Leslie Rolling

I’m Back! Oh, And Now We’re Homeschooling…

Yes, I know it’s been almost a year since I last posted. I have wondered a lot in the past few years why I haven’t written as much as I used to, and I’ve come up with all kinds of ideas. Partly life has just been busy. Like, two kids, full time job/ministry, life in a foreign country type busy. There were a lot of times in the past few years where I’ve felt really overwhelmed and like I’ve barely been keeping my head above water, but much of that has changed, especially in the past six months.

We hired Kim a little over a year ago, and she’s been amazing and taking on a lot of the day to day stuff for Chris and I, freeing us up to focus on other things. That process hasn’t always been easy for me, because apparently I got a lot of my identity from small daily admin tasks, but now I feel like I’m in a place where I’m excited about work again and not feeling like I’m drowning. I can focus on bigger areas rather than small tasks, and that feels good.

One of the big issues, that we didn’t realize was as big as it was, is that we just had really bad internet after we moved to our new location. For the past three years or so we’d been dealing with 2G internet, because we live in a rural area that none of the internet/cell providers thought deserved a 3G signal. I could go into a lot of detail about all the things we’ve tried over the years to boost our signal, but it really would bore you to tears. Let me just say that Chris is amazing, and in the past few months was able to install a new system and we now have fast internet. It’s a game changer! I realized that I mostly just gave up on most of the stuff I enjoyed doing online, like writing, because it often just didn’t work, or if it was “working” it was such a time suck that I would see the minutes of my life ticking away.

Life now feels a bit more manageable and like I can open myself up to other things, which is fabulous given the life altering decision that we jumped into about two weeks ago.

For a bit of history, our family has been very blessed to have been able to send our kids to a local, English speaking school for the past 4.5 years. Olivia was in a different English speaking school before that, but we moved her because this one was closer and felt like a better fit given our needs at the time. Alex was able to start a year later, and it’s worked for us for the most part. The school was started by a local children’s home so their kids could get an English education, and eventually they allowed outside families to enroll. It uses a conservative Christian curriculum, which was fine with us. In areas where we were less conservative we would just have conversations with our kids to share our differences and explain why we felt the way we did about certain things. The kids had a structured school environment with uniforms, recess, and even PE and French a couple times per week. It allowed me to continue to work full time for the mission, which was something that was important to us.

The past year or so though, has been harder. Our kids needs were changing and we realized they were struggling, each in their own ways, and we were doing the best we could to help out at home to compensate. Things kind of came to a head last fall when we realized that they were both struggling a lot more, so I rearranged my mornings to be helping them with homework and planning their work days before school, and started spending at least 2 hours a day after school helping one or both of them through homework. We saw some really good improvement with one of them, but the other was still having a hard time.

After Christmas we kept going with all the extra effort at home, and then about two weeks ago, things became very clear. Something needed to change. On average I was working with one or both of them for about 3 hours a day – after they’d already been in school all day, and I had already done a full day of work. I was exhausted because our days start very early (4:30 am the alarm goes off) and between work/ministry, school and general family stuff like preparing meals and getting kids to bed, there was no break for me. It wasn’t sustainable, and everyone was miserable.

This is where I should probably stop and let you know that while we had discussed the option of homeschooling in the past, both Chris and I had felt like it wasn’t the best choice for our family, which is one of the reasons why we REALLY appreciated that our kids were able to go to school locally. Seriously. Our reasons included things like me feeling like I just wouldn’t be a good teacher to our kids because we would butt heads, and my work day needing to be focused on work/ministry stuff. Chris had concerns about our kids not getting a solid enough education to get into university in the future, and what homeschooling would do to my ability to work with the mission. They’re all legit concerns, and they were all things that we felt were good reasons to choose a different path.

