I discovered this SUPER SIMPLE and fast chicken recipe online a couple weeks ago and am making it for the 2nd time already. Our whole family loved it! It's a Honey Baked Chicken dish and you probably have all the ingredients already at home (as long as you keep chicken in your freezer). The lengthiest part of prepping this dish is defrosting the chicken in the microwave! HA!
Side note: we buy our hormone-free frozen chicken breasts from Costco. With raising all girls, I can't stomach feeding them meat chocked full of hormones...no wonder girls these days are "becoming women" at 9 years old! Sheesh! I was 16!
Anyway, you will need:
1 pound of chicken 1/4 cup of butter/margarine 1/4 cup of honey 1/8 cup of mustard (just from the bottle in your fridge) 1/2 teaspoon of curry 1 teaspoon of salt
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cut up chicken into "tender" size pieces and sprinkle with some salt to liking. Arrange flat in a casserole dish. Mix melted butter, honey, mustard, curry, and salt in a bowl. Pour mixture over chicken. Bake for 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through. It will look a lot like the picture if you cook it for longer (and the honey starts carmelizing a bit--yummo!)
SO EASY! This dish is easily and quickly paired with baked potato wedges (lightly drizzle with olive oil, garlic salt and maybe a little Italian seasoning and you can throw them in the oven with the chicken). With 5 minutes to go on the chicken, you can microwave one of those steamfresh bags of frozen broccoli, and BAM! A whole meal.
I think I'm now resettled back into life after coming back from Haiti. It's always an adjustment when returning from a 3rd world country. It was an amazing time, as most missions trips are. As an investigative trip to find out more about how we can help in Haiti, we made some great contacts down there.
Our initiation into the country at the Port-au-Prince airport was crazy. The luggage was being dispersed in a hot, dirty hanger in a most disorderly fashion. The seven of us traveling had brought some 20+ suitcases full of donations and supplies with us, so trying to wrangle all of them was no small feat. After leaving customs, and exiting the airport we were greeted by the roar of people shouting and haggling outside the gate. Desperate to "help" us with our luggage in hope of receiving tips, people were constantly touching our bags and trying to push our carts. People were following us and begging for money. The shouting of "Blancs!" was heard frequently, as they call white people. The roads and rubble made it extremely difficult to get the carts of luggage to our awaiting contact. I had a flash of concern that the entire trip would be this way, but after leaving the airport area, things got better.
We spent a few days at God's Littlest Angels orphanage in the mountain village of Petionville (about 20 mi from Port-au-Prince) where we helped do a few projects around their base and loved on the babies and kids for hours. Haiti in general has upwards of 500,000 orphans and another 300,000 in slavery of some kind. Those babies can melt your heart like nothing else, I'll tell ya! They are so happy though and are being well care for at GLA. The house we stayed in was the location of their morning preschool class where they are teaching Kreyol, English, and Bible, so every morning at 8 am we were greeted by a dozen shining faces scrambling up the steps to come throw themselves into our arms, all of them saying, "Hiyeeeeee, hiyeeeee." It was awesome! The children all over Haiti were so affectionate and loving, always holding our hands or climbing on us. One of our team members, Gloria, actually is of Haitian descent and speaks Kreyol, so she was able to lead a little program that we did for kids there and at a couple other locations as we traveled around. I even learned a song in Kreyol that I would sing during the kids' mediation time. It was great!
At GLA we also helped take extra donations of clothing, food, shoes, etc and put together bags for the surrounding mountain community. While the city of Port-au-Prince sustained the most damage in the earthquake, there were still many homes and buildings in the rural areas that were lost. We traveled further up in the mountain to hand out the almost 200 donation bags we put together. This was a very interesting day. We encountered many, many widows and also children who lost at least one parent. Several college-aged people who spoke some English would strike up conversations with us. After the earthquake, all schooling was on hiatus, so they literally had nothing to do. Unemployment in rural areas in Haiti is at 90%. People are unskilled and untrained, and many are completely illiterate. The mayor of the village took us around to view the most devastated homes and families so they could be put on a list to receive the first of the bags. Then whatever bags were left would be handed out to other families. The "listed" people formed a line and received their bags without incident, but when the list was done, chaos ensued. People were crowding the trucks, desperate for the handouts--young men shoving older women around, people fighting over the contents of a broken bag spilled on the ground. This part was hard to see. We had to stay inside the trucks as we moved locations two different times to try and reestablish order. Unfortunately, respect for fellow man goes out the window in Haiti when "free" stuff is being handed out (unless you are an armed military operation I suppose).
Even though it is not encouraged, we were able to discreetly hand out some $1 & $5 bills to some children and mothers and young people that we had connected with. American dollars are worth seven Haitian dollars, which can go a long way there. The average income per individual in Haiti is $2 a week. I got to thinking about it and realized that the price of my airfare to that country is some people's entire yearly wages. The poverty truly is staggering.
After saying goodbye to GLA, we had plans to see more of Port-au-Prince on our way to a hotel that we would stay at for one night as we tried to make contact with two other orphanages. I say "tried" because with one of them, we arrived at the address to find no orphanage existed there and the neighbors all confirmed that it was a guest house, not a residence for older girls as we thought. This was disappointing, but unfortunately a common story in Haiti. There are many organization down there that are corrupt, and it's just sickening that the cause of helping children is being used to pad people's pockets. The 2nd orphanage we thought we would see that day because their office had a Port-au-Prince address ended up being four hours away and the director came to see us at our hotel, probably hoping that we would give her lots of money. We had red flags going off about it, but sat down to talk with her. We believed that she truly ran an orphanage based on her knowledge and pictures, but something did not sit right with us about it, so we thanked her for her time, gave her a little gas money, and sent her on her way. Even though the day seemed like kind of a bust, it was good that we were finding out who we would NOT be able to trust there for future endeavors, and our tour through Port-au-Prince was appreciated too. When you hear that the city was utterly destroyed, it's no joke.
