We Are Touched By Their Losses And By Their Wins

Three Heartline vehicles went in different directions as we finished up yesterday.  Tara drove to two separate hospitals for pick ups and  then dropped one lady off her home.  Betsy and I went in one direction with a mom and baby and John took another mom and newborn in the other direction.  Both moms and babies went home to a tent.   The gal Tara brought home went home with  empty arms due to preeclampsia.  Heartbreaking.

The dry season switched  to spring rain right as the time changed (Haiti has decided for the first time in years to do daylight savings) and we have been having nightly downpours.  Mud puddles, impassable streets, traffic jams.  Rain.  I lay in bed last night thinking about the two newborns and their moms in tents.

We have the privilege in our mission to have close contact with our ladies.  When they have a successful birth and healthy newborn we rejoice with them.  We breathe a sigh of relief knowing the odds are against them.  We are also involved for six months after the birth.

 Beatrice lives in desperate poverty.  She and her husband stay in a well kept, almost empty tent behind a partially built house that fell in the earthquake.  I assume they are squatters on the land tucked away behind the fallen massive structure.  Beatrice comes across flat and disinterested.  Something made her come to program, and from the start her history, size of her belly, and pregnancy dates did not match up.  A tiny woman, except for her face, she looks like a preteen.  We accepted her immediately because of her history of neonatal losses.  Baby one died at 5 days, baby two at 7 days, baby 3 at a month.  No living babies save the one she carried within her each week to prenatals.

Thinking she had a preterm baby we rushed her to another hospital when she appeared at our door in late labor.    Turns out she wasn’t preterm at all – just tiny.  Then we find out she was coached to lie to us about her dates to get into the program.  Layer upon layer we try to figure this out.  Turns out she really doesn’t remember at what point the first three babies died.

So here Beatrice is with baby number 4, the only one alive.  We suggest she stay in our postpartum unit until the baby is bigger so we can watch, not knowing what might have taken the three previous lives.  We have our incredibly smart pediatrician Jen on call at a minutes notice over internet to walk us through this.  As we talk, dates of when babies died changed, so our guesses of what they might have had change as well.   She declines our offer, insisting she wants to go home to her husband and tent.  We have no choice but to try to understand her discomfort and bring her home.  We give detailed instructions for her to bring the baby at the first sign of illness or lethargy.  We wait, we pray.

Like a ping-pong ball, we went through yesterday bouncing from sadness to joy and back again.  A happy mom supported by grandma heading home to love and care for her new little one.  Another mom back with us from the hospital who lost her baby, never held or saw her little girl who came too soon and by doing so saved her mother who was preeclamptic.  Then we move on to Beatrice, seemingly disinterested and unwilling to help us help her.  We can only guess at the pain behind those flat eyes. Her paradigm  is so different than the majority of our ladies.

We deal with intimate parts of people’s lives.  Birth and death – sometimes on the same day.  In truth we understand so little about our adopted culture and our foundation is very different than the one our ladies’ lives are built upon.

So often we can’t relate to the pain or the lack of pain when we think it should be there.  We can’t relate to a mom who won’t stay so that we can hover over and track the progress of her only living child.  But we will continue to love and support.

Tomorrow brings a new round of prenatals, baby checks and dealing with women in desperate situations.  Like a tennis ball we will bounce to and fro and occasionally get knocked out of the court.  We pick up, go on and are there for more moms and babies.  We have a lot of wins, a lot of moms who internalize the program and make positive  growth in their lives.

These moms win and we cheer!   Our program works because of the intimate contact and health care we give these women.  This very closeness is what causes us pain and heartache.  Because we are close we love them, we agonize, we take their pain home with us.   They touch us with their losses and their wins.

Beatrice may yet be a win!  Please join us in prayer for her tiny 4 pound girl.

“ Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Hebrews 11:1

 

Beth McHoul

 

 

 

 

 

A ROSE IS A ROSE

A Rose is a Rose by  Susan Ashton

I over the years have found encouragement and strength in the words of this song. It is one of those songs where I close my eyes, listen carefully and do it again several more times.

Hope that it speaks to your heart as it does mine.

