5 months of Updates

Its been a while since I’ve posted a blog, I’m sorry. What has happened in the last five months? Well, a lot. I’ll try to sum it up, but if there is anything you want me to go more in depth about let me know and if I can I will.

To start with, the very end of May an orphanage that I spent a lot of time at when I wasn’t working gained an additional 16 very sick, malnourished, and desperate for love children after their orphanage was closed by the government. They came from very bad conditions—they were fed very little, infants where being eaten alive by rats, they had many different diseases/sicknesses, and were all very hungry and dehydrated. Horrible. I was able to be at the orphanage when the UN escorted these children to us. They came in unsure, scarred, hungry, lonely, and sick. They were not loved where they were before. I’ve cried many times for these kids. How could anyone treat anyone (let alone children) the way these kids where treated? How could any child not know what it was like to be loved? Why does any child ever have to really know what it is like to be starving? And many more like this.

Because this was a big undertaking and the orphanage didn’t have adequate staff to follow through with this, I was able to spend my weekends there. I realized I enjoyed my weekends more than my workdays even though my they left me more exhausted than my work week. It was such a blessing to be a part of loving these kids back to health. Sometimes we would just sit for hours with our arms wrapped around each other both of us completely content in the moment. Other times we would have to deal with hiding under a desk in fear or them trying to eat as much as they possibly could (which is very unhealthy after not eating much for so long). All 62 of the kids at this orphanage have played a vital role in my life. There were times of laughter, times of tears, times of stress, times of fear, and lots of love. I learned a lot about life, about kids, about desperate situations, about how to deal with anger towards another person (the person who did this to these new 16 kids), and I learned a lot about myself too.

In July it was decided that I was going to be leaving ‘3seams’. I have never had a real passion for sewing. Being in Haiti I realized that my passion was with children. I realized (even though everyone else had known this for a while) that I light up when I’m with kids. I’m me when I’m surrounded by children. Because I enjoyed my time at the orphanages or with the kids on the street far more than I enjoyed my job I let a lot of things fall through the cracks and wasn’t happy with my job. A ministry needs someone with passion for what they are doing and I didn’t have that. I also needed to be where God created me to be so I could be doing the most for His Kingdom, and that wasn’t where I was. I left Haiti on July 23^rd, torn. I knew I needed to work with kids and wanted to be back in a country I fell in love with, but didn’t know how or when I would return. It was hard to leave and many tears were shed in saying goodbyes, but I knew I had to go.

I went to Georgia (as previously planned) to visit the family I had nannied. I was in a funk. I was still processessing all that had had happened in the last two months as well as figuring out what God had in store for me for the next step in life. At that point I was homeless (not living on the streets, I can always go to my parents house, but I really had no home of my own) and jobless. I kind of felt like at that moment my life had no purpose. I wasn’t a mother, I wasn’t an employee, I wasn’t looking forward to anything (except seeing my nephew), and I had no plans. Also, since I didn’t know how long I would be in the states I was trying to figure out how to adjust to life in the states. I’ve changed. I’m different—emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally. I’ve seen and experienced things the vast majority of other people who live in the states haven’t or could even comprehend if I was able to explain it. I think differently, I react differently, and I don’t even know what that means. I felt like a foreigner in my birth country even though I was surrounded by people who look like me, act like me, and talk like me (unlike the place I had called my home the last ten months). I wanted so desperately to be back with the beautiful people of Haiti where time doesn’t matter, where love is shown more than I had ever seen before, where people worship God with their whole being because he is truly all they have, where I could go on a walk and 15 kids would join me, where soccer games happen on an uneven dirt road in front of my house every night, where my friends where, where “my kids” where, and where I felt like I belonged. The mom of the family I nannied knew that. She knew I belonged hands on in another country sharing God’s love. She encouraged me to search for opportunities available and reminded me of my passion when I felt like I would never find another opportunity and began searching for a job in the states in case nothing worked out.

Thanks to this in August I found an orphanage like place that was looking for a preschool teacher. Doubtful that anything would come out of it, I e-mailed and called the director and from talking found out there was a possibility but that is all the further we got. I was upfront and honest that I had no experience or training for this, but was willing to learn. I told them a little more about myself and found out more about them. We got excited about each other so I began fundraising to get me to Haiti to work with them.

I spent another 5 or 6 weeks in Ohio with my parents and on October 2^nd I flew back to Haiti to work with Children of the Promise with my main role being a preschool teacher. Read the next blog to find more out about COTP and my role there.