What an emotional day. We started the day with a fantastic breakfast of eggs, pancakes, oatmeal, fresh squeezed juice and mango! Delish. These ladies take such good care of us. They also do our laundry and tidy our beds while we are away for the day.
We traveled by tap-tap (a truck-bus) to the Home of the Sick and Dying Babies. It is here that we went bed to bed holding babies that are very ill and needed some loving. One would cry and we would pick them up only to have another needing to be held. The home is staffed by wonderful nuns who tirelessly serve. Their parents, if able, are also visiting daily. Life is so fragile yet you could see God in their eyes. It was challenging to leave these little ones behind, but we know they were in God's hands. "The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them. He delivers them from all their troubles." Psalm 34:17
After lunch, we did get some shopping in at a place called Apparent Project, a great organization that employs Haitians to make beautiful artesian crafts. The jewelry was the highlight along with a round of tropic smoothies. The employ over 200 people with the goal being to provide for their families so they can care for their children and keep them out of orphanages (many orphans in Haiti have parents that are not able to care for them because of the expense.)
Haiti Blog By Nelson L
My day started out with a delicious breakfast consisting of pancakes with nutella and syrup with some fresh bananas and juice. After washing the dishes and filling up our water bottles for the day, we loaded up the tap tap and headed off for the Home for the sick and dying babies. The morning was an emotional roller coaster for me. For the first part at the home I was holding a three year old boy. He and I grabbed a toy car and pushed it back and forth together for what seemed like hours. We probably would have kept on doing this all day if one of the sisters had not called me on a mission. The home had received a shipment of 100 buckets and we had to fill all of them with rice, spaghetti, and fish. While I was sad I could not be with my little buddy, I got great joy from knowing that families would be able to have dinner because of these buckets. After about half an hour of filling buckets, I went back to the kiddo area. This time I picked up a tiny little girl who would not stop crying. It seemed as if this poor little girl could not be comforted, so I decided to start singing a song in Creole I had learned earlier that day. The lyrics were simple Glwa Pou Bondye just repeated over and over, Glwa Pou Bondye means "Glory to God". Once I started singing this song, the girl immediately calmed down. When I set her down, she started screaming and crying, this was pure heartbreak.
Later we went to the general hospital, the conditions were terrible and it was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. There were a myriad of babies in such a small place. A positive that came from this was handing out bibles to the parents and seeing them indulge in the word of God was one of the many moments that gives me hope in this country.
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