On the Mountain Top

I can’t do this.  I can’t do this.  I can’t do this.  No, wait.  That is the completely wrong thing to think.  I’m supposed to think, I think I can, I think I can.  No, that doesn’t help.  If I tell myself I can’t do this, it makes me push harder to prove myself wrong.

These were the thoughts going through my head as 6 of us climbed up to the top of Mount Michel in Haiti.  We were 4 American girls, 1 American guy, my husband, Kevin, and the Haitian that had asked us to come.  Why were we climbing up a rocky, steep mountain the day before Thanksgiving?  My question exactly!  Let’s go back a few months.

During the spring I had been praying that God would show me who he truly wanted me to help.  I felt led to help someone, but I wasn’t sure who.  In answer to those prayers, a draw to go up Mount Michel started in my heart.  My response to the Lord was that I didn’t know anyone up there.  I couldn’t just go up there by myself.  I hid these thoughts in my heart, desiring to go up the mountain, and yet not knowing how to go about it.  I didn’t tell anyone.

A few weeks later, I hear, bang, bang, bang, on my gate.  Not an unusual sound, and one I am glad not to hear when we are in the US.  I answer, and a young man with a great big smile tells me that he comes from Mount Michel and he wants to know if I have any backpacks to give the kids he has in an orphanage up there.  I tell him, “No, I don’t. Sorry.”  I don’t know why, but at the time, I didn’t even connect God’s call to go up Mount Michel.  I didn’t know this guy, why should I? 

He came back, a few days later, with pictures of the kids to show me.  I look at the pictures and thank him.  I tell him again that I don’t have anything to give him, but that I could share the Gospel with them.  He is happy about that, and asks when I can come.  I tell him that I don’t know, maybe in August when we get back from the states.  He comes back the next week asking for a date.  I ask some of the Future Hope people if they will go with me.  Some of the young people say that yes, they will go.  We make plans to go up on a Friday.  The Wednesday before we are to go, I come down with a stomach issue.  I am worried about going up, but I still feel like I should go.  Thursday before we are to go, the truck breaks down.  We don’t go. 

The young Haitian asks me what day we can go.  I let him know that I’m not sure, maybe in September.  September doesn’t work, but he keeps coming every week, asking when I can come.  I ask my Haitian friends, but they can’t come because of school, and they start telling me about how hard of a climb it is.  They laugh and say, “No I can’t go.  I have school. Sorry.”  The young man from the mountain keeps coming to my house, and so I think about my three friends from Kansas that are coming the week of Thanksgiving.  They can go with me!  So, I make plans with my new Haitian friend to go up Mount Michel the day before Thanksgiving, 2015.

I kept thinking that I should start doing some kind of exercise to get ready for this, but I kept putting it off, and finally when the day arrived, it was too late.  That morning I went to get a water bottle from our water bottle bag, and I see a roach.  Yuck!  It climbs down in the bag, so I ever so carefully take it outside and dump the bag out, only to see hundreds of thousands of roach eggs in the bottom of the sack!!!  I think I am going to gag!  Needless to say, I can’t use any of our water bottles, so we would have to buy some water on the way.

Bright and early, 5:30 in the morning, we meet with our Haitian friend, Jesper, and drive to the Peligre dam.  We buy some water bottles before we drive across the dam built by the USA in 1953.  I always say a little prayer that the dam won’t fall apart while we are driving over it because it is so old!

 The Peligre dam

We make it across, veer to the right, climb a little hill, and “stop!”  yells our friend.  No, we aren’t going any higher with the truck.  We can just park it here.  Ok.  So much for my thought that maybe we could drive part of the way up!  We park in front of a house and start our climb.  It starts out easy enough, and then we turn to the left and climb up, up, up for SO long.  The rocks are slippery, so I am worried about the climb down, but for now I am just trying to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest.

 At first there are some scrubby trees around us, then we burst out in front of a hill covered in grass.

