This will be the most difficult day to write about. There aren't really words (or at least I'm not very good at putting my thoughts into them accurately) to describe our experience at a children's medical facility this morning. I woke up at 6:30 feeling emotional already, so I knew it was going to be one of those days. Walking down to breakfast, there were already tears burning the back of my eyelids. After a day and a half in Haiti, the magnitude of what we were seeing was beginning to sink in. I knew that our first stop today was a children's medical facility. I knew that I was going to have a hard time seeing what we would see. And I knew God was going to spend today working on my heart. I was nervous, and some of the anxious tears spilled over before we even got on the bus to leave.
Today was not quite as hot as yesterday. The stale humidity and stinky air was still there, but the sun was behind some clouds so at least we had escape from that for a few hours. The bus ride through town got us to the medical facility a little more quickly than I was prepared for. I said a quick prayer for God to help me through this and got off the bus. Sitting outside the front doors, there was a handful of mothers holding sick-looking (some very sick-looking) babies. Before entering, we were asked not to take pictures inside the facility walls. (Which is unfortunate... I wish I had some visual documentation to share with you on this experience. But we understood and respected their request.) A harsh reality hit me about 3 feet into the building as I saw a ledger book sitting on a table. One page of the open book was labeled "DISCHARGES" at the top. The opposite side said "DEATHS". There were a lot of names on the "DEATHS" page. There were 204 children at this facility, all under the age of 5. The majority of them were babies. Five women (nuns, I believe) work here and take care of all those children. They always accept help when volunteers arrive, so we were there to offer our hands and hearts for a couple of hours. The first patient room we walked through contained about 15-20 cribs, each with an unclothed baby in it. Some of the babies whimpered, but most of them were just laying in their cribs. Most of them were so skinny that you could see their bone structure just under the skin. Their legs and arms looked extra long because they didn't have much baby fat. Some of our team kept moving into other rooms of the building. A few of us hung back in this room. I stopped at the crib of a baby girl who's right side of her head was partially shaved. She had some sort of an IV running into her head... I wasn't allowed to pick her up because of the tubing. I'm guessing this girl was about 4 months old. Her gaze begged me to pick her up. She reached her arms towards me and stretched her fingers out, looking for some physical contact. I looked in her eyes and saw my daughter. My heart broke. And I couldn't even pick her up and hold her. All I could do was offer her my finger to grip onto and rub her back and touch her face. The whimpers that she let out were harder to handle than a cry because I knew they meant she was too weak to cry like a healthy baby. I've never experienced the feeling of helplessness like I did at this moment. It is impossible not to pick up a baby who is obviously in pain. When Marley does something as insignificant as stubbing her toe, I wrap her up in my arms and hold her tight until the tears stop. I hated not being able to do that for this baby girl.
The one word question pounded inside my head, "Why"? How is it any part of God's plan that these babies were born in this country? They could have just as easily been born into a safe and civilized country. How could He let this happen? All I could do was lean on Proverbs 3:5 at that moment, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding". Its a good thing that verse exists because I was at a loss for anything else.
After some time, she started getting sleepy so I unlatched her hand from around my fingers. She watched me walk away.
I passed the other cribs and saw one with a little boy who didn't even have the energy to turn his head when I passed. He just laid there and let his eyes follow me.
I walked into the next room and had to walk right back out. Dale was holding a baby a few feet away from the door and tears were dropping from his eyes. There is something so powerfully painful about seeing a grown man cry. I didn't want to make a huge scene or upset the children, so I walked back out into the hall and started sobbing. I leaned up against the wall, slid down into a squat, wrapped my arms around my knees, and let the wave of emotion hit me. I figured I could probably regain composer if I could just get this out of my system a little bit. I'm not sure how long I sat there, but I did find that the release was helping. I finally stood back up and walked back into the room. I purposefully steered my eyes away from Dale and looked to the right side of the room where I found Sean playing with a little boy. The child was standing up on the side of his crib. I wish I had a photo of his face, he had the greatest smile. He was probably about a year and a half old. Sean was making him laugh. This boy and Marley would be really funny playing together. His laughter was such a distinctly bright difference from the rest of the scene. God's timing was perfect, I needed that. I moved to the back corner of this room and picked up a baby girl who was probably about a year old. I noticed a sitting puddle of urine on the plastic cover of her crib pad. Her cloth diaper was dry, so I could only assume one of the workers had changed her but then gotten pulled away by another duty before they noticed the wet bed. I tried to clean it with a nearby rag, but found no sanitation materials anywhere.
This little girl latched on to me. Her legs pressed against my ribs like she was afraid I might try to put her down. I stood there whispering to her for a long time. She was so content. I couldn't offer these babies much. But if I could give one of them 30 minutes of comfort and safety, I'd stand here and do it. I wish we could have stayed longer... I wish we could have come on more days. But this is all I had, so I held her and sang her "You Are My Sunshine" (Marley's favorite song).
Pastor Chad was standing next to the crib beside us. The baby he held was so tiny! She had wrapped her itty bitty arms around his throat and snuggled her head into his neck. She looked like she never wanted to be anywhere else. I watched him stand with her, rubbing her back, for a long time. I knew Chad was thinking of his new baby girl, Jane, at home in the States. It was going to be hard for him to put this baby down and leave her here. This image, of big strong confident Chad looking broken by holding this tiny baby baby girl, will forever be in my mind. I will never forget it.
