Through Orange Colored Glasses

“We welcome you! We welcome you!”

That’s how the song went. From a distance we could see hundreds of children dancing. Then we noticed two lines. They had made the lines so our vehicles could drive through them as they were singing to us. I have never seen a group of children like these. They were waving their arms. They were stomping their feet. They were singing to the top of their lungs. I have never seen such gyrations as they paraded around the ground. This was Eruli 2.

They had a new building. I have no idea how they built it. Somehow with leftover money which I can’t imagine happening with the small amount we send, they had constructed a church building that they were using for a school. All eight grades were meeting in this one room. They were sitting on logs. Although it was a small room, it was not really a small school. There were over 300 students there. And they were happy.

When I left them a year ago, they were meeting on the ground. They had no food. They had hardly any water. They seemed to be so unhealthy that I wondered how many would still be there when I returned.

But we sponsored these children through CRF. And they had learned thankfulness. It seems like they sang for hours original songs all about how thankful they were for their sponsors.

These children were all victims of the most cruel war I have ever heard of. It was the tribal war on Mt. Elgon. Most of these children had witnessed the massacre of their parents. Many had seen their parents cut up with machetes. How do you deal with this? Their resilience is beyond my comprehension. And they knew that the only hope they had came from some godly sponsors of CRF. And wow, did they ever know how to give thanks.

I talk about hope a lot. I wear the color of hope. On Mt. Elgon, I heard these words—“With hope there is happiness. Without hope there is no happiness. We are happy. We have hope.”

Thanks to all the people who bring hope to some of the most needy children in the world.

Mzee. That’s the word that was said. It was uttered in whispers all around the room. I’ve heard it before. I’ve even been called one myself. But I have never heard it said like it was in this context. It was so full of awe and reverence—and maybe wonder. Continue reading →

I learned something new about children in poverty today. Surely, I already knew it—but it caught my attention in a vivid way this afternoon.

A sponsored child at the Sovereign School in Cap Hatien, Haiti gave me a note. She had been a delightful girl and very helpful in things that I was doing there. She even tried to teach me Creole. But when I got the note, there was an “Uh Oh!” that went off in my mind. I just knew that she going to ask me to give her something. I figured she would hit me up for some money.

Slowly I opened the little note looking for the request (they are usually for money or computers)—but this one was different. I think I need to repent. It said “I pray for you very much for God to bless you. God bless you.” That’s a pretty good message to get. It’s even greater from someone who speaks very little English.

Then she did something else rather unexpected. She gave me a book. She said that it was her only book that she owned. And she said that she wanted to give it to me because if she did maybe I would remember her.

The book was The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss. Certainly it was an elementary book for her and for me. But it was all she had to give. It was subtitled “Dr. Seuss’s Wacky Book of Opposites.” As I thought about it, there was hardly anyone more opposite from me than this young girl in the slum of Haiti.

So I took her book. It would have been easy to tell her to keep it since she only had one book. But I wanted her to know that her gift had value. I wanted her to know that she had dignity.

I thought about her need. She needed an education. She needed food. She needed a break to escape her poverty. But in her eyes, she most of all needed to be remembered. She just wanted to know that someone somewhere was thinking of her. She wanted to know that someone remembered her. It was a hope that a long time after we had left that her memory would still exist. It was more than that. She hoped that someone would remember that she existed. Perhaps she tried too hard. But then again I have never been in her shoes. No, I am from the wacky book of opposites.

I have seen pictures by the beds of sponsored orphans. They are pictures of their sponsors. I have thought in the past that they put them there so they could see the faces of the people who sent money to help them live a better life. But it is so much deeper than that. The picture is there to know that there is someone out there who remembers them. There is someone out there who knows they exist.

So I will put my Dr. Seuss volume in a place where I can easily see it. And I will remember you, Jennielove.

I came to Haiti to help people who got sick from the water and food. Now I am sick from the water and food. This wasn’t the plan. It’s tough getting sick when you travel. It’s tougher when you are sick in a third world country. When you are sick at your stomach and running a fever—you want to be home.

Lately, I think I have gained a greater appreciation for toilets. Coming from Seattle, I remember the hilarious tours of Underground Seattle. The history of Seattle’s development was a story of trying to figure out how to make toilets work at an extremely low elevation. But I am glad someone persevered to find a solution. We take for granted our sanitation today so much we don’t even think about it. But think about it for a minute. What would you do without the ability to flush?

