Berline: In God's Time

In 2006 I met a little girl.

The second morning of Vacation Bible School at Quisqueya Chapel was a Tuesday, and I stood like a stone in a river of orange-clad children, lost, stuck, forlorn and incapable of articulating why.

Even greeting these jubilant, beautiful children was a daunting, impossible task. I wanted to hide away until they’d all departed.

Then, a small person hugged me tightly around the middle. I looked down to see a girl with her arms wrapped about my waist. She looked up and I met bright black eyes with typical thick lashes, and a smile bright as that Caribbean sun.

This was Berline, and she adopted me as her own.

Berline became my shadow those next few days.

She was the one I looked for in the morning and on whom I could depend for attention, for favor.

I was not outgoing or boisterous or squishy or amiable, I could not speak Creole or French, lacked confidence, tact, and all manner of charm. I was an awkward fourteen year old who was far from settling in my own skin and still harbored ludicrous notions including my own obesity.

Berline didn’t care about any of that. She didn’t mind that I was painfully awkward, prone to say the wrong thing, use the wrong tone, motion incorrectly. She didn’t care that I was withdrawn and red-faced.

She took a chance on me. Perhaps because no one else would.

Whatever her reasons, we enjoyed one another’s company.

On that final day of VBS, which the team had predetermined to be a fiesta like no other where we would dance the kids out the door rather than consider our separation and weep; on that final day she joined me on the stage. I sat her beside me as we listened to the Bible story, had her mimic our gestures during the songs.

I was proud to have this eager little shadow, and I’m sure she was proud to be on the stage before her peers, many of whom were older than her seven years.

That raucous day of VBS was the last time I’d see her that year.

But one year later I returned to Haiti on another well-intentioned team. Our first Sunday we attended Quisqueya Chapel and there she was.

Her hair was short and braided straight down, a very demure hairstyle. Her dress was red and her smile was huge.

She remembered me.

Certainly I remembered her, and excitedly introduced her to Alison, my best friend from the States who’d joined the team. Together we posed with her and two other children seated beneath the palm trees beside the baptismal tank on that verdant chapel lawn. The camera quality is poor but our smiles are visible. Obvious.

A few days later our team visited the Baby Orphanage run by Berline’s adopted parents. Yes, in that last year she and her baby sister had been adopted by the American couple who’d founded an orphanage. Those children had attended VBS with us the year previously.

Our team trekked up to the second floor with its white tiles and chocolate brown babies, many of whom wore diapers and all of whom needed attention. The few workers were kept constantly busy with maintenance of children and facility. There was not enough time, not enough hands, to sit and play with the babies. Mostly they sat on that white tile.

When visitors did come, they were swarmed with babies. The challenge was the incapacity to hold them all.

When we crested that staircase we immediately fell to, scooping up babies left and right.

Then Berline appeared, and led me by the hand up to the third floor. I do believe I was holding a baby in my arms, a wee one who didn’t weigh enough to recall.

On that floor Berline curled up and held my hand.

She may have been adopted but she still needed attention. Among so many children and so much need, and with a history of God knows what, this little girl yearned for exclusive attention, unchallenged cuddling.

Unfortunately she couldn’t get it from me either.

A foreign worker busied with feeding on the tinier residents, an enormous-eyed little boy with a feeding tube, told me off for being on that floor. Visitors weren’t allowed. Like a coward I gestured to Berline, telling the blan Berline had brought me up.

I’m still ashamed of that—throwing my dear little shadow, this cherished child, under the Blame Bus. Sheer cowardice, it was. Berline said nothing to the blan woman, just kept looking down, wanting no more than her and I and peace and love. Oh, if only the world allowed.

We left the Baby Orphange later that afternoon and I didn’t see Berline again. I’d expected she’d come with the other children to play at Quisqueya another afternoon that week. The expected surge of children did indeed come through the gate and run screaming onto the soccer field, ecstactic about the new nets we’d assembled just before.

However, Berline was not one of the screaming runners. Nor was she one of the more docile, bossy, girls who set themselves by Alison and I, playing with our hair, especially admiring Alison’s light blonde long hair so smooth in their fingers.

I kept searching for Berline among the smiling faces, but she didn’t appear.

I didn’t see her again.

Not until now.

Last Saturday Beverly and I worked at Agape Missionary Flights for a few hours. The office is located on Delmas 75 just across from the large epi d’or. We left the office just after noon and crossed over to epi d’or to await our friends.

On our way to the restroom we passed a party, several tables pushed together to form an enormous rectangle around which an uncountable number of children and young people were sitting. At a table parallel there was a white woman with softened brown hair (mostly gray) and a man who’d come to the mail office, a large, squarish man with a friendly red face and an admirable white mustache. He’d looked so familiar to me when I’d searched for his packages before.

Now the woman by him was familiar too.

Their names were Hal and Chris, and they were the founders and yet managers of a collection of homes for children.

Beverly was speaking with Chris when I joined them and when my turn came she took my hand as I explained I had met her long ago. She surely didn’t remember but…

I told her of my memories and the blessing I was now living here in Haiti, teaching in Ti Goave. How I’d waited a long time for this. And although I was afraid of the answer, afraid that that little girl of the bright black eyes and longing for affection might still harbor some bitterness towards this faithful blan who’d left her—although I feared the response, I knew I couldn’t relax without trying for the answer.

