Oh, How does your garden grow?

by Jimmy

Have I mentioned that I like my garden? The first couple of experiments have not worked out very well. I grew great weeds, but my beans, and watermelons sprouted then died. My first batch of seeds did not germinate from what I could tell. I did finally get some tomato plants and some corn to grow. These I have just transplanted into the garden bed.

And now that I can get corn and radish to sprout quickly, those are my favorite vegetables. This is Haitian corn, so I am not sure that it will be like the sweet corn we are used to in the States, but at least it will be corn that I grew, and I can always feed it to the chickens.

I have been able to grow exactly two carrot plants in the big buckets, and that is after planting a ton of seeds. I think I have old seed, so I will look forward to updating my supply come Christmas.

I wonder what I can get to produce from 40 square feet of dirt. I water it twice a day, and am really liking it. I have never successfully gardened before in probably 4 or 5 half-hearted attempts, starting when I was probably 10 or 12. The only product that I can remember is tomatoes, and I don't even like tomatoes.

So far, I have 4 different types of beans started, tomato, corn, radish, lettuce, popcorn, squash, cucumber, cilantro, and parsley. Tomorrow, I hope to plant some more herbs, and finish out the square foot garden. And then I can decide on building another bed, or buying the bigger pots to grow more stuff in. (The recycled coke bottles didn't work out so well.)

Speaking of plants and such... Becky and I tried to go for something more of an adventure this last weekend. We attempted to find the organic farm up the mountain. Unfortunately, we did not connect with the owner. Maybe this weekend.

We did however get to eat at the Baptist Mission. It is always nice to go up the mountain, since it is always so much cooler, and just a really nice place to get out, eat, walk around, and feel relaxed.

They even have a small zoo. A Haitian class of students perused the zoo while we walked through, and the small monkey entertained us all. The kids' reaction to the monkey entertained us the most. After visiting the single monkey, peacocks, and goats, we meandered down a delightful path through the forest. Being surrounded by green is a luxury we do not always have in Port-Au-Prince. Though we have the tremendous advantage of the property we live on, our trees have lately been covered with a thick coat of gray brown dust. (I drove the motorcycle this morning and came back with a thick coat of gray brown dust.) Add the heat down here, and the mountains are so much more delightful.

So we walk down the flower flanked trail, large green trees on both sides, steep wall to one side, and a sharp incline down the other. We stop to take a picture.

Pick a flower, and place in the hair of my beautiful pregnant wife.

We continue to enjoy the beauty of God's creation, and around the bend in the distance notice a peculiar construction... Is it a water trough to guide water away?

Upon closer inspection, it becomes more apparent. It is the trash chute used by the mission. I shouldn't and wasn't too surprised. It's juxtaposition threw me however. The view above...

The view from the chute...

The view of the ravine below the chute...

The trash did not surprise me all that much. Some things in Haiti just are. Trash is one of them. I keep trying to find the bright spots. Big trucks pick up trash. Old ladies carry huge bags of empty plastic bottles on their head. Fires are set to trash piles to reduce bulk. Trash on broken sidewalks next to businesses remain swept into the gutter. I compost.

Oh, Haiti! How you continue to challenge my view of things. Just one more thing I get to think about, ponder, and wonder about the possibilities.

You Might be Celebrating Thanksgiving in Haiti if...

by Jimmy

...you gorge yourself so much on Beth McHoul's feast that you don't eat dinner.

...visiting friends only a couple miles away takes 40 minutes to drive between them.

...Skype is how you celebrate with your family.

The Heartline Academy kids came up with a list of 30 of their own Thanksgiving in Haiti lines, and presented them to the masses that came to Beth's widely known and more widely coveted Thanksgiving meal. I started counting people and stopped at 50, as that was just when the food table opened up and everyone started to move around. Needless to say, many went uncounted. The kids performed wonderfully. I was a little surprised at how nervous I was for them, with that many people present.

