No Place on Earth We'd Rather Be

Starting the day out at the hospital to find the sweet little boy who can’t walk. As Marcy and I enter the hospital the sweet guard is sitting there. He has been asking for a bible for three weeks now and I still haven’t been able to find one. We give him money to buy one and he says he can’t wait to show us his new bible when we come back. The little boy has been taken to a different hospital. I wish I had his contact information. I feel like a failure. Like I didn’t do all that I could. Why didn’t I come sooner? I remember his deep sad eyes looking up at me. He is what we call a restavik kid. When a family can’t afford to keep their kids they give them to someone better off and they are used basically as slaves. Not in all cases but in many. That little boy was a restavik kid. He stayed with a man that took “care” of him, but when he had his accident he was dropped off at the hospital and his real dad came to spend some time with him. The story of how he got so badly hurt changed every time I went to visit him. I whispered to him one time asking if he was afraid. He quickly looked at his dad and then looked away. He stood up one time with Aunt Beck and I but only for a few moments. He wouldn’t speak when his dad was around. He didn’t want to be healed. He didn’t want to walk again because it meant he would go right back to where he was. He was so hollow and depressed. Where is he now? Why didn’t I do more? Why am I so useless? Why don’t I have a house here where I can take in little souls like this. This is when I have to remember how small I am. How I only can do so much until I just let God take care of it. He is so much bigger than me. He loves that little boy more than I ever could. I always say I’m just doing all that I can with the time that I have. However, in this instance, I didn’t do all that I could with the time that I had. I will continue to pray for him and his most precious life and I ask that you would do the same. God is bigger than me. So. So. So. Much. Bigger. Leaving the hospital to visit Dada and put fresh bandages on her leg. Her wound needs to dry out a little bit so what better time to dance? I am joined by Dada's feisty aunt. We dance and dance and soon have a little crowd laughing and squealing for joy. Marcy laughs at me and films us. Dada's feisty aunt forgets her hurt ankle and dances and laughs and hugs me. We enter the little house again and Marcy and I bandage Dada's wound and tease her. Marcy dances and makes her laugh as I bandage. She smiles at us with her big beautiful teeth. The house is full of family members. The air is sticky and dirty. The tarp still hangs low touching the top of my head. Flies swarm my legs. Fresh clean bandages cover her leg and I love the look of it. It makes me so happy to see. So white against the dark maroon sheets.

Marcy and I walk to one of the leaders' house because he said he has some land he wants to show me. Marcy hops on with his bodyguard and he hops on with me. We drive to Testas and he shows us the piece of land. It’s a really peaceful place but I’m looking for a larger piece. We sit in what seems to be an abandoned restaurant but someone appears out of nowhere to bring us drinks. I told mama we would be home to help cook and then go pray with her on the mountain so it is time to leave.

Flying on the roads back to Jeremie. Marcy laughing at the bodyguard's little moto backfiring and giving me the look of “what are we doing." No matter what we’re doing, there is no place either of us would rather be.

Arriving back at home Marcy and I settle down to help cook. Cutting and frying banan. Juicing shadek to make the best juice ever. Tasting sauce. Making sure the Piklis has enough spice. We sit down to eat and Marcy is able to video chat with Chris (her husband.) Papa and Manman are so happy to talk to him. We all miss him and wish he was here. Chris and Marcy have been such a wonderful blessing in not just Papa and Mama's life but in my life as well. When I was living in the back of my truck in the middle of winter, they filled rubbermaid tubs with groceries and filled my gas tank. Bought me a new cot and have been there whenever I needed someone. I wish Chris was here, we all do, but he will be here soon hopefully. It was a perfect dinner. All of us talking and teasing. We are late for the prayer meeting up the mountain so we finish up and start up the mountain. I am bombarded by sweet little kids everywhere, all yelling my name. I didn’t even know I knew all the kids up here. Hugs and sticky kisses.

Sweaty little hands touching my face and arms. We hike until we are almost to the top of the mountain. We enter a sweet little yard covered in crab grass. A little garden with a few stalks of corn and herbs occupies a corner. The home is small but beautiful. Little by little the women all arrive and we start to sing. A little girl with a baby on her hip leading a blind woman stand in the entranceway.












This little girl led this blind woman all the way up the mountain for the prayer meeting. The woman sits in a chair pulled up for her and I beckon to the little girl to come sit with me. Marcy and I are sitting on the crab grass. Not the most comfortable but it’ll have to do:)

The little girl comes and sits next to me and the little girl on her hip is terrified of me. In areas like this, little kids are often scared of white people because of never having seen them before. I smile and hold out my hand. She is apprehensive at first, staring at me with huge beautiful brown eyes. Her head is shaved due to a skin disease. She doesn’t have any bottoms on and is wearing a ragged dirty brown shirt. She sneakily and quickly grabs my hand. I stretch my arm out and she is willing to sit with me. I snuggle her little self and kiss her little forehead.