“Did you adopt a little girl named Berline?” I asked, still holding Chris’s hand, as I had through the conversation.

“Yes,” she responded at once. “She’s over there.”

She led me around the tables and then brought forth a young woman. She was big—taller than me and well endowed. She looked healthy and strong and sure and beautiful. Her hair was long, admirable long braids half-pulled back. She wore leggings and a bright pink shirt. There were braces on her teeth.

And there were her bright black eyes. The same eyes that had boldly looked up at me that Tuesday morning at Quisqueya when she’d wrapped thin arms around me and hugged me tightly, setting forth her heart with nothing but hope.

Chris introduced us and I tried to explain. Smiling in disbelief and determined coolness, I told Berline how we’d met. And I thanked her.

“You’re one of the biggest reasons I wanted to come back to Haiti,” I said.

Those bright black eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, don’t cry!” I said, stroking her face. “I’m so happy to see you, see how beautiful and grown-up you are!”

We hugged. I scribbled down my name and phone number and told her to look me up on facebook. I wanted to keep in touch this time.

We parted ways, Berline joining the group of many from the children’s homes. I’m sure she has many responsibilities being her parents’ daughter.

I watched her walk past as Beverly and I sat waiting at a table some minutes later. Her stride was confident and her hair swayed in a lovely dance.

There are many times I am overcome.

Sometimes tragedy overtakes me, sometimes mourning. Sometimes it’s anger. Sometimes immense frustration. Sometimes it’s fatigue or hunger or a certain hopelessness that all this is too much.

But many time I’ve overcome by disbelief. Disbelief that this is my life now. Disbelief that after years of hoping, of waiting and looking and working and wanting, here I am, living in Haiti. Not only am I here, I have a place. I have a purpose.

I consider all the preparation over the past ten years. That includes three years of high school, four of college, two of working part time, odd jobs and odd assignments, one of working as a fulltime ESL teacher in Korea. That includes a lot of heartache, a lot of growing up, a lot of friends, adventures, new places and faces and rarely days without yearning for Haiti.

Often when I’m quiet, sitting on the roof while the sun comes up or goes down, when the sky is displaying the marvelous craftsmanship of God [The heavens tell of the glory of God. The skies display His marvelous craftsmanship. ~ Psalm 19:1], or when the WORD comes alive and knocks on my heart like Pastor honks at the gate—often when I take moments of stillness, that disbelief hits me anew.

Then I can only repeat my awe and my thanks to God, who knows what He is doing, and is ever arranging an exquisitely complex yet breathtakingly wise tapestry of our lives.

He sent me to Haiti long ago. He went with me to Missouri, to South Carolina, to Paris, to New Hampshire, to Camp, to district schools and classrooms, to Korea, and brought me back to Haiti for the eighth time, telling me “Now you will stay.”

And He brought me against my plans, against my preparations.

He brought me on His plan with His preparations.

He brought me to Beverly and Petit Goave, to His marvelous Christian Light School. He kept me during the hurricane, during the whole of October, so I would need to get away for the final weekend. He brought me along with Beverly to work at Agape in PAP last Saturday. And He brought me full circle to meet one of my heroes, one of the inspirations, one of the reasons for this inescapable love for Haiti.

Now I sit here and marvel yet again at the sovereign wisdom of our God.

And all I can say is Thank You. Thank you for that little girl’s hug so long ago. Thank you for giving her the courage to take a chance on a stranger, a blan: on me.

Thank you for taking care of her all these years. For me, too.

And thank you that now I am proudly connected with a seventeen year old young woman with bright black eyes, reunited in space, truly united in Christ.

Habakkuk 2:3

“For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. But if it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.”

“When I’m lost in the mystery, to You the Future is a memory, because You’re already there, You’re already there. Standing at the end of my life, waiting on the other side, You’re already there, You’re already there…

Someday I’ll stand before You and  look back on the life I lived. I can’t wait to enjoy the view and see how all the pieces fit.”  “Already There,” Come to the Well Casting Crowns

Berline, at VBS, 2006

Berline and I at Epi D'Or, 2016

After the Hurricane (the continuation)

Wednesday 5 October

Visited children in Chabanne area before noon…

Then commenced cleaning Beverly’s room—had to mop up water from the bedroom floor, scrub the entire bathroom from dried dirty rainwater

Took down the curtains and washed them.

Sweeping, wringing out, bleaching that nasty mop.

Also sweeping out upstairs front room where lots of mango leaves and quite a bit of water as well.

Thankfully my own room was minimally affected—just had to sweep out some mango leaves blown in from that front room.

Then eat with the family—scandalize Pastor by coming down in my shower cleaning attire: gym shorts and top and bare feet (usually those shorts are reserved for evening only, after the house is empty of visitors and bedtime is near). He was displeased (although he didn’t say so directly) because we happened to get visitors as soon as I came down.

Then we all gather into the Patrol to go view the River again: we park at the site and trek up the muddy slope. I chuckle at Felix who is first out of the car but chooses a difficult route up the hill: instead of opting for the track where motos have driven, he starts clambering up through the bushes and clumps of mud. He may not be foolhardy but he is also apparently not an outdoorsman. Being used to scrambling about in mud and over rocks myself, I’d purposely worn my camp shoes and tied my skirt in a knot to lift it free of the mud. I was glad of this and my rain poncho as the rain began driving down as we stood to spectate with the masses.

