stuff down there,but when you compare it to what they would pay for the sameunattainable merchandise down there,postage is CHEAP.thanx so much for helping warmly,,,,jill

children dying in Haiti from the food crisis

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081121/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_food_crisis

my haitian Einstein

over the years I have shared a *bit* of some of the issues I have dealt with in my Hans. Love the boy dearly,of course,he is my child.but boy oh boy,God had more confidence in me than I in myself when He entrusted this soul to my care.He has brought me to my knees more than any of my other 11 children and he is only 6.

Never quite exactly sure of what his issues exactly are,I mean,besides abandonment issues for sure,and along with those emotional immaturity issues. Like, he started his terrible two's at 4. It is hard enough handling a 2 yr old who acts like a 2 yr old, but they are cute and small. It is harder when it is a BIG 4 yr old tantruming and emotional and making no sense of their emotions and draining every ounce of a mamas patience.

I also figured he had some sort of ADD symptoms going on.And the sin he has always struggled the most with is, *impulsiveness* . The inability to resist something he wanted. This has been a struggle for us over the yrs. Altho VASTLY improving with age and consistent discipline.

But he is and always has been sweet, sensitive and caring. He is touchy lovey and cuddly and tender.Along with his fine points he also has ALWAYS shown extreme, EXTREME~ artistry. I am POSITIVE that his father was a Haitian artist. And his handwriting, ,,my oh my,,you would be shocked. PERFECT PERFECT. Looks computer printed. Even at 5,,,it was perfect.

So I have him in first gr public school, mostly bcz I cant keep him busy and entertained at home to homeschool him as I do Seth (9) and Lia (10). He has ZERO imagination and is always bored. He needs to constantly be following the other children around as he cant imagine his own games.

My good friend is his teacher this year and next.She told me
"Jill, Hans is going to need some special classes."
I at first thought she meant like "special ed" (not surprising. totally prepared for that day to come)NO,she said that within the next year or so we will need to seek out some kind of accelerated gifted program for him because he is SO BEYOND ALL the 1st and 2nd graders in her class. She can NOT give him enough work and keep him busy. He understands everything immediately and is done with all work perfectly in 2 secs and then his boredom takes over and he cant sit still.

So,that is Hansies problem.
He is NOT delayed,rather,he is a genius.
How could I not see that?

God has such a HUGE plan for my little Haitian manchild,God gave him to me to help him get there.
My son WILL succeed and be a STRONG man in this world.I just know. the teachers words have affirmed that to my inner being.
tears,,,,,,, ,

my cozy orchard house

it is POURING rain outside my windows right now,,and so dark I have to have lights on in the house. The autumn leaves are still radiant and gorgeous out my windows tho. The rainwater on them seems to bring out the colors even more so. Just so so gorgeous from the windows of my confines, that I feel like exploding!
I have my apples bubblin up in pots on my stove to strain for a big batch of apple pancake syrup later today, and I can smell the aroma of cooking apples permeating the walls of this warm little farmhouse,
I also have boxes of raw apples all over the kitchen,,jars of home canned apple produce filling the counters waiting to move downstairs,,
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh,,,life is *so* good!! What an enjoyable day to be stuck inside warming the house with the old fashioned smell of apples......

flavored apple sauce

is everyone else in the country knee deep in apples and tomatoes right now? I try to do one batch a day of apples in my biggest stainless pot. I have larger pots that are aluminum but that wont work for apples as they burn on the bottom. So it turms out to be about 5 qts a day of cooked down apple. Yesterday I had the idea that I would add(frozen) strawberries to the with the apples and make different flavored sauces. Well if I had done it past yrs and forgotten I think I figured out why we generally dont add other fruit to the apple sauce. After putting it thru the mill I turned it back to the pot and cooked and cooked it but it wouldnt thicken totally. Seems the strawberries must do somthing to the pectin in the apples??? It, of course, has a great flavor tho, so I added a bit more sugar to the pot to sweeten it more and canned it thinking it will be wonderful pancake syrup ie still a bit watery for "sauce" to eat off a spoon but certainly much thicken than plain water so it should slide off the pancakes wonderfully. One jar didnt seal so I will probably make pancakes for lunch and try it out . If it is as luscious as I am anticipating I think I will try adding some blackberries or raspberries to my apples today for another flavored syrup.It is so hard to get *everything* put by at this time of year, so many ideas and so little time! It is so gorgeous and colorful autumn outside now too that a person hates to spend ALL day inside canning. Sometimes tricky to balance
.Oh,,,and I did a batch of 25 pints of hot salsa two days ago and ,WOW! I was SO Happy w/ the results. I can never seem to get my salsa hot enough with the peppers we grow up north here. But this year I grew "habenero" peppers and "WHEW DOGGY"
those lil babies are hot hot!!! The salsa I made was so good~ perfect thickness and super hot hot just how Michael always has wanted me to make it but I have never acheived it:)) Doesnt it make you soooooo satisfied when you make something to can and it EXCEEDS your expectations?? :)) Now next time I am going to add even a few less hot peppers and do a medium sauce for those of us who do not care to clean our sinus' out as the "hot mama" salsa does.A friend of my 18 yr old dd's is Latino and his parents make a home canned salsa that they sell commercially at all the stores in this area and plus I know they ship it somewhat around somewhere in the states. Now we dont purchase salsa, but a friends of Riahs has brought this salsa into our kitchen for Mike and I to try bcz he thinks it is the best salsa in the universe or whatever. So I think that the salsa I made two days ago is just as good :) (like I say~ satisfaction~ high fives~ not bragging, just so pleased:) They sell this authentic mexican salsa for $5 a pint at the local stores. Going by that the 25 pints I made are worth $125~ wow! and that is just one tiny batch of food on the canning shelves. Just think how much our canning shelves are worth!!!
ahhhhhh harvest time,life is good ........
UPDATE: 1:34 PM
made pancakes for lunch and tried the strawberry apple sauce for syrup. Guess what? It was not watery after cooling in the jar but rather a *nice* apple sauce texture and actually too thick for perfect syrup. So scratch all those thoughts above on flavored applesauce! It DOES work to put different fruit in and to still acheive a nice apple sauce texture.
Just now finished the next batch and put raspberries in this batch. Oh my, it is to die for! Absolute yum and perfect apple sauce texture.
So we will not be using these flavored sauces for pancake syrup but instead eat them ala carte as special tantalizingly tastey treats.
Tomorrow we will try some blackberry apple sauce,
now doesnt that sound exotic?
We are so blessed here on the farm.

