I have not forgotten you

by Alanna

My kids pull books out of the bookcases often. Sometimes to look at, sometimes to "take on trips", but generally they end up strewn about the house. So I came across "Visualize Haiti" again. A big coffee table size of book, filled with pictures of that beautiful country. With photos of those suffering people. I had glanced through it a few months ago, when I first found it upstairs and brought it down. But this night I really looked. I read for the first time the preface, the author's reason for putting it together. The death of a child, an orphan, waiting for her new mom and dad to come for her. This night those pictures took hold of my heart. I only made it halfway through the book and the tears flowed freely and I wondered at how my heart could be so pulled to those people and places I knew so long ago.

Eleven and a half years ago I went to Haiti. A year after that, South Africa. Before that, Mexico and the Philippines. After South Africa, South Africa again. My heart was pulled to the hurting as long as I can remember knowing there was hurting in the world. As long as I can remember knowing Jesus, I can remember wanting to be a missionary. As long as I remember the word orphan, I remember feeling that's what I was meant to do with my life. In Mexico and in the Philippines I felt that confirmation in my spirit, but it was in Haiti that I first lost my heart.

The memory that still haunts me most from there is holding a little boy named Djemy. He cried for water but vomited all over me every time I gave him a sip. I felt his bones in my arms and his big tummy pressed against me but he wasn't lying peaceful; he cried in a most pitiful way and asked over and over again for a drink. He missed his dad I think, the one who loved him enough to bring him there for help. I remember being back at home not long after, sitting in my front yard in a thunderstorm, crying out to God and wrestling so hard with their suffering. The children of Haiti. I know that God answered in my heart that night, but tonight I can't remember how or what truth I held onto. I do know that He answered my prayers though. Djemy lived through that long night. He lived for months and years afterward, adopted into another family who loved him and had food to give him.

Others didn't though. I remember Berlancia, and when I close my eyes I can picture her beautiful little face. But she isn't there anymore. She died of a disease that she should have been taking medicine for. I weep for her tonight as I weeped for her then. I remember Benedict, and the sheer unfairness of the shortness of his life. I remember Magdala and the way her eyes looked so devoid of life and affection. How it took weeks to see her smile. I remember the sounds of that nursery, and those babies sleeping two and three to a crib, all those cribs. I remember tiny Kavin and how happy I was for each little bit he drank. I remember taking a walk with Richarlson. I remember one's night terrors and the way the other turned her head back and forth and rocked her body, her eyes unseeing. I remember my own little one and the miracles God wrought.

Tonight I don't have answers for why or how or when. Tonight I just remember and shed tears for them.  I don't claim to know how God is writing my story, or why He has burdened my heart with things I can do nothing about.  I ache to trust Him here in this place. I ache to see eternity here in my own children's eyes, to see this all as kingdom work. But tonight I remember.