Gathered along the bank was the predictable crowd, observing the highly interesting activity in the river below. The waters have greatly diminished, thank God, and now the roiling brown waters are not nearly so frightening. There were a few large excavation tractors down in the bed, pushing up piles of gravel and diverting the water into new tracks. Whether this is serving a legitimate purpose or is for the mere sake of activity I’m still not sure, but certainly the drivers were busy (and amused.)

There were also a lot of people crossing.

Typically folks took off their shoes and picked their way through the water, carrying bags and bundles, and sometimes one another. We witnessed a few couples consisting of a man carrying a woman piggybank, shoes still on her feet. I was awaiting the inevitable tumble, but while we were there we didn’t see any falls.

We didn’t stay long as the rain picked up again, but I was encouraged.

No large vehicles are crossing yet—we only saw motos. Pastor seems to get a kick out of frightening his wife sometimes; when we climbed back into the Patrol he drove forward, right down to the water’s edge, into a crowd of people staring and several calling out warnings.

He just laughed and insisted he wasn’t going, he was turning around. I was sure we’d be stuck in the mud. But that Patrol is not to be underestimated. He did succeed in turning us around and squelching us back through the mud, unharmed and unstuck.

Men.

Thursday October 6

Today was a work day.

I worked hard, cleaning and preparing for school.

I wrung out the soggy sheets from Beverly’s room and spread them to dry, first along the railing between second and first storey inside the house, then out on the roof later in the afternoon when the blessed sunshine came out.

I did more sweeping and wiping down in Beverly’s room and the usual laundry (I wash clothes every day so as not to get behind.)

Then for about three hours I set myself at the table we’d asked [badgered] Pastor for, and planned and created school stuff: addition tables, maps of Haiti, worksheets for La Nourriture and Nutrition, Fast Facts addition sheets, and the Bible pages.

After the afternoon meal there were dishes to wash and laundry to bring in…

Productive day.

Friday 7 October

Apparently everyone noticed my efforts yesterday.

Several people commented they thought I worked particularly hard. “Wow—it’s good!” they said. I didn’t think the work inordinate—usually during the week we work all day, except half of that work is at school, not inside the house.

Every day we do dishes, laundry, school preparation, maintain communications, and usually during the week I aid at least one student with his homework or study.

Anyway…

Today was another visiting day.

Pastor, Kiki, and I drove out to Caimann to visit some students who live up on a “mountain.” We parked the Suzuki and then scrambled up an alley trail, precipitous at the best of times and now filled with fallen branches and palm fronds. Ooo, it was slippery.

Fortunately, we made it up and then met Saloubens, one of my second graders, near the top. His family’s house was in good shape. He was excited but seemingly bashful to see us; he slipped on his mother’s sandals and formed part of the usual queue to escort us about.

Saloubens, John Theodore, and Eneldine, all students in my class, live in that area. John Theodore and Saloubens are immediate neighbors. Saloubens and some others escorted us up to Eneldine’s house, which involved going down and then scrambling up a couple more hills to where the house perches atop a hill. The views were spectacular and the air was good.

The kids are excellent runners there, accustomed to sprinting up and down the hills with nothing better than sandals on their feet. They run for the joy of it, but I’d guess running down those hills, gaining momentum and then lunging up the next is preferable to fighting gravity constantly on the decline.

Eneldine’s house didn’t appear too bad, but her parents told us it had been damaged in the earthquake and the hurricane worsened the issues.

I was so happy to see them!

And we got to see John Theodore on the way out.

His manman told us that they’d lost some clothes in the siklon, including John Theodore’s uniform shirt. She didn’t think he could come to school. We assured her, as we always will, that he should absolutely come. Uniforms are not important. Not to us.

We all trekked back to the car together, gathering a larger following the closer we got to the main road. We’d put two boxes of the Manna Packs in the Suzuki, and as soon as Pastor took one out, slitting the tape with his key, even more people came forward, holding out their hands and setting supplication in their voices.
Our intention had been to give food to our students’ families, but Pastor didn’t turn anyone away. He got out the second box after the first was depleted and continued to relinquish packs to the supplicants. That is my word: relinquish, give up, surrender. But if I were him I would have done the same—how can we deny food to the hungry?

As we drove back, Pastor finally closing the box and declaring the impromptu distribution finished, we discussed what had happened. I mentioned to him my caution: I know sometimes people ask for food so they can then sell the food and gain profit. But in saying those words I recognized my fault: so what? Any one we saw is likely to be in an at least semi-desperate situation, and whether they want the food to take home and immediately cook, or whether they want to be prepared for the coming days, or whether they want to whip up the batch of rice and then sell it from the street side, we have no right to deny them. Perhaps the money is more useful now than the food itself; perhaps money can be used to buy water, soap, pay a hospital bill or purchase a new roof.

So I finished by saying aloud, “I hope that the people who needed food most got some. I hope that it will be helpful.”

Pastor agreed. “Everybody need manje,” he said in his typical way. (Manje is the word for both food and eat in Creole, and Pastor always says manje, regardless of the language of the rest of the sentence.)