As a Christian I believe that God knows the number of days we have on this earth, and what will fill our time. I believe he opens doors for us, and through the Holy Spirit, presses on our hearts the way we should go. I believe that when we clearly know the path to follow that while it might not be the easy way or the way that makes the most sense, that there will be peace. I believe this because I’ve seen it play out in my life SO many times before, and friends, that’s exactly what happened here.

Chris and I want what’s best for our kids and our family. As a parent, when you see your kid struggling, you start to ask why. In our case we asked a lot of questions, and we chose to dig in and see what we could do to help fix the situation. As I spent time working with both kids I started to see things, and those things made it very evident to us that our kids need more than their current school can give them right now, and that’s okay.

For example, Olivia has been struggling with Math for the past two years. We’ve continually tried help where we can, but she needs more. The school predominantly has Haitian teachers, most of which have had a base level education themselves. That’s no fault of their own, it’s because of circumstances here in Haiti. The school is doing the best it can with the resources it has available to them. The unfortunate part of it is that some kids will not get the extra help in all the subjects that they might need it, simply because their teachers don’t have all the skills they need to help out. The curriculum is also student led, and is all reading based. Math is not one of those subjects you can learn only by reading. You need someone to demonstrate, to explain, to answer questions, and to approach it from a few different ways until it clicks. The curriculum just wasn’t working for Olivia. As I was trying to help her through things, I would ask her why she was doing what she was doing, or to explain things to me, and she couldn’t do it. She would get overwhelmed and frustrated, then try to avoid doing her Math all together.

Alex is a different story. He just wasn’t getting any work done in class. And yet, he could bring home all his homework, essentially everything that he should have done that day but didn’t, and do it all in about an hour and a half. We realized that the curriculum, which is set up for the kids to be working quietly at their desks, and to be checking and correcting their own work, isn’t working for him either. He’s very smart, and loves to learn. He’s the kid that will read a book about animals or some engineering thing as he’s going to bed, then come to breakfast the next day and say things like, “Mom, did you know that Tasmanian devils are going extinct because of this disease they get that causes them to swell up around their mouths, making it impossible for them to drink so they get dehydrated and die?” At 5 am. The kid is a sponge. He just doesn’t do well with a setting where he needs to sit quietly and not interact with his materials. He needs to be challenged more and to study things that really interest him. He also needs to know that nothing will slow him down or get in his way of learning.

One afternoon after working with him I basically had a meltdown because I was just done. A few other things had happened that day that were really the nudge we needed to start talking about our options, and at some point I think I uttered the words, “I’m already spending 3 hours a day doing homework. We could just homeschool and we’d be further ahead!” At that moment rather than reminding ourselves of all the reasons why we couldn’t homeschool, all of the sudden we looked at each other and realized that maybe that was exactly what we were supposed to be doing. That night we talked more, and the decision just seemed to settle in for both of us in a very peaceful, sensible way. Like, “Of course this is what we should do.”

The next morning we woke up, and we just knew. And we started putting things in place. I went to visit a missionary friend who has been a huge homeschooling inspiration and we spent several hours talking through the how to’s and curriculum. I went from feeling overwhelmed to having a really good idea about what direction I wanted to go in with our kids. I was excited! We brought home some textbooks that they were done with and our kids started pouring over them.

Our biggest concern was how the kids would take the decision. Alex had heard some of our conversations that day, and when Olivia asked about the books he told her that we were thinking about homeschooling him. When I asked how he felt he said that he would miss some things about his school, but mostly he was excited. Olivia was different. She is very social, so we knew the big issue for her would be her friends. Initially we had considered keeping her in for the rest of this year, and just homeschooling Alex, but decided against that because it didn’t solve all the issues.

That evening as Alex was looking at the textbooks he kept asking if we could study the things he was reading about. Olivia asked if we would be studying the books they were looking at, and when I confirmed that we would be she all of the sudden said, “I want to homeschool too!” We talked about what it would mean as far as leaving her friends, but in the end she decided that while that would be hard, she wanted to homeschool. There were no tears or anything like that. I was honestly shocked, and yet so thankful because we had anticipated completely the opposite.

