Update and Recipes!

Hello everyone! We hope that many of you had the chance to try some Haitian food last Sunday after church. We (Leonie, Vonita, and Steph) had a great time cooking and sharing with you, and it seemed like the food was well-received! You have helped our Spirited Worship collection grow SO much....we collected $165 for the lunches. WOW!!! We hope that we can have another lunch after the first of the year.

Our collection currently sits at $362. This is fabulous! Please think of us whenever you have an extra few dollars to donate. The Rescue Center in Haiti has been massively busy treating cholera patients. Thankfully, the stream of patients has slowed somewhat. They have saved MANY Lives...as they do every day!

On the Unitarian Universalist Service Commitee's front, they are urging people to fill this form out on their website to contact their congresspeople to help pass the:

Haiti Empowerment, Assistance, and Rebuilding Act

• Establish a coordinator position at the State Department, to increase oversight and accountability
• Develop recovery plans that are “in line with the needs and aspirations of local populations”
• Ensure that communities are at the center of the process to build permanent and sustainable housing for those displaced by the earthquake
• Support sustainable livelihoods and local food production
• Address security needs, including protection of women and children
• Increase opportunities for all children in Haiti to access education
• Authorize multiyear recovery funds

Please go there as soon as you can and fill this out...time is of the essence!

Now for the recipes.....

We would like to offer you the recipes from the Haitian lunch! I will start with the Sos Pwa Nwa (Black Bean Sauce) and the Mais Moulin (Haitian Polenta).

 These recipes all came from the wonderful Haitian cookbook called "A Taste of Haiti."

The Sos Pwa Nwa recipe is NOT vegetarian, it contains a slice of bacon (really adds to the flavor) but the bacon can easily be left out and then it will be VEGAN.

The Mais Moulin is vegetarian. It contains butter but if one uses a non-dairy butter substitute it would then be VEGAN.

If you are more of an internet person, you can make these two dishes as I made them from my friend's blog. Here is the Sos Pwa recipe, and here is the Mais Moulin recipe. She has some other Haitian recipes on her blog as well, find them here.

Hope you enjoy! I will get the other recipes posted for you in my next blog post. 

Blessings!

More Cholera Pics

Please pray. Please donate. Help the Rescue Center. This horrible epidemic is going to get much worse before it gets better.

Cholera has come to the Rescue Center

At Spirited Worship last week I reported that it seemed like Cholera was being contained or slowed. I spoke too soon. It has reached Port au Prince, and has now impacted Real Hope for Haiti's Rescue Center and Clinic. Here is today's post from RHFH.

Lori and Licia say:

I really do not know what to write today. My emotions are all mixed up. I am leaving Cazale for a few days with the kids and Enoch. We had 17 people right in our front yard last night. We are working to move them to the facility that was original set up for Cholera treatment. Lori has not slept yet. The rest of us went to bed at 2am. Today there are three of our nurses, Lori and another US nurse working. Maybe (hoping and praying) this afternoon we will have a team of medical people coming in to help. Someone is coming to test the water in the area. From talking to those that came last night they are drinking treated water, but all took baths in the river. I just went outside and someone was brushing their teeth in the river. So some, even with all the education being given, are not getting it. We do not want to get everyone excited and make this into something bigger than it is. We just want to be prepared to help as many as we can. I love Lori so much and we work so good together in these types of situation. But…I have to think about my kids and what is best for my family right now. It is so hard to leave for a few days. We need your prayers right now. I will try to have Casey or Mary update the blog as needed. We are praying that things will calm down and there be no more cases. But we also need to be prepared to take in more patients. Especially as the larger facilities are getting full. Reporting of Cholera under reported in many areas. They are giving out list of places that are opened to receive patients. Then some of these places are not opened. The emergency numbers given are working now. No results from the lab yet, we have called multiple times but have not been able to get results. They have told us several times that they will email us with form and info but have not yet done this.

Please Pray.


Steph

What the UUSC is doing for Haiti

Learn more about the UUSC's Integrated Approach to helping Haiti in this article and video from the UUSC website. UUSC is one of the two organizations we are supporting this year.


After the devastating 7.0 earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, UUSC responded with its unique integrated approach of grassroots eye-to-eye partnerships, constituent advocacy, and public policy work. This short film demonstrates how UUSC supports people affected by humanitarian crises who are overlooked by traditional relief efforts. They are rebuilding their lives as heroes of their own story, contrary to the mass-media viewpoint of Haitians as helpless victims. UUSC's unique eye-to-eye partnership model understands that in an unequal society like Haiti, survivors don't just need food, they need justice. 


