Paid in Blessings Abundant

Yesterday and today we went to the hospital.

If you’ve read previous blogs, or have had the personal pleasure of visiting our green and white in Ti Goave, you know the town hospital is not a savory place.

These two visits brought us in through the back of the hospital to the hallway of consultation rooms, rather than in the front Emergency Room with its counter pressing into the space for five narrow beds. Because of the blessing of our Ti Goave family connections, we got permission to by-pass tedium and flit in quickly to meet with Dr. Gerald, good friend and consulting partner with our dear Dr. Felix, who is now married and living in California.

As we entered, Dr. Gerald greeted us all with a brief grip of our hands.

“Bonjou. Ou pale Kreyol? Hello. Do you speak Creole?” he asked each one of us as he did so, Michama, first, smiling beneath her black  floppy hat, Mama Louis in her pressed red dress, and me, with my foreign red face and cinch sack.

“Wi,” said Michama.

“Wi,” said Mama Louis.

“Kèk,” said I, “Some.”

“Kèk?” Dr. Gerald laughed amicably. “Okay.”

He then continued in good English.

“So what is the problem today?”

I gestured to Mama Louis, “Go ahead, Mama. Alè.”

She stepped forward, this slim woman sweating in her nice dress. This woman too lined by too hard years, too hard-pressed to provide for seven children. This woman always so joyful to see us in church, always polite and sweet, always blessing us.

She stepped forward to her daughter, three-year old Lucy (four in December) and explained the problem.

The day before we’d been reunited with Lucy, her older brother Shawn, and Maman with the next-oldest son. All the children had the Louis eyes: huge, staring, heavily lashed, and the highlight to the serious Louis gaze.

Lucy was one of the first three-year olds who had walked right into my arms and set her head on my shoulder in those days when I began greeting each entering student. Previously I’d only associated with my assigned second-grade, and although they knew my face, most of the other students had not interacted with me much.

Lucy didn’t shy from me: she adopted me. So, I, in turn, adopted her. She became one of my treasured “not favorites,” who I would always seek. This was made easier by the family’s church attendance. They faithfully go to service on Sundays and Tuesday evenings. More than once we’ve been joined on our bench by brother or sister or both.

Lucy, doesn’t speak much. Her voice, when revealed, is tiny, her words rather slurred.

This adds to her sweetness, which is abundant in three-year old size.

“She has this problem,” Mama explained to Dr. Gerald, as she had to us at church the day before,  holding out Lucy’s little hands. The fingers were dotted with sores, some of them open and oozing.

“It started on her head, bouton, and then finished and started on her back. Two weeks ago.” Mama turned Lucy around and pulled down her shirt collar. Only a few scabs remained. The skin was nearly healed, it appeared.

“Let me see her stomach,” Dr. Gerald said, and they looked. But the problem was concentrated on her hands. Ugly, raw sores. Something no baby should have.

Dr. Gerald considered.
“I think it’s some allergy. Or, how do you say, parasites.”

I was expecting the latter. When Jameson and Robertho had shown similar sores on their little fingers, Dr. Felix had diagnosed intestinal parasites. He’d written prescriptions and Levinsky and I filled them at the pharmacy.

Later we’d brought the medicine to the Jolibois house, a familiar place to us, down the alley across the street from our church. A home with seven residents and no indoor toilet. No privacy. Another Mama hard-pressed to provide for her children. Another Papa seeking work not to be found.

Levinsky and I had greeted Mama and a chair was brought for me.

I pulled out the medicines in their red-striped saches, plastic bags, and examined the pharmacist’s difficult scrawl.

“Li te bay mwen direksyon pou chak medikaman,” I said to Mama Jolibois, “He gave me directions for each medicine.”

She nodded.“Wi.”

I was afraid to read her the directions and hand over the medicine with faulty instruction.

Rather than risk it, I called Dr. Felix and had him walk me through the instructions once more. I took notes for myself and then hung up.

“Okay, dako,” I began to explain to Mama.

She stood there with her hands folded before her as I pulled out each package and told her what it was for and how to administer. There were creams and pills. There were restrictions.

I wasn’t even sure Mama could read. Perhaps it’s wrong, but I feel odd asking that question of a parent. I don’t want to cause them shame if the answer is no.

For many of our parents, it is.

It struck me, while sitting in that white plastic lawn chair at the end of the alley, in front of the Jolibois house, meaning the room that they rented, sharing a structure with another family, how absurd it all was. How wrong.

Who was I, some 25 year old foreigner, to sit here and dictate to the Madame of the house, the mother of the children, how to care for them, while she stood before me, so humble and resigned. Resigned. That’s how she seemed. Resigned that she couldn’t do this without me, this wealthy, connected blan. Resigned that she would never be able to provide sufficiently for her children. Resigned that she had no power.