(photo stolen from Heather, as our camera battery failed after 3 not-so-great pictures)

Also, to stay with Burton family tradition, for my holiday days off, I worked on the yard and my garden in particular. I spent Wednesday hauling dirt 100 yards in a wheelbarrow, shoveling that dirt into two 5 gallon buckets, and carrying them up a flight of stairs, then up to the roof on a stepladder, and concrete ledge to my waiting garden bed. After only about 32 buckets of dirt, the bed lies nearly full. I am so excited. I keep thinking that we will have fresh vegetables that I will actually eat in just 3 months time. We will see how that pans out, both in HAVING something and then EATING some of them. I will remain, however, an optimist.

As I was finishing that evening, the birds came to roost like usual in the tree just outside our door.

One of the birds became a bit ambitious and tried to roost higher in the tree than others.

It caught its leg in between two branches, so of course being the kind, considerate soul I am I laughed and called my wife to share this moment.

... and mounted a rescue.

Of course I had to stop and pose with the dumb bird before releasing it from its perch. As dumb as those birds are, I still so thoroughly enjoy having them around, feeding them, and watching them. Thank you Barney and Joanna for the opportunity to first raise them.

And there is my recycled garden bed, just waiting to be planted. I like it.

Changes....

Well here's one change - the baby inside me is growing so much! Blows my mind every time I think about the fact that God is growing - knitting together- a little person, our child, inside of me.... how awesome.

Cabrit yo

This weekend Jimmy went with a Haitian friend to buy some goats.

He'd been talking about getting a goat since we got it here.

However, he may have never actually done it without his mom's encouragement.

When she visited a couple weekends ago they talked goats and she told him he needed to get one and she wanted to buy it for him as her contribution to our "farm". So she had him talk to people about what it would take to get one and left money to buy a goat for us.

So since them Jimmy has been reading and talking and thinking goats.

The Haitian who is in charge out at the property we live at has apparently been wanting a goat too, so they went together and Jimmy bought both a male and female goat and the Haitian bought another female goat. The hope is that the goats will help "mow" Jimmy's lawn that he has been working so hard on, provide free fertilizer, milk and baby goats - not to mention lots of entertainment. Although I have heard horror stories about goats, so far they seem to be quiet and well tempered, somewhat ambivalent toward us, but atleast not obnoxious.

I'm sure Jimmy will want to tell more later, but for now, here they are.

"Cookies and Cream" - or Cece

"Milky Way"And "Snickers"

Baby Burton Update

23 weeks today.

That means only 18 weeks to go (give or take a few).... crazy.

When the baby was measured this week at my pre-natal he was 22cm long- right on target.

He has reached the active stage where I feel him moving around and kicking throughout the day.

This is fun.

I am feeling very well - no more nasuea, able to take my vitamins and gaining good weight.

Supposedly I am at the "best" point in pregnancy and should enjoy it while I can before I get as huge as a house. :o)

We found out this week that there have been some changes and we won't be able to deliver the way we had hoped... so we are praying and discussing our current options for delivery. Please pray for wisdom for us and just the right birth for our little one.

A "baby belly" pic:

Daily Life in Haiti

by Jimmy

One day as I was completing some small chores around the house, I thought of the many small Haiti chores that come along with living here. Chores here are very necessary, but things you may never think of in the States. I took some pictures to document.

Electricity: So many things here are related to electricity including the water. We have our electronics center...

Our inverter charges our batteries (which are on just the other side of the wall behind the inverter) whenever we have EDH (city power). EDH comes on for 8 a day at the most. Zero hours per day for 3-4 days at the worst. Task for the inverter is to constantly monitor electricity usage so as to not drain our batteries too quickly, turn it off once the batteries get to low, and then move on to the generators.

At night I turn on the small gas powered generator if needed so as to not disturb the neighbors. The big one I turn on during the day to charge our batteries. Going to buy gas or diesel are probably once a week chores. Making sure we have electricity to power our fans and fridge tops out the priority list.

When we have to run off the small generator, the floor of our apartment suddenly turns into a maze of wires. (Actually it stays a maze of wires, we just have to rearrange the maze.)

