Healing Haiti Day 2-Orphanages

Today is one of my favorite days (didn’t I say that about yesterday)…. We spent our day with orphans at 2 orphanages.

The first orphanage is a home for the sick and dying. I know it’s really tough to think about and can be VERY overwhelming when you first step into the building. I can truly say this being the 2nd time there, it was much different. First and foremost, on my last trip to the orphanage I “chickened out” of holding the infants and spent my day upstairs with the older kids. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the time with them. Holding them, playing with them, hugging and praying over them. This
time, however, my goal was to spend time with both my “upstairs” kids and the newborns and infants. What’s sad about that group is most of these children are
here due to malnutrition.

My first infant that I held for part of the morning was 2 years old. Her name was Delores. She was the sweetest little girl. 2 years old and weighed all of about 19 pounds. She and I truly bonded and I
spent most of my morning with her. The morning ended at noon when I had a chance to feed her. Lunch today for that age group was rice, black beans and some ground beef. She ate and ate and ate and ate…..in fact I thought she might explode! Not Delores.

I had one of the staff look to see if she had eaten enough. I loved how she check…she pulled up Delores shirt and felt her belly! Apparently Haitian 2 years old have a fill line somewhere on their stomachs. Little Delores ate a large bowl FULL of rice and beans. It was amazing.

In sharing stories from the morning with the other team members, Jenny Swain shared the story of the malnourished 3 year old who ate and ate and ate and then projectile vomited! I guess not all little Haitian babies can hold bowl after bowl of rice and beans.

After lunch we left that orphanage and headed to another favorite stop—Gertrude’s Orphanage. This has an interesting story. Most of it can be read at this blog written about the wonderful woman at this blog: http://thehaitianchronicles.posterous.com/gertrude Anyway, Gertrude’s is a home for special needs kids. In Haitian culture most of these children are abandoned by their parents and left to die. Gertrude takes them in and helped by a great staff, helps these children live a normal or as close to normal for Haiti, life. She currently has 46 of these
wonderful children in their care. Their degree of disability runs the gamut from mild to severe. The severe children, some in wheelchairs, some are bedridden and cared for by Gertrude and her staff. We spent 1 ½ hours with these kids playing,
holding, hugging and generally having a great time with them.
Was today all about the kids? Not on your life. My sense is today is as much about us and the growth we gain as individuals as much as the kids. At the end of each day, we meet as a mission team and share a “word of the day” from each team member. This is a time for reflection on the
individual experience of the day.

Today was a great word of the day. The words range widely. Each of every one of us is
growing in our own way. Sometimes that growth is uncomfortable. Some of the team experienced that. For others it was joy. Definitely a wide range. I’m excited about tomorrow (do you see a theme here) as we travel to Grace Village. This is the new orphanage that Healing Haiti just opened. The kids were moved in on December 21 and I had a chance to visit the
construction site in July when we were here in Haiti. To see it come to completion will be
exciting!