Interesting Video

I have a phobia of snakes but saw this video about a really large, DEAD one and thought it was quite interesting. Check it out!

Haiti

Some of you may remember the Associated Press article I posted back in November about the food crisis in Haiti. Along with this article, I posted a picture of a little girl, Venecia, dangling in a strap while being weighed on a scale. My sister-in-law, Sara, sent me this article last month which touches on how Venecia is doing now. Praise God!

If you are interested in helping those affected by the crisis in Haiti, go to Christian World Outreach, an organization I went to Haiti through and that is headed by friends of the family. Although we weren't able to make it that day to help out, not long after I posted the first article in November, CWO came to Grand Rapids and collected truck loads of food for Haiti. They do amazing work around this world for God's glory!



4-YEAR-OLD VENECIA HELPED BY FOOD AID IN HAITI
December 15, 2008 - 5:48pm

By JONATHAN M. KATZ
Associated Press Writer

BAIE D'ORANGE, Haiti (AP) - It was late afternoon and the young mother was hiding in the kitchen of her banana-thatch shack, lighting a cooking fire she hoped her neighbors would not see _ she gets food aid while they must scrounge to eat.

Her 4-year-old daughter _ whose sunken eyes drew worldwide attention in an Associated Press photograph that showed her dangling limply from the strap of a scale _ grinned in anticipation.

It's been a month since little Venecia Louis got emergency treatment for malnutrition, and now she is walking, playing and even has a pinch of baby fat on her cheeks.

Venecia was among dozens of children suffering from severe malnutrition who were airlifted from this remote region in Haiti's southeast to hospitals in Port-au-Prince after 26 children died from starvation here.

As a result, Venecia and her family now get just enough food aid to scrape by.

Venecia smiled last week as her mother, Rosemen Saint-Juste, prepared a can and a half of rice that would be dinner for six people. She has gained some weight and her arms are plumper after treatment with antibiotics, anti-worm medications and enriched milk. But she is by no means cured from her life-threatening bout with malnutrition.

The child's 30-year-old mother hoards what she can to protect her children's health but says she must give away some to the hungry families who live nearby or risk their revenge _ by physical attack or the Voodoo spell she believes they might cast to kill her children.

"The food I have is going to last for three days" instead of four, she said after giving away some of her rice. "If I don't share it with my neighbors, the devil will eat my kids."

Four tropical storms that killed 793 people in August and September and caused $1 billion in damage made Haiti's ongoing food crisis even worse. Crops were wiped out and mountain roads destroyed, cutting farmers off from markets where they sell their crops and buy food for their children.

Little attention had been paid to the villages around Baie d'Orange, located on a muddy plateau 6,000 feet above the Caribbean, until doctors from nearby cities alerted the international aid groups Terre des Hommes about deaths and severe malnutrition there.

An AP report on the crisis and photos of Venecia, who was initially identified by the hospital as Venecia Lonis, and other severely malnourished children brought an outpouring of offers of help.

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, Democrat of Los Angeles, cited the AP report in urging the U.S. Agency for International Development to search for any Haitian children in danger of starvation and pledged to follow up with the Haitian ambassador and President Rene Preval. Two church congregations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that raised $18,000 were among many groups moved by their plight.

In response to the children's deaths, aid groups have stepped up their work in this isolated pocket that in some places lies just over a peak from the capital's richest suburbs _ but a six-hour trek over a circuitous mountain highway, washed-out bridges and unmarked goat paths.

The U.N. World Food Program now feeds 5,000 people here every two weeks, delivering food primarily by helicopter. USAID has increased its nutrition programs by $4.5 million nationwide.

Medical aid organizations Doctors Without Borders and Medicins du Monde have set up clinics as they scour the region for more pockets of hunger. They have not found any as severe as Baie d'Orange, according to a Doctors Without Borders spokesman, Francois Servranckx.

Still, the donations are merely a stopgap measure, residents say. Far more critical is support for rebuilding their fields so they can feed themselves.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization delivered seeds to about 400 families last month, and Oxfam is also distributing farm aid. But the farmers say they are not getting what they need most _ supplies to restore their barren fields.

"If they give us seeds and they don't give us fertilizer, we can't grow anything," said Enock Augustin, whose severely malnourished 5-year-old daughter, Bertha, was also hospitalized last month.

