MARCH 2012 - We returned to the Bon Samaritan Orphanage and found the place to be repaired. However, they had run out of food and their director was in the US. We took beans and rice.
MARCH 2011 I was the team photographer. I digitally documented our trip. It was incredible to catch the smiles and thumbs-up that the kids and adults would show me. When I uploaded the photographs I had over 700 pictures. A sweet elderly man smiled for me, then I noticed that he was crippled. He had to walk with a crutch. We attempted to encourage and help as many people as we possibly could. I captured lots of smiles!
The orphanage in Leogane had been completely destroyed, along with the church and school. When Missions Of Love-Haiti, visited it 6 months ago, the children were sleeping on the ground in tents. It was encouraging for them to see the little “huts” that had been brought in as make shift housing. Across the street, was the location of the church and school. Both were in the process of being rebuilt, but tents were still being used. Once again we provided the food that God had blessed us with to give. Their pantry was almost empty. There were too many children to count and the puppy dogs in the kitchen area were barely surviving. The children and adults loved the candy and jerky that they had been given. Once the children realized that I would give the candy back after I opened it, I had lots more takers!!!
We arrived home hot and sweaty but safe and aware that the children who didn’t eat the night before would be eating that night!!! I can’t change Haiti. I can’t save Haiti. I can’t rescue or help everyone but I can do something. On the plane out of PAP I sat next to a Haitian American who had been an American citizen since 1973. (I refrained from telling him that I was 2 at the time.) He was part of an organization of Haitian Americans who have returned to help Haiti in the areas of disaster management, health care and agriculture. He has a desire to bring an MRI machine to PAP!!! We discussed my family’s involvement in Haiti. He asked me a very hard question about the health care we attempted to provide.
He asked how we thought that we could help Haiti by just providing First Aid on a few trips. I was glad he asked because Michael and I had discussed this issue many times in the past. I shared our story of Xantus with him. We met him on our first trip. His leg had been badly burned many years ago and it never healed. Michael and Janna worked with him and cleaned his leg. They left supplies for his dressings to be changed. They were changed anytime he would come to the orphanage. The leg looked better after Michael was able to put a skin graft on the wound. The company had donated the Apligraf when they heard the story. We continued to follow up with him and even though it’s not completely healed, it is better than it was and the risk of infection and amputation is reduced. Medical clinic in Haiti can be as small as handing out Advil or Tylenol for Tete’ Femal (Headache) or it can be assisting a young woman as she delivers her child. But it is really big when you have the opportunity to improve the situation of someone who has no possible way of getting help. I told him about the arms and legs that had been stitched and the antibiotics that had been given to very sick young women and men. We know that we can’t FIX Haiti, but we can help a few who are sick or hungry.
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