We returned to the house, me hopeful that our students’ families would get their allotment, and half-discouraged anew at the sheer magnitude of need all around us.

Pastor then became occupied with other things and I looked around for what the pressing priorities were. There’s always something to do.

Short while later and Madame Rose suggested we drive over to the school and assess the damage.

By “we” she meant Kiki, Jonas, and I. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of driving through the hurricane-affected streets, but couldn’t deny her question “it’s a good idea?” Yes, it was.

So, we three took the Suzuki and slowly made our way to school.

I squeezed uncertainly past that downed tree with its hacked off trunk reaching out to pierce cars, then under the drooping electrical wire at the end of the road, and, with Kiki and Jonas helping as lookouts, we pulled out onto the main road and were away.

We were blessed with easy travels.

The gate was stubborn to open (as usual), and the courtyard was full of mango casualties (unusual), but otherwise the school was in praiseworthy good shape. The biggest issue was the second grade classroom upstairs. Through those lovely real windows with glass-panel openings, rain had lashed in and made a sizable pond on the floor. And (probably from clanging against the wall in the wind) the windows between classroom and hallways had broken, scattering glass over the floor. Both were difficult to remedy.

We started by sweeping and mopping downstairs, spreading out damp notebooks on the desks and benches. Nothing was really wet. A few posters had blown down and the ink had leeched away, but in the office and classrooms the great majority of papers and supplies had been sheltered. Praise God!

While I was sweeping the first grade classroom, littered with leaves, dried mud and small plaster debris, Madame Rose’s little brother JeanJean came inside.

He said he needed to take the Suzuki to go to Port and was leaving us his car.

I stared at him.

“Is your car a Standard? Because I can’t drive a Standard.” This is not exactly accurate but definitely safer than the alternative.

“Yes,” he said, then smiled and shook his head. “No it isn’t.”

Now I wasn’t sure what to believe.

So I fetched the key, him telling me to hurry, hurry, and he backed out the Suzuki, the 2014 Suzuki, and I pulled in his Suzuki—his 1990 something Suzuki. I got in the car, adjusted the seat, and then stared at the gear shift. There were no letters. I contemplated for a moment, then gestured to JeanJean. He complied, “I knew you would need me,” and went through the allotted spaces.

So then I started it up and pulled it into the vacant space, rueful.

This wasn’t the ideal vehicle by any means.

But it was Automatic and it was the same size as the other car, so managing it should be the same.

We continued cleaning.

Upstairs I stared at the glass, wondering what to do. Obviously picking up shards barehanded was a good way to wind up in the (less than sanitary) ER needing stitches (at least my Tetanus was up to date.)

I took a cloth from the office and wrapped it around my hand, picking up the pieces I could and putting them in the cardboard box trash can. It was serviceable for all but the littlest bits which needed sweeping, and the window with its jagged remnant.

Jonas found me trying to mop up the water, deemed it admirable but futile, and declared he’d sweep it out into the hall instead. He was right. The water was too deep for mopping with that skimpy yarn mop.

Kiki and I swept mango debris into a soggy pile in the courtyard and then we were ready to leave. Notebooks are drying, most of the glass is gone and all should be contained, every room has been swept and now we know—we again have been sheltered and blessed.

Driving home was adventurous. JeanJean’s car lacks the smoothness of Pastor’s Suzuki, and also the reliability. I noticed immediately the brakes are delayed, and on the second road when I had to brake quickly against an oncoming vehicle, the car died.

“Oh my goodness,” we all said, and I restarted the car. Yikes.

We laughed although I told them not to laugh because it was distracting.

And praise Jesus we got home safely.

Upon arriving at the house, Michama tells us that Marc Donald’s mama has called and said their house is really bad.

“You have to go there and take pictures,” she said.

Marc Donald apparently lives in the same area as Saloubens and Eneldine, where we went this morning, so I don’t know why we missed him.

I needed a break.

I washed up, we ate, and I considered that yes, Pastor had said he’d like to go out again tomorrow, but also those plans could (probably would) change, and we should not neglect this student. Especially as Madame Beverly had specifically said she wanted to know about Marc Donald’s house.

Blessedly, Madame Rose agreed that I should not drive there in JeanJean’s car.

“We need good machin,” she said.  

Pastor and JeanJean were in Port au Prince, so we couldn’t expect them before evening, and Felix was visiting his house across the river, so for the moment we lacked transportation.

In the end, Felix drove us over to visit Marc Donald.

I laughed because when we called him he said he’d be coming home soon, which I knew could be anywhere from 10 minutes to two hours.

It was almost an hour and a half.

We took six Manna Packs in my backpack—no crowds this time—and set off, me extremely dubious because I didn’t know the house and neither did Felix.

Madame Rose was confident we would find it.

Okay.

We did, of course. Because once we entered the neighborhood, this time opting for the road rather than the narrow branch-infested trail, we were adopted by neighbors who led the way. One was Michama, a student at school; her father led us up the winding route, through yards, under clotheslines and over felled tin roofs and fences. Then we ducked through a gate and stood before the house.

Manman was there and she took us around to the back to show us the damage. Actually, the house doesn’t look bad. I was expecting wreckage—the splintered remains of a house tumbled flat. But the house was never good. Kay Marc Donald pa bon.

