Open Wide Thine Hand…

“Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.” Deuteronomy 15:11

We first met Madamn Julia when she was one of the many who had come to our gate for food for her children. Each time, she thanked us for the food but began to tell us of all of her other problems. It was very depressing because we felt there was little that we could do for her. Each month (or several times a month) we always sent food to her. One day she said, “Please come and see where me and my children are sleeping.” She took me to Miracle Village and showed me the “outdoor cement porch” that belonged to another family. (They let her and her family sleep there for a short time.) There was a small charcoal grill, a few blankets, and maybe an old sack, but nothing else. For months, this is all she and her children had. Soon after, it began to rain. I remember feeling horrible, thinking about her and her children on that porch that belonged to someone else, and sleeping in the rain!

Then she came back to us with tears in her eyes and said, “Tomorrow they are making us move from the porch. I also have two other children that I have had to send to relatives… I don’t know what to do.” We found an empty small house on our property here at Love A Child that one of our employees had been staying in. We moved Madamn Julia in temporarily. We discovered that our “original clinic” in Miracle Village was being used to house some of our professors. It was like a two-room duplex.

In the meantime, one of our partners, whom I cannot name, sent in enough funds to buy paint and whatever we needed to get Madamn Julia moved in! Mark Ostrander re-designed the duplex, and he and his Haitian crew re-built and repainted half of it, and fixed it up for Madamn Julia and her children. At that time, all of the stores were closed here in Haiti so we couldn’t buy furniture, but last week, one opened… We bought three sets of bunk beds, very nice mattresses, a table and chairs, a charcoal grill, and much more. Some of you had sent in new clothing for ladies and children and we “loaded her up!” Today, some of the teenage girls from our Love A Child Children’s Home came and helped put sheets on the beds and helped her get “moved in!” There are three other rooms, not seen in these pictures. We gave Madamn Julia some money to buy what she needed to get started and one of our partners sent in money to get her set up a little business. We gave her a hug and I quoted her a Haitian Creole proverb which says, “I gave you a bath… Now, put your clothes on.” It means, “we were glad to help you get started, now you can stand on your own two feet!” This all started with giving “just one box of food.” Nothing is small when God is in it! Sherry