And just to make sure we do not use too much energy, I had to unscrew the big round bulbs and install one energy efficient bulb.

We did experience a 4 or 5 day drought of electricity in which we received rain every day, but could not get water to the top of our two story storage tank. So we had to improvise and move the big generator around to our water pump. I was starting to get a little worried when our massive water tank in the ground got to half full, and we still could not run our well pump even with our big generator. Fortunately, EDH came on that day. One more chore though, is to make sure we have a full tank of water, and if not, run the pump when we have electricity.

And even though we have a well, I still have to go to the store every 3 days or so to purchase drinking water. If I go in the afternoon, there are a group of young boys who are glad to escort me across the busy street for "one dolla". I must insist that I can do it on my own.

There are several nightly routines that I follow. The first is to brush my teeth, without tap water of course.

Then shower with our always trickle of water. Literally we have the water pressure of next to nothing. Wash one arm and then the other...

I must make sure we have ice for the next day. No automatic ice maker, and all filled by hand.

The evening starts with a visit right at 6:00 from our night guard. I store the shotgun in the apartment until he comes by to pick it up and hopefully not use it until 6:00 the next morning. It's hit or miss whether or not he has to use it.

After the wonderful supper my amazing wife cooks I will (most of the time) do dishes. Our tiny one bowl sink will barely hold anything, so we had to adapt. Two big plastic bowls are now our sink. One for cool to lukewarm dish soap water, and the other for bleached rinse water. And after we are done, I have to dispose of the bleach water downstairs so as to not mess up our septic system.

Some nights, (not too often), we bring out the TV and watch a movie borrowed from friends. We have computer speakers now, so we don't have to lay right next to the laptop speakers in order to hear it. We did have a treat the other night and made two big bowls of popcorn. Never knew learning how to pop corn in the pan as a kid would turn out so handy.

And finally bedtime... The biggest responsibility of the evening lies in securing the castle against flying invaders. A quickly learned mosquito net lesson has turned into nightly routine. You MUST tuck in the bottoms of the net between the mattresses all the way around. Or somehow the mosquitoes who stay under the bed during the day will find their way inside.

We sleep well, secure from flying bloodsuckers, the fans right next to our ears drowning out the preacher next door who extols loudly, or the horns honking, or the roosters crowing. Wishful thinking on the rooster. He is up bright and early at 4:30, almost just in time for me to get up and accept the shotgun back at 6:00. Sunshine at 5:30 and another day of routines begins.

Live by Faith

Live by faith - song by Chris Rice

I can’t feel You movin’ inside
I don’t hear Your voice whisperin’ in the night
And I’ve never seen You with these eyes
Am I a fool, am I just a fool?
They ask how I follow what I can’t see
Why I trust in a love that my arms won’t reach
I don’t need You, don’t need You, to prove it to me
I’ll be a fool, yes I’ll be a fool

‘Cause blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe
And blessed are the hands that keep givin’ but never receive

Blessed is the heart that gets broken but keeps holdin’ on

Holdin’ on for another day

‘Cause that’s what it means to live by faith

So I cry for Your help while the world looks on
And they laugh at my hope when all hope is gone
But I’ll just keep prayin’ when answers won’t come
Am I the fool, am I just a fool
For standing alone while they mock Your name

"Well if your God is so good, tell us why all the pain?"
I’m not sure, not so sure that God is to blame
So don’t be a fool, please don’t be a fool

‘Cause blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe
And blessed are the hands that keep givin’ but never receive
Blessed is the heart that gets broken but keeps holdin’ on
Holdin’ on for another day

‘Cause that’s what it means to live by faith

In a world where our questions are haunted
‘Cause life’s not as fair as we all wanted
Where the innocent die, we ask why
And still we await the reply...

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe
And blessed are the hands that keep givin’ but never receive
Blessed is the heart that gets broken but keeps holdin’ on

Holdin’ on for another day
‘Cause that’s what it means...it means holdin’ on for another day
‘Cause that’s what it means to live by faith
Yes that’s what it means to live by faith
That’s what it means to live by faith, to live by faith...