It was nearly time to leave, so I needed to put her down. I dreaded laying her back in this crib, not knowing when one of the nuns would have a free moment to get back to her to change her diaper, if needed, or to take a minute to pick her up. I wondered if they even had time to spend giving affection... or were they so swamped caring for the 200+ children that they could only offer the basic medical needs? The little girl cried and stretched her arms for me each time I put her down. Of course, I kept picking her back up again, not able to stand the sound of her sad cries. But we finally had to go and I had no choice but to walk away. That sucked. I wondered what happened at night when everything was dark. The babies don't even have blankets! I wondered if the children ever got scared. Marley wakes up nearly ever single night... just once in the middle of the night. Sean and I hear her little whimpers and try to make it to her room before they turn into big cries. We whisper to her and comfort her... sometimes picking her up to rock her if she's really upset, perhaps from a bad dream. She always falls right back to sleep knowing she's safe. There's no way these 5 women could attend to 200 babies in the middle of the night. When do they sleep? If they sleep at night, who takes care of the scared babies? Who changes their loose cloth diapers and cleans up the mess in their beds when they go to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Are they left to lay in it, to sleep in it? How many of these babies would live through this week?... Not all of them, I was sure of that. The unanswered questions were tormenting me and causing me to have an especially hard time leaving. I didn't make it to the rest of the rooms to see the dozens of other children. We left, got on the bus, and started driving. Sean sat down next to me. I couldn't speak for a long time. I felt so broken and helpless and frustrated and mad at God. I just sat and looked out the window, not seeing anything but the eyes of the babies I had held.
Eventually, we stopped at a gas station to fill up the bus. We were told we could get out and buy soda's if we wanted to. I'm pretty sure if I have access to a gas station, I'm going to buy a heck of a lot more than sodas! I want Dorritos, Starbursts, Snickers, pretzels, Skittles, a rope licorice, and Corn Nuts. Hell, I might even brave one of those nasty plastic-packaged sandwiches with the transparent rainbow turkey and wilted lettuce! It all sounded like a Vegas buffet at this point. My hopes of gorging myself with "normal" food was trashed when I walked in the door. The shelves where I expected to see hundreds of junk food items were completely bare. There were a few quarts of oil, some funky looking crackers, and a handful of paper goods. ...I guess I'll have a soda (a warm one, because the glassed-in refridgerators weren't refridgerated. Near the register, I did find a package of stale Starbursts. Whatever... I'll take it!
... Thankfully, our next stop was a much more happy place! We drove out to the new "My Father's House" orphanage. This is where the 26 children from Pastor Ronald's orphanage (where we spent yesterday afternoon), will soon be moving. We drove through the tall gated walls and I thought of the safety this would bring the children.
We pulled the bus up to the new structure and parked. This place was so awesome!!! I jumped off, entered the building, and took myself on a little self-guided tour. The rooms were large and wide open. This place was huge! There were rooms for sleeping, learning, playing, and eating. The coolest thing there... running water and a toilet! I'm so happy for those children. I can't wait 'till they get to move here in November! They are going to have so much safe, enclosed land to run around in and play. They'll be away from the sounds and dangers of the city. And they'll have all this space! I still felt mad at God because of what I saw this morning. But, at the same time, I was so thankful to Him for this place. "My Father's House" was appropriately named.
We spent some time unloading, carrying, and sawing down some wood panels that we will later work on building into long benches.
We jumped back on the bus and headed off on a mini-road trip to our final location for the day. We drove through and back out of the city, up the mountain, to a semi-tourist(ish) area. There was an amazing view that overlooked Port Au Prince and all the surrounding cities. We could see the ocean and the mountains on the other side. From this high up, the country looked crowded, but you almost couldn't tell how trashed it was. We spent some time enjoying the beautiful view.
About a half-dozen locals were standing by biting at the chomp to sell us their goods. An entire huge long wall was covered with beautiful paintings. Tents were set up with carvings, statues, clothing, more paintings, hand-painted dishes, and other souveniers. The men were assertive and fought for our attention (and our money). We bargained with them as they competed against each other for our business. Sean and I walked away with an awesome hand-carved walking stick that says "HAITI" and a hand-carved and painted wooden globe. Sean also found a beautiful hand-stitched button-down shirt. The locals loved Tony because he was buying tons of stuff. They were practically tackling each other to get to him... even through the window after he got back on the bus. He got some really cool stuff to take back to the States! I felt guilty for the small amount of money that I gave them for these items. These people had spent their sweat, time, and energy creating these pieces. It seemed unfair that I got to buy them for five, ten or fifteen dollars.
This was a good afternoon. We enjoyed the view, the beautiful flowers, the art, the local culture, and a lot of laughs. For these few hours, I forgot about my broken heart from this morning's experience. I smiled and laughed with my friends and was thankful for the way we got to spend this afternoon. I was tired as we drove back down to our compound for the night. And I'm tired now, especially emotionally, as I rewrite my thoughts and feelings from today. I think I'll probably sleep good tonight.
