We used to do a lot of medical clinics in the area of L’Artibonite when we first moved to Haiti. Back then, it had small huts and looked a lot like “Old Letant.” At that time, we had no orphanage and never thought about an orphanage… We thought about schools and churches.
One day when we were in the Love A Child School, we got a call for me to come and see a lady who was dying. She was lying on a straw mat on the ground. When I leaned over, she pulled me down close to her with a “death grip” on my clothes and said, “Madamn Sherry, I’m going to die. When I die, I am leaving you my four children to raise. Promise me you will take care of them…”
She scared me so bad that I gave her every kind of antibiotic I could find… I also gave her fever medicine, cold medicine, and anything else I could find. My prayer was, “Please God, don’t let her die. I sure don’t want four Haitian kids. I wouldn’t even know how to take care of them, so please let her live. Amen.”
We went home and weeks later, we got a call to “come and pick up those four kids.” When we arrived, all the village people stood together and told us, that we “had to take them,” or they would die. We left that day with Berry, about age 9, Sheline, about age 10, Julanne, about age 8, and Jonise, about age 5. They had never seen white people before and had never been inside a truck! They were scared to death! (They thought the “white people would eat them!”)
As we got in the truck, “Grandma” came over to us and said, “I am giving you two black ones and two white ones. (Two dark-skinned children and two light-skinned children.) But, Berry is ‘dezoid.’ (Crazy and hard to manage.) You’ll have to beat him every day!”
As Berry grew, we understood what Grandma meant. We had real problems with Berry, and when he grew older we had to put him out of our orphanage twice! I just never could believe he would turn out “half-good.” But, he has turned it around! He now has a wife and family and works in our Food Distribution Center and does a great job! He has really done a great job! He is tough, and gets along well with the “street people.” He watches over everything and we are so glad he is here!
We just never knew he would turn out to be reliable and responsible… A Haitian Creole Proverb says, “What you don’t know, is greater than you!” We just know that “God knows the beginning and the end.” Thank you, friends and partners, for your love, care, and support.
Sherry