Haiti

Family and Friends, (Please make sure you see the video and pictures!)

The time our team spent in Haiti was nothing short of remarkable! The Haitians hunger and dependence on God during such dire circumstances was truly inspiring and humbling. It was a life-changing gift to serve these beautiful people and I want to say thank you for all your support and prayers for our team, myself and my family. With your faithful partnership we accomplished more than we thought was possible; providing for them the basic needs of food, water and medical care making a difference in the quality of their lives. All along God multiplied our energy and we knew that His hand never left us while we supported His hurting people. Thank you for this opportunity!

ALL HAITI PICTURES

Day 1- Flew from Dallas-Miami-Dominican Republic. Spent the night.
Day 2- Woke up at 4:30am and headed 6 hours into Port au Prince, Haiti.
Set up camp and sleeping tents. Went to the local church and found where all the medical supplies were located and met the team that was leaving and they gave us an overview.
Day 3- Picked up medical supplies and went to a tent city and set up a medical clinic/clean water. Worked triage all day, seeing about 200 patients. That night we went with a military convoy to pick up more supplies.
Day 4- Stopped on a local street and set up a medical clinic/clean water. Worked triage sending about 150 patients into see our nurses for care and medicine.
Day 5- Went to the river village and set up a medical clinic/clean water. Worked triage with every patient, seeing about 150ish again.
Day 6- Went to a school compound and set up a medical clinic/clean water. Half the team went to an orphanage to deliver food. The other half worked seeing patients, about 100 people.
Day 7- Drove to the Dominican, had lunch on the beach. Spent the night.
Day 8- Flew home.

HIGHLIGHTS:
Church on Sunday with the Haitians because you could really see dependence on God during these circumstances.
Military convoy at night, we were able to direct them through the city and got to be a "solider" if only for a few minutes.
Sleeping at the UN compound and seeing all kinds of people from all over the world in one location.
Riding everywhere on top of a car, even through the river.
Amazing team, everyone fit well and worked together with ease.
Giving medical care/clean water to those truly in need.
Through the generosity of my supporters we are able to send another person on the next Haiti team!

OUR VIDEO:



AMAZING VIDEO: (Not from our team, but another volunteer. Warning, brief female nudity.)

"You still the hunger of those You cherish." Psalm 17:14

Adam

The Latest Projects

I picked up this wooden baby highchair at a Just Between Friends sale. It was a seven dollar investment and I had big plans for this little chair. It only took me like 15 months to actually come up with something to paint on it, but then the vision came, Adam left for Haiti and I worked on the chair! Nothing like a little "free time" to push one to create!
I decided to write "mẹ thương con" in Vietnamese on the top. With the translation under that, "mom loves you". I went with a shade of orange because she has a lot of orange accents in her bedroom and I like to stay away from everything being so pink. Then distressed the whole chair and aged it with both purple and off white. Yes, freehand people, so don't get too critical.
I asked Avi Joy what the baby should eat. We came up with peas, Kashi hearts and O's and mandarin oranges.
I just love how it turned out and it really does look cute in her bedroom. She has always used this as her nightstand. She puts her babies in it to sit and places her night water on the tray. I love that someday she will be able to say, "oh my mom painted this for me." That warms my mommy heart, mẹ thương con.
My next project was one that also came to me about 9 months ago. I had a dream that the frame around my living room mirror had the word "peace" painted on it. A few times I thought about doing it, but it was just not the right timing. Just before Adam left for Haiti, the Lord showed me an awesome verse, (I have changed it from third to first person) "Lord, You establish peace for me; all that I have accomplished You have done for me. O Lord, my God, other lords besides You have ruled over me, but Your Name alone will I honor." Isaiah 26:12-13
Thus from this scripture comes, "For You O King Establish Peace for me." This is with the lights on...
Natural light... huge difference in color huh?!
On the frame... lights on.
On the frame with lights off. Crazy difference.
I had a great time working on projects while he was gone. I become extremely craft focused and have to put my hands, time, heart and mind onto something creative. We all have gifts, what do you do with your extra time??
NHP

