The moun yo in my life: Claudette

Hello precious friends, I want to start introducing you to the people (moun yo) that are a part of my life here in Haiti. I hope that this will allow you to see Haiti as a country full of stories, tears, miracles, love, pain, hope...rather than an arid, rubble-filled land of desperation.

Please feel free to ask questions about the kids and people that I post about...and please keep them in your prayers.

Claudette:
Read past blog posts here, here, here, and here

Golly...this girl always makes me tear up. I was sitting on the porch of my house late the other night and could hear her and her sister Ti Rose talking and giggling in the tent in the clinic yard. (The tent houses all of the critical kids from the Rescue Center and the burn kids.)

I was here in late December when Claudette first came to the clinic. Her clothes had caught on fire from a kerosene lamp in the home of the old woman she cared for. She had to run to a neighbors house because the woman was too frail to help her. By the time she got there she had been burned raw from the backs of her knees all the way to just below her chest. I spent hours in the dressing room assisting Lori as she peeled off all of the burnt skin from Claudette's little body. She was really really bad...the burns on her thighs were circumferential (went all the way around her whole legs) and most of her burns were severe.

After those hours in the dressing room I went up to my room and bawled. The whole situation was just completely overwhelming.

She faced months of months of extreme pain and we weren't even sure if she would live. There was a very high chance she would get a bad infection and not be able to recover. Lori and Licia decided to keep her here rather than send her to a "hospital" in town. They have sent in burn patients before to get "better" care only to see them die.

This meant that Lori and Licia committed to doing dressing changes every day that sometimes took up to 3 hours. I think I helped the next day after she came in, but after that I just couldn't emotionally handle it. Claudette was on heavy pain meds, but that still did not take away all of the pain her little body was feeling.

Claudette's older half-sister Ti Rose came to stay with her for emotional support and to help care for her. We learned that Claudette's mother had died and her father had multiple other women in his life. One of his women needed someone to care for her bed-ridden mother so Claudette was sent to care for her and do all the house hold chores, fetch water, cook, etc. We are not sure if this was Ti Rose's grandma or not. I'm not sure what kind of relationship these two girls had before Ti Rose came to care for Claudette. There may have been jealousy...Ti Rose got to go to school and Claudette was forced to work for and care for this bedridden woman.

These months have changed their relationship forever. Their hearts have been bonded together through Claudette's pain. Claudette is always following around her big sister and Ti Rose is always looking out for her baby sister. I'm not sure what will happen when they have to go back home, but I know that forever and ever they will have an unbreakable bond.

The scars that remain on Claudette's body are terrible and beautiful. Her thighs are the only part of her body that are still open wounds from her burn. The skin on her stomach is thick and scaly. Her scars will forever be with her and will likely cause her more physical and emotional pain as she grows up. We wonder if her body be able to stretch to hold a baby someday.

 She was using a walker to get around as of May...last Friday she went on a 5 mile hike in the mountains with us. Miracle.

I wish I could explain to you the precious personality and heart of Claudette. She seeps joy from the depths of her being despite the pain of losing her mother, being a child servant, suffering through the pain of 3rd degree burns on her body, and now bearing that scars of that. 

I don't know what her future holds or if the world will rip away her joy by telling her she's maimed and unlovable, but I pray that she will always remember...how Lori and Licia cared for her day after day for months and months....that she will know deep in her soul that it was Jesus loving her, that in her life of suffering, He was always holding her and near to her and weeping over her. He knows her pain, He bears the scars of rejection and physical suffering too.

Tears & Fears

I've been here nearly a month already and I'm beginning to accept that tears will be deeply a part of my life. There is no escaping pain and suffering in this world no matter if I live in Haiti or in the states...it's just a lot more evident here. The brokenness of this life is reflected in physical ways in Haiti.

In a quest for emotional survival in the past I have numbed my heart to pain. It was like I was shoving this big fatty cork into my heart to hoping to suffocate the pain and make it go away. I had been conditioned to try to find relief from my pain rather that to feel it. To numb it out with something. I think it's something that everyone in the world tries to do.

For so long I lived on this surface level...just kind of floating in the excrement of my life. I didn't allow my Father to search the depths of my heart because I was living in fear. In fear of what might be found...that I really was actually hard to love or even unlovable. 

Then I asked the Lord to heal me. He started shaking me up...and soon the cork shot clear out of my sight. It hurt so bad to let all that crap bubble out...but soon my heart was beginning to be filled with my Abba rather than fear and bitterness.

The Lord began to soften my heart so I could feel that pain and so He could begin to heal me. He is true relief, true freedom. Now, I can stand amidst all this pain, personal pain and the burdens for the broken, and not feel numb. It feels really freaking good to be able to feel.

...and then the Lord makes space for Himself, so my heart will break for the things that break His, rather than just focusing on what hurts me. It seriously hurts sometimes to love people...but Christ's love and healing completely and utterly compels me to. 

If I can't feel deep pain then I can't taste of the depths of true, uninhibited love.

"Here am I Father
Open me up
Show me what's inside
For inside my heart is pain
But inside my pain is joy"

Hosanna in the Highest

"O God, be thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth's treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships.

I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. 

Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream. Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even my life itself. 

Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase, let me sink that Thou mayest rise above.

Ride forth upon me as Thou didst ride into Jerusalem mounted upon the humble little beast, a colt, the foal of an ass, and let me hear the children cry to Thee, `Hosanna in the highest.'" -AW Tozer