Redemption Story - A Knotted Ball of Grace

When he arrived at Children of the Promise, he came with the label "abandoned" because his family of origin had left him for good.  A small, fierce, boy with chocolate skin and eternally brown eyes --left by man; loved by God.  And so another God story of redemption began.  Not the kind of saving we like to think of where a great hero sweeps in and makes everything aright, but an earthy, nuanced one, full of hope and bitterness, joy and loss, all entwined in a knotted ball of grace.  This is *Jean's story... and ours, too.

One of the great joys I get to be a part of in my role as Infant Mental Health Provider at COTP is to help children transition when adoptive parents finally get the go ahead to come pick them up.  That is happening right now, and today our first farewell in over two years is happening!  This is a moment of celebration to be sure, but all week I have been thinking about how adoption is a true reflection of the Biblical narrative and a re-telling of the "already - not yet" paradigm that story tells.  By this, I mean that the entire Bible points to a fullness of God's glory coming, having come, and being not yet completed.  The taste of fullness is on our lips!  This is revealed in the history of man's brokenness with God, Jesus coming for redemption of mankind, and all of creation groaning and waiting for his final return when all will be made new.  It is breathing in the beauty all around us and waiting to be complete. That story is being retold in one life here and now.

Having recognized that families are the best place for raising kids, and moving to a foster-parent style of caregiving at COTP, Jean moved into a family home three years ago.  His foster parents, perfectly imperfect, moved from strangers to caregivers to parents over the course of time.  In the usual style of parenting they changed his diapers, played on the floor, lost their tempers, took his temperature, let him eat too much candy, tucked him in bed with kisses... all the while knowing their job was to love him until it was time to let him go.  This child slept each night under the protection and care of those who understood that in order for this sweet boy to be able to love, he must be loved well.  

This involved risking connection knowing the heartbreak that would come.  This involved laying down their lives for the life of another – a reflection of redemption.  This involved Christ-like love.

Just a few nights ago a Papa leaned in for the last time for a goodnight kiss before bed, unable to hold back the tears pressing in for release.  A Mama mindlessly prepped 7 bowls of rice for lunch before her breath stuck in her throat, realizing it was one bowl too many.  The ache of loss after having loved deeply is oh so real!  They let a child go having offered restoration and renewal, knowing they now enter into a time of a life remembered and mourned.

But that is not the whole story.  Three years ago a family responded to God's call to care for the orphan and began a long process of bringing a child to a forever family.  An imperfect solution in a broken place but a faith-filled response lined with God-light - another small reflection of redemption.  So they came this week, knowing their child is loved and loves others, knowing the transition will involve more pain and loss than joy at the outset, knowing they will make mistakes and knowing it will take time for the emotional reality to match the legal one.   They come having entered a bittersweet love, as well.  They come offering restoration and renewal, knowing there will be a life remembered; a life mourned. 

In foster care a good outcome follows risking connection and permitting relationship to be the healing balm that allows the neural pathways for attachment to even form.  It involves loving well and letting go.

In order to adopt well, initially, one must resolve to parent without what comes more naturally with biological children-- love a stranger in your home and sometimes submit to the smothering need of a child frantic for attachment.  Of course, at the outset, foster parents experience much of this as well, but adoptive parents agree to do this for the long haul.

Jean carries his monkey and backpack everywhere as if those are items that will keep him safe in this transition from one family to another.  They are the only items that tie his two worlds together.  He did not ask to be born to a family unable to care for him.  He did not ask to be brought to strangers for care or turned over to yet others for a lifetime.  He may feel anger and sadness and powerlessness in many areas of his life.  He may not want a good-bye party.

But bit-by-bit, in small doses of trusting relationship, he may feel cherished, held, and secure.  He may come to know, through the example and experience of those reflecting a small piece of a big God, that his life is part of a greater story of redemption that encompasses us all.  And because God has invited Jean, and foster parents, and adoptive parents and vast community before and after them to be a part of this story, a new day will come -- a day that is already dawning in our hearts and lives.  Until then we will choose to walk a nuanced path, tasting all of life with the bitter and sweet entwined.  These are the gray spaces, the blurry edges, the broken Hallelujah we walk until Christ comes again in glorious clarity.  What a great day that will be!

