Blog Posts

Last night at around 4:30 our Hope Rising family grew by 7. I wasn't excited. I was torn. What was wrong with me? Orphan care is not at all what one would imagine it to be and even what the books tell you it is. Trust me, I've read the books. I couldn't sleep last…

Over the past few weeks death has affected many people and organizations in our little area of Haiti but it happens every second of everyday all over the world. I guess what bothers me most are those deaths that could have easily been prevented with medical care. Like asthma, infected cut, malaria, and the list…

It’s been awhile since I have blogged. It always seems to take me awhile to process and gather my thoughts enough to be able to put them into words and in all honesty I am not sure I am there yet so if this blog seems like random thoughts it’s because they are J.  Over…

A little over 9 months ago our lives changed. Let me go back and explain a little history about how all these changes came about.  About 3 years ago we met and began a friendship with Matt and Jessica Bush. They were in a similar situation as we were working with a specific group of…

It’s hard to believe we have already had 8 teams this year and preparing for a busy summer as well. As special as each team was I want to focus for a minute on these last two teams. During those weeks God refreshed my eyes to His vision for Hope Rising. It’s almost been a…

Well, this is a long overdue blog and I don’t know why it has taken me so long to sit down and write it, but here it is. As many of you know our daughter, Kaylea, was recently diagnosed having Type 1 Diabetes.  For those of you that don’t know the difference between types 2…

When we first moved here Matt and I both began to wear many hats but never did I imagine wedding coordinator would have been one of those hats. We had our first wedding in Haiti this past weekend and to say it was interesting would be an understatement. Let me first start by explaining why…

So, I was recently asked to answer a few questions for a friend’s college project.  I decided to answer them in a blog because I figured there might be some other people interested as well.  I have to admit, putting these thoughts into words did not come easy for me. How do I perceive differences…

In a country where there is 85% unemployment I wonder how people survive. The minimum wage in Haiti was recently raised from $4.44 to $5.00 a day. So 15% of Haiti is making $5 a day. How do they live? “A recently published report by Solidarity, the nonprofit affiliate of the American Center for International…

One thing I constantly struggle with in Haiti is cooking.  It never fails that every time I make a grocery list and go to the store they only have 1/3 of what was on my list and that’s if I’m lucky. So I have gotten pretty good at substituting. Easy substitutes are instead of pinto…