Manman showed us tarp over tarp over bits of a stone wall. Then Papa appeared and told us the needs. Beverly said we have people ready to help with construction, funds for building. I was to find out what is needed—a new roof, new walls, et cetera.

We need a new house, completely.

They need to build from scratch, a proper house with solid walls and roof. Fortunately, Papa says the land is theirs.

We need a house for eight people. Our cousins in Maine come from a family of eight children, two parents, various dogs, cats and horses.

Their beautiful house provides bedrooms, hallways, living rooms, kitchen, bathrooms, and a wide yard to comfortably accommodate that number. Here, a house for the same number of people is expected to be perhaps four rooms. Marc Donald’s family’s house is currently two rooms, filled with laundry lines and a bed on one side and cooking pots on the other.

Felix and Rose shake their heads.

I’m not sure what their expectations are, that family, but surely they’re not too high. Anyway, I gave the Manna Packs to Manman, reminding her not to wash the rice before cooking, and we took pictures of the family in front of the house.

Then we waved goodbye and two or three children alternatively clutched me as we made our way down the steep hairpin trail.

My entourage clung on onto the “main street,” and I called back to Felix, “I think you’re taking some children home!”

But Felix halted at the felled tree before the main road and said it was time to go on alone.

So we waved goodbye again and returned to the car.

Felix wanted to show me the clinic where he works once a week, just a short drive down the road. We passed more wreckage—fields of banana trees splintered and sagging, and lots of mud.

At one point we reached road reparation: they’ve apparently been using tractors to redistribute and arrange the dirt. Right now there are banks of earth and two clear lanes for two directions of traffic. Ours was flat and straight, the oncoming lane atop a bank. We drove into our lane to meet a taptap coming, packed with people and an aggressive driver.

We were at a stalemate. One of us would have to back up; there was no driving around.

But then another taptap pulled up behind Felix, sandwiching us between two overloaded vehicles with dirt banks on both sides, and untinted windows to reveal a very conspicuous blan in the front seat.

Felix’s face set in that serious, displeased way and I got worried. He wasn’t shouting but he wasn’t yielding either. I didn’t want a fight to start.

Fortunately, reason was on Felix’s side, and the driver in front of us eventually backed up, most reluctantly. The passengers sitting along the flatbed’s rim waved arms or fists at us, Felix calling through the window, “Wout sa pour mwen, mon frère. La pou ou. This road is for me, my brother. There is for you,” in a most rational tone.

The driver was not pleased.

I breathed out after we’d left the dirt lanes behind.

The clinic isn’t damaged, but the yard around it is full of downed branches and broken trees, like everywhere. It’s sad to see every time.

On the way back the sky was full of glorious, brilliant colors. I kept turning around in my seat to gaze through the back windows.

There is no shortage of remarkable sunrises and sunsets here. Every day God renders a miracle in the skies.

So it’s been another productive day. Full. Always things to do and people to see. I’m tired and dirty a lot, but it’s good. I’m glad I can be here and see and aid in any small way. After all, this is home now. 

In front of Marc Donald's house

Some of the Family

Hurricane wreckage along National Road

Another glorious sunset

Sitting Through a Hurricane Was Never on my Bucket List: Hurricane Matthew visits Ti Goave, October 4 and 5 2016

12 A.M. 4 October 2016

Sitting through a hurricane was never on my bucket list.

Waking up through fits of dozing to a splash of rain or ferocious gust of wind slapping banana fronds against the window bars. If this wind was preying upon our New Hampshire home we’d pull the shutters over the double-paned windows, built to weather freezing, sleety winters. Here, in this capacious, breezy house, the full windows that bless us with light and air are four by four foot squares of screen behind iron grates. Previously I’d considered the grates as intruder-prevention. Now I see the prevention of debris: limbs, torn roofs and tumbled stone. In 150 mile per hour winds, I can’t fathom what may be wrenched free and whipped through the air. Praise God broken glass is not on the list of concerns. Not from my own windows at least.

Not sure what is a concern. The sea level’s what we’ve been watching all day. The first look this morning was of a gray ocean, rougher than usual but definitely docile for a hurricane’s path. Next look from a different vantage and time showed churning waves, swelling and crashing moody turquoise and steely blue on the charcoal sanded shore beneath white skies through which smoke colored clouds played tag. The sea was still quite calm, unthreatening, for the predicted tempest.

But we have little to fear from the sea, even if it does rise. Between us and the churning salt waters is not much land, true, but between us is a twenty-foot sea-wall, a border before that quarter-mile stretch. And around us is a two-storey concrete house stocked with food and water.

In the courtyard are several vehicles ready to take us inland, up the mountain to a friendly ministry, if that water level rises. Pastor has assured us we can go if we must. Of course, no one wants to leave.

Earlier today I packed a bag to grab lest we depart. As I collected toothbrush, soap, and prescriptions, I said to myself I didn’t want to go.

But my reluctance is mostly due to convenience. “Don’t you dare stay because it’s inconvenient to leave,” I then upbraided myself, praying God would keep my pride in check.

We’ve been praying for the storm to divert, of course. Please God, as you’ve done before, stem the tide and silence the winds. Bring calm to this place.