A single sack, enough to cover half an acre for a three-month growing cycle, costs $62.50, he said _ more than twice what most Haitians make in a month. And the price has tripled over the past three years.

Both of Saint-Juste's young daughters show signs of extreme protein deficiency _ distended stomachs, protruding ribs and frail limbs. But it was Venecia who turned dangerously ill.

For a month, the mother watched as her daughter's frail body swelled and the circles under her eyes darkened. With no money and no hospital nearby, she could only pray as word spread of children dying.

Finally Saint-Juste heard that Doctors Without Borders had come to the region. Carrying Venecia, she walked for hours from their village of Mabrignol to the makeshift clinic, and the child was airlifted by helicopter Nov. 9 to the aid group's hospital in Port-au-Prince.

"I didn't think she was going to make it to the hospital," Saint-Juste said. The child stayed there for 15 days.

Now home, the girl nicknamed "Manushka" scrambles to keep up with her older siblings, wearing a smudged gray Eeyore sweat shirt. The circles have faded under her eyes, and a healthier color has returned to her cheeks.

But like her 6-year-old sister Minush, her stomach remains swollen. Their 14-month-old brother, Roselin, is pale and listless. Only the eldest, 9-year-old Silner, appears in reasonably good health.

Saint-Juste and her children huddle each night on a single cot in their shack of dried banana stalks; their former home was burned down by thieves while Saint-Juste was with Venecia at the hospital. Her two eldest children narrowly escaped.

The children's father, a shoeshine named Edner Louis, lives in Port-au-Prince and sometimes sends money. Saint-Juste also earns a ration of food and about 62 cents a day working in her neighbors' fields during the spring.

On Thursday, volunteers from the Greater Works Outreach church in Monroeville, Pa., and St. John's United Methodist Church in Turnersville, N.J., distributed food and other aid to some 600 people in nearby Baie d'Orange.

Emaciated children and desperate parents rushed a balcony to grab peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, rice, beans and canned fish.

As they handed out the food, Venecia _ the little girl whose image had inspired their generosity _ was just a few miles away. Her mother did not know a distribution was going on.

(Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

ONE YEARS OLD!

from a baby.....


to a big girl!


**CLICK HERE to see more BEAUTIFUL pictures that my sister, Tara, took to celebrate our one year old!** (once there, click "slideshow" for the best view)

It's hard to believe that our "baby" turned ONE last Sunday, January 4! It's amazing and humbling to look back at the past year and see the way we all have changed and grown. Thinking back to those 10 days in the hospital, so exhausted, running on adrenaline and praying for healing for our tiny babe who was hooked up to all those monitors and IV's and feeling anxious about what life was going to be like as new parents ....to now...having 'survived' the newborn phase and watching our "big girl" laugh and run to us, draping her arms around our necks, and giving us a big, open mouthed kiss. :) God is good!

It's difficult to put into words the kind of JOY and LIFE that Teagan Alise has brought us this past year. We are humbled and grateful that God has chosen us as her parents! We love her more than she will ever know!

We excitedly planned a 1st birthday party for Teagan last Sunday, inviting our parents and siblings to join in the festivities. Sadly, three days before the big party, she was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, double ear infection and pink eye! Per the recommendation of the doctor, we ended up canceling the party and letting our lil' one have more time to heal and not expose her sickness to other people. Nonetheless, being the sentimental mother that I am, Tim and I enjoyed throwing our birthday girl our own lil' party...complete with the birthday sign on the fireplace mantle (an Oosting tradition), :) balloons, singing, and cupcakes! She was not so much a fan of eating her birthday cupcake. A little bit of frosting on her finger tip and on her mouth was enough for her! We gave Teagan a riding toy (the "Dora The Explorer's Fairytale Adventure Ride-On" to be exact!) which she loves. It plays a lot of different songs which she loves to dance to. It also has a storage area underneath the seat. This is ideal as one of her daily rituals is to take things in and out of drawers, baskets...anything that you can store stuff in. :) Despite the original party plans not working out, we ended up having a really fun and memorable day with just the three of us!


Our sick lil' one a few days before her birthday.












Daddy being goofy


Bailey, the party animal!






A birthday bath to end the day!