Worldwide Food Crisis Affects Haiti

Can you imagine living in a world where you would die fighting for a loaf of bread? Or surviving on just two cans of corn grits a day? Most of us will never have to face this kind of situation, but unfortunately many people around the world will, including those in Haiti. High petroleum prices that increase the cost of everything from fertilizers to transportation for the food, coupled with freak weather events and dock strikes at the ports, have dramatically increased food prices in Haiti.

A recent article by the Associated Press tells the story of Eugene Thermilion, a Haitian man who can no longer afford to feed his wife and four children due to the steep increase in the price of pasta, which has nearly doubled to $0.57 a bag. This may not seem like much, but on an average income of $1 or $2 per day, it is a significant difference. Some days, all Thermilion and his family have to eat are two cans of corn grits. One Haitian food vendor has lost so many customers due to the high food costs that she could no longer afford the $20 tuition to send her daughter, who was just learning to read, to kindergarten.

According to projections made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, farmers in Haiti and around the world will eventually be able to grow enough crops for both food and fuel and bring prices down, but will not see the effects of this farming for another 10 years.

This means that the people of Haiti need our help today. International Child Care (ICC) offers several programs to combat the effects of higher food prices, including micro-loans to help women work their way out of poverty and monitoring and treating children for malnutrition.

Educating families, especially women, to understand the nutritional needs of young children by promoting breast feeding and healthy eating habits is one way ICC addresses the problem of malnutrition. ICC also uses mobile clinics in urban and rural areas of Haiti and the Dominican Republic to track the growth of children under 5 and prevent malnutrition in children. Undernourished children have weak immune systems, leaving them vulnerable to childhood diseases such as diarrhea, measles, and tuberculosis. ICC provides immunizations against these and other diseases and distributes Vitamin A, as a lack of this nutrient can prolong and increase the severity of persistent illnesses.

You can help International Child Care end malnutrition in Haiti. We greatly appreciate your support, encouragement, and donations.

First Lady Laura Bush Tours Haiti

First Lady Laura Bush visited Port-au-Prince, Haiti last Thursday to discuss health care issues and support education. This trip marked the first time in 10 years that a U.S. First Lady has visited Haiti.

Upon her arrival, the First Lady toured an HIV/AIDS research center and talked with staff as well as three HIV-positive teenagers. Bush urged the people of Haiti to "be tested, to find out what your HIV status is, because you can go on antiretrovirals and be healthy and live a healthy, positive life."

During a speech at the HIV/AIDS research center, Bush called on Congress to keep the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from expiring this year. Bush said that she wants the American people to know that PEPFAR money does not only go to countries in sub-Saharan Africa, but also to two countries in the Western Hemisphere: Haiti and Guyana. Bush said she feels "very encouraged" that the United States Congress will reauthorize the PEPFAR plan for many years to come. "This is a very important commitment on the part of the people of the United States," Bush said.

First Lady Bush also discussed education during her visit to Haiti. She visited an education center funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where the staff there are working to lower the nearly 50% illiteracy rate in Haiti. Bush said that only by teaching Haitians to read and write can they then receive vocational training and get a job. "I think it is really important for students to realize they need to keep going, to study more, and really compete in school," Bush said.

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International Child Care also works to improve health care and education in Haiti through Grace Children's Hospital, which not only provides care to children with tuberculosis, but also provides medical support and antiretroviral treatments to patients living with HIV/AIDS. A significant portion of International Child Care's HIV/AIDS program is funded by PEPFAR.

International Child Care also offers two adult literacy classes in thirteen shantytowns and nine rural communities twice per year. These programs offer support, hope, and ultimately sustainable means for the people of Haiti to better support themselves and their communities.

To support the ministries of International Child Care, make a donation today.

Making Room

About this time last December, I stood scratching my head and staring at the jumble of suitcases, gift boxes, duffel bags, and grocery sacks piled in the driveway behind our old Pontiac. Judging from the amount of luggage, you would think that a crew of 10 was going to explore uncharted lands, but no--it was just my husband and me, going three states over to visit our parents for a week at Christmas. "How are we going to fit all this stuff in the trunk?" I asked my husband. He shrugged and said, "We'll make room." Lo and behold, we did.

