Bless/Thompson Parent-Child Trip: Home for Sick and Dying Babies

Day 1: Lovin’ on the babies

“Let no one ever come to leave you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.” -Mother Teresa

After a wonderfully uneventful travel day yesterday, our first full day in this beautiful country was spent at the Home for Sick and Dying Babies.  Despite its’ name, the hospital is a place of hope for desperate families. The nuns who live and work here are the epitome of kindness, modesty and patience. And we learned that, truly, these nuns are working miracles on the very sick (mumps, tuberculosis, AIDS, cholera, etc., most of which are PREVENTABLE and CURABLE in the states), and the very (very!) emaciated babies.

A huge percentage of them go home.

Driving up to the clinic, the first thing we saw was a line of parents out the front door, waiting for their chance to have their children admitted. There are only a limited number of beds, and a limited number of nurses, but they do everything in their power to make sure those who need help, receive help.

We spent our time holding the babies, giving them love (i.e., human touch), changing their diapers, feeding them lunch (an incredible experience), changing aprons after holding vomiting babies, and playing with the toddlers who were well enough to be on the playground. When you see what looks to be a newborn baby, but later learn is 9 months old, your heart does a funny thing. It folds into you, aching, pulling and shattering. But then you see the nun, holding her, gently feeding her, nurturing her body and soul, and your heart lifts up again in faith and love. God brought the child to the nun, and the nun to the child. It’s a beautiful thing.

Trying to find the words to transition to our afternoon is as challenging as the transition itself.  Leaving the Home for Sick and Dying Babies was hard.  Going to the Apparent Project was awesome.

The Apparent Project was started by one woman and an idea.  She came to Haiti to adopt a child, but when she realized the child wasn’t a true orphan (her parents were alive, just unable to care for the child financially), her heart broke.  She decided to learn WHY this was happening, and what she discovered is changing the lives of hundreds of Haitians today.  She hired Haitians to create amazing art/crafts/jewelry, and provided free childcare for every employee who worked there. Being able to earn an income AND have their child lovingly cared for changed everything.  They went from 5 employees a few years ago, to 191 today.  Needless to say, our team spent as much as we could in the Apparent Project Store.  Leaving money here creates opportunities, which creates jobs, which creates stable families, which creates more opportunities.  Hundreds of lives changed by sustainable employment. And it started with one woman and an idea.  One woman and an idea.

We ended the day with devotions.  We easily determined our group’s Word of the Day was HOPE.  Everything we saw today was built on hope.  And hope is what sustains all of us, regardless what tiny plot of land we call home.

Easter Lutheran - Day 5 - Grace Village Beach Day

I came to Haiti not knowing what to expect in the slightest. I was full of anxieties and fears of what if I get sick?, what if I miss my parents?, what if all the new places and new faces are just too much to take in?. Those are all very rational and understandable fears, but the power of what I have experienced has been enough to wash away my insecurities about this trip.

Before this mission trip, when I thought about Haiti I thought about a country only full of poverty. I do not think about the beautiful flowers or vegetation (I personally am a giant fan of the palm trees). Anyone who would have joined today would have been very surprised. I say this because today we went to the beach with the kids and families from Grace Village.

 Around 9 am our team set off for Grace village to pick up the kids and families. In total we had 58 Grace Village kids and 10 staff members. Our drive to the beach was cozy with all of us riding together, but it was great because the kids were so excited and filled with joy.

When we arrived our eyes were met by the beautiful beach. The water was very blue, the coconut trees were abundant and beautiful, the air smelled of salt water and Haitian food and the mountains painted the most beautiful picture that will never leave my mind. We quickly ditched the long skirts and ran down the white rock beach into the cool, blue water and the feeling was absolutely amazing.

Some of the kids were able to swim, and others needed assistance. We would take some of the kids and spin them around or help them float on their back. The joy on their faces is somewhat difficult to describe over the blog. Many of the kids have had many difficult experiences prior to coming to Grace Village and yet their joy is abundant. During my time in Haiti and through these experiences, I’ve learned that we don’t need lots of stuff or belongings to be happy.

Once our day at the beach concluded we all loaded back into the Tap Tap and headed for home. Many of the kids took a nap on the ride home. There was a little girl who fell asleep on mine and Annika’s laps and soon Annika rested her head on my shoulder and fell asleep too. I guess I am an ideal pillow when needed ;). When we arrived back at Grace Village, saying goodbye to the sleepy children was difficult for me, especially saying goodbye to the little girl who was napping on me – she was so sweet!