(*Jean is not the child's real name, in order to protect the privacy of the child and his family.  Permission is given by COTP and those involved in this adoption to write about Jean's story.)

Jesus in the Pharmacy

I saw Jesus today.  I was on my way over to the main campus to bring back some meds we didn't use.  I walked into the pharmacy and there, kneeling on the floor washing and bandaging a man’s fungal feet, was Rachel.  I tried to look away before seeing any nastiness, but realized quickly the washing and dirty work had already been done.  If Rachel held distaste for her task her face did not belie it.  Instead, she calmly wound gauze between toes filled with healing cream and went on with conversation as if being knee-bent on a gritty tile floor holding a stranger’s rotting toes was nothing out of the ordinary.

A few weeks ago it might have been different.  A few weeks ago during a conversation about nursing at COTP the same young woman had worried eyes as she admitted feeling inadequate and unsure about how to be useful with a limited skill set.  Rachel graduated from nursing school just months ago, and instead of settling into a predictable 3-11 shift in OB or serving up tidy med cups at the nursing home, she said yes to an adventure outside her comfort zone.  Before any nurse friends out there get too upset, I know there are more difficult aspects of nursing care than "predictable shifts" and "med cups", but those things fall within the expected course after graduation.  Starting a volunteer position in a 3rd world country with no real job description, and an expectation to work outside your skill set, is not.  Few nurses in the States ever have the expectation of having to diagnose and treat Typhoid, be the only help for a woman laboring to birth a baby in the back of a speeding pick-up, stitch up a motorcycle accident victim brought to the front gate, or tell a woman and her children she is likely dying of cancer and there is nothing we can do to help.  Our nurses do these kinds of things because they are there and are the only hope in those moments, but those are not moments they were trained for.

It was not really what she had come for -- this foot care thing.  She had come with more experienced nurses, with more experienced supervision, with hopes of structured med routines and baby care, and safety, but as often happens in life, plans did not go as expected and she found herself with more responsibility than she was up for.  She didn’t know if she could handle it.

And then Jesus stopped by.  He scooped up a big ‘ole ladle of grace with an extra pinch of peace and slopped it all over her soul – spirit food if ever there was any!  And she gobbled it up, because in this land of poverty -- of hungry eyes and too thin arms, where the rawness of the poor presses in so closely, she was hungry.  

I talked with her a few days ago when she was overseeing blood draws and setting up meds for our baby house kids and asked how she was doing.  The more experienced nurse she had come with had to leave unexpectedly to be bedside of someone she loved who was nearing death, and the supervisor she had hoped to work under was gone on a visit stateside.  Plan A had slipped away like a piece of paper, snatched by the wind and tossed just out of reach.  

She said she was surprisingly calm.  She thought it was grace.  And I think so, too.  The kind of grace that covers you when you don’t know much about babies and are not even sure you adore them, but have to care for a crying one all night.  Its the kind of grace that allows you to float over personal inadequacies when in reality you should be drowning.  The grace that carries a heavy special need boy all over Milot Hospital in search of x-rays and answers, long after your arms ache from fatigue and your back tightens with the strain.  Or the kind of grace that fills a heart with joy for service even with a stranger’s stinky feet.

Rachel Peterson - short- term volunteer nurse

Rachel is reminding me again about allowing God to work when we don’t have it all together.  Don’t get me wrong; she’s a competent nurse and her confidence adds to her beauty, but we don’t always feel like we have it all together and God doesn’t need us to.  I am trying to remember he chooses to use us in our brokenness because that is where his glory shines.  He doesn’t need me to be prepped and polished; he needs me to be teachable.  He might even use me if I’m not, by his grace.  