Bill Gates is offering big money to anyone who can figure out a new way to do toilets in areas of poverty. I applaud him. I wish he had got to Haiti quicker. But so many diseases and the lack of health among today’s poor can be traced back to this one issue.

2.5 billion people in our world don’t have a good toilet to go to. Can you imagine the health and safety implications of this? Bad sanitation is one of the world’s biggest killers. Every minute three children under the age of five die from poor water or bad sanitation. The lack of toilets makes women and girls a target for sexual assault as they go in the open late at night. For every dollar spent on water and sanitation programs eight dollars is returned through saved time, increased productivity, and reduced health costs. In Africa half of the young girls who drop out of school do so because they need to collect water usually from many miles away or because the school doesn’t have a toilet.

I’m getting better now. I’ll get back to the land of good toilets soon. But I have a great desire to see the good toilets get to the land I’m about to leave.

There’s nothing better than seeing someone you love face to face. That happened a couple of times this week—in a very unique way.

The bread and butter ministry of CRF is sponsoring children. One of the great things about our work is that you are the only sponsor of an actual child. It is a one to one sponsorship. As a result, the child is like your own child. Many other organizations do child sponsorship, but few do it with individual one to one sponsorships like we do.

I think every sponsor knows they have a child out there. They get letters. They get pictures. But every once in awhile it is easy because of the distance to doubt the reality of the whole deal. That’s why we not only allow but also encourage you to visit your child if you want to do so. Most organizations don’t let you visit the sites to see their children. I’m sure they have their reasons, but we want you to know that we have nothing to hide on the field. We want you to see how your dollars are truly changing the life of an actual child.

Lendy Bartlett from Oxford, Mississippi has been sponsoring a child in Benjamin, Haiti. Wayne Thompson from New York City has been sponsoring a child in Cap Haitien, Haiti. And they both got to see their children face to face this week as we were helping with relief down here. To see the faces of Lendy and Wayne as they met their children was as poignant as it gets. To see the joy on the faces of children who met someone from far away that not only loved them but also took care of them was the stuff of a lifetime. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

For all you who sponsor kids, they are real and they are out there. And even if you don’t get to see them face-to-face, they say “Thanks!” and “I love you!”

It was a big hole. It was a really big hole. I’ve never seen anything like it.

When I last left Benjamin, we were trying to drill a well. We have a great school and orphanage there. And they had a well that had serviced all the children for decades. Hundreds of children drank from this well everyday. And the well went dry.

When I left we were trying to drill a new well. It was the second attempt. It was also dry. And so were the third and fourth times too. I got to go to Benjamin again this week. It was thrilling to see all of the children there getting a good education. Benjamin is an area in Haiti full of orphans and poverty. And the CRF work there provides such a source of happiness for people who could so easily lose hope. But what about the water?

I went back to the old well. It still had a pump, and every once in awhile—water would still come out of it. But it was very infrequent and absolutely polluted. So I asked them what they were going to do. They took me across the road and showed me the hole of holes. It was their hope for a new well. The hole was about ten feet wide. And it was around 120 feet deep. But here is the kicker—it was dug by hand! Because of the remote area, they couldn’t get anyone to come back to this area that had a rig. So they just started digging. When they reached about 40 feet, Alfred Princilma (our CRF director) fell into the hole. He broke both of his legs and had to be hospitalized for a long time. And then they just kept digging. And there is still no water. I have never seen a hand dug well this deep. I didn’t know what to tell them to do. Should they keep digging? Should they stop before someone gets hurt again?

So I asked them where they currently got their water. The old well only put out periodic pumps of polluted water. The four new wells were dry and covered up. The hand dug gigantic hole was full of hope but no water. So they took me on a ten- minute walk to a little opening in the ground. Every once in a while some water would come out of this hole. And all the people of the town would wait for the surge. When it happened there was usually enough water to fill a bucket or two. Then they would wait ten to fifteen minutes for the next little flow of water. And this was it. This was the source—not only for the school but also for the whole community.

They asked me what to do. I wasn’t sure. They told me that they wanted to keep digging. But they also told me that if they hit water that they didn’t have the money to put casing on it or a pump. But thinking of people lowering themselves on a rope that was dangling on a stick gave me immense fears. If we did hit water, it would take a few thousand dollars to get it to the point of being a place to fulfill the community’s thirst. I figured readers of this story would be happy to send in the money to get it working once water was hit. But how do you tell someone to keep digging when it is so dangerous? But how do you tell someone not to do it when you look across the road and see all the children? These are the kinds of choices most of us never face. But the people of Benjamin have no other choice. So I know their answer. They will keep digging.