This is what we talked about at church today. Active faith. That moves from our head (believing He exists) to our hearts (trusting him unconditionally because of his character and judging all circumstances by what we know of Him, not judging him by our circumstances) to our wills and hands and feet (obedience to him being more important than any other pursuit in order that we would bring Him glory)

Don't we all need more faith?..... The righteous shall live by faith. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can move mountains. Faith is confidence in what we hope for. Without faith it is impossible to please God.

A few prayer requests:

Jimmy and I have been focusing more on studying Creole and our goal is to have a good grasp of it by Christmas. Pray that we would be committed to putting in the work and for God's grace to help us learn.

We have been praying since before we came that the Lord would make it clear if he has any particular work for us to do in addition to teaching the Heartline children. Please pray for wisdom as we continue the think through this question and remain open to whatever he may have and for faith to obey in anything he would ask.

There is a team of 10 in from Austin this week helping with some different projects. Pray for them and a fruitful trip.

Pray for the teen mom house. 3 of the moms just had their babies!

School Update

Tomorrow begins week 5 of our school year here in Haiti.

We are so thankful for the job the Lord has given us here. Teaching really has been a joy.

Teaching highlights so far:

-A couple students who haven't really enjoyed school before are enjoying it and excited about what they are learning possibly for the first time.

-A student that began the year really struggling with reading has already made so much visible progress!

-Our curriculum has a focus on teaching students to be able to speak and present so that they can one day be comfortable sharing all the things they have learned with others. A couple students that were very nervous and uncomfortable with speaking in front of people the first week have made very successful "presentations" and are getting more comfortable with this difficult task.

-One precious student that never fails to tell us at the end of every day "Thank you so much for teaching me today!!"

-Seeing the kids make connections on their own between the different subjects and what they are learning and reading. Watching them share with others confidently things we have learned.

-Most of the student's love for art. We have been doing a drawing unit and they have just been eating it up. They so enjoy it, are so proud of their work, and really talented.

-Having students who respect us and not having to spend all day fighting crazy battles and chaos. I am still often shocked by their quickness to be corrected or obey. They are not perfect, but their obedience is definitely different than what we experienced in the public school system. They also really love one another and take care of each other which is sweet to see.

-Seeing the students struggle through things that are difficult. Some are being challenged in ways they never have been before. Sometimes our tendency as people is to want to try and remove these struggles for kids or help them enough to make things easy. But a quote we heard before the beginning of the year that has really been a reminder to us is "You must prepare the child for the path, not the path for the child." So it has been neat to instruct and walk alongside in some of the difficulties and struggles without making things easy or comfortable knowing that the end result of the challenge will be growth.

-Having parents that are involved and supportive and thankful for what we're doing with their kids.

-Getting to be stretched in new ways as teachers. It is fun to teach all different subjects to all different ages in a setting very different than we are used to and we are sure it will make us better teachers. We still have lots to learn.

Each day we have a short recreation time with the kids. The first 2 weeks we had these nice balls to play with. However, they were quickly destroyed by all the thorns and glass and rocks in the school yard. Last week the kids were entertained all week with a random piece of old rope they found and converted into a jump rope. Below are a few pictures of jump roping in the pouring rain after school one day.

Success!

The internet lost anchor of the Santa Maria has been found! Of course it hasn't moved in many years, but according to the internet, and my newest nemesis Wikipedia, the anchor supposedly had been destroyed or in some distant non-existent museum built in 1938. Not so.

I took a quicker trip with the motorcycle across town to visit the National Museum, the one across from the National Palace. The security guards out front were not very enthused about my wanting to park in the parking lot, but they did not have the parking lot gate open, even though they had been open for an hour. I guess that is a special privilege. So I smiled sweetly and asked politely so they let me jump the curb and park in the lot. I feel better leaving the moto inside the fence than out on the street.

