1. FEBRUARY 22, 2011 HAITI UPDATE..SO HAPPY TO HAVE MARTHA HANNA HERE. She is the Director of the Medical / Health aspect of the Haiti Trade School. This first week she has brought in Keziah Furth, our good friend, to teach on common medical problems to Haiti, and especially for women. Were thrilled to have 5 local nurses and 6 midwives attend, as well as about 30 folks from the community. Even in this one session Keziah gave them very practical information that can help improve their health and ...
  2. MAY 3, 2011    BEAUTIFUL TO ME “This new plan I am making with my people isn’t going to be written on paper, isn’t going to be chiseled in stone. This time I’m writing out the plan in them, carving it on the lining of their hearts.” Hebrews 8 A wise person once asked the question, “What is beautiful to you?” The answer to that will tells us alot about the plans God has written on our hearts. Things Beautiful to me that bring tears of joy to my eyes and whirls of excitement in my belly: Handing the women...
  3. "6 steps to a rad day💪🏽" by MK "Describe your daily routines and why you do them." The title of this article scares me! I think of routines as disciplines, and I am so not that person! With this, I am going to write honestly, and not sound like the expert I am not. I get out of bed early. In my DNA I am wired for greater productivity in the early hours of the morning. My mind is clear and I have fresh energy. So without trying I wake up ridiculously early. It has been pretty annoying my entire life. I am in aw...
  4. JANUARY 11, 2015     THE NAMING OF A COUNTRY Everyone that knows Haiti through the words of the Press knows that this country comes with a last name: Haiti. A very long last name. Rarely do you ever see “Haiti” in print with out its full moniker. it’s maddening really. For the world to give her a label that sticks like that one has. I’m such a stickler for words. what we call something matters.ONce you are called a name, no matter how confidant you are, you start to believe it is true. That is why my kids ...
  5. DECEMBER 3, 2010 THE PHONE RANG NOV 2010 HAITI around midnight, the phone rang. i strained to hear through the walls . in a few minutes heard Emory and Mary up and moving down the stairs. “what is it?'” i ask. “A sick baby. they are on their way.” A few minutes later a gentleman arrived with a bundle of “baby “girl. Actually she is two, but so tiny. She has beeen throwing up for a few hours,, and diareah. I go wake up the doctor with the mississippi team. The papa is quick to explain the situation as he ...
  6. Sons, Not Thugs. sons, not thugs.Last week we closed on the property! The Marketplace Gonaives is in our hands. After almost 3 years of work, process, doubt, fear, more work, more help from much smarter people than we… we now have the document that says it is ours. Problem is, the property has sat empty for 12 years. Not empty exactly. Lack of formal activity invites a world of the “informal”. It had become a passageway of sorts from the neighborhood behind to the main road in front. And there were folks livi...
  7. AUGUST 6, 2011  DIE WELL IT OCCURS TO ME THAT THERE IS A CALL TO DIE THAT IS GOOD . and a call to die that is bad. and that it is really time for me to know the difference. The beloved tension of “I have been crucified with Christ” and ” I have come that you might have Life and it more Abundantly“ so which is it? die or live big? Early in my walk i learned the beauty of “to die”. The above verse my life verse …”I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live…” From my early years as a follo...
  8. MAY 14, 2014   FEAR IS THE STUFF OF AN UNDER ~ ACTIVE IMAGINATION i said that. i did. just the other day. and i still believe it, 48 hours later. fear is an easy ” go-to ” in my mind. i dont like it, but it still is. we tend to think that lying and stealing and smoking and not voting well are the things that break God’s heart…but i wonder if the thing that breaks His heart the most, is that we live in fear. after all the many days of kindness. i struggle. true confessions here. i’ve recently experienced...
  9. 10 Minuet Essays - 2 Theme - 2nd Story Goods Author - Brandon Brooks To Me; 2nd Story goods is action. It is movement, it is a foolhardy challenge to the status quo. It/we are not always wise, not always efficient and not always right, but we are trying. None of us are professional anything. All of us are learning as we go. 2nd Story Goods is being a bit scared. A bit further out of the comfort zone than we’ve gone before. Its a bit past crazy = exciting and fun and bit into crazy = what the heck are you doing...
  10. AUGUST 31, 2014   BOTTLE BOTTOMS ilove these pieces. they are not particularly great selling ornaments. They are not particularly easy to make. We rarely get orders for them. but i like them, i do. they speak 2nd story. I like the way the smoothed glass feels in my hand, i like the way the simple sand casted aluminum fits snugly in there withthe clay bead hand -formed from real haitian dirt.. i like it all. Maybe it is the large amount of time spent walking through garbage. Some of you don...
  11. SEPTEMBER 29, 2010 THE KID THAT GOT ME There is a kid named Obenson…actually there several boys named Obenson But this particular young man of about 12 years old “Got me“. He “got me” not because he was cute, not because he was kind, not because he was Haitian….but because he made me Crazy! He was one of the first faces to greet me each morning in Jubilee, whether I arrived on the truck, by motorcycle or walked in from the tap tap. He was always there. Sometimes smiling . Sometimes angry. Sometimes telling me t...
  12. MAY 3, 2011  PEACEFUL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN HAITIPEACEFUL PRESIDENTIAL VOTE..HISTORIC by Kathy Brooks on Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 7:44amwe were in Gonaives the evening that the “unoffical” results were annonuced. It was amazingly peaceful. There were a few spontaeous parades…dancing in the streets… but we heard no rioting, no gun shots…..and this in Gonaives where, historicallly political unrest begins. God is doing a new thing in this nation. “God we ask that You would so capture the heart o...
  13. JULY 20, 2011 THEY SCRAPE US CLEAN In Haiti, out in Jubilee, there is mud. When it rains. And even when it doesn’t rain, we are blessed to be near the sea and on the way out to the sea we inevitably get in mud. Sometimes it is our feet, sometimes up to our knees, sometimes ( not mentioning any names ) we get the truck stuck in the mud. And when that happens , our feet and knees and shoulders will also experience mud in the pushing out process. More than once it has been shared at the end of a particul...
  14. FEBRUARY 18, 2011 IT SLAYS ME GONAIVES, I HAD A GREAT TROOP OF BOYS…FOUR, TO BE EXACT. They greeted me more than eager to show me what they had done, watering the plants, caring for things…and they wanted to work. They stood ready to move rocks, build cities or tilt the earth if need be…just let us work. So we made a little plan to build some “mi” walls for planters around the places we want there to be trees. i wanted to address the “payscale” as we are trying to not always be the white people with bags of...
  15. Origin Story During my first trip to Haiti, nearly ten years ago now, my heart was forever changed when a young mother begged us to take her baby. Powerless to feed her child, she was willing to give her away. As a mother of five, I put myself in her shoes for an instant and tried to imagine how desperate I would have to feel to hand our youngest child over to a stranger, never to see her again…I could not fathom it. Looking back, I guess, 2ND STORY GOODS was born that day. Through Trade School Haiti, we...
  16. JULY 4, 2011   HAITI – HUMAN TRAFFICKING REPORT COUNTRY REPORT – U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE HAITI (Special Case) The massive physical destruction in the wake of the 2010 earthquake, including the destruction of governmental buildings, equipment, and loss of personnel, and the continued lack of fundamental infrastructure throughout the government, severely limited the government’s ability to function in many areas, including in areas of law enforcement, social services and border control. This had a similarly ...