The very next day Chris and I were scheduled to fly to Florida for our annual Board Retreat. While were were there we went shopping and I was able to buy most of our school supplies. When we got home last week I was able to order our curriculum to come in with his brother who is coming to visit in a few weeks. All of these decisions just came together and seemed so clear.

So here we are! We decided to plan to start the first week in March, giving me time to get our curriculum and get stuff set up. I need to shuffle some things around downstairs so we have room for all our books, but we’re planning on using the space we have in our kitchen, and the living room when we need a change of scenery.

It’s amazing to me to think back over all the reasons why we said we couldn’t do this, and then to see that now what felt impossible, feel possible.

My work load is lighter, and I’m in a good place to shuffle some things around and make changes. In fact, at our retreat, we made me going down to part-time official with the Board. I actually feel very free because of this. It means I don’t feel the self-imposed pressure to be in the office all the time, and that I have time in my day to focus on my family. It’s really hard to live where you work, because you never really get away from it. We always want to set a good example for our staff, so that meant being on “work hours” when they’re around, but then other things like trying to get some exercise or meal prep while the kids were gone would leave me feeling guilty or pulled in too many different directions. Knowing I’m only going to have a set number of hours every week for mission work is already causing me to think differently and put some deliberate plans in place so I can meet my responsibilities. And, it’s causing me to delegate more! And that’s good, because it means letting go of the little things that I don’t need to be doing, in favor of the things that I have to be doing because I’m the one that can.

I have done SO MUCH reading in the past couple of weeks about homeschooling in general, as well as curriculum, statistics, learning styles, etc. It’s amazing to me to see our fears laid aside, and being replaced with a confidence in our decision, and seeing how it really seems like a better fit for our family.

Our kids need to be challenged more than the curriculum they’re currently using is doing. They want to learn. We want our kids to love learning, and to be lifelong learners who are excited and engaged in what’s going on around them. We’re all excited about the fact that homeschooling means we can not only study our core subjects in a way that is more engaging and more in line with our kids learning styles, but that we can also be curious and study anything else that is interesting to us. There are no limits! Rather than only sitting and reading their workbooks, our kids will be able to do projects and field trips and all kinds of fun things that they just aren’t able to do now. As a parent that makes my heart so happy.

In my reading and research I’ve learned that homeschooled kids tend to fare really well on government exams and in college and university. Because they’ve had to be more hands on and self directed in their studies, they’ve learned study skills, how to plan their work load, and are typically more engaged in their learning process. The stats for homeschooled kids state that on average they score in the 85th percentile on government exams, while public school kids are usually in the 50th. That’s not meant to be a bashing of public schools, but rather just saying that we were surprised to learn that, and it helped us feel more confident in our decision. We’ve also learned that more and more colleges and universities are seeing the value of home education, and are seeking out homeschooled kids. There are more scholarships available now than ever before. In fact, our friend’s son just got a full ride to university for an engineering degree – as a homeschooled kid. For Chris, this was the biggest concern, and he’s feeling really good about our decision to go down this road.

I’m realizing that I’m excited to be learning along with our kids. I need to be challenged, and I don’t think I have been in the past few years. I’ve just been kind of floating along, and I need a change. Over the past few months of working with our kids one on one, I saw that I can in fact teach them. The issues where we would butt heads and just get frustrated had more to do with other things, things that we can work through. Being able to work so closely with them has shown me their insecurities, and what they need in a learning environment, and we can address that at home. I can tailor their studies in a way that makes the learning process more enjoyable for them. Now, please know I’m also being realistic here, and I know that this will be incredibly hard, but I believe the hard work will be worth it for all of us. Yes, we’ll have bad days where none of us want to do this, but we’ll also have good days too.