Her sister snuggles up beside me as well. I realize I am still in a prayer meeting and join in in prayer and songs. It is a beautiful picture. Marcy and I sitting up here with these wonderful women. Praying and singing and spending time together. Marcy moves to sit with the sister and she holds her hands and looks at them over and over.

Looking at her fingernails and her knuckles. Smoothing her skin with her sweaty hands. Marcy just wraps her arms around her and we finish the meeting.

Walking down the mountain with this little precious on my hip. The sister takes us to her house and I talk to her mama. 

She can’t get enough water to bathe her little babe every day to get rid of this little skin disease. I tell her I’ll be back in the morning to pick her up to give her a bath at my house. Marcy and I walk back down the mountain with the group of women and eventually it's just us and Mama and Madam Figaroe. As soon as we walk into the door, Fre Ejen is there to have his finger bandaged again and he says there is a boy right down the hill who was just in a bike accident who needs his wounds taken care of. Into the room Marcy and I go to pack up my medical bag. Down the side of the mountain we go in the dark of the night. We duck under branches and jump over fallen palm trees. Through the goat trails in the jungle. Marcy and I laugh so hard at Fre Ejen's pace. He is speed walking down and up these hills. The boy is right down the mountain…lies. Where in the world are we going? The stars are bright and beautiful. Arriving near some homes and through little alleyways until we reach my patient. Squatting in the dirt to clean his wounds. One of the wounds is on his butt cheek and I tell him the drop his pants. The whole audience, Marcy and I are in an uproar. Laughing so hard. He does so without hesitating and I’m glad he did because that was the only infected little wound. No sooner have I put the last bandage on him, another patient comes our way. She burned her hand so I just put some burn cream on it and give her some for tomorrow. Back up the mountain and down and up and down and up we go. We get ourselves ready to go sleep at the orphanage. After such a long day I will admit sleeping on a concrete floor doesn’t sound the best. However, we go anyway. Papa drives us on my bike. Walking down the little alleyway to the gate made of old tin roofing patched together. Little voices sing loudly for their nighttime worship. Marcy and I sit on the cement porch with them and listen. Their little voices are loud and clear. They sing with every piece of themselves and every ounce of their little hearts. Marcy and I are exhausted and all I want to do is go to sleep. I am convinced by a couple kids to play Osle with them. 

I start a game but no sooner have I started when the door to their bedroom is opened. There are 57 children in this orphanage. The boys share a 10x12 room and the girls share a 10x12 room as well. A couple sheets are laid out on the floor for the kids to sleep on. Marcy and I nestle down and little girls from all directions come trying to cuddle closer and closer. 

Is it possible to get any closer? I write a song down for Lotez and we sing together. She has a beautiful voice. Marcy has a dozen little girls trying to do her hair and it’s terrible. 

Every year Marcy gets her hair done it's worse and worse. This year she has corn rows in a combover with half of her hair fluffing out the side. So so hideous. Little hands and sticky little foreheads cover every square inch of me and it's so hot in here. They are all sweating, but no one wants to let go. Little by little the room fills up with all the orphan girls. Each one trying to get as close as possible. 

My heart is so full. I can feel myself getting choked up but I don’t want to discourage them by crying so I keep it together. I can’t move at the moment to see Marcy, but she says she is covered in kids. 

Life is perfect. I wrap my arms around as many precious kids as possible. Why aren’t my arms longer? Why aren’t my hands bigger? Why isn’t my heart stronger? You are loved. You are perfect. You are more than enough. You are beautiful. Cement floor. Dirty sheets. Sweaty bodies. Little feet. Holding hands. Every breath. Little heart beats. Little heads against my chest. I am so content. Am I going to get any sleep tonight? Probably not. Is it absolutely worth it? Yes. With every ounce of me, yes. I fall asleep with them. 

The room is completely shut with a single oil lamp glowing brightly on a shelf. Marcy and I and over thirty kids packed on this floor, as tight as can be. So hot I can barely breathe. Someone pukes on my feet. Someone pees on Marcys head. And yet, there's no place on earth we’d rather be.

A Beautiful Day

Choir practice. Papa asked me to help the youth choir so Marcy and I start singing with them. We laugh so hard singing and messing up and getting over it and trying again. They’re going to be good. It's just going to take some time. They love it and I’m loving it too. This is going to be so cool in the end.