Is Doug Phillips a racist? and warning on Henty books and "Elsie Dinsmore" series

directly quoted from:
http://racistchurches.wordpress.com/category/doug-phillips/

"Doug Phillips
March 16, 2007
Doug Phillips has made a name for himself among Christian homeschoolers by selling “old-fashioned” books and hosting “historical” conferences and events. In actuality, the words “old-fashioned” and “historical” mean “thoroughly white.” The Vision Forum catalog is full of books by racists. Their books and tape sets glorify men who believed and wrote that black people are inferior to white people. They sell no books by any of the people of color who contributed to American history. Doug uses code words like “cultural syncretism” to decry the “blackening” of American society.

G.A. Henty
June 13, 2007
For many years, Doug Phillips and Vision Forum have sold books by G.A. Henty and hosted an essay contest in his honor. You can see how often Henty is praised there.

One of the books included in the 40-volume set for sale at Vision Forum is By Sheer Pluck. Here is Henty’s opinion of black people, which any young child may find in its pages:

They are just like children. They are always either laughing or quarrelling. They are good-natured and passionate, indolent, but will work hard for a time; clever up to a certain point, densely stupid beyond. The intelligence of an average negro is about equal to that of a European child of ten years old. A few, a very few, go beyond this, but these are exceptions, just as Shakespeare was an exception to the ordinary intellect of an Englishman. They are fluent talkers, but their ideas are borrowed. They are absolutely without originality, absolutely without inventive power. Living among white men, their imitative facilities enable them to attain a considerable amount of civilisation. Left alone to their own devices they retrograde into a state little above their native savagery.

White superiority is the theme that runs through all of Henty’s books. He once wrote of “the utter incapacity of the Negro race to evolve, or even maintain, civilisation without the example and the curb of a white population.”

Note: Doug Phillips is selling the original, unexpurgated (racist) versions of these books, not the versions edited by Mantle Ministries and Preston Speed.

It’s astounding that racist books are being sold to impressionable youths under the guise of Christianity, but Henty is just the beginning. For example, Vision Forum also sells Elsie Dinsmore, which contains the “n-word” and borderline pederasty. Elsie even tells her slaves that “they wouldn’t be Negroes in heaven.”

the food crisis in haiti

I need to share with you all,I am just really feeling so much sorrow for the food crisis and thehungry people in Haiti.I mean,all we hear about is the expensive food and fuel in the US andhow that is affecting *us*,but gosh,we just have sooo much more than these poor souls. I mean when was the last time your belly was truly empty because you had no food in your house and you had no means to buy *anything* to fill your empty stomach?
Last night, dh and I went out to an "all you can eat" seafood buffet.This place was packed,,oh maybe ???? 400 people could be held in the restaraunt at one time. And it was FULL to capacity the whole time wewere there. people just streaming in to eat. And everyone,,I mean my husband and I and everyone in this restaraunt, were definitely pigging out. Iam talking full heaping plates, again and again full of crab legs.It was weird for me to sit there and people watch. I dont get out all that much around crowds of adults as I spend most of my life sheltered in my house that I share with many children. But last night I spent a lonnng time just sitting and watching people bcz I was done eating long before Michael. I had time to just sit and do nothing but watch people eat.Now I truly do not mean to offend anyone who has a weight problem,but I have to say how I was so struck by the amount of obese people and even "morbidly obese" people that were eating at this restaraunt last night. Seriously, I saw a *few* people that were obviously so overweight that they couldnt even walk ,being pushed into this all you could eat bufffet in wheelchairs.As I sat in the center of the hustle and bustle of glutonous Americans GORGING ourselves,I couldnt help but reflect on our sisters and brothers hustling andbustling trying to find a meal of rice for supper last night in Haiti