I’m also looking forward to seeing how this will change our day and our happiness quotient as a family. When we told Alex that we were sure in our decision to homeschool, he got giddy. I mean, he was giggling and SO HAPPY. He likes his school now, but it’s also been really hard for him, and I think we underestimated just how hard. It was like a weight had been lifted off of him. I can’t help but think how that has probably been spilling over into other areas. It’s going to be so interesting to see if we’re all happier because we feel like we’re all getting more out of the deal. More being learned. More fun in the process. More hours in our day because we won’t have homework… I could go on. I’ll definitely try to update on this.

~Leslie

January 27, 2019 8 Comments

A Year After Whole 30

Last January Chris and I did a round of Whole 30. Before I decided to do it I had thought there was no way I could cut out all gluten, sugar, legumes, grains, etc for a week, let alone a month. But, we did it! And it was such an eye opening experience for both of us. Chris loved the way of eating and actually kept a lot of things in place for most of last year.

I paid more attention during reintroduction and started to see some things that I wasn’t aware of before, like a sensitivity to certain kinds of dairy and a sluggish, heavy feeling after eating certain meals. I mentioned my findings on Fecbook and someone suggested that I read the Eat Right for Your Blood Type book as a follow up because they’d had a similar experience, and realized there were foods that didn’t work well with their digestive system. I kind of shrugged it off, but after 6 weeks of being in the land of plenty (a.k.a. North America) last summer I decided to give it a read because my body was not happy with some of my food choices.

As I read the lightbulbs kept pinging on and I realized that there might actually be something to this. Chris and I tested our blood and it made even more sense. We were on opposite ends of the scale. He could eat things I couldn’t, and he needed different kinds of exercise than I did. I realized that there is no one sized fits all approach to food, and that we all really needed to find what works for us as individuals.

For me this was a huge “ah-ha” moment. I had spent a lot of years beating myself up for not being able to stay on an eating plan or exercise regime. I would wonder why I would feel so exhausted after a more intense workout, even after weeks and weeks of exercising when a person would start seeing a shift happen. I wondered why whole foods that we ate on the Whole 30 seemed to still cause me digestive issues, like red meat. Well, it turns out my body was trying to tell me something.

Chris is a type O+, who needs meat protein and high intensity exercise to help burn stress and feel energized. I, on the other hand, am an A+, which lands at the opposite end of the scale. I’m supposed to be eating a mostly plant based diet, because my body can’t process meat protein the way Chris’ can, thus the digestive issues I was experiencing. When I get really intense exercise my body goes into fight or flight mode and treats the exercise like a stress event, and then I need a recovery period. I’m much better off doing things like yoga, walking or swimming because those tone my body and relieve stress.

My initial reaction to the idea of eating a plant based diet left me feeling lost and bewildered, but when I started to read through the recommended foods list I realized that deep down my body already knew this, because the foods I craved were all the ones listed. The ones that I wanted but didn’t feel good after eating, were all the ones that were on the “do not eat” list.

I spent last fall floundering around trying to figure out how to eat a plant based diet when I had a very hard carnivore in the family to also feed, as well as two kids that probably landed somewhere in between. It was a huge shift for me because I had always wondered why people would choose to not eat meat. I mean, it’s meat!! I say that sort of tongue in cheek, because I know for many it’s either an ethical issue, a personal taste issue, or a health issue. The bottom line is that they want to do what is right for their bodies. I wanted that same thing, but definitely felt lost.

Cooking has always been an easy thing for me. I can pull flavors out of stuff and know what should taste good with something. I rarely measure things, and just kind of keep playing with stuff until it’s good. I grew up in a home where my mom passed on what she’d been taught – a well balanced meal had some kind of meat, some kind of starch and a couple of vegetables. I would use this formula while planning our own meals, and things didn’t feel complete unless all the boxes were checked. I was always the one family member in our house who would make sure to eat a bit of everything, because that’s what was healthy.