Won't you please donate, or send your family and friends to this blog so they can chip in too? It would mean so much to our Spirited Worship kids, and to Haiti!

Blessings...

Steph

Poupe Konfo (Comfort Dolls) for the Haiti Rescue Center

This past Sunday was "Social Service Sunday" at church. This is my yearlong project on the CYRE Council (Council for Youth Religious Education), we do it 4 times a year. During RE (aka in other circles as Sunday School) the kids learn about what they will be doing, and the instructions to create the item (it could be dog biscuits for the SPCA, simple fleecy blankets for the crisis nursery, doing a sport-a-thon to raise money for the soup kitchen, etc), then spend about 20 minutes to a half hour creating the items, then we send them off!

First the kids all gathered together while I explained the project, where Haiti is, and why they need our help. Then we showed a video that Diane mashed up for us from existing videos from the Rescue Center. I am having some trouble posting it, so I will show you the main video that talks about Real Hope for Haiti...the Clinic and the Rescue Center....plus the myriad of community work they do in and around Cazale (Kazal).


Real Hope For Haiti from Corrigan Clay on Vimeo.

This time we made easy fleece "knot dolls" which I call "comfort dolls." In Kreyol, this would be Poupe Konfo. It was simply a piece of fleece with a knot in each corner, a slit cut where the head would attach, and then you insert a long strip of brown fleece, knot that onto the first piece of fleece, and then slice the excess into strips to make "hair." The kids had a GREAT time making these.

We made 89 dolls between all the RE classes! The littlest class, our Rainbows, also made paper hearts as cards to go with them. Now we will send them off to Real Hope for Haiti's HQ in the USA, and they will ship them down to the Rescue Center. Licia will then get us photos of the babies and kids with their new comfort dolls! I can't wait for that!

We want as many people to come to this blog and see what we are doing as we can. We hope that you will consider donating anything to help our fund grow. Remember, all funds go to help Haiti and will be sent there at the end of our church year, June 2011. I really want to get the kids fired up by increasing our Haiti fund from people online...there are SOOO many of you out there passionate to help Haiti! They will be so excited to see that people from all over are seeing what they are doing and are helping too! Even just leave a comment and where you are from, so I can read it to them on Sunday.

Thank you! 

Stephanie

Social Service Sunday: Comfort Dolls for the Rescue Center

This Sunday we made Comfort Dolls (or Poupe Konfo) as our Social Service Sunday project. We will send them to the sick kids at the Rescue Center.

Everyone had lots of fun doing this. And they are SO EASY. Just 4 knots, and a knot for the head. Clip the fleece into hair, and there ya go! They are soft and easy to wash, and no parts to come off and swallow. No sewing, either.

Some of the kids wanted to stay late and make more and more dolls! They braided the "hair," and even made "bonnets" for them out of small scrap material.

89 dolls total were made. A great success!

We also raised another $26 dollars in Spirited Worship for Haiti. Won't you please donate a dollar or two to help match our funds? ALL MONEY goes to Haiti.

We hope to hear more soon about the UUSC's potential work trip to Haiti. Our Youth Group really wants to go, and so do I!

Blessings!

This little girl....

I was not expecting to read this at the Haiti Rescue Center blog today.

Below is a photo of Elita. Out of the probably hundreds and hundreds on the RC's blog, I printed out this particular picture to use on the display board I made to use in Spirited Worship last week, to put our stickers on as we collect money:

I used several photos, mostly of kids who were smiling, or of the directors of the center, or of happy kids getting donations. I didn't want to use a photo that was too shocking, of a child that was too starving or sick. Elita's photo definitely showed her malnutrition, and that she was not well, but it was not "too bad," if you will. Not too bad for the kids to see. All the kids listened so intently while I talked about Haiti and what we were going to do this year, and when I was done they all came up close to look at all the pictures. I could see them studying Elita's photo carefully as she was the "sickest" one in all the pictures.

Here is her story, starting on August 22.

Elita is 5 years old and weighs 24 pounds.  She is in the beginning stages of kwashiorkor (a disease rampant among children in Haiti).  She is an only child that has been living with her papa.  He goes in the gardens and market each day and leaves her with his mother.  She is house-bound and cannot get out at all.  They only are eating one meal per day.  She has tested negative for TB and HIV.  She is very, very, very sick.  Yesterday worms began crawling out of her nose and mouth.  We are in the process of de-worming her in the next few days.  I usually wait until the kids are a little stronger to de-worm them.  But in her case we are going to have to go ahead and give her the meds now.  She is on IV fluids and needs a lot of prayer.  She is very weak and has lost her will to live.

