A Broken Heart

Day FOUR

Today I woke up telling myself “God will get you through the day.” Luke 1:37 says “For nothing is impossible with God.”

The house we had planned to roof yesterday was ready this morning so we loaded up the taptap with all our tools and supplies. The driver drove back down the road we had just come from taking our supplies to the house by the water pump, and the team walked behind it. It was nice not to have to carry all those boards & metal sheets.

The morning of work started off in full force. We cleared the boards piled in front of the house and set up to begin work. Jesse & I did all the drilling holes & sawing. Jeff told me that he was impressed with my work and that the people back home would be surprised with my she-man strength & abilities. I took that as a compliment. I guess he was just surprised at my use of the hand drill & circular saw. The Haitians were as surprised as well. We let some of the guys help with the hand drill, and when they would get it stuck I would take over and finish the hole. They thought it was funny that I was doing “man work”.

Several of the older boys kept attempting to flirt with me while we were working. Knowing I have a boyfriend in America didn’t stop them. I tried to be friendly without letting them think I was flirting back. Before lunch Jeff asked me to pack up all our tools. As I was gathering the tools in out buckets and taking the buckets in the house, I had to bend down. I had ignored the guys telling me I was beautiful & sexy, but when one of them slapped my toosh while I was bent down I had to say something. They were all laughing & speaking in Creol, but I turned around and said, “No, that is not funny. That is inappropriate.” Even if they don’t know the English word ‘inappropriate’, they knew by my tone & my face that what they did was not okay. After that I was really careful around them the rest of the day. I realized today that is one thing that spans across cultures – inappropriate young men.

For lunch Rosna made spaghetti for us, and it was delicious! Once I was done eating all I could think was “I don’t have the energy to finish the day”. There were several points in the day when I just felt completely physically exhausted. The sun, the sweat, the work – I just didn’t think I could finish the day’s work. My muscles were so worn out, and my energy was spent. But then I would remember nothing is impossible with God. Even in my physical exhaustion, nothing is impossible with God. Today I had to believe that on a whole new level – God is the only one who can restore my energy and motivate me to complete the task set before me.

After lunch I spent the beginning of my afternoon going up & down a ladder that wasn’t really a ladder but was a side railing of something with rungs that look like rebar. My makeshift ladder was unlevel & on loose gravel more times than not. At the top of the ladder my job was to lift the metal sheeting to be level with the roof when the people on the ground couldn’t reach anymore. It was the scariest job I’ve had yet. Miraculously I wasn’t hurt by the ladder or the metal or my clumsiness.

The roof was completed much earlier today than the first. We prayed with the homeowner, Shawmi, and after the prayer he hugged each member of our team saying “Thank you, God bless you”. I asked Jen were the rest of his family is, and we found out that his wife & children are living somewhere else until the house is complete. So putting up the roof today brought that house one step closer to completion and one step closer to Shawmi being reunited with his family.

Since the roof was finished early, we walked back to the boys’ home and got to spend some time loving on the boys. I ran around playing with the younger boys for a while (Mackenlay, Pouchon, Desilien, Guerrier,Ronald), and then when I was tired of boys hanging on my arms & back I sat down on the back of the broken down truck playground. Ronald jumped right up in my lap and didn’t want to share me with any of the other kids. I kept him close to me but let the other boys sit in my lap and on my legs also. Mackenlay insisted that I hold him too. We played silly games, and I kept tickling them all. I love hearing them laugh.

Ronald kept his arms wrapped around me the whole time. Several of the kids taught me phrases in Creol. While they were teaching me, Ronald & another little boy kept fighting over sitting in my lap. I didn’t know the other boy so I held Ronald close to me & let the other boy sit on the edge of my lap. That’s when all the kids started pointing at Ronald’s skin rash. Ronald has a skin disease that he has been taking medicine for, but it has only gotten worse and worse covering more of his body. The doctor doesn’t know what exactly it is so it has been hard to treat it. Ronald currently isn’t going to school because the skin disease is contagious. The other kids are careful not to get too close to him. So when he was laying his head on my chest and wrapping his arms around mine, the kids began pointing at him and speaking in Creol. I couldn’t understand them so I asked Guinsly what they were saying. He told me they were saying “Don’t do that. He’s sick. Don’t touch him.” They were shooing him to go away and trying to pull my hands off of him. I looked down at Ronald and his face broke my heart. He was on the verge of tears. I held him close and rested his head on my chest, but the overwhelming feeling of unwantedness drove him to run away. I called for him to come back, but he didn’t turn around. I was so angry with all the other kids. How mean!! And they didn’t even care that they hurt Ronald. They went back to playing like nothing had happened.

My heart was breaking for Ronald as the rest of the kids laughed & played. I wanted to push them all off my lap and leave them to go find Ronald. How horrible it much be to feel unwanted & unloved. He is the newest boy at the home, taken in 2 weeks before the January earthquake. His mother died a while ago, and the woman that his father remarried didn’t like Ronald so she told him father that if she was going to marry his then he had to get rid of his son. Ronald’s father sent him to live with his aunt who abused and neglected him. He was forced to roam the streets begging for food at the age of 6. Jean Alix found him begging in the streets one day and got permission from Ronald’s father to take him to the boys’ home. He must have felt unwanted most of his life until he came to the boys’ home, and now no one will touch him because he has an unknown skin spreading all over his body. I don’t care if I get that skin disease, I am not going to let this little boy feel unloved because I love him and Jesus loves him.

I left to find Ronald and found him sitting by himself. When I tried to pick him up, he started to run away so I scooped him up in my arms before he could get far. I tickled him until I saw a smile and then held him close and said “Mwen renmen ou” which means “I love you” in Creol. He buried his face in my chest and wrapped his arms around me tighter than before. As he cried in my arms, I held him close and whispered “Mwen renmen ou. Jezu renmen ou” again and again. It was such a precious moment of healing.