However, we’ve also prayed for protection. And right now, as the wind and rain continues, I pray for that continued shelter. For our loved ones, students and families. O Lord, shelter your children. Give them a dry place to lay their heads. Give them sturdy walls and a roof to hold against the wind. O, Father, get them free of the mud and coursing waters. Set the course of those waters around them—set your children on firm, dry, sturdy ROCK from which they will not be shaken. Lord, literally and physically be the foundation we need.

…

Father, let this be the worst and give us safe harbor. Shelter this country, buoyed by the prayers of your people. Let your name be glorified in this storm’s cessation. By your name, Lord, stop it.

Shield Haiti, shield Jamaica, take care of the Morses and family, of the Lopez’s family. O Father, keep us from harm.

…

Thank you for protecting your children through the earthquake—all these beautiful souls. Please protect them again. Keep Males and Anita safe, and safe-guard all the mountain dwellers from mudslides and wind damage.

Thank you most of all for the PROMISE that you are here, and should we live or die, we are with you—it is GAIN.

7:20 A.M. 4 October

Pastor and I were up before 4 looking. I was listening all night, dozing in fits, wearing earplugs against the increasingly tumultuous wind. Then Pastor knocked at my door around 3:30 and asked if I wanted to look. I nodded, dropping the earplugs into my pocket and followed him. It wasn’t bad at 4—windy and rainy but not bad. Pastor shined his powerful flashlight along the tree line, and at that point branches were swaying but nothing was broken. We looked out from the front balcony, then from the west window, then out the back windows, and then I returned to bed.

But perhaps around 5 it got fierce. Bad wind and rain. Roused from bed by the rage around 6:15. I got up and was dressing when Saintilus (our six-year old resident) came in. He said something about Beverly’s room and I remembered my responsibility to her belongings (she’d left for Port au Prince the day before as precaution, not wanting to be stranded in Ti Goave and miss her flight on Wednesday.) I finished dressing in an increased fervor then opened the door to Beverly’s room. Phano was already inside moving things. Those blessed windows were letting in blowing sheets of rain, soaking the floor and the things I’d neglected to move earlier. Fortunately, I had come in at midnight and turned up the mattress. Together, Phano and I shifted the bed further sideways and piled stuff against the shelves—the space farthest from the windows. We covered some things and the bed with the deflated air mattresses as we had no tarps.

We did the best we could and I prayed nothing was damaged irreparably. Then we shut the door and went downstairs. It was loud.

The house is always loud. But this time the greatest noise was the wind.

Just from the porch we could see broken branches. Actually, I’d noticed while dressing that the banana trees shielding my bedroom were gone—decimated by that wind.

After a short while Pastor and I went down to the ocean. The water is still low, thank God. But will it stay low? Despite the generator we can’t get on the internet, so I can’t see or give updates. The gorgeous giant mango tree at The Beach, the little resto-pub next to Pastor’s house, at the top of the sea wall, that gorgeous tree under which so many took shady repose, is kraze, broken. Half of it is spread through the yard, half of it still stands in mighty, broken glory.

Mangoes are down everywhere. Guess I didn’t notice the number of mango trees until I saw the amount of (sadly unripe) fruit on the ground. And those mango leaves are the ones that will blow into the house and pile up in puddles on the floor. Water is gushing down the gully (drainage ditch) at the roadside, but not overflowing.

I don’t know when an abatement is expected. No idea how long hurricanes usually last. I’m thinking of the neighbors, those on the ground, those in Chabanne, a neighborhood low down to the ocean, of Felix, who stayed the night at the hospital. Pastor is now sitting in the car listening to the radio for news. It’s pouring and blowing, I can see from where I’m standing in the doorway scribbling away with my red pen, still wearing the wet clothes in which we trekked down to the beach, scraping through the branches of a felled tree in the gateway of The Beach. I should probably change, but it seems futile. Surely I’ll just get wet again.

O please God, let this pass quickly. May this be the worst. Can’t get through on the phone to anyone. No communication possible.

Wednesday 5 October

Soon after writing yesterday I joined Pastor in the car to listen to the radio, and he tried calling with his phone. He was able to get through to Touttoute, who passed the phone to Beverly. They were staying at CLS in Port au Prince along with three other students and one teacher. She said they stayed up til 4 AM talking. That’s not unusual. The last time the boys visited they were up until 3 AM and then had to arise at 5:30 for church.

It was good to talk to Beverly, who said the weather in Port was nothing more than light wind and rain. After we talked, Pastor encouragingly rubbing my back, worried I was worried, we went inside for breakfast. Spaghetti and bread and peanut butter—typical breakfast fare.

Then I washed dishes. Later in the morning we drove out in the Patrol, the family and I. I got the front seat where I could take proper video and photos through the unshaded line in the tinted windshield, and Madame Rose, Michama and Lhens sat in the second row. We had to wait in the road for trees to be cleared. Jonas, Kiki and Viriel from the house were working with other men and machetes to hack away at the trees. They lopped off branches then, if necessary, commenced chopping up trunks into moveable pieces. We tailed them up the road to the last block, where one of the men persisted in assaulting the trunk with only one arm wielding a machete. I imagined how much easier this would be with a chainsaw. But the work was surprisingly quick. And they did it all in the driving wind and rain, Viriel without even a jacket, his white tshirt plastering to his torso, shorts and flipflops making me worry for his health. Goodness, they were all prone to get sick if they kept in those drenched clothes.