I was also taught and immersed in that mindset where we talk about a type of food as being identified with one type of nutrient, like dairy = calcium, meat = protein, vegetables = vitamins, fruit = fiber, grains = carbs… You get the idea and were probably immersed in that too. Whole 30 was good at pointing out that we need to change this mindset, because foods are made up of a variety of nutrients. Vegetables, legumes, fruits and grains all have protein. They all have vitamins. They all have things like calcium, fiber and carbs. They are complex and are never one thing. So, if that’s the case, then I can get nutrients from a variety of food sources and bust out of my preconceived ideas, right? Yes.

As I came into 2018 I wanted to put more effort into actually going more plant based, and breaking away from my food frustration that came with it. I knew, after plenty of trial and error, that there are foods that just make me feel less good. That is a fact that I’ve had to accept. No many how many times I eat cheddar cheese, it still makes my stomach churn a bit. Red meat leaves me feeling full in an uncomfortable way and I feel like my body can’t easily digest it (truth – it can’t). Too much gluten leaves me feeling puffed up like a balloon, and too much over a period of days will lead to crappy sleep and crankiness. I know these things now, and it was just time to put more effort into focusing on the positive – what could I eat/do?

Making Small Changes

The whole idea of switching anything in your diet, whether it’s eliminating something, or adding something in that you never thought you would, can be really overwhelming. For me it has been, for sure. I struggled with trying to figure out how to cook meals that we could all share while making sure everyone was getting what they needed/wanted. I have always said I will never be a short order cook in my home where I have four different meals prepared for four different people. No way! So, I needed to figure out how to cook for all of us at the same time.

What I’ve recently realized is that I needed to shift the way I thought about the make up of a meal. Like I said earlier, I typically centered my meal around what type of meat we were having, because there was always meat, for the protein. The reality is, if I’m eating a plant based diet, then Chris is really the only major meat eater in our home at this point. The kids eat some, but really waver back and forth with how much from day to day. Alex has never been a huge fan of red meat, so when we would have steak sometimes he would want some, but most times he wouldn’t. Olivia will typically want some, but not a large portion. If we have chicken, both kids will eat it with Alex eating more than the rest of us – most days. If I made things with beans the kids would both gobble it up. We all like fish and shellfish, but Alex will typically eat some shellfish and then he’s good.

When I started to pay attention I realized that I needed to shift creating meals around my needs. That sounds selfish, but hear me out. We will all benefit from and need to eat a certain amount of plant based foods to be healthy, but not everyone in my family needs to eat all kinds of meat to be getting their best nutrition, so it would make sense to focus on the plant based part of a meal and make that the focus, then prepare any meat parts as a side, right? It’s actually logical. But, it took me a while to figure it out. I also realized that there were foods that easily overlapped. Things like rice, beans, salad and veggies, etc. If I focused on those, then made sure Chris had a meat option, then we’re good.

This exact thing played out at dinner the other night. I decided to make curried lentils for myself, and made enough to eat for leftovers and freeze for later. With it I made rice, salad and baked chicken legs. I assumed that I would be the only one eating the lentils, over rice, with some salad, and the rest of the family would eat rice, chicken and salad. Dinner time came and the lentils smelled so good that everyone else tried them, then proceeded to eat at least two helpings. The chicken was barely touched. It was encouraging because I realized I could make some really delicious plant based meals that the whole family would enjoy, and supplement them with sides to meet the other needs.

The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants

Going into this, and really Whole 30 too, I knew the biggest hurdle for me was the mental/emotional part of it. I had initially told myself that I couldn’t do Whole 30 because I couldn’t live without those foods. Then I did Whole 30 and realized that I could live without them. Some of them I didn’t really miss. I do have moments where I indulge, but for the most part I don’t eat much sugar anymore. When I do have too much I feel it, and it feels gross, so I move away from it and am fine. I can live without it. It’s not where I get my sense of happy anymore. I still have some strong ties to gluten, but I can go without it if I work at it. Gluten is a bit harder because flour is in so many things when you start paying attention.

