{rice, beans & love}

Two days ago (Wednesday), as I traveled down the dirt road on my four-wheeler towards Tytoo Gardens, I met two boys from our school and their mom. They were headed towards Tytoo and the mom wanted to admit the boys into the orphanage. My first reaction was why? Then, how as a mother could you give up your boys? And then, why again?

Esther handled the situation quite well. The orphanage is actually on overload since 23 kids were admitted last week from the story in my last post. Esther and I have also both agreed that we want to help the mothers, encourage them and give them what they need to allow families to stay together. We don’t want Tytoo to become a “drop off” for mothers who just want to give up. I left heart broken after this because these two boys, ages 9 and 11, are adorable and I have known them for quite sometime. Luckeny, the 9-year-old has a really bad infection in his groin area, but runs right towards me and gives me a big hug. Bosny, the 11-year-old is honest and doens’t let his younger brother get away with anything.

The next day, Thursday, I decided I wanted to check out their living situation for myself. As Webert and I headed to market on the motorcycle, we stopped by. They weren’t home, so we continued to market. I decided to buy a pair of shoes for Luckeny and the mother, because they had told me Luckeny had stopped going to school because he had none. I find no excuse for that! When we returned again, I found the two boys with a basket full of fruit. I said what is this? And they said it is for you! I could barely accept!

How could a mom, who the day before wanted to give up her children, now offer me bananas, watermelon and a pineapple!? I realized these people have more to teach me than I have to teach them. I have enough money to buy bananas for the whole village, but a mom who sells dirt at the market and can barely feed her children wants to give me a full basket of beautiful fruit? They may be poor, dirty and uneducated, but their hearts are rich and they’re beautiful.

They word that came to mind as I prayed for this family was perseverance. Which led me to the verse of Romans 5:3…. Not only so, but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us because God has proved His love in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

So, from that, the only thing I want to show these families is that if they persevere, they will be rewarded with hope for a future in heaven.

Luckeny, the 9-year-old

To that simple basket of fruit.

Love from Haiti