 It’s difficult to get a good look around because you have to watch where you place each step, but at one point we do stop and look down at Peligre Lake, and it is absolutely breathtaking!  The water to the right of the dam is sparkling with the sunrise and the lush mountains down to the water are covered with green palm trees, banana trees, tropical trees.  Gorgeous!

View of Peligre Lake

An hour later we are still going up.  At one point we start to go down.  As we head down to the bottom of a valley, the trees are towering over us and a little stream flows through the valley floor.  We see some women washing their clothes at the water source.  The air here is damp, as well as the dirt.  It is a great place to take a short breather.

We start walking again, going up, up, up, and around the edges of small hills on the mountain.  We come across a huge catholic church and school.  We are amazed to see the new building,  built with cement.  How in the world did they get cement up here?  Jesper tells us that they paid men $3US to carry up a sack of cement.  Wow!  That is a lot of work for $3!  But, they were able to do it, and they now have a beautiful new school building!

We start asking where we are going, when will we arrive?  Jesper points up and over.  I say, “Oh, no.  That is too far. I can’t go that far.”  But, I am ignored, and we keep walking.  We see a big building up ahead, and we think that is where we are going.  When we arrive, Jesper tells us to rest for a while because he is going to talk to the teachers. Some of the kids we have come to talk to go to this school.  This school will become very important in our lives, but at this point, we don’t know that.   After a short break, we start climbing down, then up through some corn and millet fields.  At one point we veer off the main path and are literally walking on some of the corn plants. 

As we watch our steps, the corn plants part, and we see some benches, and then a house.  We have arrived!  We sit and catch our breath for a while.  We see some children, some parents, some older people.  Jesper has brought some bags of crackers and hands them out along with a lollipop to the kids. 

After we catch our breath, we take some chairs over to where the benches are.  People are sitting on every bench available.  Some are standing behind and at the end of the benches, some are sitting on rocks off to one side.  I hit play on my CD player and hold the GOOD NEWS book up for everyone to see the pictures as they listen to the message of Jesus in Creole.  They watch every page carefully, looking over each image. I reach over to turn the radio off, and then I share the gospel message with them in Creole using a tract that folds up into a square and unfolds into a cross.  They read the Bible passages along with me, and even read one by themselves because I can’t get my tongue to say it right!  Katie then shares the gospel message with them from her heart.

Sharing the Gospel on the mountain

During this time a whole bunch of kids that had been at the school arrive.  They sing a beautiful welcome song to us.  I then teach them how to sing a couple of songs that I had learned from some team members that had come down during that year to do Kid’s Club, Jesus’ Love is Bubbling Over, and I Love You Jesus, Deep, Deep in my Heart.  They both have hand motions, and they enjoy doing the hand motions.  We pray for the kids, and then they all go bounding back down to school.

Jesper tells us to wait a while because they want to give us coconut to drink.  Yum!  I love fresh coconut right off the tree.  We sit and talk with some of the people.  Katie, who has twins, is given a couple of baby twins to hold. Kevin goes to find some trees to chop off to make walking sticks for some of us.  He makes 3.  After about 10 minutes, someone shows up with the coconuts.  They chop off the top with a machete and hand one to each of us to drink.  Absolutely refreshing!

It is time to go, so we tell everyone bye and start heading down the mountain.  When we reach the school, some of our team need to use the restroom, so we stop.  I sit down at the edge of some concrete, watching people as they come down the path.  A couple of school boys come down the path.  I tell them good afternoon, and they turn and smile and tell me good afternoon.  Then I see a girl coming down the path, dressed in a large woman’s shirt and underwear.  She looks so sad.  I tell her good afternoon.  She glances at me very quickly and then darts her eyes down to the ground.  As she looks down, I look down at her legs.  I am aghast!  She is the skinniest person I have ever seen in my life.  I think my eyes pop out of my head.  About that time, Ann and Katie come out of the restroom.  I tell them to look at how skinny that girl is. 