Chuc Mung Nam Moi

Happy Tet, Chinese New Year and Valentines Day!
Our friend, Pastor Le, invited us to join his local Vietnamese church for their Lunar New Year luncheon on Sunday. They had a full buffet of delicious Vietnamese food. Along with all the "normal" VN foods there were several traditional Tet items served only for the New Year. I have read about these, but not seen/tasted them in person. We tried all the dishes and could tell our taste buds are Americanized because the fried rice and egg rolls were still the best. There were probably about 150+ people who attended and seven families were able to make the luncheon. All of us have children born in Vietnam, but not necessarily the same province. Several of the families also have Korean, Chinese, domestic and homegrown kiddos as well. As you can see, it was a packed house and every person we met was warm and welcoming to our family.
A Tet tree was set up in the front of the chapel. They asked each person to go up to the tree and pull off a folded piece of paper that contained a scripture. This scripture was your blessing for the year. Avi Joy's was beautiful- Phil 1:6 and Nehemiah's is really to funny-sad to share. I know funny-sad it not a great description, but I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read it. I let your mind think about it.
Emma and her mom Kim were able to make the luncheon!
It is always a blessing to fellowship with the Lively family.
Michael and little man, Samuel.
Pastor Le handing out red envelopes to the children. This is also a very special New Year's tradition. And guess what was inside....
A TWO DOLLAR BILL! How fun is that!
Then the teens of the group performed a dance. Very western in style, yet sung in Vietnamese.
Then two guys at the church did skits, dressed-up and sang SILLY songs. We did not know what they were saying, but we could tell they were having big fun cutting-up for the crowd.
Kennedy and her family enjoyed all the festivities.
Sarah and Avi Joy.
A group picture of the children. (Not pictured, Emma, Lucy and Eli)
The next day our friend Truman invited us over to his house for a Valentines day party. His mom did an awesome job organizing the party. (This is saying something be/c I am really uptight about organizing things. I know, I know, many of you inserted, "uh, ya, you think?")
The front room had a full craft table set up. The kids cut, glued, drew and used stickers to decorate valentines.
Kenley hard at work!
Then the back room was set up for decorating cookies. There were bowls of icing and many types of sprinkles. All the kids (and moms) loved the yummy cookies.
I had so many favorite pictures of the kids this day, but Abby takes the cookie! I took about 10 pic's of her enjoying her cookie and all of them were precious! The natural light from all their windows was amazing.
"May Your love and Your truth always protect me." Psalm 40:11

The Perryman's

What we've been up too...

Well, after 8 days and 7 nights, Adam is home from Haiti. He was chosen to go on a relief team with Thirst No More Ministries with our church. It was a team of eight people and they worked doing everything from providing medical care and sorting supplies to distributing food/water. We are slowly working on putting together a post of pictures and commentary to show everyone... so look forward to that!
Before he left Avi Joy and I made him a envelope with notes inside, one for each evening. It said, "Adam to Haiti" with a verse from Esther, "And who knows, but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this."
At the airport! He is home with a suntan and lost almost 15lbs. Smokin' hot, if I do say so myself. There were tears and they were not from the ladies! Adam has not cried in a loooong time. And that is actually something I like about him, his strength and his emotional stability. But he was happy to be home and they gently flowed. Nehemiah also greeted him with tears of joy or rather, hold-me-right-now-dada tears!
With his two precious peanuts.
Chris was the leader of the trip. He has four kiddos under 5 and his little guy was clinging onto him as well. Chris did an amazing job of leading the group and keeping all of us back home up to date with all they were doing through international posts on twitter.
So since we are not posting yet about the details of the trip, the kids and I are going to share all the things we did while dad was away...
First, I armed myself with some essentials. Something healthy, the fruit strips, something crunchie and of course Nutella. All yummy treats! (And I loved the pecan sticky bun granola over the top of blueberries and yogurt.)
There was much hugging and much laundry, observed in the background... maybe 12+ loads.
Made the anti-adam meal. He HATES tailgate sandwiches. Happened to catch a stomach bug and had this for dinner a year back or so. Will not let me cook them in the house, just the smell alone pushes him over the edge. They are soooo yummy, I will have to share the recipe sometime.
We made a new homemade batch of playdough. So easy and fun. Again, will have to post recipe.
We made tents in the living room.
Played peek-a-boo under the covers.
Grandparents stopped by on Saturday afternoon and we had lunch. It was a great break. They played hopscotch to entertain us.
I walked by the window in the dining room and thought to myself, "You know you have children in your home when you find a dried Ramen noodle stuck through the blind."
We had some fun dinners. We had a fruit and cottage cheese dinner, Rotel with chips dinner and of course, "Why are we having cereal for dinner mama? Dinner." Because that is what mama wanted. Yum.
Played dress-up.
And more dress-up. Please note the blue pimp hat.
We also did 3 big activities that I will post soon. (Made our VN '09 scrapbook, painted her baby highchair and made a chalkboard wall.)
We attended our community group bible study, had a couple playdates with friends, went to VN lessons, had an inside snow day, went to Wal-Mart and there was much cleaning house in between!!!