As I leave the pharmacy, I know Rachel has no idea how God has used her moment of service to teach me how to be used.  She just joyfully serving in the moment he has given her.  And as I walk back out into the bright Haitian sun I pray,

"God, thank you for bringing me to this place, with these people, to help teach my heart to trust yours!  Ready me to be used even when I don't think I have what it takes, keep my spirit soft, and let me see service in simple moments of caring for those you love."  Amen.

Are You My People?

One of my greatest joys here at COTP is watching adoptive parents arrive, join with their kiddos and take them home to become a part of their forever families.  I've witnessed nearly a dozen in the nine months we've been here, and each time I feel such gratitude and joy at seeing precious little ones being cherished as they should.  The good-bye fete the afternoon before the family flies out is especially poignant.

A long-term staff (usually Emily), makes a treat to share, and the Nannies, kids, staff, and the adoptive family gather (typically under the play pavilion) for a final good-bye.  There is parting prayer and blessing, singing, tears, a little anxiety for what's to come, and declarations by the Nannies of "Bondye konnen" (God knows).

Not everyone loves the good-byes in the same way.  I am not the first to wonder what it must feel like to the other kiddos to see the farewell scenario each time.  Once again there is talk of forever families coming soon, the parents come, the friend spends time with them, and then leaves, never to be seen again.  From the perspective of the other kids, it is an unsettling loss, filled with uncertainty, and more than a little sadness.

A few days ago I was walking Natalie home from school.  Her warm, paint-stained hand was in mine as we walked along the gravel path behind the school, on the way home to our house at Manna.  We had just come out of the shaded part of the path into the warming sun when she looked up at me and said, "I want to say good-bye to you and go with my people.  When are my people coming?"

While I cringed with rejection for just a moment, I knew instantly what she meant.  Everyone else has people who come and take them away.  We had come but somehow stayed.  It just didn't make sense to her, so in her mind, her "people" must still be coming!

"We are your people, sweetie!  I am your mommy and dad is your daddy!" I tried to explain.

"No, Mom."  (As if to say, don't be silly.)  "My people who need to take me to United States."

Oh my sweet little girl!  How much you have to think about through all this transition!  My heart welled up into my throat to imagine what she must think and worry about, why she gets moody and mad, and how hard it must be to wrap her mind around what we are supposed to be to her.  We have the right titles, but we aren't doing what the other adoptive parents do.  How is she to make sense of this all?

She was pretty much done with me at this point, as I clearly was not getting it, so she changed the subject to the "getting home from school" routine, saying, "I need to go potty and wash my hands for lunch?"  This, too, used to be a battle with near daily crying and angry removal of clothes, but she has gotten used to this routine as we eat lunch and prepare for our afternoon nap time, and she no longer fights it.  Now she checked to see if she could still expect this routine to hold in her moment of uncertainty.

The next day, she again casually asked, "do my people come today, Mom?"  Once again I explained that we were her people, that we would be taking her on the airplane to visit all the grandpas and grandmas and uncles and aunts and friends that are learning to love her from afar, and that we would be her people forever.

She still wasn't buying it.

This continued on for a few days.  Every so often she'd ask about her people, if we were her people, if other people were still coming to take her, if we were going to visit the United States, if we were going to come back.... all of us, her, and Rose Guerda, and Noah, and Elijah, and Daddy, and Mommy?

"Yes, honey.  All of us.  We are your people, forever."

This morning Kirk scooped her up and as she held his cheeks and pressed a wrinkled nose close to his, she asked, "Daddy, are you my people?".  He responded with the question, "can I be your people?"  She said yes.  I asked her, "can Mommy be your people?"  She said yes.  And we asked if we could take her to the United States some day and come back to Haiti and be her family forever?  And she said yes.

I'm pretty sure it was the real deal; the real moment we adopted her.  Sure we had committed to it and the paperwork will soon make it legal, but right there and then we covenanted to be family.  We will be her parents and she will be our child.  We will guard her and teach her and love her and she will grow in strength and beauty and love for us, too.  We will be her people and she will be ours.