Marcy brought glowing stars down for the orphans, but she also decorated my bike with them. It’s awesome. I now have my license plate decorated with glow in the dark paint and glowing stars down the sides and front. 

There is a medical clinic at the house today and Claeme doesn’t have school so we decide to take her to the beach. Delice, Jacques, Mackenzy, Marcy, Claeme and I go. We have a blast. Sit-ups and push-ups on the beach, splashing, burying Delice in the sand to make him look like a mermaid. Claeme is loving this. I love this kid.

Fre Ejen sliced his finger. He shows up late to have me clean and bandage it. He is so kind. He is always working. Always around. He squats on the ground next to the chair in my room so I have a place to sit. 

Are you kidding me? I grump at him telling him he’s the wounded one and he better sit in the chair or I won’t bandage him up at all. 

Marcy laughs on her bed as she watches me. She tells me I should have finished nursing school and that it's not too late. Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea.

I received a call this morning to go pick up the little baby who’s mom is getting her leg cut off. Marcy and I have already visited Marie Claude, gone to the market, visited the orphanage, visited Judelin's mom, and met with one of the leaders. Driving down into a rough part of town. Dada (little girl with leg wound) lives right by one of the leaders and so Marcy and I walk over to where she is staying. She’s been taken out of the hospital now and is staying at her aunt's. The mom of the baby is in Port still. The baby has been taken to another part of town with some friend of the family. Poor little thing. So I guess I won’t get it today. We climb down some rock steps and into Dada's aunt's home. Dada is laying on a bed. A tarp hangs low above our heads and I have to hunch over so I don’t keep hitting it. 

I ask how her leg is doing and they say they don’t have anything to clean it with. Back home Marcy and I go on the moto to get my medical bag. We make the first curve up the mountain just fine and the second curve just fine, but just past the second curve there is a huge rock and my front tire catches it. Marcy stays relaxed thank goodness because that alone kept us from crashing. We didn’t fly off the cliff…just kind of took a detour. Entering their little home again I lay my little supplies on Dada's bed. Her eyes light up and a huge smile spreads across her face. A little squeal of excitement escapes her lips and she looks at me overjoyed. I don’t know about you, but I know this is the first time I’ve ever experienced a child this excited about their wound being cleaned. She is as happy about this as most children are to opening Christmas presents. I start to uncover Dada's bandage. The smell is rough. I’m glad I came when I did because this is infected.

Marcy holds her hand and I clean all around it and wipe most of the puss away. When I feel it is clean, I bandage it again. Her aunt comes in and has a wound on her ankle so I clean and bandage that as well. She dances in her new bandage and tells me, “it's so beautiful and so clean!” What a precious family. The children outside the home wrap their little arm around Marcy and call her grandma. I’ve never heard little kids call a blan grandma. I guess they are prophetic. Congratulations Courtney on bringing a new little wee into the world. I wish you and your studly man the very best! Marcy and I tell the family we will be back tomorrow to clean their wounds again. What a beautiful day.

Sardines

Marcy and I are packed on yet another “12" passenger but now 20 passenger bus. We are packed in like sardines.

I fall asleep and wake up to my back totally soaked in sweat. The AC has been turned off and everyone is hot and grumpy. We ask a woman in front of us to open the window and she says she doesn’t like the wind. The guy next to me reams her out saying she’s going to kill us with the heat. I ream her out too telling her she’s selfish and she opens her window. There's nothing like peer pressure. Marcy and I are in the very back of the bus where it's the hottest. I choose to ignore it by falling asleep again. 

When I was little, my older brother Trav carved a hedgehog for me out of a huge heavy piece of wood and I carried it around wrapped in a dishtowel like a doll. It meant the world to me when he carved it for me, and was one of most favorite things as a kid. I don’t know where it went and have been so sad I lost it. When I was at Marcy and Chris’s before Christmas I noticed a little hedgehog on their table and it almost made me cry because it reminded me of the one I had as a kid. Well, Marcy bought one for me because she knew how much I loved it. Now, every time I see it I can pray for her family and Trav. Marcy has one as well so when she sees him she will pray for me. So here I am, traveling across Haiti with this little pinecone hedgehog. 

Only a few more hours on this bus. I am eager for the end of this adventure. I miss home and am ready to snuggle in my bed. We finally reach O Kay and I am overjoyed to see Batakol (my bike.) 

We load up. We have a huge suitcase, four backpacks, a duffel bag, a huge paper shopping bag totally loaded, four people and two motorcycles. This should be fun. It’s dark so I can’t even take a picture. You’ll just have to imagine it. Judelin and I talk the whole way and I look over at Marcy and Papa. Marcy is looking up at the stars. She looks so cute squished between Papa and that huge suitcase and backpack strapped behind her. 

