Haiti-Day Four

Today was an interesting day with a lot of hard experiences. We started out the day learning that a wall had collapsed in Petitionville and that several people had been killed, as well as flooding had happened in the tent cities. We were safe and snug here in our beautiful guesthouse while people were just outside fighting for their lives. It is a hard reality here in Haiti. The rain is expected again today and tonight. They say this is the most rain Haiti has had in a while.

John also played for us this song by John Wicham called Beautiful. I would recommend everyone listening to it. We sang this in our mini worship service on Sunday night. It is just a moving and touching song. After this we set out for a long hard day of work.

I had been bugging Renald for a ride of his four wheeler and so he agreed to take me this morning. He told me I was going to get wet and I had seen the road the day before with just some water puddles on it and I was like oh ok no problem, thinking to myself no big deal. However when we got to his four wheeler I realized that the road was now not a road, but a river. You literally could not see the bottom of the road. However up for an adventure I hopped on the back of the vehicle and away we went. I looked down at one point and the water was up over Renald's feet. I held mine up a little higher at that point. He dropped me off at the maternity center.

We were supposed to go to the Maternity Center to help sort things, but when we got there Jonah was not sure what to do with us. So she gave us a very informative tour of the maternity center. She is a midwife and lives there. She was explaining that the care they can give at the maternity center is much better than the care that they would get in the hospital. However, right now they can only take in five women per month who will deliever in that month. The program is wonderful though because the women come in for prenatal checks during their pregnancy, and then continue through the program for six months afterwards. The women are in the two different programs for about a year, and at the end they are much more confident and sure mothers with beautiful, fat babies. They also have a program on Fridays where they open up the center to the community and they do a Bible Study and family planning clinic. About 150 women are on the Deprovera birth control shot.

While we were doing the tour there was a woman in her late 20's who came in that was one of their patients. She got checked out and we were given our assignment to work on a skit teaching the women about cleanliness. We prepared the skit and practiced it sevearl times. I think we laughed more than anyone else did. It was just hilarous and we had a clean and dirty family. It was fun practicing with these Godly women. It is wonderful how God puts all of us from different backgrounds together and we just mesh and work well.

After we finished practicing we had a little time left before lunch so we decided to go over to the Harbor House, the teenage mother's home, and help finish up with putting up some screens over there. We are building and painting screens, and we also sorted some donations that had gotten mold in them, throwing out the bad stuff and salvaging what we could. Before we could leave the maternity center though we saw the woman who had came in earlier and we saw Beth cleaning up their ambulance. She said that the woman was too high risk and would have to be transported to the hospital. We asked to pray for her and were allowed. We found out that she had lost three children already and that she was six weeks earlier. I think all of us were about to lose it by the time we were done crying and she was just so scared. We have not heard about her or her child yet, but we are still praying for her.

While we were at the Harbor House, there were two what looked to be teenage mothers came up and I thought they knew someone there or wanted to come in, so I opened the door to them. Renald came up behind me and started to speak to them in Creole. Both of the women were holding between three and six month old children. When they left I asked Renald what they wanted and he said they thought we were an orphanage and they wanted to give up those babies. He said he told them where an orphanage was down the street. I felt lost and helpless as I watched them walk down the street with their babies, walking toward the other orphanage. I asked Renald if it was a good orphanage and he just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know. I wanted to be like how can you send kids to a possibly horrible situation and not care or not know. However I just smiled and turned back to getting back to work. I can not put my ideas and thoughts coming from Americans on Haitians. I understand that it is different. They live with a reality that I do not, and putting a child in an orphange is just a part of that reality.

After this and finishing up some work it was time to eat. We had a traditional Haitian meal of rice and beans, chicken, akra, and pickelese (no I did not eat the pickelese). It was so delicious and it was great to get to fellowship with the other members of the team for a while.

After lunch we went back to the Maternity Center, riding on the back of Renald's four wheeler because the road was all flooded. We performed our skit for the women. It was great fun to do so. I am truly not sure who laughed more us or the women. Then after the skit they did some singing in Creole and were praising the Lord. The babies are just beautiful and I wanted to hold them all. One of the beautiful things about Haitians is there is no shame about breast feeding. They were allowed to listen to their bodies and their children and just breast fed no matter who was around. They did not try to cover up and hide what they were doing. I could not help but think of my friend Christine who is putting up her magical milk of the week pic on her blog. It was just a precious thing to experience.

We finished up our work and headed back to the Harbor House once more on the back of Renald's four wheeler. A short while later John showed up and offered to take us out to the OK property where some exciting new things are happenng. After a bumpy ride in the back of our truck we finally arrived. We were shown around the property. They are building a missions school there, two of the missionaries will have houses there, they are setting up some apartments for the people who will be coming to stay at work at the medical missions there, and finally the apartments for the teachers who are coming. They also will be building a medical building there. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is going to be wonderful.

Finally we came back to the guest house to eat dinner and enjoy some free time just spending time with each other and talking.