Four days later, she was improving some. This is the photo I used on our display board. She had passed over 50 worms:

By September 1, she was walking and had gained 3 lbs that week!

October 11, she had improved SO much! She has been on the medika mamba program, a lifesaving "medical peanut butter" that is made in Haiti and fed to severely malnourished kids, and virtually works miracles. Here she is, looking great:

Two days later, she began having seizures, and died at 3 in the morning. Something neurological. They couldn't do anything for her.

I loved this smiley photo of her so much, and when I read this entry, that she had died, it just hit me in the heart. She had come so far since August. I could picture her walking around and playing with the other kids.

Now that little girl I put on our poster board is not alive any more. Somehow that makes it so much sadder to me.

I guess I don't need to share that with all the kids. But I had to get it out.

Please donate so we can help these children!

Blessings....

Rain Forest and Flower Garden

Welcome to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis 2010-2011 Spirited Worship offering blog! This church year we are very happy to have voted to help children in the Caribbean nation of Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, but a country RICH with traditions and culture, kindness and strength. We decided to help in two ways....a "Macro" and a "Micro," if you will. I would explain it to the children in Spirited Worship this way:

Macro is like a Rain Forest. It's big, expansive, and is made up of so many smaller components. It's like looking at a whole puzzle after it's all put together. It's the "BIG PICTURE."

Micro is like your own Flower Garden. You are right in there touching it, smelling it, feeling it. You know each plant individually and get your hands right in there to care for each one. It's what's right in your "OWN WINDOW."

This year, we are going to split the Spirited Worship collection between a "Rain Forest" and a "Flower Garden." Our Rain Forest will be the UUSC - Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. They are doing big work in Haiti, helping in a broad range of areas. From their web page on their work in Haiti:

"UUSC stands with those who are working to reverse the cycle of collapse and dependence that has plagued Haiti throughout its history. Including policy and advocacy initiatives and constituent engagement in its approach, UUSC is using all of its tools to respond to this emergency. By partnering with Haitian organizations and social movements, UUSC will help their vision become reality." 

We are happy to support this UU organization that is helping Haiti in so many ways. Please check out their website!


Our Flower Garden is Real Hope for Haiti, a small, family-run organization doing big things for their community in Cazale, Haiti. Sisters Lori and Licia and their families run a Rescue Center which houses around 60 severely malnourished and sick children in a rural area. They also work in community development, food boxes, clean drinking water, and environmental sustainability. We have a personal connection to them and they will correspond with us. We will start by sending them handmade (at Social Service Sunday on Oct. 17) fleecy knot dolls to comfort the sick children, as well as photos and pictures from our UUCD kids!


The Rescue Center has a very active blog written by Licia. Her sister Lori also has a blog but she doesn't post as often as she did in the past (you can imagine how busy they are, seeing hundreds of patients each day). If you want to see what life is like for the poor in Haiti, not just in Cazale but in every corner, I urge you to read their blog and share what they and the UUSC organizations are doing in Haiti. Send people you know to this blog to donate!


Parents, before going to the Haiti Rescue Center blog with your children beside you, please check out their latest blog entry that will show at the top of the page first yourself, and make sure that your children will be ok seeing any photos that may be posted. Some of the children come into the Rescue Center in a very shocking condition...it is not something that your kids will be used to seeing. But it's reality. And these organizations can HELP!

Gerald admitted to the Rescue Center at 30 lbs

Gerald in the Rescue Center now at 35 lbs!

Thank you so much for supporting Spirited Worship! We hope to get the word out about this blog to the general blogging public who has a heart for Haiti. I would love to see each Sunday's collection matched, and watch our collection meter grow! Please become a follower of this blog (see right column) so you can be alerted when there is a new post.

Of course you can donate to both Real Hope for Haiti and the UUSC on their respective websites, but we would love it if you would be part of our yearlong church collection to help encourage the children and youth at our church to always strive to reach higher and do more. We even have our Youth group and some church families wanting to go on the UUSC Work trip to Haiti in early 2011! 

If you donate using the button, please leave a comment and tell me what you donated so I can update the tracker! We would love to be able to share the comments you leave with our kids at church! Let them know they are helping make a difference and the world hears them!


Thanks, and Blessed Be!


Steph