 Goodnight to all of you, especially those in our Minnesotan family!

~Madison, age 15

Easter Lutheran - Days 2 & 3

Come and See

In the Gospel of John, one of the very first things that comes out of Jesus’ mouth is the answer to a question posed to him by the Disciples.  “Where are you staying?” they ask. Jesus says to them, “Come and See”. And then Jesus leads them into the hearts, homes and lives of people who are lost, lonely, broken, trapped, oppressed, imprisoned, hungry and beaten-down. Jesus basically shows the disciples that where he is staying is here. His feet are firmly planted on the earth and he is on a mission to show the world that no matter your circumstance, God is here to stay.

Before our group left for Haiti, we had people asking us over and over again, “What are you going to DO?” It’s a hard question to answer because the purpose of this trip is not so much DOING as it is SEEING, EXPERIENCING and BEING WITH the people of Haiti. This trip is about being immersed in a place whose culture, language, terrain, government, architecture, education, food, commerce and just about anything else you can think of are drastically different from the life we know. In other words, Jesus has invited us to “Come and See”.  And as painful as it has been to see some of the things we have seen – we are surely witnessing that God is here to stay.

So what are we seeing?

On Tuesday, some of us went to the “Home for Sick and Dying Babies”. It is basically two large rooms with metal cribs lined up row-by row and four sisters whose job is to care for all of those precious babies, each of them there for reasons unknown to our team. Our only job was to be with them. We fed, we sang, we held, we played, we prayed. Our hearts broke when the visiting hours for the parents who came to hold and nurse their babies ended and a chorus of cries and screams rose up. Were any of us in that same situation, we would have a Ronald McDonald house to stay in along with the option of sleeping on a recliner next to our little ones all night long.  So as their parents left - we sang, we held, we smiled, we tried for a few precious minutes to offer the human contact they craved. It was a helpless feeling because in the grand scheme of things, what we were able to offer made a difference only in the moment.

But our eyes were opened – and we saw beauty together with brokenness. We saw parents who don’t have the resources to care for the babies they love. We saw women who followed God’s call to work at this Holy place care lovingly for the God’s children entrusted to them. We saw some babies who were incredibly malnourished and some who seemed to be growing and thriving. We will never see them again. But we came and we saw, and now we know. God is there with them. If Jesus were walking the earth I’m convinced He would spend a lot of time holding and healing those babies.  Our prayer is that Jesus will hold them now. That as they sleep, as they heal, as some enter into eternity that the grace of God will cover them and the love of Jesus surround them.  

That was what some of us saw on Tuesday.

Believe it or not, we saw even more difficult things on Wednesday.

Wednesday was “water truck day”. This was the day I had heard so much about from my Sister-in-Law and my niece. On water-truck day, Healing Haiti teams take water into Cite Soleil which is the poorest district in the Western Hemisphere, built on an old landfill and jam-packed with somewhere between 200,00-400,000 people. The truck drives into a neighborhood and people line up with buckets to receive as much water as they can carry for the day. As my sister-in-law described water truck day to me, she struggled to find the words and kept telling me “you just have to experience it”. In other words, “Come and see.”

For me, water truck day was filled with the most difficult things I have ever seen. Here’s how it went: We drove into Cite Soleil in the “Tap-Tap” which is our form of transportation while we are in Haiti.  It is basically a truck with a cage on the back where we sit as we ride through the city. As we drove into Cite Soleil, 50+ kids chased after the Tap-Tap screaming “Hey You! Hey You! Hey You!” When we opened the doors to the Tap-Tap and climbed out, there were immediately kids begging to be picked up. I picked up one little girl who clung to me for the next 45 minutes. I would occasionally put her down to help someone carry a bucket of water and she would follow me until I picked her up again. When another child wanted my attention she would fight them off and cling to me. Most of our team experienced similar things. Some had two or three children hanging on them at all times. One team member was handed an infant the minute she got off of the Tap-Tap and struggled to find someone to take her when it was time to leave.

At one point, my little girl kissed my cheek with a kiss that lasted a solid 30 seconds. That was beautiful and I will hold onto that interaction for a long time.

However, my heart broke into a million little pieces for lots of reasons……

-       - One little boy threw up the minute I picked him up. As soon as he was done throwing up, I simply set him down on the ground in his bare feet with no ability to do anything but leave him standing there. No caring adult in sight who would ever know that he needed attention.

-       - Many of the children were naked and very few wore shoes.

-       - The structures the families live in are constructed of metal sheeting and most consist of one very small room where lots of people pile on top of one another.