In order to make a long term lifestyle change I knew that my feelings about food would need to change, and that I couldn’t force that to happen. Yes, I could try new dishes and enjoy them, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t crave a steak. How could I move beyond the desire for certain foods when I knew they weren’t the healthiest for me? When I knew they were hard for my body to use? Honestly, I knew this was something that God was going to need to change in my heart. I know that not everyone that reads this will share those views, and that’s fine. For me, that’s where the bottom line was. And you know what? It’s happening.

Yes, just not eating certain foods will make you want them less, but it’s important to remember that while I’m not eating them, I’m still preparing them. It’s great when you can just remove them from your home and life, but when you’re still using them it’s a lot harder. Slowly, over time, I’ve stopped feeling like I’m missing out on some of these things, and just don’t want them anymore. The other morning I made sausages and eggs for Chris and the kids for breakfast, and the smell of the sausages made my stomach turn. I’d never had that happen before. I can cook bacon for them now and not want to eat it all. The other night we were out with some friends and Chris ordered smoked swordfish, which normally would have been something I would have eaten, and when I tried a piece there was nothing about it that I enjoyed. The taste, the texture – it was all just not something I wanted.

Is It Worth It?

One thing I gained (among many) from doing Whole 30 was asking the question, “Is it worth it?” Once you start reintroducing foods and see how you feel, you can make a mindful decision about whether that food is worth it to you. Sometimes the answer will be yes, even if it makes you feel less than ideal. Most of the time the answer might be no. The same principle is encouraged in the Blood Type Diet. They encourage you to eat 80/20 – eat according to type 80% of the time, and then 20% of the time eat foods that you enjoy, even if they aren’t the best option for you.

This is a big thing for me as I work on moving to a more plant based diet, because it has room for movement. When I first started I took the fact that I “could” eat some eggs, chicken, fish and a few other things, and maxed out on those during the week. Now that I want those things less and I know that I do have certain reactions to some of them makes me stop and ask if it’s worth it that day. For example, eggs can leave me feeling a bit off. If I have one I’m generally okay, but more than that and it’s opening myself up for digestive trouble. In the mornings I’m often preparing breakfast and thinking, “Do I want to do eggs today, knowing how they’ll make me feel?” Sometimes I say yes and a cook one or two for myself. Most days I say no and eat something else.

Look For the Positives

I’ve realized that a big hangup for me is that I want to think about the negatives, or the challenges, rather than focusing on what I can do. The reason that changing diet seems overwhelming is because it involves saying goodbye to some foods, things I really loved. But, when I was able to see how they made me feel, and realize that I didn’t feel good, I started loving them less. This leaves room to try new things, so I started trying to focus on what I could have, rather than what I couldn’t.

This has been a really important thing, especially living in Haiti, and it’s still a struggle simply because of life in general. I typically go and do a big grocery run in Port au Prince about once a month. This is when I stock up on things I can’t get out in our local area. We have a pretty good variety in our area, but there are more options in PAP. Normally this works just fine, but things happen and we have to roll with them, like having vehicles that don’t run well enough to make a trip two hours away, so we don’t do that. I haven’t done a big grocery shop since the beginning of January, and even then didn’t stock up on certain things because we weren’t out of them and I assumed I would be doing my normal trip in a few weeks. Then our cars broke down and I’m doing what I can with what I have available. It means being flexible and creative.

When I looked at the list of recommended, and not recommended foods, I felt overwhelmed because we live in Haiti, and our options are already limited because of that. But, when I sat down and really went over the list I realized we had a lot more here than I thought we did. I retyped the food list and only included what I could find here, so now I can reference that instead of the book, and not feel discouraged as I look things over and plan meals.