John

Coming in and Going Out

I sat and enjoyed visiting with 91-year-old Ivy Solomon the other night.  She is heading Stateside on her last journey out of Haiti after serving the people of Ranquite for 60 years.  She is sharp and polite.  We talked Haiti politics and I noticed she is neither naive nor bitter.  Tears welled up as I watched her, thinking that she is not the first of our friends to retire and spend their later years Stateside or in Europe after giving most of their adult years to Haiti.  I’ve said goodbye to dear Salvation Army ladies who we loved.  Women who gave and made Haiti a better place and they made light of it.  No chartered flight, no fanfare, simple celebrations and off they went with a suitcase or two heading back to countries they no longer fit perfectly in.  Women who have given many years to quietly serving in a country that always needs more.  Heroes of the faith who I have been honored to know.

The next morning I took our ambulance to pick up newborn twins who couldn’t deliver with us due to their stubborn sideways positions in the womb.  Fresh from the cesarean section, mom waddles to the truck while the twins squint in the sun being carried by Winnie our nurse and an aunt.  Barely born and already struggling to survive in the harsh country of Haiti.

Here I am, blessed to be an observer at both the end of a story and a beginning of another one.  Unnamed, which is most often the case, twin A and twin B ride back to our post-partum wing and begin their closely watched first few weeks of life.  Mom, Vitana, is a sweet lady who desperately wanted to deliver with us and is astounded that she can breastfeed two.  She will be surrounded by support and encouragement as we walk with them through these fragile first months of life.   Life is hard and it will be doubly hard for this mom of two tiny boys.

I heard John repeat a quote the other day that said something like: “I don’t feel I started well, but I want to finish well.”  Sometimes we are like the twins, twin B at a definite disadvantage, significantly smaller and weaker than his brother.  Some of us are born twin A, we have the edge.  Whatever the gifts we have or don’t have,  how we end is what really matters.  Some of us seem born to struggle, fight harder and work with things against us to win.  Others breeze on through, or like most of us, we are somewhere in the middle.

So here I sit – observing a “well done my good and faithful servant” ending and a struggling beginning of twins.  And what is the lesson for those of us walking in the middle of these two ends – run well with our eyes on the prize.

“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

End well.

Beth McHoul

 Twin Boys

Nurse Winnie with the mom leaving the hospital with the boys

Leaving the hospital for the Heartline postpartum room: Nurse Winnie, the mom, the twins, midwife Betsy and an aunt.  Beth is the ambulance driver.

Make a Difference by Being a Person of Prayer.

Perhaps this is one of those times when you had to be there. It happened a couple of weeks ago, but I have still been thinking about it.  It was only a one minute conversation, but in it are represented thousands of people here in Haiti. People that have hope and many who have lost hope.

Solomon in Provers 13:12 wrote,

 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

 It was on a Sunday afternoon and a singing group from a Haitian church had come to the Harbor House (the Heartline teen mom house) to sing and join us as we ate  a wonderful Haitian meal together. The group was great and was enjoyed by all.

After the concert, one of the singers asked me if she could enter the Heartline Sewing program.  Before the group came to the Harbor House, they took a tour of the other Heartline ministries, one of which was the sewing program. I asked her what she was doing now: Did she have a job or go to school?  She told me that she in a few months would be graduating from university.  And that she has no prospects for a job.

I felt an unusual sadness as I considered her words.  Her parents have sacrificed to send her to school,  and she has worked extremely hard in a system which is less than encouraging and now she almost finished has no  prospects of a job.

 The Heartline Sewing Program is a wonderful program, but we did not envision it to be a place where university graduates would ask to enroll.  It is so easy to come to Haiti and see just the poor and I am not not even suggesting that we should not work to help the poor rise up from their poverty.  But there are others who against great odds have been able to push through their struggles, graduate from high school, which is no small feat and for some even graduate from university. Yet many are not able to find employment.

Haiti is awash with competent men and women not able to find work, who grow discouraged and disenchanted with their birth country.  Other, who are able, end up living in other countries throughout Africa, Europe and the Americas where they are able to find work and contribute to their country of residence. Haiti loses when this happens.