I talk a lot about James 1:27. It’s probably my standard text when I’m speaking. It fits what I do. It gives me a passion. It is an overlooked truth. It’s what it’s all about—at least according to God. But I tend to focus on one part of it a lot more than the other. Yes, I talk a lot more about orphans than widows.

But in Cap Hatien, Haiti—CRF has a home for orphans, and we have a home for widows and widowers too. I don’t know what you think of when you think of an old folks home. Usually you think of a place that’s not too nice. If you can imagine Haiti on top of that—you probably think of a place that’s really not too nice.

Our old folk’s home in Haiti is pretty good by Haitian standards—but there was one thing that really bothered me. It didn’t have running water. No showers. No water from the kitchen sink. No toilets. And the water that they brought from the nearby well was polluted. Can you imagine what this would look like? Or smell like?

Well, all that is changed now. I got to bring to Haiti with me a mechanical engineer, a civil engineer, and an electrical engineer. It is like the trinity of engineers. And Tom, Tim and Wayne (along with some other volunteers) have brought water (and it is clean) to our old folk’s home.

Can you imagine how this is going to change the lives of these widows and widowers? Yep, it is not only pure water—it is pure religion.

Blue Hills. It sounds like a country club. It isn’t.

I had never heard of it until someone called me on the phone and asked me if I would help get this place some water. They didn’t have clean water to drink. Blue Hills is an area of Cap Hatien—and I go to Cap Hatien every year. So we got our CRF person there, Moise Toussaint, to have a well drilled there. Then on my current trip to Haiti, we would put in a purification system to make sure the water was good to drink.

I think that more people will die from cholera in Haiti than from the earthquake. Water is a problem. Or maybe I should say a lack of water is a problem. Maybe I should say it’s the biggest crisis facing the world outside of our spiritual one.

Unclean water kills a child every twenty seconds. You have heard me talk about the AIDS pandemic. Dirty water will cause more deaths than AIDS this year. One in six people in the world don’t have access to clean water. If you don’t know the world’s population—that’s over a billion people. In many places, women and children have to walk as many as four to five hours every day to get water. And the water they get will probably kill them because it is so polluted. Do you get it?

So I was glad to help bring water to Blue Hills. Water is now flowing. You don’t even have to pump it. It flows constantly. We don’t have a purification system on it yet, but we dug so deep—it may not need much.

I love seeing the hundreds of people gather at the water. I never saw a time that someone didn’t have a bucket under the flowing water. It was one of the happiest sights that I’ve ever seen. Free water freely flowing.

I did find some other water in the community. It was a well on the property of a church. They kept their pump locked. If anyone came around and needed some water, they charged for it. They not only charged for it, but it was a price that few could pay. To my understanding, another charitable organization like CRF gave the well to this church. They freely received, but they don’t freely give. Something is just kind of wrong with that—don’t you think?

Here’s an interesting letter. I’ll tell you why after you read it.

My Dear Husband,
We arrived here about 12:15 yesterday. Didn’t have a bit of trouble on road. Traveled about 30 and 35 miles per hour.
Bethel got beat by 2 votes (by John Bell) in the election. But Bethel knows of at least three that he can throw out. He is considering contesting. So he may get it yet. Esther Davis (Bethel’s step sister) is here hoeing for him.
LaRue made the journey pretty well. She got tired though. She was mighty glad to get to lay on the bed when we got here.
Newell Wayne still talks about Daddy going to walk out here.
Gary and Berwyn are having the time of their lives. Gary rides the donkey nearly all the time. Then they have a little tin tank of water out here to go bathing in.
Ernestine and I are planning on going to Edna and Barneys this afternoon.
We’re still intending going to Francis’ tomorrow. Ernestine says they sure are in a hard fix. Said Mr. Francis told Papa they were going to have to go to bed if they didn’t get some clothes some way. Said they had only 2 sheets on the place. Mr. Francis sent his last dollar by Papa for some oil to be sent out. I kinda hate to go over there but am anyway and think I will go by the store at Courtney and get some light bread and stuff for dinner. Maybe they won’t take offence.
I’m anxious to get on to Coahoma and the farm and see all the folks.
You can send me a letter to Coahoma tomorrow night and I will get it Thurs. morn. Then write me at the farm.
I’d give a dollar for a good old sweet kiss this morning and to hear you say you love me. You’re too sweet.
I hope you don’t get too lonesome and don’t forget your family that loves you so much. Very much love
Your wife, boys and girl

The letter is written from Jessie to Alvah and mailed from Midland, Texas, July 26, 1932. The envelope is to A.H. Tate. Gary Tate and LaRue Shanks, who were mentioned in the letter, gave it to me. They are old friends of mine from Big Spring and good supporters of CRF.

