Today we encountered God

Tom’s Blog
Thursday in Haiti:

Today we encountered God in many ways throughout the day.

We started with some troubled stomachs within the group (discretion and TMI requires further silence on the details). However, meds kicked in so that everyone was feeling much better by the afternoon. (The God part is having the medicine available to make things work out)

Next we picked up in our little truck/bus an Israeli student named Leath who we met working as a volunteer at the Home for Sick and Dying Children yesterday. She had become so lonely being all by herself in Haiti that when we encountered her on Tuesday, it became clear to us immediately that she needed to take one of our extra beds and join our team for the duration so that she could complete her several month experience in Haiti. Leath was with us all day and was tremendously grateful for the chance to work with us even though she found it hard to leave the hospital with all the many needs of the children. (Remember, there are no coincidences – pray for her as well as us).

We then began our journey in our converted pick up truck to Titanyen to visit 3 “Elderlies” that have become part of a care group with whom Healing Haiti assists. Since the average life expectancy here is in the early 50’s and the few people who make it older then 50 have outlived their friends and even their children. This became quite overwhelming for me – the last elder we visited would have been in a full care nursing home in the states, but here, she was virtually helpless and on her own. “Aunt Jolie” needed to be dressed before we could even see her. However, she has no one to help her and is vulnerable to desperate locals taking advantage of her gifts from groups like ours. She apparently even sold her bed for food recently. While we were providing them a care package and took care of their personal needs, we also sang with them and prayed for them. “Aunt Jolie”’s wish was to soon go see Jesus. I was overwhelmed at her state and prayed fervently that her prayer would be answered or that she would be able to go to Grace Village soon and become a great grandparent to the many kids.

We then spent our afternoon with the children of Guilluome’s Orphanage (which in the next month will be moving into Grace Village under Healing Haiti’s organization.) There are a wonderful collection of babies through teenagers living together and being cared for quite well despite living in a very poor town outside of Port au Prince. They receive an education and are cared for and their lives have improved as funds have reached them through our organization. All the children received beds of their own in the last year so that they wouldn’t have to sleep on the ground. They are very eager and bright children who enjoyed playing, singing and making crafts with us all afternoon. One little 11 year old boy named Billo sat with me for some time late in the afternoon. As well as they are cared for, the one on one connections are the thing that they cannot always have. (Today, God ministered to me through the children just as He ministered to them through our entire team.)

Tom
Healing Haiti Team Member