There is precedence for such adoptive arrangements.  In the book of Ruth in the old testament of the Bible, Ruth and Naomi become family to one another despite all other ties of marriage and duty being severed, and it lead to blessing for both of them, including "adopted Ruth" being included in the lineage of Jesus Christ.

How deeply God has rooted our desire to belong and how wonderful that he models this covenantal and adoptive relationship with us!  Some day Natalie will learn, and Rose, and Noah and Elijah, too, that not only are they our people, but God's, too.  While we have much to offer her, God has more, and she will be held in a covenant of grace and promise that can fill her with security and belonging rooted in His boundless love!  

My peeps:

 

And Then We Were 6

My foot presses against the cool tile floor, arches, and springs rhythmically, not to the cadence of music, or to the tree frog croaking his love on the louvers outside the window, but to the bend of the creaking chair in which I rock.  After screams and arching, babbling, sighs and yielding, Rose nestles against the side of my neck, her small puffs of moist air warming my neck.  The peace we've both longed for comes as she battles her way into rest and she no longer resists the heaviness of sleep.  She is over whatever fears and rage she felt such a short time ago and has decided to trust me to still be there when she awakes.  It takes me a little while longer to be over the difficulty of the duel and settle into a place of enjoyment for the moment of stillness I am enjoying.  Some nights there is less of a fight.  But often there is an hour or more of resistance to the safe space for sleep she longs for, and then intermittent cries through the night demanding comfort and another round of creaking and rocking in the white chair.

Can I just say up front that this adoption thing is very hard?  Of course, I am committed to following through with that which God birthed in me, and a new love for my precious little girls is bursting into bloom in my heart, but oh, this is hard!  I have had moments this month of wondering what in the world we were thinking to start over with toddlers at age 40 and why two of them, and why, why, WHY would I want to deal with tantrums and poopy diapers, and being awake for too many hours during the night?  I'm tired.  They need SO much from me and the needs of our boys did not magically vanish when the girls arrived. I didn't have the luxury of their first years to have arrived at this point neatly bonded and ready to face challenges head on.  We have been thrown together instead of grown together and I cannot possible know what has shaped and molded their little minds and hearts.

To be honest, some moments I walk in obedience instead of love.  And some moments I fail entirely.  I hate that, but it's true.

Though many have asked "how are things going" with our adoption process, it has been hard to know what to put into words or when to write.  While our adoption is not complete, December 5th marked the day we knew we were through the Haitian social services arm of the process, and that there was little chance of anything disrupting their adoptions, so we decided to bring them home with rejoicing and solemn realization of what we were ready to embark upon.

It was a rough start; maybe part of it simply being the adjustment back to relating to toddlers.  I had a resolute will to take the spotlight off of myself and my own needs and shine it on the girls like my good attachment parenting training has taught me.  But my flesh is weak and I am sometimes selfish and at 2 and 3 and 4 AM, my spotlight stubbornly focuses on me, refusing to budge from my bent toward sleep, even if some little person is feeling unsettled with a new bed and home.

I realize not everyone who has adopted has this level of challenge, and we can face challenges with our biological kids that strain and stress us, but adopting an older child or a child from an orphanage/creche setting certainly raises the chances of struggle.

I am being completely honest here, lest anyone with a hero mentality decides adoption might be a cute, hip thing to do to have some extra kids in your life.  I'm not trying to scare off adoptive families who have a love for orphans and a will bent towards God's call for orphan care, but know this is not light parenting.  If you like to keep it all together and maintain a healthy sense of status quo, then run, run, run people, and don't look back!  But if you want to be used and stretched and grown for the sake of a child, adoption might be for you.