I paid my $1.25 entrance fee and got a personal guided tour of the museum in Air Conditioning. Suffice it to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was about 20 minutes late getting back for school. There the rusty anchor was, standing some 8-10 feet tall, 4-5 feet wide and looking just as I had hoped and imagined. Unfortunately, I abide by the rules and took no pictures. Looking back I really should have asked my tour guide if I could.

The museum is small, but well done. It does a great job of covering the history of Haiti. There are not that many artifacts, but what they do have is well displayed, and tell a great story. Most memorable are the anchor, slave shackles, and the gold crown of King Faustin. There is also a great art exhibit of great Haitian artists.

Looks like we will actually get to take a field trip with the kids soon. And I am excited to share more with them what we have been studying: In 1492 Columbus made the first of four trips to the Caribbean in three Spanish ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.

Now I am off to correct Wikipedia...

This Week's Adventures - The Anchor of the Santa Maria!?

by Jimmy

This week's adventures were not nearly so long and exhausting as last week's, though you may not know that from my wife who is sleeping at 7:00 PM. Today she graciously let me choose which direction to drive, and I chose to explore across town to the Musee National. (National Museum)

Now this is no ordinary museum... OK, yes it is. Every museum is an ordinary museum according to my wife, but THIS museum is said to house the very anchor of Christopher Columbus' flagship, the Santa Maria! And what have we been studying in school, but that very same Christopher Columbus. Just a little historical background - Columbus sailed for the New World (or the ocean blue) in 1492, landing first in the Bahamas, then to the larger island of Cuba, and finally having been told of gold in Haiti, set his sights there. On Christmas day of that year, the ship struck a shoal and sunk off the coast of Haiti. They did discover the king of Haiti possessed gold, and trading him trinkets for his gold, started back to Spain, to spread the word, and thus began the first gold rush. Unfortunately for the then owners of the gold, they neither possessed the weapons, or immunity to disease to resist the relentless European Explorers.

And now that I have thoroughly bored half our readers... my quest for iron not gold. At least that is what I am assuming the anchor is made of. We departed the property just after lunch, and quickly met a not uncommon long line of slow traffic down our main road. After a quick stop at the Haitian Home Depot, MSC, (yes, literally the Haitian Home Depot, same colors and everything, though they do sell Vodka at the checkout lanes, and huge industrial size electrical transformers) we ventured to the opposite side of Port-Au-Prince.

We started out strong, traffic after MSC was not all that bad, and driving past the airport we saw the JoyHouse bus in the parking lot. JoyHouse is the place we visited last weekend, and where Becky and I first worked in Haiti just after the earthquake. We pulled into the parking lot, and got to visit with Norma the founder of JoyHouse for a little bit as she was waiting for an incoming team. After trading contact information we proceeded to the pin marked location of the Musee National.

We arrived, I in excited anticipation and pulled into the Quisqeya University parking lot. Higher education and museums go hand in hand don't they? And it was right at the pin mark. We exited the vehicle, and scoured the newly constructed and in construction premises. Students milling about, and a couple of classes in session. I was excited just to see a functioning school. But alas, no museum. It must be up the street.

So up the street we drove. A security guard at the only promising gate kind of laughed at the object of our quest, and sent us back down the street. We traversed down, back up, and back down, stopping back at the University to ask there. Much to my chagrin, and quite honestly I had been keeping my hopes and expectations down all morning, we found not the anchor of the famed Santa Maria, nor for that matter the entire Musee National.

(And just as a side note, I am sure that we just had a trembler, the first I have felt since we have been here.) At first I thought it was thunder, and big trucks crashing big trash cans, but that makes no sense, and big trucks cannot shake our concrete apartment.

Well, I guess we will just have to try another day. I might have to strike out on my own though. Becky can only take so much exciting history at a time.
Sorry for the lack of pictures, we were explorers this week, not tourists like last.

3 Months

9 months ago I started dating this guy from church named Jimmy.
6 months ago we got engaged.
3 months ago (June 11th) we were married
1 month ago we moved to Haiti.
In 6 months we will have a new born baby in Haiti.

