A New Vocation

After her previous years of career planning -- mail carrier with gum, teacher, and Wal-mart blooper (as in the lady who makes the merchandise "bloop" across the checkout scanner) -- Miss Baylor has presently opened an art shop.  I admire her wax and watercolor media on white multi-purpose printer paper.  The greatest of B.A. Cluver's creations are "Potret of Me," "Yummy Fruit," and "Very Crazy Lines."  The real draw of the boutique, however, are the hand-crafted $10 bills distributed in thin, clear money holders secured with an innovative yellow-and-blue-makes-green strip.  If this opening week marketing plan doesn't allure clients, surely luck will have it that someone will pass through for an emergency glass of ice tea from the fridge.   

It was quite the gallery walk. Inspired by the warm customer service,

I strolled away with a few new items of decor for my home office.

 Mah-ve-lous dahling!

Today!

Joint Council on International Children's Services released a report today about Beatha, Jameson, and their 10 friends:  http://www.jcics.org/Summary%20Report-%20The%20Haitian%20Twelve.pdf

My guest blog post for JCICS:  http://betheanswerforchildren.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/guest-post-sherry-cluver-life-after-the-earthquake/

Please spread the word about this report -- Facebook it, blog it, tweet it, sing it, do interpretive dance if you wish! 

Thank you.

Another Happy CNN Story

The link below takes you to a short CNN news story about Jamie and Ali McMutrie's new brother, Fredo, previously of BRESMA orphanage where the ladies had cared for him since infancy.  He's a super cute child and you will smile as you sit in front of your computer watching this (really).  Great, sincere story. 

http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/07/14/pennsylvania.haiti.adoption/

I love hearing the Pittsburgh accent -- reminds me of all the years of childhood visiting Paps, Grandmas, Aunts, Uncles, and dozens of cousins in PA -- that was every summer, youins.

Forsyth Woman & GLA Seperate Scenarios

Just to clarify the superfast blurb mentioned during the 6 o'clock news on WAND this evening, I believe the commentary about God's Littlest Angels was intended to explain that GLA has presently in its care in Haiti seventy children whose family status is as of yet undetermined.  Therefore, these children are not available for adoption, but rather, are considered displaced children until they can be reunited with family members lost since the quake or clearly and legally determined to be orphans. 

Secondly, this has no bearing on the one-line that preceded this story about a "Forsyth woman" whose children are still "being held."  Yes, we are still waiting on our children, but it is a scenario completely distinct from the GLA interview.

God bless GLA, and gratitude to WAND for commemorating the 6 month anniversary of the earthquake in Haiti.  It is with hesitancy that I type this entry, as I prefer not to sound off as a critic; it is simply that absolute accuracy in public messages is critical to appropriate outcomes for vulnerable children.

Big Fat Important Stuff!

Keep up with the "Haitian Twelve" (Beatha and Jameson and their ten comrades) by visiting betheanswerforchildren.wordpress.com every day this week -- it's an official website of Joint Council on International Children's Services. 

Please Facebook it, tweet it, share it with everyone you know.

Thank you.

Happier Days

If you need a reason to smile, check out the CNN footage of our friends Jean, Ross, and little Alexander over in the left margin ("The Orphan Crisis"), THEN visit this linked blog article with photos --  it will be a bright spot in your day  .  .  .  http://thatschurch.com/2010/06/28/when-it-rains/

Enjoy!  (We sure did.)

(The photo is property of the blog, "That's Church.")

Clover Clarification

Upon doing a quick net search of "four-leaf clovers," I was able to learn that Hunter's first find is not of the historic, official "good luck" species; yet, still fun and exciting.  The second, however, has all the tell-tale signifiers -- leaf shape, leaf pattern (white lines), and the apparent characteristic of the fourth (mutant) leaf being smaller than the other three.  The fourth 1-in-10,000 leaf (stat per Wikipedia -- take with a chunk of salt) represents luck or God's grace -- depending on your religious/philosophical leanings. 

Really.

Tonight, in the town of Macon, Illinois, at his little sister's softball game, Hunter Cluver found another four leaf clover -- that's two in one week. 
                       
Maybe the big guy is tellin' us something?

Food for the Soul

Prancing in her church shoes, Miss Baylor waits on me.  She presents her Princess Tiana cookbook (with scrumptious pictures) as a menu and with assured poise she takes my order, climbs the stairs, and prepares in her toy room an array of dishes.  Keeping in character for over an hour, Bay writes and stirs and delivers and inquires, "Do you like your food, Ma'am?"

She knows that Beatha likes to cook, for real, and amid all of the work of family adjustments, we three ladies will undoubtedly have some kitchen fun together.  I imagine that Beatha, if typical of older Haitian children, will have an ingrained sense of responsibility toward the younger children, and it will be Chad and my job to teach her that here, in a family home, she can be a child.  We will worry about the things to which parents tend and she need only be concerned about her 12-year-old on-goings.  No small task to help her (and Jameson) learn these roles.  Nonetheless, Baylor will relish the attention of an older girl, who I predict will do some doting on the little one.

Assertive as one can be, Bay is also a kitten in the lap of affection.  It's been a difficult five months for us, to say the least, and it will soothe us all to have everyone gathered at the same table.

Tender Heart Cluver's Four-Leaf Clover

As I click open my blog site on this Summer Solstice, Tracy Chapman's "Spring" starts up and the lyrics of hope greet me, "Like the first of spring  .  .  ."  Interesting that my 10-year-old son, Hunter, shared teary-eyed with me two days ago (Saturday) as we walked through Wal-mart that he misses Beatha and Jameson, "I miss them, like I know I haven't met them, but I want them here.  I could just see them at the parade today picking up candy with me, you know.  It's good we're at the store, otherwise I'd be crying right now."  He's my softy -- funny with friends and tough with persuasion, but tender toward everyone, particularly animals, babies, and people he believes deserve better than what they've got.  The very next day (Sunday, Fathers' Day) he was on the golf course with his Dad, Uncle Rennie, Pap Cluver, and 7-year-old sister, Baylor.  In tropical heat upon the Central Illinois links, his ever observant eyes spotted a four-leaf clover  .  .  .  his report to me later that day was "Mom, you know you always think you see one, but then it's just another leaf from a clover behind it; there's always just three leaves.  I can't believe it!" 

The hope and luck of spring in a summer of waiting.

(Yep, that's a photograph of the real deal.  We are currently pressing/drying it to frame for Hunter.)