Haiti Day 2 (Heart Break)

7/2/13
On Tuesday we split our team into two groups, one group would go to the church and put on a vbs type day for children with disabilities and their siblings, and the other group would go to the orphanage. I was on the team to go to the church first. As an American vbs is a pretty structured day with activities and fun, but that's not exactly what happened for us. We (our team being 5 of us with 2 translators) were expecting around 50 children thinking maybe another 10 or less would have disabilities, but by the end of the day we had about 125. Once word spread in the tent city that we were there kids were pouring in. I went to sit down by some children and a 2 year old was a person down from me. I looked at him and waved and he just started crying. I felt so bad so I reached out to hold him and he began screaming and crying and kicking. I could not understand why he was so unhappy but all his friends were having a great time. Kathleen saw that I was struggling getting him to sit down so she came over to help and as soon as he saw her he began screaming even louder. I realized that once we started backing away the crying slowly stopped, he was scared of us. He had never seen white people before and was truly scared of us. I was in awe. I couldn't believe that this sweet child had never seen a white person before, by the end of the week he realized we weren't going to hurt him and eventually let me hold him.

Our brave group (matching in our green) that took on the church. Minus Katie

 The church

 A group of our guys circled up playing a game. 

Some of those sweet faces.

Okay, I don't even know where to start with this one. On Monday, Greg (one of our host) began to tell us about the poverty there is in Haiti. He explained that many families can not afford to feed some of their kids. Well, I met one of these kids. A five year old named Angelo. He is one of five children and his mom can not afford to feed all five of them so she had to make a decision on which of the children she would starve to be able to provide for her other children. Angelo was the one she chose. As Angelo was brought in in his car seat on Tuesday morning I would have sworn he was a couple months old. He laid in his seat with his big brown eyes just staring up at me. I called a translator over to ask if it was okay to pick him up. His teacher told me it would be fine and helped me lift him out of his seat. He couldn't even hold his own head up. As I looked at him it was like he was staring right past my eyes and into my heart. I couldn't believe how light he was to hold. Angelo is five years old and ways 14 pounds, his legs were as big as my thumb. I was so overwhelmed with emotion. How could I live so close to here and not have helped until now? How could his mother make that decision? Thousands of questions and sadness rushed through me. Angelo was becoming my face for starvation. I spent the day with him in my arms, walking around singing, playing the games, and acting out the skits. It was amazing to look up from his precious face and see the other children staring because until then they had thought it was not right to hold and love on him. I finally put him back in his seat when we began to serve lunch to the children.

Meet Angelo

We were preparing to pass out lunch. They gave us a box of crackers to start with, once we gave every child a pack of crackers and glass of juice we (well I say we but at least I was) were waiting for the rest of the meal to give to the children. The next thing I know our host are bringing our lunch in and telling us to eat. I asked where the rest of the food for the children was and they said oh that's what they get today for lunch. I stood there with no reply, turned to our food, and saw that we had cheese burgers and fries. They wanted us to eat CHEESEBURGERS and FRIES in front of these children that just received crackers and juice for lunch?? Our team stood in silence. I think everyone was overwhelmed by the thought of doing that. We finally came to the conclusion that we would just eat when we got done at dinner time. Our host wasn't to accepting of that idea so he told us we could go eat on the van and could come back into the church when we got done. We got to the van and began eating. I looked around and tears were falling from almost everyone. There are no words to describe the way that felt. That we had all this food when 120 children sat less than 50 feet away from us with 3 crackers and a small cup of juice. This sat me down and turned me around a few times.

At the end of the day when we were getting ready to leave, I pulled a translator to the side and asked him to help me with getting to know these girls that had been hanging in the back of the room for the day but looked to be around my age. I approached them and we talked for a few minutes. Their names were Mary Danielle and Noma. They are best friends. Mary Danielle has 7 siblings. I asked her if her parents or any of her siblings had jobs and she said no. We kept talking and she explained that they pretty much ate everyday, that her mom or dad would find some way to get food for them. This again just blew my mind, that a family with 8 kids and no one has a job. It just really put in perspective what we think is a hard economy with finding jobs, but yet I have two parents with jobs, my sister has a job, and I have had jobs.

Me, Mary Danielle, Noma, and Kathleen