Already in this first month, beyond the moments of frustration, I have noticed the feeling of deep satisfaction in seeing my beautiful family of 6 all around one table, had the first inklings of love well up in my heart when Natalie or Rose has grabbed my face and planted wet kisses on my lips, observed a quiet pride watching Daddy paint his little girl's toe nails too red, and felt the rush of joy at hearing my 4 kids giggling and playing a tickle game on the bed.  I have noticed new ways in which I am able to be both humbled and strengthened, a new place of contentment with smaller things and slower movement, and the ability to tame my tongue and anger when I'd really like to blow. This is not a "got it all together" speech to be sure!  My mistakes have brought me, ashamed, before my God asking for forgiveness and for strength when mine is gone, but I am grateful for how God chooses to grow me instead of toss me aside, and how this time of trial is being used to refine my character and heart.  How I long to reflect that loving nature of my Heavenly Father to each of the children he has entrusted to my care!

So yes, this moment in time is hard and real, but so is my joy and contentment.  Our old family is becoming a new one, bumpy though the road be, and my adoptive Papa is patiently shaping me to allow me to better reflect Him.

Emanuel - God With Us

It is some time around 4 AM and I am walking home under a blaze of white stars, after my "shift" in our isolation unit, where nearly 1/3 of our babies are currently housed.  Since I am spending most of my time home with the girls (as we brought them into our home  December 05), I am working some of the overnight shifts when the girls are sleeping and won't be upset with my being gone.
Just past midnight as I was leaning over a crib changing yet another runny diaper, Nick Stolberg called out a "Merry Christmas", joking that the first package I opened for Christmas was filled with poop.   Nice.
Now I am heading back through the dark with my little LED flashlight to sleep for a few hours before the girls wake and need my full attention.  My feet crunch on the gravel beneath and as I allow my eyes to leave their tarantula scanning to glance up, I am awed at the expanse above.  I stand still for a moment, turn off my flashlight, and soak in the grandeur.  One delicious moment before fatigue (and maybe a teeny tiny bit of fear of what could be creeping in the dark) pulls me back to the ground I stand on.
I walk on thinking about how unlike "Christmas" this day and the ones leading up to it have felt.  I have had moments in the chaos this past week of feeling sorry for myself wondering when we will have a window of time as a family to open our few presents, or feeling sad that I have not had enough room to really decorate for Christmas, and maybe a little miffed that the lights I ordered never showed up in the mail.  No time for Christmas baking, no parties, no programs, no cheery gatherings with the family.  No glitter, tinsel, sparkle, or cold, clean snow.  Only the gritty, hard world of Haiti pressing so near the compound gate and now smothering us with babies sick with Cholera.  Christmas does not feel sparkly or special this year.  It feels raw.
I was reading first John 1 - Jesus took on fleshly form and decided to dwell with us.  God in his eternal, brilliant, perfection decided to stoop into the grit of the world he created and become one of us -- how raw and unimportant his birth was to poor, unpolished, broken people in broken times, not in a comfortable home decorated for the season, but likely in a feeding trough with the smell of dung and warm animals around.  Not too glamourous a start...
I have found myself aware of "missing Christmas" the past few weeks and thought about what exactly I am missing.  Family, friends, beauty?  Yes, all of that, but Christmas?  I have started to think I am closer to Christmas than any other time or place in my life.  Here, in Haiti, where hope of new creation and rebirth are not tidy theological thoughts I find God, oh SO present; Emanuel - God with us, so real.
My need for fullness becomes greater with each passing day of struggle, and as I walk through a million cricket chorus I can imagine the angels suddenly illuminating the night sky with glorious truth to some simple guys hanging out with their dozing herds.  In this moment I realize I am celebrating Christmas in my heart, with the cry of fragile life fresh in my ears.  I know beyond all understanding that God is present in this mess, and here with me and these sick kids and weary staff, and has come to bring hope and joy. and usher in his kingdom of peace!

Come quickly Lord Jesus!

Five Hours at Milot Hospital

John pulls up in the Toyota and greets us with a big smile and good English.  I climb in front with *Nancy on my lap, while Shiela arranges the diaper bag and  *Martin beside her, before adjusting baby Jane on her lap.  All three of the children are dressed like we might be on our way to a fete (party) or legliz (church),with Nancy in a purple plaid dress, Jane in black on white polka dots, and Martin in a handsome collar shirt with khaki shorts, but we are headed to Milot (MEE-low) Hospital.  I am accompanying Sheila for the children's routine HIV appointments where they receive the medications and care that keep them healthy.  There is no outward sign of the deadly disease within that has already taken the life of their parents and threatens theirs.

