Roselind
We traveled to Gertrude’s orphanage today. Gertrude is an amazing woman who has an
orphanage with 46 children. ⅓ of the
children go to school and ⅔ of the children have special needs and do not
attend school. Gertrude (pictured below) is one of
the few people in Haiti who loves all children no matter what their
abilities. She values each person
as a child of God. If a family
member is unable to care for their child, if the child is abandoned, or if the
child’s family is deceased, she helps out.
My heart was so excited to see Roselind today. I met her in 2009, when I came to Haiti
for the first time. She lives at
Gertrude’s orphanage in Port-au-Prince.
She is wheelchair bound and does not speak. She loves to hold my hand and look into my eyes.
Today I sat next to her and she smiled as she reached out
her hand to grab mine. I said, “Ou
sonje mwen?” (which means…do you remember me?). She smiled as she began shaking my hand and joyfully kicking
her legs. She was filled with
excitement. I started singing a
few worship songs in Creole and she continued to smile.
She is about 16 years old. I picked her up and carried her to a large mat on the
floor. We sat together as we
clapped our hands, smiled at each other, and sang to the worship music my
friend played on his guitar. She
had so much joy! Her joy
overflowed from her heart and jumped right into mine.
This morning and evening we also went to Sisters of Charity. It is a hospital for sick and dying
children. Many infants and young
children are brought to this hospital by their families for help in nurturing
the children back to health. So many
of the children are so malnourished their skin appears to be hanging off of
their limbs. The cribs are lined
up in rows. As I entered one room,
I saw infants stretching out their arms to be picked up as they cried. Sometimes crying from pain, other times
crying because they craved to be held and loved, sung to, prayed for, or
fed. The children wore ID
bracelets on their legs with their name, age, and date of admission. It was surprising to read the bracelet
and find out that the child was actually 4 when they looked as though they were
18 months.
I fell in love with a sweet baby. He was 5 months old.
He was quite malnourished and so cuddly. I held him and sang to him. He was quite alert and enjoyed watching me and other people
who walked by. He had an IV in his
foot. He was having trouble
keeping his formula down and he spit up on me. I cleaned him up and changed his clothes and held him
longer. He was so precious.
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