A new man has completely stolen my heart. I have had my second meltdown in Haiti. The first one came when Ben Valentine, a member of our staff, announced that he was headed back to the States a little earlier than he expected. This was moments before I was headed out on the field and the knowledge that it would be my last time to see him was more than I could bear at the time. Tears spilled and I had no control to keep them from coming. I jokingly told Ben, “You win the prize for being the first person in Haiti to make me cry.” To see Ben and I, one would not think that we would have very similar personalities and views of life. We discovered that while we seemed total oppossites, our personalities were indeed very similar. While I love him dearly, he is not the one who has stolen my heart.
I have been back and forth to various hospitals and clinincs with one of our translators, Watson St. Fleur. Monday night I was called because he was in the field, experiencing pain and asking to go to the hospital. Yesterday, he and I spent the day having tests and trying to figure out what is going on. Watson is also not the one who has stolen my heart. (His fiance, Danielle is probably very happy about this!)
While he was off having a test, a woman came in with a baby. She was trying to fill out paperwork with the child in her arms so I reached out to her to hold him. She finished her paperwork, took the child back and left the office. I thought nothing of it. 20 minutes or so pass by. The securtiy guard comes back into the office with the same baby and deposits him in my arms. She says something to me in Creole and walks back out the door. (For those of you who don’t know, I DO NOT speak Creole!!!) I look around for the “mother” of the child and she is nowhere to be seen. No one is telling me anything and the baby is quite content to hang out with me so I just start to play with him. I look at him and he is so dehydrated his lips are chapped to the point of splitting. I find a bottle and fill it with water from my water bottle. Hours go by and I still have this baby. The “mother” sends formula inside and I feed the baby and rock him to sleep. I finally start to ask some questions.
It turns out this is not the child’s mother. This woman is from an orphanage and she has 5 other children with her waiting to see Doctor’s. (the reason she sent him back to me was so that she could take another child to be examined) Jouvens, is my new little friends name. He is 7 months old, born Dec. 15th 2009. He is at the clinic because he has a cold. There is a rattle when he coughs and they are having an x-ray done to be sure it’s not something bigger than what it seems. He was almost a month old when the earthquake hit and he lost his left leg because of it. His parents are still alive but have given up their parental rights signed him over to the orphanage so that he could get the help that he needed. Talk about true love and the ultimate sacrifice.
My heart was broken before I heard this story and it took everything in me not to lose it as I was listening to his story unfold. I cradled him a little closer and just prayed and prayed over him. It only took a few minutes for my heart to be broken, but I spent more than 6 hours with this child in my arms. When they came to take him back, I did lose it. The nurse at the hospital sent the woman from the orphanage away to allow me a few more minutes with him. I kissed him about a hundred times told him I loved him in English and Creole just to be sure he understood. 🙂 I had Watson teach me how to say it while we were sitting there. With all that I have seen in Haiti, I have not allowed my heart to melt. All of that went away yesterday. I don’t know how I will ever be the same and if I will ever see my dear Jouvens again. I hope so but the orphanage is several hours away and with our vehicle issues, I do not know. I have prayed about what my role is to be in his life. This morning I am not sure but I know that the Lord will make it clear.
Pray for Jouvens, but also pray for his mother. He is happy and healthy and doesn’t know he only has one leg. My heart is broken after six hours of time with him. I simply cannot imagine giving him up after giving birth to him. My heart yearns for him, but breaks for her too. Madame Thermize, I love you. I pray for you and your husband. I speak blessings over you wherever you are. Thank you for loving your child and for your selflessness.
Please continue to pray for the people of Haiti. Their world has been turned upside down. We can never truly understand what they are going through. The pain and sense of loss that I feel today is nothing when you compare it to all that the people here have lost. I am reminding myself of what I tell my participants at the start of every trip. Don’t come here expecting to fix the problems before you leave. Don’t expect to have tangible results that you can go back to your churches with. Our jobs while we are here is to plant the seed that God gives us to plant. We are planting, someone else may water and God will give the increase. Some of our seeds may be like the lima beans that we see sprout in a few days, some may be like lettuce that comes up in a few weeks and others will be like Oak trees and we may not see any evidence of growth before we leave Haiti. We have to trust God for the ones to come behind us to water and He will cause growth. I know seeds were planted yesterday. What I don’t know is if they were planted in me or my dear Jouvens. We shall see my friends, we shall see.
I’m sorry that I can’t include pictures. I didn’t have my camera with me at the hospital. If I am able to make it to the orphanage, I will take photo’s and write another blog about it.
