Thursday, February 7, 2013

GOD IS SO GOOD TO ME...

Today was another busy day.  After a delicious breakfast, we began our journey.  We spent our day serving in Titanyen, a city outside of Port-au-Prince.  We visited Grace Village for a tour of the grounds.  It is so beautiful with it's amazing color and life.  The children were on a short break from their school day and were busy playing on the largest playground in Haiti, we even caught some playing hopscotch!  (I must add how lovely the hopscotch painting was!)  I'm not sure I can fully explain it's splendor - vivid colors, joyful children, smiling faces, growing gardens, swimming tilapia, lesson filled chalkboards, gracious long-term missionaries, and I could keep going on.  We delivered to them many of the supplies we collected from our generous supporters at home and continued on our day's plans.  Three women of our team, Lisa, Michelle and Karen, stayed at Grace Village to assist in alterations of school uniforms.

Next we visited a nearby school called Jean Garry's.  The children greeted us chanting "Hey You!" in their sweet sing-song voices.  We briefly visited with the youngest children, both giving and receiving huge hugs.  We were shown around the school and saw the small rooms, filled with students focused on learning despite our distractions.  Since the children know their families need to pay to go to school, the children seem geniunely happy to be at school.  We brought them some much needed supplies to share with their children, as well.

Our next stop was Edmond's home.  Edmond is one of the elders in Healing Haiti's ElderCare ministry.  We found him sitting on his bed when he welcomed us into his meager home made of stone and tarps.  We ministered to him through song, prayer, Bible verses, lotioning his arms and back, feeding him a peanut butter sandwich, applesauce and water.  Such simple things to us, but so comforting to him.  He seemed to enjoy every moment of our time with him and there was a certain peace about him when we left his home.

Then, we visited Izna, an 89 year old woman who was outside, hunched over near a small shed outside her home that she shares with her son.  Her home was made of tarps, surrounded by a cactus plant grown to serve as a fence.  She was happy to see us and enjoyed our songs and prayers, as well as, a massage of her arms, legs, back and scalp.  We brought her some water and food, as well.  She was eager to receive this, appearing both dehydrated and hungry.  We were asked to check on a few items that had been given to her, all of which she explained had been taken from her, by her son.  She also explained to us that while she was letting out her son's cow, it charged, pulling her arm and hurting her hand and shoulder.  Our Nurse Practitioner, Cara, looked at her hand and we believe it may be broken.  We were able to return with an ace bandage that Cara wrapped for her.  There is a possibility that a nearby physician will be able to visit her.  While we were honored to serve her, it was so sad to see her frail body and vulnerable state.  At home, most elderly in this condition are treated with both dignity and respect.  Additionally, they would likely be living in either a nursing home or with their family.  This is one of many disparities I have noticed throughout our trip thus far.

After leaving Izna's, we started driving back to Grace Village to pick up the rest of our team before visiting the other three elders.  Much to our surprise, we stopped on one of the main streets along the way and a sweet, yet spunky, joyful woman entered the tap-tap.  We quickly learned that it was Camisane, one of the elders on our list to visit for the day.  She is known as the "charcoal lady" because she buys bags of charcoal and sells them on the side of the street.  We had stopped across from her charcoal stand and ministered to her on the tap-tap with food, music, prayer, and lotion.  When we asked her if she had any special needs, her response through our translator was, "She needs everything.  Her money is done.  She has no more money to buy more bags of charcoal."  She was also very worried that her home may be taken away and she will have no place to live.  It was very humbling to realize that this woman who seemed so joyful when we first met her has such heavy concerns on her heart.

We returned to Grace Village for our seamstresses, who had a very productive, busy time of measuring uniforms and sewing.  Although they measured all the uniforms, they didn't sew as many as they (as Americans who like to cross items off their to-do lists) would have liked.  However, we were reminded that we are in Haiti and things move a bit slower, and everything they did was a great help and blessing to the missionaries who are responsible for completing this large project.

We then visited Angeline, a 79 year old elder, in her concrete home.  She touched many on our team in previous visits, so we were anxious to see her again.  We arrived to find her sitting on her mattress on the floor.  Her prayer request is that she is able to stand up because she doesn't want to stay on the floor all the time.  Once again, we ministered through prayer, song, food, water, and lotion.  We were overcome with emotion at this stop and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit as we sang to Angeline.

We visited Mariedeloude, who is a younger "elder" at age 43, due to her mental disabilities.  She had a tidy home and was surrounded by children and her sister.  We also served her with song, prayer, water and food.  Her home was neat and tidy, though sparce inside and built of tarps outside.  Many of the items we checked on for her had been stolen as well.  She had a smiling spirit and gentle quietness about her.

A solemn stop in our journey was at the mass burial site of the Haitians lost in the earthquake of 2010.  It is said over 300,000 individuals are buried here.  We climbed the hillside and were in awe of the beauty of the country God created here.

Our last stop was at Redempteur's School where we were given a brief tour.  This was a very small building that taught over 300 children.  It was by far smaller than even the cafeteria my children eat in at home.  He was passionate about his school, his children and serving the Haitian community through the hope of the children.  We provided some of our supplies to him, as well.  He requested our prayers and support for his needs.

Although our day was filled with emotions while serving some of the most vulnerable among us, we were served by their grateful spirits and their gentleness.  For today, we were able to be the hands and feet of our Savior.  At each visit, we sang a song, "God is so good, is so good, is so good to me..."  I couldn't help but to think how good God really is to me.

Melody Sandell & Vicki Barton

Healing Haiti Team Members (Tap-Tap Singers Extraordinaire!)

No comments:

Post a Comment