Rains have soaked the land every night in recent days, so the difficult dirt road is even more challenging to navigate that usual, with puddles the size of small ponds connected by narrow muddy rivers.  We do not pass many of the moto's that usually populate the roads, and it relives me to know there are some conditions even too tough for them.  John is a cautious driver and moves slowly through the dips and mounds.  It is reassuring,  knowing the children are only restrained by the limited strength of our arms.  After a few miles we reach the tar road.  It is welcome relief to our jostled bones and tense abdominal muscles.  The rest of the drive is fairly comfortable with Nancy nestled cozily under my chin.

As you enter the outskirts of Milot, the Citadel stands on a mountaintop above, square and formidable   The streets are busy with school children in their bright, coordinating uniforms, and food vendors line the street in anticipation of the day's traffic.  We pass the hospital dormitory compound on the right, where visiting medical professionals and other longer term doctors and nurses live.  It is gated and guarded, and the cement block walls of buildings have stained glass in typical Catholic style.  Beautiful fruited and flowering trees dress the grounds.

The hospital is not much further ahead on the left.  Nancy doesn't want to walk, so I carry her as we cross the busy road.  The main entrance is clean and crowded with vendors, security, men and women dressed in scrubs, and nursing students dressed in prim white aprons with white hose and knee socks, reminiscent of U.S. army nurses of WWII.  The sick are interspersed, arriving on foot, carried by concerned loved ones, or occasionally in wheel chairs.

The hospital itself, is a collection of whitewashed buildings connected by narrow sidewalks, corridors, and courtyards.  People sit everywhere on benches or squatting on the side of walkways.  Doors leading into various departments are crowded with those who wait for appointments.  Pediatrics on the left, across from radiology, then little a little room with a placard overhead reading, "department of community nutrition", and so on.

We wind through most of the grounds, climb a flight of stairs, and arrive at the HIV clinic on the second floor.  There is a short hallway with 4 chairs on the right and a wooden bench on the left.  Five doors open into the hallway, but all are closed.  Already 2 women wait.  One has a small baby dressed in a purple sleeper and wrapped in a warm blanket.  The baby sleeps on her lap, with no hint at the ailment that brings them here,  The mother smiles gently as we sit down across from her.  The other women has a small baby wrapped similar to the first.  She tells the first woman her baby is sick and she has a worried expression which fades, but does not disappear, when we greet her.  Her baby lays on the bench beside her, motionless, asleep.

Though we have arrived a 1/2 hour late, it does not appear we have missed out on anything.  Medical staff are in a meeting.  Occasionally someone leaves the room to take a phone call, but otherwise the door remains closed.  After an hour or more, the meeting ends and a nurse, then the doctor, come to begin seeing the patients that now fill the seats and bench.

The children in our care are remarkably patient.  There is no play area.  No office books or magazines.  No brightly colored murals or decal to distract them from boredom.  Madame Ga, the depot supervisor, has packed some snacks, powdered milk and water, a couple of fisher price animals, and two books.  The snacks are the most effective pacifiers.

One hour turns to two, and then three.  During this time Martin announces he has to go to the bathroom and proceeds to start peeing out the door.  Sheila grabs him and brings him to the base of the stairs to at least have him pee on the grass.  This happens one more time.