We also did LOTS of praying for daddy as a family. Every time Avi Joy asked about her daddy, i.e. "Why is daddy in Haiti? Why is he gone for 7 days? Where's daddy?" I told her we were going to stop and pray for him. It was a great reminder throughout the day! Another thing I thought of was that we basically fasted from daddy. And we all know what happens when we fast from food, it forces you to pray!

On a side note:
Reminder Tulsa Vietnam Families... You are invited to a luncheon at the Vietnamese Baptist Church to celebrate Lunar New Year on February 14th at 12:00pm. Location- 101st and 129th in Broken Arrow. Hope to see you there! (It may be rather dressy, so stay dressed in church clothes. I am sure they will be in Ao Doi's, at least my other VN church said they all would be...)

"May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's perseverance." 2 Thess 3:5

The Perryman Family

Lunar New Year

We enjoyed celebrating our 5th Lunar New Year's with Dillon International over the weekend. The first year we attended was in 2006 while we were in process in with Kazakhstan. (Pilot program for Dillon that closed and we ended up switching to Vietnam and the rest is history as you know.)
My favorite part -besides that all the money goes to OrphanCare - is that everyone gets to dress in their native country attire. Children and adults alike wear their Korean Hanbok, Indian Sari, Chinese Cheongsam or Vietnamese Ao Doi's... and more.
Here we are with Jynger, past director of the Vietnam program and current co-director of India and case manager for Russia. She and her daughter wore their sari's and looked beautiful!
My mom and Nehemiah ended up almost matching by coincidence. I love this picture of them together!
Mrs. Dillon walked by and I asked if we could snag a picture with her. I said, "you know, to let people know you are real and everything." She laughed and said that last week she stayed late at the office and ended up answering the phone after hours. The gal asked a question about the agency and asked who she was speaking with. Mrs. Dillon said who she was and the lady said, "Oh, I didn't know you were alive, I thought you were dead." I mean What?! Well here she is folks, a stunning woman- both inside and out!
Our family with the tigers. Note the one trying to eat Nehemiah's head. It is the Year of the Tiger on the Chinese zodiac calendar and so the stage was decorated with stuffed tigers.
My mom with Avi Joy. My kids and my mama were on a roll because this is so sweet too! (Can you believe those cheekbones people! She looks so young, right?!)
Nehemiah with fellow Can Tho kiddo, Rhett.
Playing with some of the other children in the "holding room" waiting for the parade/song to start.
Lining up outside the closed doors to the banquet hall.
They walked through the crowd and up to the stage. The kids performed a very cute song, "If you're in my heart, your in my family," by Laurie Berkner Band.
I did learn something about myself that I will never do again... this whole waiting in a room with children for them to go on stage, will be Adam's job. I did not enjoy this LNY as much as in the past because I spent 45 minutes watching her practice and wait to perform. I am much too social for that. I want to be talking to families and visiting, so since Adam is the quieter and less social parent, he said he would gladly help our kiddos prep for the opening in the coming years. Yeah for marrying your opposite, we are so alike, but so different!
The silent auction had many awesome items. I personally LOVED the artwork from Africa.
Nehemiah opening his red envelope. This is a Chinese tradition where children greet their parents wishing them a Happy New Year and in return they receive money in red paper envelopes. In this case, chocolate money, yum.
Just for a quick flashback. Here are Heather and I along with our BABIES (18 and 9 months) when we attended the first LNY with our children in 2007.
"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Psalm 27:14

The Perryman Family