Healing Haiti ST Day 2: December 7, 2011

I ask too many questions...

To start the day with worship is always a blessing. To start the day with worship in Haiti was life-breathing. After our first day--delivering water in City Soleil--our team gathered bright and early to give praise to the One we came to serve. And God, being God, blessed us immeasurably through the unbridled passion for Christ of our Haitian brothers and sisters!

I did not know at the beginning to this day was how I would feel when it ended. (One never does, right?) Yet, knowing the schedule for today, I knew this day held events I couldn't begin to imagine. So I gave it to God as best I could. Then I had to do that time and time again:

In the morning, we visited a home for sick and dying children. We entered the first room where 12 -15 babies lay in lined - up cribs with just enough room to walk down an aisle in between. Most were visibly sick, a few were crying, all wanted to be held. I didn't realize there was another room--and another--and another--and another.

Maternal instinct is a beautiful thing. I couldn't tie my apron strings fast enough to pick up Gina. Her painfully thin arms reached to me and immediately she buried herself into my shoulder. She cannot say "hold me," but her body said all. She is well cared-for by loving nurses, but they simply do not have enough of them nor enough time to give much exclusive attention to each one. Gina has "failure to thrive," a term I am quite familiar with from my education. She is likely to recover (she loved her lunch!!), but will she be taken home by her parents? If she is, will she once again face the same circumstances that brought her there in the first place? I have so many unanswerable questions.

I spent a long while holding Gina while Pam held a little girl who, while connected to oxygen (she has a tumor on her chest), knew how to get attention! She had the most beautiful smile and would shake her hand in time to the Haitian Christian music playng in the room! But there were so many others who did not feel like smiling much less dancing. A whole room full. And another, and another, and another.

The morning was heartbreaking, yet precious as I watched the ministry of love given by both our team and the Sisters who have given their entire lives to serve the sick and poor. When I was told we had to leave, I was startled to hear myself say, "I can't."

Later in the day, we visited an orphange run by a woman who takes the abandoned children from hospitals. Children in the most dire of need abandoned?! Others perfectly healthy left at the gate. Memose, beautiful Memose, who could ever leave her? Parents who cannot give her any hope of a better life than what they endure. I imagined the pain and sacrifice of the countless mothers in Haiti who must make that choice.

Our last stop was the home for sick and dying adults. So many sick, so few resources. I had assumed that the patients here would have incurable ailments. But some were in their 20's with very curable ailments. Why can't' they get the help they need? In our medical system, the anwers are easy. Here, the answers are difficult and few. But not impossible. Nothing is impossible with God. We were able to offer a hand or foot rub, a prayer, a song. Prayerfully, more than that where we can.

I think I'm becoming known among my teammates as the pesky lady who asks too many questions. Sorry about that. But we all, those who believe, know that our God has the answer. His name is Jesus. And one day, every tear will be wiped away. And we will live with all our Haitian brother and sisers eternally as we began Day 2: Praising the One we came to serve.

In His Love,
Mary Jo