Haiti, Part III

We walked into the Children's Home.

Up until this point, I hadn't cried. (Though I'd come close to it at that chaotic airport!) But as I stood there in front of two dozen metal cribs in the first room, each with a skinny Haitian babe looking at us with curiosity or tears in their gorgeous big brown eyes...I couldn't stop the outpouring of tears.

Reality hits hard sometimes.

And as I picked up the nearest precious child holding his arms out to me, I knew my heart couldn't remain the same.

"To love the least of these..." (Matthew 25:40)

Over the course of the next week, we visited the orphanage often. Not all of the children were orphans, though. About 25 children were true orphans, cared for by the Missionaries of Charity sisters (love those amazing women!). The other 100 children were brought to the Children's Home by their parents, who could not care for them due to poverty or illness. Some of the children would be there for the rest of their life but some would be treated and cared for by the nuns and then return to their families, God willing.

I cannot convey all that I'd love to share about this place, the Missionary sisters, the children, and their families...but perhaps you will see a glimpse of the heartwrenching beauty of the experience through these memories from my journal...

-Changing diapers, holding babies, feeding my special boy his bowl of food and watching him gain energy and actually stand up in his crib. (he was 2 years old, dear friends.)

-The precious 6 year old girl who simply held my hand and smiled as we walked. (I later found out this girl was 12 years old...broke. my. heart.)

-The impromptu 'music band' of one orphan boy drumming on a toy, another shaking a toy, and a third one singing in Creole. Joy and laughter and awe.

-Seeing three orphans get adopted. Listening to the rest of the children sing and pray for them and their new families...and for the ones left behind. Watching the Haitian woman--one of the workers--cry as she hugged the teen girl for the last time before her adoption journey across the ocean.

-Singing the upcoming wedding songs (I had committed to singing for a wedding the day after I returned from Haiti--who does that?! Crazy me) with Haitian babies on my hips as I walked through the empty orphanage church.

-Watching the father of two children who was visiting them cry as he had to place them back in their cribs because the bell was ringing that visiting hours were over. He himself was thin and most likely poor and hungry...but he was showing me a vision of our Heavenly Father's deep, undeniable love in a way that was seared into my memory.

-Grace and Katelyn, a mother-daughter team staying in Haiti for a month, simply because Katelyn felt called to volunteer work before she left for college in the fall. They worked tirelessly caring for the children and keeping them clean, fed, and loved. And always, always with a smile on their beautiful faces.

-The Missionaries of Charity sisters. These incredible women of God. P and I were blessed to slip into an Adoration hour behind them. Thirty of them knelt there praying before our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, barefoot and clothed in their white uniforms with the blue stripe like Mother Teresa. This. This was how they did it. Time spent before our Lord in prayer...to have the strength to then go out and serve Him in the least of our brothers. To feed Him, clothe Him, care for Him.

The tears just keep coming as I re-live these memories. Has it really been three months since I lived with and loved these people?

It's good to remember. So good to remember.

But it hurts to be so far away when all I want to do is hold those children again. See their smiles, hear their chatter, kiss their foreheads, and press them close to my heart.

They're in my heart. I just want them in my arms.

Haiti, Part II

Thirty of us are packed into the truck bed as we drive to our destination. (Words fail me when it comes to Haitian driving. There are next to no stoplights or stop signs. The drivers simply honk or swerve or speed up or put on the brakes--and somehow it all works.)

We pull into the Tent City.

It shouldn't really be a city at all. But it is. The earthquake in Haiti was three years ago, yet these people are still living in makeshift shacks and tents packed more tightly together than we are in the truck.

No running water, no sewage, no electricity.

For thirty thousand people.

This is their town. This is their home. These people just like us.

The kids swarm around, smiling and laughing and teasing. They know our mission t-shirts from the past missions that come down every two months. They trust those t-shirts, and they are hoping for good things. Candy, toys, clothing, crafts, hugs, and hope.

Even the young ones reach up with their arms, hungry for food and love. We chatter away in our different languages, and I begin to realize the lesson that will become so deeply embedded in my heart throughout the week.

Love transcends language. The Haitians become my friends in a way I could never have imagined. We communicated in ways beyond the broken phrases we spoke in each others' languages.

One of the days I get to visit the medical clinic that comes to the tent city. A Haitian nurse practitioner takes me under her wing. She shares her story (oh, how I love to hear one's story...every Haitian has a story...every soul has a story). Her childhood in Haiti, her education in America, her desire to come back to Haiti and serve.

The medical supplies are so limited. I watch 125 people wait in and around a one-room schoolhouse. They take a number. And they wait. Hours. For the most basic of medical care. And here in America, we complain if we are 20 minutes late getting to a room in the doctor's office. These people are waiting hours for an antibiotic. Or a pregnancy test. Or a thermometer.

I watch the young Haitian momma hold her baby close as her child is pricked for a malaria test. My own eyes are blurred with tears as I hear the infant cry.

I hold a toddler wandering around. She snuggles close. I keep watching for her mother and asking those around me, "Tu bebe?" but no one answers. Finally I find her mom but she gestures for me to keep holding the baby. I don't know her story. Maybe she has five others at home she can barely feed. But we smile at each other and that bridges the gap.

It's hot and crowded in here. I see so many faces, so many beautiful dark faces with so many emotions...fear, pride, hope, resignation, gratitude.

I can't stop contrasting it to our healthcare system in America. How unequal things are...yet the people, we're all so equal in dignity as God's creation...

A teen boy is tested for HIV and AIDS. I watch the nurse's face fall. She looks at me with sadness in her eyes as she tells me it's positive. She takes him aside and talks with him in Creole. I watch him strut through the schoolhouse, a lanky teenage boy with the cocky confidence that covers their insecurities at that age, that covers the truth he's just learned. The other men laugh and tease jovially with him, not knowing anything. But I know. I know his world has been turned upside down.

And my heart just keeps breaking. 
 
 
 
 

Haiti, Part I

I'm so excited to share my experiences from Haiti with you, not only because it's a blessing to be able to allow the stories to travel from person to person as God desires...but also because it's a powerful gift to myself to be able to re-live the moments as I ponder and type them. Come along for the journey?

We arrive at the airport in Port au Prince, Haiti, after the usual exhaustion of travel. My makeup has worn off (good prep for the week!), my skin is melting in the heat and humidity, and I can't understand a word people are saying.

It's exciting and it's chaotic.

It's chaotic.

What is this place? This can't be the airport of the capital city of a country. The capital would be much more organized and well-ordered, right? Not like this crazy madhouse.

Some clever Haitian just convinced all of us women to give our baggage claim tags to him...he seemed friendly enough but now we realize he doesn't work for the airport. Oh, dear.

I can't get to my bag on the conveyor belt from all the pushing and shoving and loud noise. Finally someone from our group finds it, with the front pocket unzipped. There went all my money for the trip, forgotten in the haste of last-minute baggage checking and happily carried away by someone somewhere between MIA and PAP.

I'm now poor. Hot. Irritable. Crowded on all sides.

Welcome to Haiti.

Day one and I'm already being taken to the end of myself.

I know this is not a vacation, but it's got to get better than this.

Open hands, Lord. Open hands. (I pray this through gritted teeth)

Here we go.