-       - The women and children were the ones doing all of the work. Some young men helped fill and carry water but 90% of the people we saw were women and young children.

-       - I learned later that the neighborhoods in Cite Soleil are run by gangs and Healing Haiti is one of the few organizations that is allowed to come in because of years of relationship building.

Still, I saw Jesus. I saw him when the children began dumping buckets of water on one another’s heads in the hot Haitian sun. They laughed and clapped and danced as they splashed one another with living water. I saw him in the graffiti on the wall that read “optimistic”. I saw him in the eyes of the older woman who grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes and smiled a knowing smile. I saw him in the church and school that are being built by Healing Haiti in cooperation with the Haitians who live in the neighborhood and long for something different for their children. I saw Him when we were visiting the church, locked in for our safety…. there were three little Haitian girls who somehow snuck into the courtyard of the church. Annika, Lara, Madi and Fiona (our four fifteen-year-olds) noticed the kids and started holding their hands under the door of the church. They must have lain on the floor for a solid 20 minutes holding hands through the crack beneath the door. And as they held the children’s hands, they sang to them: “Jesus loves me this I know….”

As it turns out – when Jesus says “Come and See”, you better be prepared to have your vision changed, your perspective reoriented, your world blown up. Because once you see – you can’t un-see. And then the question becomes – now what will you do with all that you have seen?

Easter Lutheran - Day 1

Hey there! I am Lara and I go to Easter Lutheran Church. You always hear about how life-changing Haiti is, but you never really get it until you look into the eyes of the children you are helping. Even though I have only been here for one day, I have had my outlook on life changed completely. I hope you enjoy reading about my first day adventures, and see how God works miracles through us all.

            Waking up this morning it really hit me that we were in Haiti, but what hit me harder was the heat that met me outside of the bedroom door. I grabbed my water and went up to the balcony for my morning devo and watched the goats next door and the awakening city for a good half hour. After breakfast we got ready for our first trip. We were splitting up for the morning, half to Home For Sick and Dying and half to Dare’s. I decided to go to Dare’s, which is a home for children with disabilities. The ride there was pretty crazy due to the sometimes-bumpy roads and my carsickness, but once we got there I felt better immediately. Right when I walked in there were kid’s reaching for my hands and stroking my arms. The smiles on their faces instantly erased any doubts I had about choosing to go there. My time there was spent blowing bubbles, giving rollercoaster-like wheelchair rides, feeding the kid’s, and lots of hugs and holding hands. The love that filled my heart being with those kids is something I will never forget. The language barrier didn’t stop them from telling me where to take them or from talking to each other on our phones made of LEGO’s. I hope to go back someday and do it all again. After we left and came back to the house we had lunch and then got ready to Apparent Project. Apparent project creates jobs for parents, so they don’t have to give their children to orphanages.  They create bracelets, t-shirts, metal work, and much more.  We were able to have a tour of where everything was made and of a daycare where the parents can leave their children while they work, which was my favorite part. Everything is made from recycled materials, which I found insanely cool. We then went to the shops and restaurant and I had probably one of the best smoothies I have ever had. We came back to the house, made a quick change and then went out to play soccer next door with the neighborhood boy’s. After a lot of laughs and a lot of sweating we came in for an incredible dinner. My first day in Haiti has already opened my heart and brought me so much closer to my faith. I am extremely excited to see what the rest of the week will bring, especially with water truck day tomorrow. 

            This is my first mission trip and I know already, that there will be many more to come. I never thought that I would want to do missionary work when I got older, but now I can’t think of anything else I would want to do. God’s love and power has changed my heart forever, and I can’t wait to see what he is planning for my life and the rest of the trip.

God bless,

Lara

Beautiful Haiti

Sunday ... our last day together as a team in Haiti. We began with our breakfast 10 minutes earlier so we could arrive at Grace Church for worship service. Once there, the songs were familiar and the music was soothing for our souls. As we left the families of Grace Village, we gave our last hugs to those we had met earlier in the week. We drove along the shoreline of the Caribbean in our tap-tap. The mountains were a deep green full of vegetation. We were definitely out of the city limits. Litter on the streets slowly diminished and the thickness of smoke haze lessened.

We arrived at our final destination at Wahoo Bay Beach Resort for a day to relax and unwind before the long journey home. It was a side of Haiti we had not seen all week. We were hesitant about spending time at the beach as we felt that we should still be doing mission work, but also at ease about contributing to their economy for workers to provide for their families. The day consisted of live King Crab cooked to perfection after choosing the crab of your choice fresh from the sea. We enjoyed fresh chopped coconuts so we could enjoy the coconut water and flesh within them.

