With so many women wanting to abort their babies, here is a heart-touching story, “from the other side.” This story takes place in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and a country now controlled by gangs, where every life is precious.

Michelene St. Gardien is 32 years old, she lives in a small village on the edge of a lake, not far from the Dominican Republic border. She is the mother of 2 children; she does not have a specific job. She does whatever it takes to survive, sometimes she even tries to catch a small fish. In this small village where she lives, they are extremely poor; there are no trees, no gardens, and drinking water is hard to find. There are no hospitals, not even health personnel, so most pregnant women in this village do not go to the hospital for their delivery. They spend the whole period of their pregnancy “drinking ginger tea to make the baby come early.” This ginger tea is very “life-threatening” for the mother and baby. It makes the baby try to come “earlier” than it should and causes high blood pressure! This “tea” is a killer!

For a long time, it became a custom when they give birth to a baby, to go to see a “witch doctor,” or even a leaf doctor. Sometimes they give birth at home on a piece of “tissue,” and after birth, the baby does not receive any care or vitamins, which sometimes causes them to lose the baby.

For Michelene, since she had been attending our Birthing Center, she has always kept all her appointments. Unfortunately, she had her contractions at home and she had no money for transportation to our clinic or a hospital near there. So, she gave birth at home. The delivery did not go as planned. She had hemorrhaged because “not all of the placenta came out.” Her family had no money to take a small boat and then pay for a motorbike to bring her to our Birthing Center. But, because she was so bad off, during the day, her mother “borrowed money” to take her to our Birthing Center. By now, she had suffered a lot!

At 11:00 a.m. she arrived at our Birthing Center. Our midwives rushed to meet her. It was then that she told us that she had given birth at 5:00 a.m. and that she “had been treated.” She was in excruciating pain and she was bleeding a lot.  For the baby, she said that at her home, they cut off the umbilical cord with a piece of metal and washed her head with alcohol, and wrapped it in a piece of cloth.”

For Michellene’s hemorrhage, our midwife quickly gave her some serum so she would not pass out because she had lost too much blood. They put her in the delivery room to remove the rest of the placenta; she suffered a lot. Before leaving the delivery room, they gave her a bath. Then, they gave her a large, clean t-shirt to wear because she had no clothes. The midwife cleaned the baby, gave him vitamins, and wrapped him in a clean towel; then she put on brand new baby clothes donated by one of our partners. They gave all the best of care! After all his care, the mother and the baby began doing well! We see great needs like this every day here in Haiti. Thank you, partners, for all your love and care. Sherry

Note: We are in need of “boy” baby clothes, especially age 5-12 months. Please send to: Love A Child 12411 Commerce Lakes Dr., Ft Myers, FL 33913

God bless you and thank you again!

As you know, Casimi our hero, “food container driver,” was released safe yesterday after being kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo (Papaya Gang). The gang did not ask us for any money.

We found out late this afternoon, Casimi will be picking up our semi-tractor and container tomorrow from the gang. They graciously did not ask us for any money. This is indeed, a miracle!

The sad news is probably the gang took all of the 1280 boxes of FMSC (Feed My Starving Children) food (272,000 meals) on board the container. Having so many hungry people in Haiti, I’m sure they took all the meals. Having hundreds of containers with food on board being brought to Love A Child, losing one, isn’t all that bad considering.

I’m thankful for your prayers, really the Lord gave us a miracle. Good job! We are going forward! I want to thank Nelio, our Haitian director, and his team involved for all their patience and wisdom in dealing with the gang. Casimi will be getting back in the driver’s seat!

Missionary Bobby Burnette

Here is Bianca, Daniella, Jean Edward, and Lovely! They have all passed the difficult “Philo” test in school! Haiti has 13 years of school and the test to pass is most difficult! I wish we could take them all out for “pizza” to celebrate, but because we have gangs up the road from us, we are in lockdown. We have a truck driver that risks his life to bring food in for the kids here at our Love A Child Children’s Home. It is a great responsibility to keep all our LAC children safe from kidnappers.

Bianca, left, her dream is to be a surgeon. Daniella wants to be an eye doctor. Jean Edward wants to be a tailor and Lovely,  a lawyer. We are so proud of these children who put “Jesus first!” We tell them, “No matter how bad things look, God is still in control and He still has a big plan for your life!”

Thank you, to all our partners, who have stood with us for years, as we have raised the children from babies, toddlers, survivors, and some, from being slaves. Just look what a big God we serve!

Sherry

Attention: For those of you who have been praying for the release of our Food Container, keep on praying. We should hear about this today. We should have more information by noon or after regarding the container and food. Thankfully, our semi-driver, Casimi, was released safely! Check back around noon for an update.

“The Children of Nippes”

We just wanted you to see how the children in the village of Nippes, Southern Haiti, are trying to survive. This was one of the areas badly hit by the hurricane that hit last August 2021. We are still sending food to this area, and we are still building the Gabion Houses…

Little Lionel, age 8, and his sister, Merline, must look for sticks for a fire while their mother gets ready for their hot meal! This “hot meal” is a miracle because we just finished sending beans, rice, and cooking oil to South Haiti. Normally, there would never be a “hot meal” today or any other day. But, with your help, we purchased $24,000 worth of food at the Port of Miragoane. (Due to the gangs in Haiti, we could not “take” our Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) food there as we could have. But the gangs have taken over many places, so the safest thing to do was to buy the food locally.)

Lionel and Merline’s mother makes charcoal to sell, but that brings in very little money. We gave their mother a new tarp to cook under. She is so happy, and she and her children “now have hope!”

Thank you,
Bobby and Sherry