Mama Louis did not strike me as resigned. Not this day. She was humble but she was not idle. She did not stand by. When Dr. Gerald asked what was wrong he addressed me first. But Mama was there, and I gestured her forward. She came forward and spoke.

Dr. Gerald sent us to the Laboratoire for blood and stool tests. We crossed the street to avoid the mob at the hospital laboratory, finding a much less-crowded atmosphere at one Michama recommended. (Another blessed connection of our Ti Goave family!)

While waiting Mama Louis asked Lucy if she would eat after Lucy yawned. (Haitians say you yawn when you are hungry.) Lucy said yes.

Mama pulled out the pâté I’d sent Jonas to buy. Before we’d gotten in to see Dr. Gerald I’d held Lucy on my lap, singing school songs and trying to tempt a smile from that serious Louis stare.

“What song do you like?” I finally asked. She said something in her tiny voice.

“What? Huh?” I put my ear beside her mouth.

“Mwen grangou.”

“You’re hungry? You didn’t eat?”

“Wi,” she said.

Fortunately there was still a granola bar in my bag. I fished it out and unwrapped the top for this hungry little girl. It was 11:00 in the morning. Who knows how long she’d been awake. Hungry.

After she started eating I excused myself, “M’ap vini,” and went to Beverly where she stood with Michama and Jonas in the doorway, tempting a breeze.

“Lucy was hungry. Said she hadn’t eaten. That makes me think Mama hasn’t eaten either. Jonas,” I said, turning to him, “can you go buy…something?”

Michama said pâté, because it was too early for other food.

I returned inside and Lucy finished the granola bar. Mama took a water bottle from her purse and gave Lucy water.

She didn’t drink herself.

Jonas returned with the pâté while we were in Dr. Gerald’s office. Mama put in her purse with a “mesi.”

Later as we sat in the laboratory, I nudged Mama that she should eat. She didn’t. Lucy ate a few bites and drank more water. Mama didn’t drink, either.

I suspected she was saving that pâté to bring home to her other children.

“That’s what I know about her,” Beverly said, as we discussed this later in the car. “She sacrifices.”

Mama Louis doesn’t have the grave Louis expression her children do. Her face is lined softly. It’s a heavy face, as though she is weary under the weight of this broken world. Which I’m sure she is. But it is a kind face, one that rests in a tired smile. I’ve not seen her severe.

Her most common words to us are “Bondye beni ou. God bless you.”

In the past three days I’ve heard her say those words many more times.

Papa said them too, as he ran to the car.

After the laboratory, when Lucy cried as her finger was pricked for blood, Mama holding her on her lap, and they’d gone off to a toilet for the stool sample, we took the Louiss home. We drove down a new road, a narrow dirt lane bordered on sides and over with banana trees. We squeezed between a parked car and a wire and vine fence.

I popped the passenger mirror back out, having folded it in to decrease our width, and Beverly chuckled, breathing easier. She wasn’t much for back roads or narrow spaces.

“Boldly going where no blan has gone before.”

We rounded a curve, swerved a gravel pile, and pulled up at a dead end closed in with houses and a barbed fence. There we stopped, and Mama Louis directed us how to turn easily.

We waved goodbye, leaving them with good wishes, uneaten pâté, and medicine (topical cream for the sores, Vitamin C, and a worm pill.)

“It’s a long way to walk,” Beverly commented as we pulled out of the dirt lane onto National Road. “When Papa picks them up from school, he’s always walking. They never take moto. Those little legs walk a long way.”

The next morning we visited the house.

Beverly had backpacks for Shawn, who is entering first grade, and Lucy, entering the four-year old class. Each backpack had socks and undershirts inside. We parked the car and inquired of the Louis house.

“Yo pa la. They’re not there,” said the boy at the corner in front of a little food stand. “Tout moun pati. They’ve all gone out.”

“Uh, oh,” I said. “Kile yo ap retournen? When will they come back?” I asked.

“Pita. Later.”

I turned to Bevelry. “They’re not here. They’ve gone out.”

MIchama asked then. “Gen timoun la? Are the children there?”

“Wi. Yes.”

Oh, so not everybody is gone, I thought. How challenging to get a clear answer….

“Oh, well we’re here to visit the children,” Beverly said, and we proceeded down the path to the Louiss’ green gate.

The Louis house is located inside a small dirt yard, uneven ground with scrubs of this and that, bordered by a hodge-podge fence. As we entered I re-secured the gate, about five feet high and three feet wide, behind me with an iron hook wedged over some nails. The house is plywood, raised off the ground. From inside we heard giggling.

Four young Louiss were at home, being silly, darting glances from the open doorway where a curtain blew in a timid breeze. Behind the house, visible through spaces in the plastic/metal wire fence was a yellowish tan brook, gurgling fresh and beautiful in a way that belied its opaque color.

