She.
She listened intently. She hung on to every translated word. In the corner; the woman watched carefully, examining the 8 Americans in front of her. They were talking to someone else: a coffee vender from her neighborhood. They stood, and they talked, they laughed a bit as the local boys ran up. At the end of the discussion they prayed. They removed their hats, bowed their heads, and prayed. She knew.
She would invite them back to her rented block home in the front part of Leveque, Haiti. She would open the door as they laughed and joked their way inside. She would open her doors and welcome the family/strangers that were wandering her streets. She would show them her child. He was ten, one of the two remaining children alive. She had had 8 others previously, they had all died. Weeks after birth their health would degrade and they would pass. And here she was, in a house she couldn’t afford, with debt to the bank, with a child she couldn’t afford medical care for. You see; the child needed special care. At the age of ten he had no control of his movements, except to occasionally throw his head back and smile. He was still in diapers, and he needed baby powder and an oil that he would have to take when the episodes got especially difficult. The medication would knock him out for his own safety. He was small, he was her treasure. She would look around the small one room house that was the home she was getting evicted from.
She would take mental notes of the meticulously preserved photos of a wealthier time in life. Before the earthquake. Before she lost the first of 6 children because of medical complications; after the ground erupted and shattered Haiti. Before her home quite actually fell on top of her. She would pass those around eventually, showing off her sparkling dress and her hair that was done up for a party. As she gazed around the room, she would take note of the people. She would notice the blonde young man, about 5’9, a dark blue tee shirt contrasted his hair. The young women sitting around the ground in skirts with the calm peaceful complexions and their unique-to-them curly hair. She would notice the blonde girl who stood tall and calm. She would notice the brown haired girl in the Harley shirt and the skirt who hung on every word she said. She would see the young man with light brown hair and blue eyes She would notice and lock eyes with the young man in front of her. Blue tee shirt, blue hat with LA on it. She would notice the playful Haitian man in the corner; flawlessly translating every word.
She would take it all in, she would answer the American’s questions. They asked genuine questions, they seemed like they cared. So she would open up. She would open up about the man of the house, the man who came alongside here with her son and her baggage. She would talk about how good he was to her, she would talk about the struggle of raising the boy. She would talk about the wares she used to sell at the market. She would point out the pots and pans that glistened on the shelf. 555 was the logo, the young man in the LA hat would laugh and say she must have been a good cook. His mother and grandmother had cooked many meals of love in those pots. She would share about the medical care that she couldn’t afford. She would look them dead in the eye and say the unthinkable.
She was a Christian because of how good the Lord was. How he had provided for her, how he loved her. She would talk about the challenges of life, and why she believed. Why she knew he was real. And as the Americans cracked their bibles, she would begin to cry. She would lock eyes with the girls, the young man in the LA hat would weep. He would occasionally bow his head and the tears would fall to the ground. For one second, people had come into her life that sought to share her pain. They came to comfort her and encourage her. What she did not know, what she had no way of knowing, was that she was wrecking their hearts. She was showing them what bravery meant. She would shrug her shoulders that were defined from years of hard work and a sore back.
She would sit there. She would listen to the bible in English as she followed along in her own Bible. Her bible that no one could take. It was hers, and the sounds of the thin pages filled the air as they cracked and broke open. They would read scriptures about the Lord’s love. They would detail the Lord’s burden, her strength. They would talk about the plan the Lord had to love her from the start. They would inform her that the Lord had brought them together from thousands of miles away, her home. He would do this just to let her know that He saw her. That He loved her. He would never forget her, and these young men and women were His promise to her.
This woman had a reverence for the Lord that I have not seen many times in my life. When we said it would be time to pray for her and with her, she would get up and go to the corner of the house. We would turn out heads in respect as she changed. She would put on her nice black dress, and her black head piece. Her Sunday’s best. She came into the Lord’s presence having nothing. She was in pain, in debt, in distress. And she would come before the Lord giving her all. She would come before this God with everything she had. She came before the Lord brave and broken.
Brave and broken.
