Love

The foundation that our team is supporting is called the Chadasha Foundation. They are based in Knoxville, and have a Huntsville branch called Project Sharewood. They run the guest house, provide translators, set up the mobile clinics, etc. They have also recently opened a children's shelter here in town. It's a shelter and not an orphanage because of licensing requirements, but truthfully most of the children have parents who simply cannot keep them. There are ten children at the shelter. Anne and Jenny kept busy doing check-ups on the kids. Kathy, who was once a kindergarten teacher, taught a thirteen year old girl to add by carrying. Stefanie and Karren played ball, and painted nails, and read books. Courtney and I held sleeping babies. All day. I'm not exaggerating. As soon as one would wake up, we'd start looking for another one. I can't think of a better way to pass a quiet day than sitting on a lounge chair on a veranda holding a sleeping baby.





The Chadasha Children's Shelter is located in a part of town that doesn't reliably have power. Chris and Orville worked all day to install an inverter, a device that would store power when it was available from the city (usually at night) to be used when it was not available. They didn't quite get it finished, but there was at least power to the house by the time we left.

It rained like crazy in the afternoon, which did nothing to relieve the stifling heat. It really just got muggier, and buggier. I know now why Haitians don't like the rain: mudslides. The roads were a horrible mess as we were driving home, and places that seemed like bridges when we were crossing this morning now showed themselves for what the really were - places where the sides of the road had been washed away by rushing water. It was scary, and unpleasant. The unpleasantness was magnified by the fact that AFTER we had loaded into the tap tap, Chris noticed he had locked the keys in the cab. So we sat in the pouring ran while he jimmied the lock. We got absurdly wet, although perhaps not as wet as he did!


*** stop reading now if you're not interested in the Heartbreak of the Day

There was a set of twins at the Chadasha shelter. They are fourteen months old, and when the mother brought them in to a mobile clinic, they were buck-naked and covered in mud from head to toe. That was two weeks ago. Look at them:





Look at how plump and healthy they are. The mother is sixteen, and is eight months pregnant. She loved them, you can see it, but she was overwhelmed and about to have another mouth to feed. What options did she have but to hope someone would offer them a better life? [note: someone already has. They're in the process of being adopted.] The part that really gets me is that they were covered in mud. I was told about them when we arrived on Friday, and I was horrified, but now i have a few Haitian days under my belt and I think, "how could they NOT be covered in mud?" I have the luxury of electricity and running water, and i can't keep clean. How could she possibly? I think their health is a testament to what a good job Mom was doing under the circumstances, and her sacrifice speaks only to her love for them.