“Lucy? Shawn? Vini! Come out!” We called.

Lucy appeared beside the house, standing in her typical fashion of eyes gazing up under her lashes, chin tucked down toward her chest, one foot dominating while the other was held more to the delicate tip-toe.

I scooped her up at once. She didn’t resist.

“Lucy! Good morning! How are you?”

“Did Mama give you medicine?” Beverly asked. “Michama, ask her if Mama gave her medicine?”

Michama translated.

Lucy murmured some sound.

“She says yes,” Michama interpreted.

“And did Mama put on the cream?”

Michama translated again, posing the question to Lucy, still in my arms, and affirming that Lucy’s little murmur was “yes.”

We presented Shawn and Lucy with backpacks, Shawn eventually coming out reluctantly with low-slung pants and no shirt to greet us.

The oldest brother didn’t come out of the house at all, but continued to poke his head from the doorway and giggle. The middle brother was more serious, staring with the Louis eyes but a slight smile broke the severity of his face.

Shawn went back inside to don a shirt, so we presented Lucy with her backpack first. Her brother instructed her to say thank you. She turned her head on the way to deposit the backpack inside, enormous on her tiny back, and nearly hit the ground as Shawn came barreling back out of the house with his shirt in place. We all gasped. Michama shrieked. But Lucy stumbled a few steps and then righted herself and stepped into the house. I wondered how often she was knocked over, the littlest of all these boys.

For Shawn Beverly took a video of him saying “Thank you,” to his American partner for the backpack with choset (socks) and chemizet (undershirts.)

He donned a shirt for this occasion and even smiled for the photo, wearing the backpack.

We prayed together, all of us save the silly brother who wouldn’t come forth, hiding behind one of the beds visible through the swaying curtain. The house was perhaps a ten by fifteen feet room space, home to four children and two parents.

After prayer, holding hands in a circle as was our fashion, we departed with final hugs. As we filed out of the gate I called back to secure it behind us. The serious middle brother ran up to do so, watching us with those Louis eyes through a space in the fence.

Then we met Mama on the path back to the car. She came hurrying toward us, a large white sack on her shoulders. She began speaking, sweat dripping from her brow, sweat stains under her thin arms.

“She say she went to the market,” Jonas explained. He gestured to the little food stand at the corner where the boys had directed us to the house, now again staring our way. “This place for her. She sell food and she went to buy more.”

“Oh, very good,” Beverly nodded, smiling. “She has business.”

Mama updated us about Lucy.

Michama translated.

“She says Lucy slept better last night. She didn’t make noise or wake up. She didn’t say her stomach hurt today.”

“Oh, praise God!” Beverly responded.

Mama Louis squeezed our hands and told us again, “Bondye beni ou.”

I told her again, kissing her wet cheek, “Bondye te beni nou. Nou beni déjà. God has blessed us. We are already blessed.”

I wished the squeeze of my hands and the warmth in my eyes would carry the meaning of my words, which I wasn’t sure were well-formed or grammatically sound.

We continued towards the car, loaded in, Beverly driving, me riding shotgun, Michama, Jonas, and Yvelande in the backseat. This had been 11-year old Yvelande’s turn at the hospital, and she’d accompanied us here afterwards, silent in her typical way.

As we started the car, a man came down the alley between the houses in front of us. A man with a face too-lined by too-hard years, hair shaved down to nothing and many teeth missing visibly at the front of his mouth. He had big hands with thick, sausage like fingers that didn’t match the rest of his too-thin, sinewy body. His pants were baggy and shirt loose. Sweat was slickening his face under his round-brimmed canvas hat. He dropped the parcel he was carrying and ran toward the car, smile lighting his caramel brown face.

“Papa,” I said to Beverly as he reached my lowered window and reached in with his large hands, smile splitting his face in two glowing pieces.

“Bonjou! Oh, Bondye beni nou! Mwen kontan wè nou!” he repeated, clasping our outstretched hands and waving into the backseat. He gushed his thanks.

“Mesi, thank you! Thank you for Lucy! Thank you for medicine! Oh, God bless you! I’m so happy to see you!”

“Nou menm, tou! We are so happy to see you too!” we answered. Beverly and I respond in the same sincere manner. How could we not be happy to see someone who greets us this way? But truly, each reunion with student, parent, staff, and friend is a gift. A blessing.

Papa then instructed us again how best to back out from the space. He went behind the car to direct how far to reverse and how to turn the wheel.

We called our thanks through the window and waved to the Louis clan, parents now joined by the four children in the lane.

“Goodbye! See you on Monday!”

“Wow,” I said to Beverly, as we drove down the lane, beneath banana fronds green and gold against blue sky, past the yellowish tan brook curving along with the path, beside houses and shanties of plywood and tin behind wire and vine fences.