Along with the great food, we were entertained with a wooden painted boat that nine of us climbed onto as the boat captain then paddled us with his own strength through the choppy waters. After paddling for 20 plus minutes, he anchored at our destination where we jumped in and began to snorkel in the coral reef where we saw a variety of coral, eels, squids, sea urchins and bright colorful fish. We then rented jet skis, and played chicken on the water trampoline. On our way back to the guest house, the smell of burning garbage along the streets became thicker in the air as we approached the city. We watched as children and parents pumped water at wells and took baths along the side of the road.

We had our final dinner with our team and rather than word of the day, we did word of the week. Everyone seemed to agree that they have been filled up and that the experiences of the week will have a ripple effect on those around us. This trip has been an amazing week filled with love and heartbreak.  We are all leaving forever changed with the faces of Haiti etched into our minds.

~ Marsha & Kristie

Bed #7

Yesterday, our team visited the Home for Sick & Dying Adults in Carrefour, Haiti.  Although several of the patients were at mass when we arrived, I was able to spend some time with a young adult who was very ill.  I believe she suffered from malnutrition.  Her belly looked as if she was 8 months pregnant and it was rock hard.  Her arms and legs were skinny and frail.  She was so weak that she could not even tell me her name, but I noticed that she was lying in Bed #7.

I offered to give her a massage, and she immediately gave me a little head nod yes.  I massaged her arms, legs, hands and feet with lotion.  When I offered to paint her nails, she declined since she was just too sick to enjoy them.  She had a deep sadness and fear in her eyes ... like she knew that her time on this earth was limited.  I tried to reassure her telling her "Jezi renmen ou" and "Mwen renmen ou" (Jesus loves you.  I love you.), but I knew my words were not enough.

I moved closer to her as I was sitting on her bed.  Suddenly, she lifted her left arm and placed it around my neck.  Then, she lifted her right arm and did the same.  It took some effort to give me a hug, but she was trying as hard as she could.  I laid my hand on her forehead and said a silent prayer over her that God would give her peace.  I wanted to know her story so badly.  I wanted to take away her worries.  I wanted to reassure her that everything would be alright.  Instead, I had to walk away knowing that God is in control and that He has Bed #7 under close watch.  He knows who she is and she is precious in his sight. 

"Father ... please heal your child in Bed #7, but if it is her time to leave this earth, take her peacefully in her sleep.  May she rest in your loving arms."

~ Kristin

(no photos are allowed at Home for the Sick & Dying)

Peace In the Midst

Today, our team of 16 amazing ladies had the privilege of serving at the Home for Sick & Dying (adults). Our drive on the tap tap took us through the city of Port-au-Prince to the hospital. The drive was hot, incredibly bumpy, and dusty! I felt overwhelmed with the heat and slightly unsure of what we would be experiencing upon are arrival!

The mission for our morning was to bring the simple joy of pampering to the Haitian ladies by applying nail color and massaging their hands and arms. The majority of the patients were attending mass when we arrived so our plans were put on hold until the ladies returned! While we waited patiently, I had the opportunity to sit with a sweet young lady called Lovely -- she was truly Lovely! When my eyes looked at her sweaty, fragile body, I could tell that this little girl was seriously sick. I asked Lovely how old she was and I was shocked to hear her whisper ... 15.  My daughter, Lilly, is 15 and serving alongside me on this trip to Haiti. Lovely had no mother to sit on her bed and bring her the comfort that she so desperately needed.  I washed her face and hands with the only thing available ... a napkin dipped in lukewarm water.  Lovely was in deep pain with every breath she took. The pain Lovely was feeling, I could feel as a mother.  I wept as I sat on her uncomfortable bed with her worldly possessions in a small brown purse -- a toothbrush, 50 goudes and her tiny Bible beside her.

Lovely didn't want her nails painted nor her hands massaged since she was far too uncomfortable. I held her hand and prayed silently over sweet Lovely. I wanted so desperately to hold her with a mother's love, to tell her that I would be there until she got well enough to leave, or to stay by her side as she met her Heavenly Father. In the midst and the reality of the sick and dying, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace in this hospital.  Jesus was present.

Before I left for Haiti, my prayer was that the Lord would, "Break my heart for what breaks His." Yes ... my heart has been broken this week, but my heart has seen and felt His peace.

~ Stephanie

(no photos are allowed at the Home for Sick & Dying)