Everyone Can Change

The bottom line of all of this, is that people can change. The Blood Type Diet encourages you to go slow and make small changes, rather than jumping all in and feeling really frustrated. That’s what I keep reminding myself of, even though my culture tells me I should be all in right away. When I feel discouraged I think about the progress that I have made, even though it might not translate to a weight loss at this point. I think about what I’ve learned about my body and what I want to keep working on. I’m wanting to care for myself and not just eat well or exercise because I “should”. I see my kids asking questions, and rather than saying I’m on a diet, I can legitimately say that a certain food doesn’t make me feel well, so I’m not eating it, or I’m trying new things in it’s place. I hope that sets them up to make healthy choices as they get older that are based on what their bodies need, and not what they think they “should” be doing.

I still have a lot of work to do, but I’m getting there. In particular, I want to work on better portion control. Just eating less all around, because I know I need to. I also want to work at incorporating more veggies and fruit into my diet. I know you’re probably thinking that eating a more plant based diet would make that easy, but remember that “plant based” also includes legumes, seeds, and grains. It’s easy for me to eat a lot of those things and not enough of the fresh veggies and fruit.

I would love to hear about your eating/diet experiences, especially if you’ve made what would be considered a big change.

~Leslie

February 18, 2018 4 Comments

A Car, A Truck, And 30 Hours

First off, thank you SO much for all of the comments! I’ve loved seeing familiar names from waaayyy back saying hi. What a great way to come back to this thing I love and missed. You guys rock!

Now, let me tell you about the past day and a half…

So all day yesterday things were plugging along nicely. Then I went to pick the kids up from school. It was a Bible study day for me, which means that I go pick the kids up at school, along with my friend Naomi, who is also their Principal. She can’t leave until 3:15, so we wait, she hops in the car, we rush back to Camp Marie, the kids hop out of the car, I turn the car around and drive back out the driveway and head to St. Marc, where we meet with a few other ladies and we do Bible study. All of this goes down within an hour or so, give or take.

Yesterday I decided to leave a bit early and go into Montrouis, the community where our kids go to school, to pick up a plate of street food to take with me for supper. In case you don’t know this, Montrouis is kind of legendary in Haiti for it’s main stretch of road because it’s basically about a block of street food vendors and fruit sellers. It’s crowded and congested with cars and motorcycles and busses and trucks all honking and squeaking by each other, or getting themselves into what we like to call a “blokis”, which usually involves a stare down between two vehicles to see who is going to back up or turn just a bit to open the road up again while lines of cars honk from behind, and any number of people will drive up to the front of the mess thinking that for some miraculous reason they’ll be able to get through when no one else is. #everysingletime

I found a vendor (not one I usually use) and pulled over, parked and hopped out. I ordered my plate of legume, which is a veggie mash typically served with white rice and bean sauce. It’s so good! The vendor asked me for $5 H more than she should have and I paid it because I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. Street food prices are pretty standard, as in everyone everywhere charges the same price for a plate of food, no matter what it is. When you have a whole street of people to choose from you don’t need to go back to the lady that overcharges you just to see if she can get away with it.

After I got my food I back tracked to the gas station right by my kids school to pick up some bread from the attached convenience store. You guys, my kids inhale bread. Like 4 loaves a week some weeks. I can’t keep up. Alex, my six year old who eats like a teenager, will often park himself at the table with a bag of bread, a plate, a knife, the jar of peanut butter and the bottle of honey and proceed to down no less than 4 peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Peanut butter and honey is his love language.

Got my bread and headed up to get the kids. They hopped in and we sat in the AC for about 15 minutes to wait for Naomi. We headed out, and that’s when the fun started (that was sarcasm).

A few minutes down the road and the car was making bad noises and not seeming normal. I decided to pull over and as I did it just quit. I called Chris, and we trouble shot as much as we could. about 5 minutes later it turned over again. The gauges were all reading normally, so I went on my way, hoping we could creep home. No bueno.