Here is what is interesting to me. “Francis” is my family name. It is a last name not a first name. The family that was down to one single dollar was my family. Mr. Francis was my grandfather whom I have never met. He had a family of thirteen and died shortly after the last one was born. My family sharecropped on the Tate’s farm near Tarzan, Texas. It was the depression. It was so nice of the Tate family to let them farm. But it was even nicer to help give them food when they were desperate and down to their last dollar.

I am very concerned about poverty. And I try so hard to get people food all over the world through CRF. But this story set me back. It was my family. We usually define poverty as existing on a dollar a day in our present world. I know that this story was in the depression. But they were down to their very last dollar. And then they spent it. I guess it is good to know your roots. It was helpful to me to know that not very long ago my family came from poverty. I’m so glad that the Tates fed us. Indeed, it makes me want to pay it forward. It seems like we have so much in our country and age today. But just a generation ago, it was very different. We have it good today because people gave to our families—and indeed, things changed. And they will continue to do so for the people in other places whom we help today.

I have taken a little break from my blog. It is because of Barbie’s health. The following short article on the annual report for CRF tells about the ordeal that Barbie has been through lately. However, it doesn’t tell the entire story. When we finally arrived back in Amarillo, Barbie had even greater complications resulting in two surgeries. She is now recovering at home. Her healing will be long term, and she still has some serious health issues. So we cherish your continued prayers. I love the picture on this blog. It shows Barbie hugging Pin. Pin is the medic who helped evacuate Barbie from Jakarta to Amarillo. Thanks Pin!

Stuck
By Milton Jones

I have never felt so stuck in all my life. Barbie and I went to Indonesia for the wedding of my oldest son, Patrick, to Grace Go. Patrick and Grace both teach at a Christian school in Jakarta. Indonesia is the most Muslim country in the world, but the school where Patrick teaches is probably the most academic in the country. As a result, leaders of Indonesia send their children there to get the best of educations, even Muslims. And Patrick and Grace give them the best education—one that includes Christ.

Patrick and Grace got married on the island of Bali, not only one of the most beautiful islands in Indonesia but also in the world. We have hardly ever witnessed a more spectacular event than their wedding. At the end of it, Barbie and I were commenting on how our trip was just perfect. But we spoke too soon.

When we arrived back in Jakarta, Barbie was diagnosed with blood clots. I was told that she needed a certain kind of medicine. I went to the pharmacy and was told that we couldn’t get it in Indonesia. I felt stuck. I couldn’t get what I really needed. I was afraid Barbie would have dire consequences without it. I’m not used to not being able to get things that I need. I’m an American. I have money. But on this day, none of that mattered. And then I realized how it felt to be stuck. So many people around the world can’t get what they need. Whether it is medicine, food, water, housing, or the message of Jesus–they are stuck. And no matter what they do, they can’t seem to find a way not to be stuck.

We hospitalized Barbie. But we needed to get her home. And the one thing you can’t do with blood clots is to fly. We were stuck. To save her we needed to get her out of Jakarta. But to get her out was the one thing that would most hurt her.

We finally got her some medicine. It is what she really needed. And then she developed a horrible allergic reaction to the medicine she was taking. We were stuck again. Do you take it because it saves you? Or do you quit it because it hurts you? I didn’t know what to do. And I realized more than ever how people feel around the world who face immense problems of disease and poverty and simply don’t know what to do. Most people who are marginalized not only don’t have resources—they also don’t know what to do about it.

To make a long story shorter, we finally made it home. We got unstuck. Why? We had some family, friends, church members, doctors, and money to help us find our way home. Most people who are stuck don’t have the resources I have. That is where CRF comes into the picture. We help stuck people who don’t have resources get unstuck. We help them to find their way home even if they have never had a home before.

What is CRF? We are trying to be friends to the hurting who are stuck in this world. I think our annual report will show how we are truly befriending the hopeless and helpless and getting them unstuck.