The best way to describe today is….babies, babies, babies!
We loaded up this morning and made a hour and a half drive outside the city and up a mountain to this smaller town that I can’t remember the name of. There is a place there called Real Hope for Haiti that has a clinic and a rescue center for malnourished children. It is run an American family. If you don’t do anything else please go to their website and learn more about what they’re doing!
Several of the nurses on my team spent the day helping in the clinic and sorting medical supplies that had been donated. Seeing as how I would have been no use in that department I spent all day at the rescue center holding and playing with babies. My prayer yesterday morning was that the Lord would let me hold at least one baby and boy did He make answer!
The Rescue Center takes in kids who are either orphaned or dropped off by their families. Most families bring their kids there because they are so sick due to malnourishment. The Rescue Center takes them in and basically loves on them and beefs them back up. They use this stuff called Medika Mamba that is basically a peanut butter with vitamins mixture. They mix it with water or milk and it feed it to the kids every day…they raved about this stuff. They tend to keep the babies until they’re about 18 months or so and able to eat solid foods and healthy before sending them back home. They’ve had a much better success rate this way because families and especially the single dads here tend to struggle with feeding the babies the right amount of formula and stuff.
So about my day…you walk into the Rescue Center and the first room is full of the really sick kids. They were even two sweet girls who were laying in cribs with IVs and didn’t even want to be touched. There were several really young babies whose mom’s had died in childbirth and their dad’s just couldn’t handle the infants who were in this room as well. Then you go into the next room and there were about 30 or so babies and toddlers in there. Some were walking around, some were playing, and some were just sitting there looking around the room. This is where I stayed for over four hours!
One little boy crawled over to me and then stood up and wrapped his arms around my leg. I picked him up and held him for awhile and was told that he was five years old, but yet he was the size of a 3 year old. He had trouble walking because apparently at his home they kinda just left him sitting and he never learned to walk. This sweet little boy didn’t smile once all day.
I moved about the room throughout the day holding and cuddling with different kids. I would move around if I noticed one crying and would quickly make my way over there with two kids already in my arms and snuggle up to the crying one until they stopped.
Around noon the Haitian nannies who worked there starting some word (which I later learned meant food) and all these babies, who many I thought there was no way they could walk, lifted themselves and started walking to another room for their lunch. The fact that they had a routine made this little 1st grade teacher’s heart so very happy!
They walked out to this room and the littlest babies were put into one of those tables that has chairs in the middle that their feet hang out down from because they couldn’t really sit at a table by themselves. Then they had four of those Little Tykes plastic picnic tables that all the other kids crowded around. Each kid was given a bowl full of rice, beans, and some chicken to eat. They sat and ate, fed each other, and made a mess for awhile. I helped feed two little boys who weren’t eating, but by the end had finished their whole bowls.
After they eat lunch they all walk back into the big room and there is a nanny sitting near the bathroom. The kids go over to her and she strips them of their clothes and diaper. Then they make their way and sit in front of the restroom and wait to be given a bath. Once out of the bath they walk over to where three nannies are sitting on the ground. The nannies dry them off, powder them up, and then dress them. They have a big pile of clean clothes sitting there and they just rummage through until they find something the right size and that is gender appropriate.
Then it’s back to playing, sleeping, crying, and sitting.
After the bath there was this one tiny little girl who walked over to the corner of a room and literally squatted down and faced the corner. I walked over to her and squatted in front of her and she just kinda looked at me. I put my hands out for me to hold her and she didn’t move. So I sat in front of her and touched her hands. She sat and would play with my fingers and hands, but never would she let me hold her.
I stayed in that spot for about the next hour and at the end of the hour I had one girl curled up in my lap sleeping, one little girl snuggled up on my left, two kids at my feet sitting there but making sure that at least one hand was touching me, and one little boy in my right arm. I was in heaven!
There is so much emotionally that I’m thinking about from this day and having a hard time getting it all out. So there will probably be more posts even after I return home about all that the Lord is teaching me and showing me from this trip. For now it will just be about what we did!
I will say that I never realized how much just a simple touch can mean…I mean wow!
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