I understand that the situation is complex and the answers are not easy.  But there is something you can do.  You can regularly pray in faith for Haiti, its people, and its leaders.  It was S.D. Gordon who said,

Prayer strikes the winning blow…

Your support of Heartline is simply way amazing.  Your faithfulness is humbling.  Your love and care is clearly evident.  Perhaps, though, there is one thing that you could give even more of, and that would be to pray more.  Not just for Heartline or for Haiti but as well for the the countries of the world.  For the persecuted church and for those that have yet to even once hear the Good News of the Gospel.

Prayer matters, you matter!  Make a difference by being a person of prayer.

John McHoul

An Ended Life/New Beginnings

“Mr. John,”  the voice on the other end of the phone call said, “K isn’t taking her medicine.” “How do you know,”I asked.  The voice on the other end said, “The other patients in the tent told us as soon as we got to the hospital to visit K.” The caller was one of the three ladies in the Heartline program that daily visits with  K in the hospital and who on Sundays goes with her church singing group to visit, pray, and sing to K and the other patients in the big open tent.  K, the sister of one of the young ladies in one of the Heartline programs, was HIV positive and  had TB as well. The hospital is a place where those with HIV and or TB go for treatment.  The tent is one of a couple of dozen on the hospital grounds, where the patients, sleep, live, socialize, and receive treatment.  They sleep on narrow cots, and are attended to by medical people clad in  blue scrubs with light blue  masks that cover their mouths and noses.

K had been there for several weeks and it seemed that she was getting stronger and better as the hospital worked on treating the TB.    A couple of weeks back, she was able to walk, and one day she even walked us around the grounds which have an uneven layer of pea stones that cover the ground on which the tents sit.  She kept a steady balance and I felt encouraged and optimistic for her recovery.  Even the Heartline ladies that daily visit with her said that her face was becoming fuller and that she was gaining some weight.

And then she seemed to lose ground, her face  got thinner as did the rest of her body.  Although I have seen this several times in my years in Haiti, I am always surprised at how thin the human body can get and still have life.

I arrived at the hospital with Josh, a short term missionary to Haiti, and I greeted K and told her that I heard that she has been not been taking her medicine and has been throwing it outside the tent.  She denied it and then from the beds of the other patients came a steady stream of  words all of which confirmed that K had in fact stopped taking her medicine.

Several days went by and K continued to deteriorate;  she could no longer walk or even sit up. And  on Sunday when visiting her after church with the group of 10 Haitian ladies that came to pray and sing, she for the first time  did not even have the strength to sing with the group.

Monday Josh and I visited her again and the three Heartline ladies were there spending time with K. She had not eaten for a couple of days and she had two IVs in her and an oxygen tube in her nose. The other patients seem to know that the end was near and they now looked on quietly and somewhat from a distance. We spent time visiting and prayed and told her that we would be back.  We left the three Heartline ladies there and I told one of the other patients, who clearly cared for K, to call Troy if something happened to K.  Troy called me at about 4:30 PM on Monday, Feb 20th and said that the patient had called him and that K had died.  I received a call several minutes later from one of the Heartline ladies who told me, through her tears, that K had died.

It had been a struggle several years long, most of which was lived in secret. But as her health deteriorated and we became aware that K was HIV positive, the support began to flow.  K did not die alone.  She was surrounded by a support group of people that showed their love by being there  under the tent visiting, praying, encouraging, bringing mangoes and food that she requested, by reading the Bible to her, and by speaking strongly when she stopped taking her medicine.

We often joked that K had enough supplies in her  corner to open up a little store.  Every time I would visit K under the tent, I would look at the supplies of various size plastic containers that held food, water, juice and at the plastic bags of clothes, and at the fan and radio that she had in her corner and I would see more than a cluttered corners of stuff, I would see love, care, compassion, and support.

We will continue to be there for  K’s mom, sister, and family or maybe really we are being there more for ourselves in some kind of way that makes sense as i write this.  We will continue to visit under the tent.  We will continue to visit those that didn’t have to receive a phone call to tell of K’s death. No, they were there, a cot or two away.  My thoughts and prayers are now with them as well.

I saw K touch the lives of the young people that came to visit and sing and pray.  I saw the tentativeness, the uncertainty, perhaps even fear in their faces the first time they entered the tent. And then over the weeks, I have seen relationships built with K and the other patients.  Phone numbers shared, lives that not for K would never have crossed in this journey.