A few more minutes down the road and I had to pull over again. The car quit again and this time things were worse. Called Chris again. He called Evens, who lived just around the corner. Evens took a look and we knew it was overheating, even though the temperature gauge was reading normally. There was steam coming from the engine. After over 30 minutes of pouring water on the radiator to try and cool it down enough to add more coolant Evens called Chris to come and check on things. I take the other car with Naomi and head to St. Marc to try and salvage Bible study.

Literally just after we arrived in St. Marc and said hello I got a phone call to tell me that I needed to turn around and head back because the car needed to be towed home. All the frowns.

I find Chris and the kids on the side of the road. Chris is waiting for Evens to come and tells me to go drop Naomi off and then come back, so I do. I get back and the guys hook the cars up, we pile in and we tow the car home. While we’re driving Chris is giving the me the low down on what happened. They realized that we blew a rad hose somewhere down by the motor, which was why it was hard to find. It also means that the clacking noise I heard initially was the motor trying to destroy itself.

Today Evens spent the day working on the car. Got the hose off, and Chris went to St. Marc to find a replacement. I’m not really sure what the status of things is on that because I had my head buried in accounting all day, and I was afraid to ask.

I went to go get the kids from school today and when I came back Chris told me he’d just gotten a call that the white delivery truck, our main work horse, was broken down. It’s once again stuck in reverse. Being stuck in revers means that we can’t send another of our vehicles to tow it like we normally would, because it would mean about an hour of having the clutch engaged, which would destroy the clutch.

In order to get the truck home Evens (have I mentioned that he’s amazing?!?) took a motorcycle to St. Marc so he could track down a tow truck. Now, know that when I say tow truck, what I mean is a flat bed tow truck. The kind where they have a winch that they use to pull your vehicle up on the bed, then they tie it down. Sadly, I can tell you that it’s a really cool process to watch. I know this because we’ve had to do it too many times.

Once Evens located a tow truck the plan was to head out to the Artibonite Valley where they got stuck, and tow the truck back. The update is that it’s in St. Marc staying with Boss Atou, a mechanic that does a good job on our work trucks. Tomorrow he’ll take a look at things and we’ll see if it’s an easier fix, or if the transmission needs to be rebuilt, again.

Welcome to vehicle issues in Haiti. We’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s never one thing here, and I think we do a pretty good job of rolling with the punches, but you know what would make me really happy???

A new truck.

We’ve been fundraising for a new truck for about 2 years now, and you guys, as of writing this we’re only about $9,000 away from our goal of $55,000. Getting a new truck would mean that we could downgrade the white truck to be used for repairs and local errands, and get a bigger, stronger truck that has a higher weight capacity than any of the vehicles we currently have. Did you know that every load of filters is about 5 tons of weight? It’s all cement and sand and gravel and half a dozen men on the truck each time, and after many years, things start wearing out and falling apart. It would be amazing to have a reliable vehicle again so we don’t have down days and so our filter recipients got uninterrupted service. And I would love to see us spending less on vehicle maintenance. Can you believe that a couple years ago we spent over $10,000 US on vehicle maintenance and repairs in a 9 month period? Yeah, it’s crazy. That’s 100 filters. It sucks.

If you’d like to contribute to helping us get our new truck, knowing that it’s going to help countless families get clean water, you can go to our website and choose the best option to donate: www.cleanwaterforhaiti.org/donate. We would love it if you would help us spread the word too. We’re Clean Water for Haiti on Facebook and cleanwaterforhaiti on Instagram.

~Leslie

January 17, 2018 No Comments

I’m Leslie. I started my blog back in 2005 when I was fresh off the plane in Haiti. I lived in Haiti for over 17 years as a missionary, wife, and eventually mom. My husband and I ran Clean Water for Haiti together, day in and day out. We carved out a life we loved doing something important to us. Sadly, in the fall of 2022 we had to make the difficult decision to leave Haiti because of the insecurity. We’re now settling into life in the US. I’m thankful that I get to continue my work with CWH as the Executive Director for Canada and the US.

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