Life sure can change quickly...
As we finished an excellent first week of school on Friday, my husband mentioned that we were done with the first week and that we had more than 18 years left to go. I looked at him quizically and said "18 years! How do you figgure that?" He reminded me that if we are going to school our children and plan to have many of them, than 18 years is the absolute minimum amount of time that this sort of teaching lies ahead of us. That sort of freaked me out. My response... "What happened to my life?!"
Being married, having and raising and teaching children... these are all good things. Just different things, and very permanent things. I am used to thinking about my life one day at a time and as far as making plans/commitments have never ever done so more than a year at a time. I guess those days are gone. I am excited for what's ahead though, and thankful for my wonderful husband.

We have enjoyed an excellent weekend thank you to the Lovely Livesay family who loaned us their car. We were very excited about all the adventure we would be able to find with such transportation.


Friday night we enjoyed a social evening with some of the other younger people involved in Heartline. We got to hang out and eat MEXICAN food and play games. I had been craving such a night since we arrived in Haiti. Much fun! (This would have been impossible without the use of a car since all of the roads were flooded and we can not be out on the motorcycle after 6 pm anyways due to safety and the fact that the headlights don't exactly work.)

Saturday we decided to use the Livesays car to go exploring. After a bit of houscleaning in the morning... you would not beleive how much soot, dust and dirt it is possible to collect in one house in only a week.... We took off for the Dominican border. We had heard that it was not far down a road that runs closely to our house.

Here are a few sights outside our gate. We see them everyday, but have not shared them with you yet.

This is the beautiful trash pile that is always outside our wall.


The market corner of the "intersection" (no signals, signs, or rules of traffic) right by our house.


The flooded streets.


The crowded "taptap" (taxi)...Driving a car with only 2 people in Haiti really makes you feel extravagant/wasteful since most every other car is crowded full and most people are just walking.


So, when we got to the Dominican border, it turned out we were missing some sort of authorization for our vehicle to be able to cross. Of course it was difficult to determine what was really needed, because our Creole is basically non-existant and we're pretty sure everyone was just trying to make money off of us...they wouldn't have minded us not having the paper so long as we gave them money. So after quite a bit of confusion we turned around and thankfully were returned our passports and allowed to leave without too much trouble. We'll have to save exploring the D.R. for another time.

The pretty countryside near the border.


Since we were unable to explore the D.R. after spending some time working on the car due to trouble with the radiator, we still had time to make a trip out to Gressier. This is where JoyHouse Ministries is located and where Jimmy and I had come on a trip with our church in 2010. Gressier is only about 15 miles away, but in Haiti this equates to a 2 hour drive. In order to get there we had to drive through the west side of Port-Au-Prince which we had not been to yet. It was even 10 times crazier than the area where we live! We successfully found JoyHouse and our Haitian friend Fito from our previous trip there. Everyone else was gone and will not be there until this weekend. It was still fun to see all the progress that has been made on the church there and remember our trip. We also got some phone numbers to get in contact with old friends.
The church building that was only rubble when we visited after the earthquake. Looking good!

It was a long drive home from Gressier in the dark, but my husband is an awesome navigator, and we were able to stop near the airport and eat at the restraunt we had eaten at with our team the first time we came to Haiti. Another neat memory. We were stopped twice by policemen this weekend. Seems like some paper for the car needs to be updated. Being stopped by the police is the one time I am thakful not to speak Creole... since they can't speak English and get easily frustrated with not being able to communicate, they let us go pretty quickly.

Ok, so today we enjoyed a great morning of fellowship at church and then went on up the mountains to try and have lunch at the Baptist Mission. However it was closed. So we kept driving in the beautiful mountains. We didn't know where we were going, and the roads were even more horrible than city roads, but the air was cool and the countryside was beautiful, so we just enjoyed the ride. We found lunch around 3:00 on the way back into town.

The mountains


All in all, good weekend, full of driving and exploring and learning.
It is funny how in Haiti you come to expect things not to work out and so you find things that could possibly somehow be counted as a success and celebrate them.