K has not so much died as she has passed as we all will.  She has passed from here to there, and she now awaits us, in His presence.  But until that time, may we seize the day and daily marvel at the gift of life that God has given to us.

Troy and I just returned from the hospital (Tuesday at 11:30 AM) and all that K had is now gone, even the cot is gone and the space that less that a day ago was filled by K and her supplies is now empty.  But the other patients are still there  and there is a new man that we hadn’t seen before.  The patients were happy to see us.  Connections have been made, new connections, new beginnings all because of  K.

Before leaving I asked if it would be okay if I came back to visit them.  They all with huge smiles wanted to know if I could come every day.  I am thankful that through an ending has come a beginning.

John

Finding Esther

Face Book is a way to shamelessly promote our programs and almost daily I post pictures of adorable babies, ladies in labor and breast feeding.  Grandchildren and puppies also make appearances in all their cuteness.

Last week an unfamiliar name and a vaguely familiar face “friended” me and it took me a minute to recognize that beautiful face.   Tears flooded immediately – Esther!  My maid of honor from 37 years ago.   Esther was one of three women who mentored me as a new Christian.  She went the extra mile, no, many extra miles in forming my new found Christianity.  Esther would drive two towns away to pick me up for church and then return me home and act like she enjoyed it.  I was a young and silly teenager – it never occurred to me that this woman worked all day and was probably really tired.  She never acted like she was.

Then I landed in the hospital for six months after back surgery for scoliosis.  It was a hospital for crippled children and I attended school from my bed so visitors weren’t allowed all week.  Except for clergy and  Esther was a youth pastor.  Faithfully she visited me during the week when no one else could and she sweetly forced me to memorize scripture that I still know today.  Scripture that formed my new Christian identity.  Scripture that became my mindset.

Altar call was the norm at our church after the sermon.  I ran to the altar many, many times pouring out a confused, new believer soul.   It was a beautiful ritual, old time Pentecost and I miss it still.  The front of the church would be lined with hunched over backs, weeping in repentance or praising in thanks.  Esther would slip behind me and pray with me.   I could count on her.  She would often pray “God give me a tender heart”.  I barely knew what that meant but I prayed it too and God answered.  I have one.  I cry at the drop of a hat.  It’s embarrassing and I can’t control it – I lack many gifts, but I do have the gift of a tender heart and God gave it to me through the example of Esther.

I was telling John about reconnecting with Esther and he said “Did you tell her you are here because of her?”  Even he knew the impact Esther made on me and the Christian I have become because of her example.  I was a young sponge and drank in what Esther had to offer and it has borne fruit.  Who I am today is because of the examples I had many years ago.   Women that took time to mold me and invest in me.

Years later when our daughter Morgan was born she needed a regal middle name to go with her unisex first name.  John named Morgan and she is so like her dad.  I chose Esther for the middle.  Queen Esther after my darling friend who I hadn’t seen in years but stayed in my heart.  Queen Esther who found herself in terrible circumstances and rose to the occasion.   Who wouldn’t want their daughter named after a queen and after a beautiful, tender youth pastor who impacted the life of a lost teenager.

The famous quote from the book of Esther reads “for such a time as this”.  Esther had me in her sphere of influence for but a moment of my life at time when I was teachable, new and vulnerable.  She impacted my life when I didn’t even know what was happening.  I just followed her loving example of a Christian who gave to the youth around her and took an interest and went the second mile.

We lost touch.  Many years and complicated lives have separated us.  We’ve rejoiced at meeting again.  But Esther’s influence was here all the time helping to make the foundation of who I am as a Christian.

Some of us are fortunate enough to have mentors that mold us and shape us in ways that make us able to impact those around us later.  It was a window of time when I was clay to be molded and Esther stepped in for that moment.  Such a time as this.

Beth McHoul

The Message in a Bracelet

Sandy Doyle, an adoptive mom, came by the Women’s Center and gave us 60 beautiful glass bead bracelets that told the gospel story through the color of the beads.

The Heartline Ladies wearing their bracelets after being taught about the gospel message through the colors of the glass beads. Sandy and friends, thank you for caring enough to come and share.  To see the beautiful jewelry that the Heartline Ladies create go to Haitian Creations