But after the last tree was shifted out of the way just enough to let a car pass by, threateningly close between wall and severed trunk, Jonas, Kiki, and Viriel opened the hatchback clambered dripping into the third row of seats.

We turned cautiously, as always, onto the main road, driving beneath a drooping electrical wire, and saw to the right a large tree blocking the whole street. Well, Felix wouldn’t be coming home from the hospital that way.

We turned left and I held my phone up to the windshield recording Ti Goave under siege. A surprising number of people were out, most of them on foot.

I wondered where they were going, but then considered that being out in the rain might be the better alternative. Slogging barefoot through puddles, embracing the wetness, was probably preferable to sitting at home, hunched up and lamenting every drip. There was nowhere they could go to be dry, so they might as well be wet and look around at other people being wet.

Soon we reached the Spectacle: the river. Our school is located on National Road, the road which connects East and West, the road we take to and from Port au Prince and on which many are uncomfortable driving. The bridge connecting the edge of Ti Goave with Tapion was gone.

You would never have known a bridge was there.

As we approached the river in the Patrol (Pastor’s impressive, deeply-tinted windowed, don’t mess with me vehicle), the number of people increased, and were more stationary. Clumps of folks in everything from appropriate brilliant yellow rain slickers to bare feet and tank tops were formed with their backs to us. I was recording video on my phone pressed close to the windshield, wondering what the hold-up was. Then I gasped.

“Oh, my,” I said, and stopped recording. For there was the river, or what was usually a river. Then it was a swirling, churning, frothing, rushing chocolate mass, unforgiving and so, so fast. It shouted death to anyone who might try to cross. That was my thought, anyway.

Once this summer while still living in Korea I was en route to a meeting and noticed pedestrians gazing down the street and gesturing. After a few steps I looked up and saw to what they pointed: a billowing column of black smoke against the sky. I immediately thought of 9/11, of bombs, of plane crashes, of disasters, and of my loved ones, somewhere in the city.

As it turned out, there was a fire in the empty building across from my destination. I stood in my appointed place with a mass of spectators, our heads tilted back to watch the orange flames and erupting smoke. No one was hurt (to my knowledge) as the building had been vacant for construction. Fire fighters were already hosing down the incendiary floors when I arrived.

But that ominous black cloud was one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen.

I immediately recalled it upon seeing the raging river.

It didn’t look like a river anymore. It was angry, fierce, monochromatic and destructive. As we stood at a (seemingly) safe distance on the embankment to take photos, the group near us suddenly jumped back shrieking. They felt (or thought they felt) the earth shift beneath their feet and feared collapsing into the waters below.

It was a legitimate fear.

We left soon afterwards, piling dripping back into the Patrol to splash homeward.

When we pulled up to the gate, however, I hopped out to quickly check on the ocean again. It was still contained, waters sullied but not pounding the wall.

Later after I’d wrung out my dripping clothes in the shower I laid down wrapped in my sheet, still mercifully dry. The wind was still raging outside, loud and disruptive, but considering how well we had withstood so far, I wasn’t really afraid.

However, seeing that river reaffirmed my concern for our neighbors, our students, and any not blessed with such a solid house as ours.

After I’d risen with Saintilus, who had taken to shadowing me after Beverly’s departure and frequently came into my room for no other purpose than to be held, the storm had lessened.

We went downstairs where the family was more or less gathered, outside door opened to lighter skies and wind. From there on, perhaps 2 PM, the storm came in spurts, but the wind and rain were no longer consistently tempestuous.

We stood on the roofed porch and watched light rains falling, smiled at Matthew’s departure, then retreated hastily when a downpour ensued and blew water into our faces.

At about 4 PM Felix and I drove out in the Suzuki, the automatic vehicle which Beverly and I drive, stopping for Kiki who closed the gate behind us. The sky was darkening as evening approached but the rain was light. However, I purposely put my soggy sneakers back on as I expected us to trod through puddles or at least be caught in another sudden downpour.

We went first to the hospital as Felix had to return a key—he said returning the key alleviated him of another night shift duty. We tailed him into the hospital (the same one to which we’d brought Jameson) and saw a couple of patients on those ER cots, in front of windows partially covered but surely not sufficient shelter against the rain.

I was glad the visit was brief. I don’t know if I could work there—I’d surely be overcome with frustration at the sheer lack.

We left the hospital and Felix took us on a cruise around town. It was encouraging; surely Ti Goave has been blessed by God’s sheltering hand.

Surely God listened to all those prayers sent up on our, and many on my own, behalf. Thank you, you faithful!

The market was completely deserted—of course. Folks were walking, dodging puddles and streams. We got closer to Chabanne and suddenly the road was gone—it was just water.

Cocoa colored and flowing swiftly, it obscured a three-way intersection and was coursing toward the ocean. A group of people stood in the middle directing traffic. I’m not sure if that was their sole purpose, or they also just needed some entertainment.

Felix sat for a moment contemplating, then drove forward.

I was for the first time afraid, at least highly nervous, afraid we would be stuck in the water or be swept off course by the flow. I remembered Luke saying to be aware.

“Lots of people come to a river or water in the road and say, ‘We can make it.’ For lots of people that’s the last thing they say,” he’d cautioned me on the phone—one of our conversations in which he advised me to leave Ti Goave but respected my choice to stay.