“Wow. That is the second time a parent has come running to see us!”

Beverly nodded.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Yesterday, Mama Anaika…and today Papa Louis. They are so happy.”

We pulled out onto National Road, remembering the evening before as we’d walked back from our cook Madame Missoule’s home, passing by a shanty house planted in the yard behind a large concrete house in-progress. We hadn’t meant to stop for the light was fading golden and we as blans melt after dark.

But a boy in orange cried out with excitement behind the wire and vine fence.

“Oh, they’ve seen us!” Beverly said as we stopped, the sweat dripping down our reddened faces and oozing from every pore.

“ooh, now I’m sweating more because we’ve stopped,” I commented, bending down to wipe my face with the trail of my long dress. That was one of the advantages to its length. The disadvantage was, of course, more fabric covering more skin.

“Anaika!” I called out. And a wee dark form appeared.

“Wi!”

“Vini! Come here!”

I stepped over the mess of rocks and scrub and met partway tiny Anaika, six but petite like a four-year old, highly intelligent and extremely sassy.

I scooped her up and swung her around, then released her for Beverly.

And then Mama appeared, squealing, barreling from the house towards us, smile flashing her impressive white teeth in her smooth, seal-brown face.

She was laughing and calling, spreading her arms wide to embrace us.

We were not expecting that.

Just as we did not expect Papa Louis to drop what he carried and run to us.

We have no right to expect this enthusiasm. Not towards ourselves. For we, we weak, sweating, blundering vessels, we can do nothing. We are helpless and worthless without our Father.

[Jesus said:] “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; but apart from me you can do nothing.” ~John 15:5

God is the One from Whom all blessings flow. God is the One who enabled us to bring Lucy to the doctor. Who arranged that appointment with Dr. Gerald. Who provided backpacks with socks and undershirts, produced from the depot of goods in Beverly’s room, collected through His generous servants who give.

God is the One who brought us here, with connections and resources, with education and vision to connect, provide, educate, and give vision.

God is the One who pours His love into us, His grace over us, His courage through us, so we can love, give, and go boldly into the places no blan may have gone before.

“You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light. With your help I can advance against a troop; with your help I can scale any wall.” ~ Psalm 18:29

God has called us to Petit Goave. God has called us to love the people here, to provide hope for the children we serve, and ignite them as lights for their neighborhoods. We cannot educate every child. We cannot take each afflicted one to the hospital or give each one a backpack. But we can do the very best possible with the 150 with whom God has blessed us.

I explained to a hopeful Papa last night that we couldn’t accept every child. In elementary Creole, praying my words would be understood, I told him what we could do.

“We educate our children, children like Elizabeth,” I waved my hand across the street where his seven-year old daughter still stood on the steps where we’d left her and the family. “We give them the capacity so that they can educate others.”

Papa nodded. He was still disappointed that we didn’t promise to take in his four-year old whose school was “not good,” but he seemed reassured.

We must hold onto this reassurance. This is our Hope. God’s purpose for us is this school, Christian Academy of Petit Goave. Our students are educated, firstly to the love of Christ. They are valued for who they are, loved on and embraced and listened to. Then under this pure love they are educated in academics, in hygiene, in Bible. With this learning and assurance of their own worth in Christ, they go forth and spread what they’ve learned. They help educate their younger siblings, their cousins, their neighbors. They are Lights to their communities.

And we are so blessed to witness the spreading of this Light, the igniting of candles, of hope in souls.

We are blessed to be here, sweating for Jesus. Walking the streets, sidestepping potholes, over gutters, around goats and motos, greeting our students and their families on their own ground. We might melt after dark, but during the day we only drip.

What could be more of a blessing than to share conversation and hugs with our students and their families? These people who may at one time have had no sense of worth, no pride, no hope for the future. These parents who didn’t see the value in their children, too preoccupied with providing food and shelter to another mouth.

What could be more of a blessing than meeting a parent in the street? A mama who once lowered her eyes, held her head down, and now comes eagerly to meet with us, eyes sparkling and arms hungry for hugs, knowing she will be received, loved as she is.

A child who prays boldly before his God, our God, his voice bigger than his body as he asks God’s blessing on us, grace for us all.

A papa who was an alcoholic nearly too drunk to stand, alarmed but helpless at his son’s malnutrition, without job or direction, now showing us the books he’s purchased for the coming school year, sober and proud.

A student who runs toward us as fast as she can, throwing her arms about our middles and squeezing, rocking in sheer bliss with arms locked.

These are blessings I cannot measure.

Blessings that set my heart to bursting and my voice to song. That set my fingers to typing, trying to tell you, dear Reader, dear Supporter, Partner, fellow Servant, fellow Broken One, that we are blessed.

God bless us? Oh, He has. Over and over again.

“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

~Luke 6:38