Sabine:
On Thursday I stay at Haitian Christian Mission with Dr. King while the other providers go to Port-au-Prince. We settle into what has become a typical clinic day. Everyone is hustling to take care of the patients at the clinic, and I am seeing my share. Just after lunch, a mother enters the room with her 18 month old boy. He is sleeping comfortably in her arms, but the mother is crying. I look at her and say "Bonswa, what's going on with ti bebe today?" She tells me that when she leaves him, he has fits of crying so hard he stops breathing for a few seconds. I examine the baby. He does not appreciate being awakened and fights and cries to let me know it. He looks thin, but well, and I'm about to tell her about breath-holding spells when she says " Li pa manje!"
" He won't eat? Poukisa? Why?"
"Mwen pa genyen lajan pou mwen achte manje pou li."
She has no money to buy food. As she continues to cry, she tells me she has two children and is pregnant with the third one. After the second child, she started using birth control pills but got pregnant anyway.
Her husband was killed in a car accident 3 months ago, and since then, she has been unable to care for her children. He was the sole provider for the family. For the past 3 months, she has been going from one family member's house to the next asking for shelter for just a few days so she and her children would not have to sleep in the streets.
Her family has no money. They can barely feed themselves and their children, so she has been too ashamed to ask them for food.
I ask her to wait outside by the benches near the pharmacy and ask Erika to make up a bottle for the baby, not knowing if he will even take the formula since he is one and a half years old. I leave to go find Betty Prophete, but she is not around. So I find Dr. Maxine and I explain to him the situation. He asks to speak to the mother, and when he meets her, he goes into a room with her for what seems like forever. The mother and child disappear from the clinic for about an hour and she reemerges with a 6yr old as well. Erika goes to give the 18 month old the bottle and he starts to guzzle it down. The mother takes the bottle when it still has a little formula left, and she shares it with the 6 yr old. He quickly downs the remainder of the bottle. That is when we start to realize the gravity of the situation. Erika takes another bottle and mixes powdered Gatorade and water for the 6yr old child, who immediately guzzles it.
By then, Erika, Jenny, Trish, Debbie, Kari, and other team members are raiding their personal food stashes to give to the mother to feed her children as well as donations of their own money.
I go to look for Betty again and this time I find her. I explain the situation. She looks at me with for a moment and I can see the sadness gathering in her eyes. Then she says "The orphanage currently has 11 children and 2 adults living in a two bedroom house, we are at capacity and simply cannot take any more children."
I say "What about a job? Can she work as a janitor here or do anything around here and can get paid so she can feed her children?"
"I have hired more than I need right now and cannot hire anyone else, but I think the Menonite community down the road may be hiring."
By the time I get back downstairs, $350 Haitian dollars, formula, and protein bars have been collected for the mother and her children.
I speak to her for a while as team members play with the 6 year old and carry the 1 year old around. I tell her to use some of the money to pay the people she is staying with, so they will let her stay a little bit longer. Also, she should buy water and other goodies to sell so she can buy food for her children.
She looks at me and begs me to go get Betty so that she may plead with her and maybe, just maybe, Betty will see how desperate she is and will decide to take the children. I tell her that I will, and I immediately go get Betty. After seeing her children and speaking with her, Betty refers her to the Baptist orphanage the next town over, not knowing if they will take her children. Before the mother leaves, she finds me and says, " Mesi anpil for everything you have done for mwen. Di tout moun mesi anpil. Tell everyone thank you very much."
After this, I have the chance to speak with Dr. Maxine who is a compassionate man and an excellent physician. He looks at me and says, " You know, Sabine, everyday I complain about not having money and being poor because of the small salary I make here in Haiti. But being poor is a relative term. At least I am able to provide a shelter for my family and food every day for my children. I may have little but at least I have something in comparison to this mother. I have to remind myself every day that things are not as bad as they seem. I do not have much, but if we are unable to do anything for this mother I will give her what little money I have in my wallet." I look at him and ask at what point does a mother make the hard decision to give up her children? I have been exposed to this for little more than an hour, and I find their plight incredibly painful. She has had to live every day with the pain of knowing that her children may die of starvation soon if something doesn't change. Could I give up a child to the orphanage to keep them alive? I can't imagine how strong and selfless she is being called upon to be.
As I fly back to my home, and am typing this on my iPad, I am remembering this family and reflecting on their situation which is so outside my own experience, but all too common in Haiti, I realize I don't know how the story ends. I don't know if she was able to find a job at the Mennonite hospital or able to get her children into the orphanage. I don't know how they will survive. All I know is that I will continue to pray for her and her children.
[Ed. note: Sabine and all of us will continue to pray. We will also continue to act as we feel we must, to extract ourselves from our comfortable homes and comfortable lives as we work to minister to these people and this country. We will continue to bring these stories back so that all can see that these are not just abstract ideas but people with hope and fear, joy and sorrow and pain. Thank you, Sabine, for bringing this woman and her children to us, that we may also pray for her.--Doug]
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