Eleven months later, in a tropical Caribbean November, I was sitting on a low, blue bench on the inpatient ward at Grace Children's Hospital in Haiti. I had a child on each knee and another one perched on the bench beside me, studiously trying to figure out how my watchband unclasped. Looking up (while surreptitiously keeping one hand on my watch), I saw John Hill, a long-time International Child Care board member and father of two, happily buried under a mountain of kids, all patients on the ward. As they scrambled to arrange themselves for a picture, John made sure that everyone's face could be seen. There was always room to squeeze in one more eager smile.

Seeing him herding all the kids at Grace into the photo reminded me of something John Snavley had said over the summer, as we asked him to reflect on his childhood memories of Grace Children's Hospital. As the youngest son of ICC's founders, John was the same age as many of the patients in the fledgling hospital his parents, Jim and Virginia Snavley, had established in 1967.

Speaking of his parents' compassion for every child who came through the doors at Grace, John wrote, "A doctor pointed out that the Snavleys were taking in too many children with advanced TB. 'One advanced case such as this,' he said, "will take up a bed for 6 months and still cannot be saved. With this same bed, in the same amount of time, you can save TWO children in the early stages of TB.' This was true, and it was hard, but good, advice. Yet somehow they could always put one more bed somewhere and no one was ever turned away. We lived upstairs, above the hospital, and I remember Mom and Dad putting a little baby in our bathtub with pillows, bedding and an IV."

Now it is December once again, and this weekend, my husband and I will attempt to wrangle our earthly possessions into the back of a Pontiac and head west. But the memory from less than a month ago of holding a little girl and feeling her chest rattle against mine with every breath is still fresh in my mind. Pushing through the mental noise of TV ads for diamond necklaces and new cars covered in spray-on snow and a red velvet bow are the images of a frail baby in the bathtub at Grace 40 years ago, and another baby, born in a barn 2000 years ago, wrapped in scraps of cloth, and sung to sleep by the sounds of cattle and sheep.

There was no room for Jesus in Bethlehem, and it's just as hard for us to make room for him today. So often, the voice of common sense--smart people like doctors, parents, ourselves, even--tells us we can't make room for the difficult things in life. The trunk is overflowing. Our hands are full. The hospital is out of beds. There is no room at the inn. Everything is full.

But God makes room. What seems impossible somehow fits; where we had given up all hope, a little bit of light makes its way inside. In the trunk of a Pontiac, in the arms of a father, in a bathtub in Haiti, in a stable in Bethlehem--God always makes room for one more.

Some days I feel like I'm filled beyond capacity. I think if I hear one more story of pain and loss, or meet one more child who was abandoned to a life of uncertainty, I will lose it. And some days, I do. I get overwhelmed by the enormity of Haiti's poverty, the challenges of one particular family in ICC's programs that I've grown close to, or even just the differences in our cultures that complicate the task of working alongside my colleagues on the island. To put it bluntly, I get tired of caring.

It's on those days that God breaks me open to make room for more compassion. Does it hurt? You bet. Do I struggle through it? Always. Would I wish it on someone else? Absolutely--because there is nothing more humbling or more gracious than being freed of my selfish fears and worries to take in more of Christ's spirit of love.

I have a strange new favorite Christmas hymn this year. I never thought of this Charles Wesley classic as "Christmasy" until some friends of ours used lines from it in their handmade Christmas cards the past few years.

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling,
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, thou art all compassion,
Pure, unbounded love thou art.
Visit us with thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.

May God make room for the Christ child, and all the world's children, in your heart this Christmas.

~Alison Kern, ICCUSA Staff Member

Fall 2007 Grace - Community Health in Haiti

For many people, the word "Haiti" is synonymous with sprawling urban slums overcrowded with people. It is easy to forget that eight out of every ten Haitians make their home in the remote countryside of rural Haiti. Living in small villages, nestled in mountainous terrain, most rural dwellers have little or no access to health care. To meet the needs of this isolated population, International Child Care (ICC) implemented an Integrated Community Health program in the late 1980s that today serves more than 160,000 individuals. To read more about people like Athelene Jean, a micro-entrepreneur whose life has been impacted by this program, check out the Fall 2007 issue of the Grace! newsletter.