I didn’t want our last words, or at least the last words we said in that car, to be that we could make it through this flood.

I closed my eyes.

Fortunately, Felix isn’t foolhardy. (A good quality in a doctor.)

 “Okay, Jesus,” I said, as Beverly has taught me. Kiki and Felix laughed.

We got out. Felix got advice on turning from those traffic directors in the middle of the deluge and we were neatly free of the water within two minutes.

“You don’t trust me. You don’t trust my driving,” Felix said.
“I trust you. I don’t trust the situation,” I answered as we drove up a flood-free street.

Felix stopped frequently to call through the window at friends, students, co-workers. Everyone responded favorably. The most common response was “byen, grace a Dieu,” and “n’ap swiv,” which, according to Felix, is an informal sort of “we’re just watching.”

We saw a large, tinted-window Patrol across the way. It was Pastor. We rolled down the window to greet him.

“Ah, I see you and say, ‘Somebody took my machin!’” He was out cruising the town on his own. He said the church was okay—no serious damage. We drove our separate ways again.

At one point we parked beside a giant tree. Felix spoke with some young ladies, one in a thick, furry hoodie, then we stepped out and ducked into an alley. At the end was another large tree, broken and atop rubble. There had been a house there; the tree had crushed it and killed a young boy.

Felix said they brought him to the hospital. I wondered how they would clean up the debris, packed in among other houses as it was.

We took pictures then ducked through doorways, dodging gutter water into a house. There was no electricity, no light, so my feet stumbled. We went upstairs into a bedroom where a young woman was sitting on a bed with her foot bandaged.

“My patient,” Felix said.

One of the household brought a flashlight so he could check her injury. By that time I’d gotten up my own flashlight app and could light the way for our feet on the way out.

We got back to the car and headed home, dusk falling. Already clean-up was underway, but it was still depressing to see so many broken trees.

I can’t help thinking about all the wasted bananas and mangoes. The light is changed all over with so many limbs and trees fallen.

We got back to the house and the generator was on. The girls were making popcorn and everyone was home and safe, if not wholly dry.

I was able to call Luke and my mom, staying on the line just long enough to say we were well, please pass on the message. No internet was available (still isn’t.)

We got our popcorn and laughed together. Pastor started a game of dominoes with Madame Rose and Lhens. Felix and I borrowed Beverly’s DVD case and watched Invictus.

After the movie we both went to bed. It was cool and quiet save for the occasional thunder.

This morning is similar. I don’t know if Beverly will be flying out today. It’s still raining and cool. There’s little wind and no thunder. Last night Pastor said the thunder and lightning portended the end of the hurricane. I wouldn’t know.

I feel wiped out—like the onset of a cold (grippe), and Saintilus, too. He’s sniffling and coughing.

After breakfast we’re supposed to head out and visit some students, bring them food. Hopefully there will be school tomorrow…some of our kids depend on school for a meal, not to mention they just need something to DO.

So maybe this week’s curriculum will just continue last week’s….

Beverly’s room is a mess. Mine is okay. There are many wet places in the house, and leaves are blown everywhere. The banana trees behind my room are gone.

But WOW, praise God we are OK. We are WELL. We are still residing in a secure, dry, comfortable house with plumbing and furniture and spare, dry clothes. We have food, water, and light. We have high-powered vehicles to take us about. We are blessed.

I pray today we can help share that blessing with others.

Later—

After breakfast we drove out near Chabanne to visit some students. We have a few students who live down there, dangerously close to the ocean which came in dangerously high.

Visiting that place wasn’t shocking to me –  not after being down in the Ravine in Port au Prince, seeing those “camp” houses – but it’s still difficult to accept their reality.

This is the way people live.

They live in these shacks with tin roofs, tin and tarp walls, with dirt floors, with constant seepage and damp from sea and rain. They live with mosquito larvae in their water and sleep with an impossible number of people, crowding bed and floor alike.

Madame Rose is Haitian and she can’t accept it.

She shakes her head, says, “Wow.”

It’s a harsh reality.

But a blessed one.

We stood and peered into one house right at the water’s edge. It wasn’t that way before the siklon. Before it was a risky but (apparently) acceptable distance from the shoreline. Now, it’s half consumed.

Manman told the story that she woke up in the night to hear the sea, grabbed the children and rushed from the house.

Later, perhaps just minutes later, the sea moved in, swallowing earth from underneath and collapsing the rusted tin wall.

It’s a shame about the house, but it’s more of a blessing to hear this story from the inhabitants—they are still here to talk about it.

We passed out some Manna Pack rice (thank you, Feed My Starving Children!) and dutifully took photos of the downed trees, semi-collapsed house, and the ever-smiling children, with reddish (malnutritioned) hair and questionable sandals. When we arrived two of the little girls were trying to bathe, ducking partially out of sight to splash their partially clothed bodies.

We saw three of the four students, ones I unfortunately don’t know well being mostly confined to the second grade class. In the next few days we should go out more. It was good to see the kids eating when we arrived, but it’s better to know they have those Manna Packs, too. School won’t start again until Monday (and then if there’s no rain!)

(to be continued...)

The river

Crossing the flooded street

The fallen tree

At the seaside

Risen sea

The house the Sea ate

Children at the Seaside