Nancy also indicates she has to use the bathroom.  Her journey is not quite as simple as Martin's.  Though there is a bathroom near the clinic, no one has the key when we need it, so I leave with Nancy to take her to the public bathrooms across the road.  This is the kind of adventure no one wants or needs.  The public restroom is manned by a janitor with a mop, which somehow does little to reassure me about sanitation.  There are not separate entrances for men or women, rather one large room with separate stalls that lock individually and a roll of toilet paper suspended on a wire by the front door, should you chose to it before going into your stall.  Once inside the stall, the toilet area is a raised, tiled area, with what can best be described as having a sunken urinal in the middle, and a place to  put your feel on either side.  Not knowing the best approach with a young child, I simply took her underwear off, and held her suspended in a swing-like position over the hole.  I was grateful to have stuffed a small role of toilet paper and a bottle of hand sanitizer in my purse before leaving.  I had the pleasure of taking Nancy to this bathroom twice.  I chose to hold it.

  Nearing 4 hours of waiting Martin's name is called.  Sheila takes him into the nurse's office where he is weighed and vitals are recorded.  The same happens with Jane and Nancy, followed by more waiting.  Finally the doctor calls each child's name.  Blood samples had been collected the day before, so Dr. is beautiful, friendly, and smart, and speaks good English, which she uses out of kindness for me.  She reviews the results and blood counts, does a brief physical, and makes recommendations.  Jane and Martin have gained weight and height and their numbers have remained good.  Nancy also gained height and weight and was free from illness, however her number had dropped significantly from her last visit, meaning her anti-retroviral medications are no longer do the job they need to do.  There will be a clinical review of the HIV cases on Thursday, so Nancy's case will be reviewed.  Dr. Michelle will recommend an adjustment in medication to address the change in numbers in order to keep Nancy healthy.  This means we'll be back for more labs and appointment in the next two week which is not so pleasant, but we are grateful to have a good HIV clinic available to serve our precious little ones.

Dr. Michelle has written orders and prescriptions, and though I had hoped we were done, we still have a few more stops to make.  We load up the diaper bag, now filled with empty snack and milk containers, and books a little worse for wear, and haul the kids back down the stairs to a small office.  Here we will pick up the ARV medications and have our order sheet stamped in order to pick up the rest of the prescriptions at the regular pharmacy.  The pharmacist looks over the orders, selects medications, throwing the information pamphlet over his right shoulder in the general direction of the garbage can, sticks a new label on the bottle, and hands them to Sheila.  He says I am learning Creole faster than Sheila, which is strange considering we have never met and he has no idea how long I have been in Haiti, not mention Sheila is fluent enough to translate effectively with almost anyone I meet.

We leave this office and go a few doors down where we need to get another specialized medicine for Martin.  He has to pee.  Again. So Sheila takes him outside while I await the packet of TB meds being prepared.  Sheila and Martin return, we gather up our load once again, and proceed to our final stop for the day -- the main pharmacy.

The pharmacy is basically a walk up counter with doors wide open in order to allow people to spill out onto the sidewalk.  Something about it reminds me of walking up to a carnival booth. The wait is long.  I take Martin and Nancy to "entertain" while Sheila keeps Jane and stands in line.  During her wait, Jane's diaper rumbles loudly to announce a delightful "poop up the back" event while Sheila waits helplessly in line.  She digs in the diaper bag for a blanket to contain the mess and resumes her wait.  After about 45 minutes she finally reaches the front of the line and gets the needed prescriptions.

While waiting for Sheila, John finds me waiting.  I ask him to take some money and buy a few drinks for all of us, and a little lunch for himself, as he has been waiting the entire time of our visit, as well.  We meet up to walk back to the vehicle together, relieved to be on our way home.  After finishing their drinks all three children fall asleep on laps or against shoulders for the bumpy ride home and for the first moment in hours all of us are content and relaxed.

Though this trip for a routine check has been challenging, I know that our children are the lucky ones.  Kids die of HIV or for lack of access to basic medical care in Haiti.  Haitians know there is no use going to the hospital unless you have the money up front to pay.  Those without money or means to buy needed medications suffer with illness or malnutrition, and some are left orphaned from the illness they did nothing to deserve.  Our little ones have known of needle sticks and bitter medicine, lethargy and discomfort in their young lives, but they do not yet worry about mortality.  That worry is for those who love and care for them now and the families that await them through adoption.

*The real names of the children are not used in order to product their identity.