The roads are terrible. It must have rained. We finally arrive at home at 9pm. I’m so tired I feel dizzy. I boil water on the stove and take a hot bucket shower. My very first one and I feel so spoiled. I was freezing after the night moto ride and this feels so good and toasty. I wrap up in a quilt after and am so happy. So happy to be warm. So happy to be home.

Grateful

Driving to O Kay with Heed and Judelin. 3:45 we wake up and wait for Judelin to come. I will be driving my bike and the luggage, and he will have Aunt Heed. Finally he arrives at 4:30 and we are on our way. 

We are so cold driving. Its so cold. Being up in the mountains before the sun comes up driving way too fast. I’m relieved when the bad roads come because it means we will be able to slow down and the wind won’t be as bad. I love this adventure. The potholes. The dust in my eyes. The cold air. The little towns. I wish there was a way I could describe every beautiful town we drive through. The deep red dirt. Coral and turquoise homes. Heed's huge smile on the back of Judelin's bike. She is so easy and always up for anything. Adventure. Loving people. Sitting. Talking. Playing. Laughing. She soaks up every piece of life. Below are pictures of Heed doing medical stuff in the jungle.

As we crest the top of a mountain the sun is just beginning to rise and fog rolls over a river in the valley. The green leaves and the fresh air filling my lungs. 

What a perfect trip. It is a three hour trip in all and we are about half way. I am so grateful for Papa's sweatshirt. It's a big purple Vikings sweatshirt. The only reason I know what that is is because of a friend back home who loves the Vikings. It's a football team. Right? Heed is bouncing on the back of that bike. 

What a rough ride. Cafe sounds so good right about now. Hot coffee from Mama, but on this trip we have no such luck. 

When we finally arrive in O Kay we are packed onto a little bus to go the rest of the way to Port. A 12 passenger van quickly becomes a 20 passenger van and I am grateful for it because when you are packed so tight together, your bodies can’t move and the roads don’t seem as curvy and insane. 

Five hours are passing so slowly but we make it. Jud, Heed and I get cleaned up and go to dinner and Papa and Thamar meet us. We laugh so hard over dinner. Judelin is always on his phone so I start mocking him and take everyone's phones and coke bottles and pretend like I have a million conversations going at once. We might actually be really funny, or we could just be slap happy. Not sure. I am really happy to see Thamar. I’ve missed her tons and I am glad she was able to come. Lori and Linda (family living in Jacmel) come to visit us. We laugh until we cry. We discuss politics and Haiti. We talk about family and memories. 

I love them so much and my heart is full. Heed leaves in the morning. I am so grateful for the family I have. I am so grateful for the time I get to spend with them. Lori and Heed and Beck. Every moment. Grateful. So Grateful.

Just As I Am. Just As You Are.

Laying in my bed with rats scurrying across the rafters above my head. A huge rat crosses the floor and then peeks out from behind the bathroom door to give me one last glare so I have something to remember while I sleep. Thanks. Please don’t crawl on me in the night. Beck and I share a twin bed. Not too bad. Not too uncomfortable. Cockroaches across the wall. Geckos. As soon as I close my eyes at night I’m out and I usually don’t wake up until morning. I have had such an amazing time with Beck but tomorrow she leaves. Tomorrow we drive to Port and then I will return Tuesday so Heed isn’t alone for too long. Late night saying goodbye to everyone. 4 am comes early. Really early. Beck and I have an awesome chill time in Port. I’m going to miss her. She’ll be back in March. I just know it.

I hope you are well. I hope that you feel like you are with me. Like you are walking through the dust and hiking up mountains. I hope you can feel the sweat dripping down your back as the sun beats down on your shoulders. Hear rebar dragging behind a motorcycle. Babies crying and children giggling. Yelling and singing. Smell the smoke and the dust, the food and the ocean. I want to feel like you are standing on this mountaintop with me, looking over the whole town while feeling the salty air hit your face. I want you to remember how useful you are no matter what you’re doing. That no matter where you are or what you’re doing, God IS using you. Through every single day and through every single smile. A simple good morning to your coworker. Laughing with the cashier in a store. I feel like there is so much pressure put on us to be the very best we can be and not in a good way. Like we have to live up to an unlivable standard. To help until we are exhausted and to give until we don’t even know why or what we’re giving. Remember that you already ARE enough. You already ARE good enough. Already helpful. Already amazing. Already brave. Already courageous. Already kind and compassionate. Already absolutely perfect in God's eyes. Once we realize that we already ARE enough, all we will be is better than we were yesterday. We are already unconditionally loved exactly as we are. Now THAT is freeing. That is freedom at its finest, to know that I am loved just as I am and I am already enough.