Place after place--homes, churches, businesses, government facilities--were completely flattened. We learned from our drivers that in order to cut corners financially, most Haitians mix their concrete with too much water and sand, thereby making it very susceptible to crumbling. You could tell the structures that were build by outsiders (especially Americans) and were still standing. The sad part is that we saw many people beginning to rebuild but they were using the same mixing ratios and methods with the concrete as before the quake. I can't tell you the amount of devastation we saw. It will take them decades to recover. The sheer amount of rubble is unfathomable. We saw small groups of workers in yellow shirts that the government hired to help clean up, but they only had shovels and buckets. We saw very little construction grade equipment--they really need large earth movers and diggers and bulldozers. I don't know how they will do it without them?
Seeing the tent cities was especially hard. Entire families are living under a tarp. Some are fortunate enough to find tin for roofs, or to receive a nicer tent from a relief organization. The number of people now fighting infection from terrible wounds or living with a disability or amputation is also staggering. Because of religious beliefs, voodoo, and superstition, Haitians have by-in-large ostracized anyone with a handicap or disability, forcing them into life-time poverty and to begging in the streets. They are not allowed to work and often abandoned by family and friends. Hopefully, Haiti will change because of this catastrophe and begin accommodating the now hundreds of thousands of people who are disabled.
Leaving Port-au-Prince for our next destination (two hours up the coastline), we encountered more tent cities. People have fled the city and are "starting over" in the middle of a field or the base of a remote mountain. They literally have nothing. The stark contrast between the poverty of this nation and the beauty of it mountains, coastline, and water is striking.
The last part of our trip was at a ministry called GAP (Go and Produce) which helps people with agricultural learning and farming and also has a medical clinic (in conjunction with Project Help which has a team of doctors from the U.S. come in for a week at a time, do surgeries and see major cases). GAP also started a youth ministry, and these young people we got to meet are AMAZING--so filled with the love of God and wanting to start a youth revolution in Haiti. And I think they can do it!
Since the earthquake they had been traveling into the city handing out food, water and whatever supplies they could get their hands on to help people in the tent cities. They started forming some relationships with many people there and felt to rescue 250 refugees who truly were left with nothing--many widows and families with young children. A doctor had donated a piece of land to GAP and the youth ministry has been, by hand, building homes on it for these refugees whom they moved from the city temporarily to a school house near GAP until the homes are done. The youth organized the whole thing with a fantastic plan to develop the property with septic and shower solutions, compost area for a garden, and more. We visited the site and were blown away by their compassion, work ethic, and desire for young people to raise up in Haiti and be a better future for the country. Traditionally youth are looked down upon there, not valued, and not expected to do much of anything. The leader, and oldest member of this ministry, is 26 years old. His name is Jasmen and to hear him speak is truly remarkable. They are propelled by their passion for God and believe that Haitians need to be the ones to help their country and raise the standard for themselves. When we arrived there, Jasmen said they had raised enough money/resources to build 22 out of the 50 homes they planned to put on the property. So between the money that my church raised and the money other members of our team brought with them or raised, we were able to give them the funds right there to finished the other 28 homes. I left there with a zeal to help them however I could. Another team from The States that's going in May will visit them again. I'm excited to see pictures of the progress.
We need to continue to remember Haiti in our prayers. The government is still a mad mess, and aid is still having distribution issues. Many people are still recovering from injuries or learning how to live again with them. We can't forget that rainy season is almost upon them, and the tent cities will be in for it--disease, malnutrition, unsanitary conditions, etc. Currently the government is rounding up orphans in the tent cities and is not releasing them into orphanages that have been evacuated are now awaiting and have room for them. It's heartbreaking, really. Please pray with me for this nation and the millions of people whose lives hang in the balance every day.
STATS & FIGURES ON HAITI 80% of people lived below the poverty line before the earthquake. Now matters are worse.
More than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal, consistent or distinguishable jobs.
The national income per capita is only $560 per year.
Life expectancy at birth is only 61%.
Only 50% of males are literate.
1 in 20 Haitians is infected with HIV.
The death toll from the 2010 earthquake is over 200,000, with tens of thousands more crippled or injured.
Parents in such situations will most likely never be able to care for their children again.
Unemployment in the city is above 50%, but exceeds 90% in rural Haiti.
1/2 the population of Port-au-Prince is now homeless. Currently "tent cities" number the thousands.
Rainy season is from May-July, and hurricane season July-October. Imagine living in a tent during that.
Very few children in Haiti receive vaccinations of any kind.
Medical clinics exist but it is almost impossible to get a sterile work environment. Keeping wounds from getting infected after treatment is equally as challenging.
74% of school-aged girls are NOT in school.
Nearly half the population of Haiti is under 18.
Approximately 1 out of 8 children will die before the age of five.
Haitian babies are small and frail, suffering from low birth weight, as most mothers do not receive proper nutrition and care during pregnancy.
Every year thousands of children are freely given away into human trafficking by family members for as little as $25-$50.
Estimated number of Orphans in Haiti is upwards of 500,000, with an additional 300,000+ in slavery.
Widows have grown in number exponentially.
A relatively unknown fact about and connection between Haiti to America is that Haiti's revolution from French rule in 1791 paved the way for us to make the Louisiana purchase because France could not financially afford to keep it. So Haiti aided the U.S. in establishing our territory. Isn't that interesting?
The video I put together is really just a sampling of photos and video our team took. The song underneath it was written by a young man in my church named Josh Golden and co-written by Jim, inspired by Haiti. Josh performed the song at a Disney Haiti benefit concert in L.A a few weeks ago.