The girl had gone over by a house and was sitting Haitian style, squatted down so that her body was resting on her feet.  A woman walks by and tells a Haitian lady at the house that I was talking about her.  I glance over there, and start realizing that maybe that person was responsible for this tremendously skinny girl.  I walk over, and a healthy sized lady is frying up marinad, a type of fried dough, to sell.  It takes a few minutes to register, but I start realizing that this girl is literally starving to death and this woman is selling food.  I ask her why she can’t give this girl some of the food, and she replies that she has her own kids she needs to feed.  I am floored.  How can a person know that someone is literally starving to death and not give them food?  I ask where she lives.  They tell me that she sleeps wherever she can find a place to sleep, sometimes with one family, sometimes with another.  They tell me that her mom and dad have both died, and that she doesn’t have anyone to take care of her.  Her name is Natalie.

 Natalie, Nov. 26, 2015

What do you do with that?  Do you just pray for her, think “how awful”, and continue your hike down the mountain?  As a follower of Christ, is that even something you can think about?  What do I do?  Obviously there is no one on the top of this mountain that is going to take care of her.  As Katie and Ann give her some of our protein bars and water, I pray in my heart.  What does God want with this?  What can I do?  I know I can’t take her to our house.  It just wouldn’t work.  A thought forms in my head.  I remember hearing about the hospital having a feeding program for kids that are malnourished.  I think that they will take her in for a few weeks to give her nutrition, and that will give us time to figure out what we can do. 

Okay, a plan is in place, but how do we get her down the mountain?  She is not strong enough to climb down it, and I know we are not able to bring her down.  I’ll be doing good to make it down alive!  We ask one man if he can bring her down the mountain the next morning, and he says that he will do it for some money.  I tell him that I don’t have any money to give.  Jesper thinks that possibly another man will do it.  He calls someone over.  We ask him if he can take her down, but he says that he can’t because he is busy tomorrow.  Jesper calls another person.  He comes over and Jesper explains that I want to take Natalie to the hospital.  He agrees!  He says that he will meet us where our truck is parked at the Peligre dam the next morning at 7:00.  I am reminded of the parable of the good Samaritan.

Wow!  What did I just do?  What is going to happen?  My stomach is in knots and I pray all the way down the mountain.  We make it down the mountain, with each of us slipping, and one of us close to falling over the side.  But, we make it!

That afternoon I tell Bitho about Natalie.  I ask him if he can go to the hospital with me.  He agrees.  The next morning at 6:30 sharp he is at my house ready to go.  We jump in the truck and head toward the dam.   We arrive and park at a little before 7:00 and wait.  I am praying, wondering if they really will come down with her.  About 7:15, we see her!  She is here!  She is so worn out, so fatigued that we have to lift her up into the truck.  Jesper and the man that carried her down the mountain hop in the truck to go to the hospital with us.

We arrive at the hospital and take her into the room to register her.  No one is there.  Someone tells us that we have to go across the parking lot to the emergency room.  We take her in there and wait.  Bitho finally talks to a man, and he tells us that we have to go back to the room to register her.  So, we go back to the original room to find it full of people.  We wait in line.  Bitho pushes his way up to register her for the emergency room. 

After she is registered, we go back across the parking lot to the emergency room.  We see a hard, wooden bench across the room and take a seat.  In the bed next to us is a little boy with tubes hooked up to him.  About 6 doctors come in and surround him.  An older man is taking vitals, talking to all of the doctors.  I guess that they are learning.  As we wait, a little boy comes in with a finger mauled at one end.  A very well dressed man is with him.  A nurse comes over to find out what is wrong with him and discovers that he had put his finger in the chain of a motorcycle.  The nurse tries to take his finger nail off and he bolts out the door.  I try to talk to him, but he won’t listen.  The well dressed man takes the little boy back to school.  A lady comes in with extreme pain.  As she explains her pain, however, it changes from her stomach, to her chest, to all over her body.  Finally, the nurse asks us what is wrong with Natalie.  I tell her that she is starving to death.  I ask if she thinks Natalie can go into a nutrition program here at the hospital, and she says that she thinks they will admit her.  Whew!  I relax a little, thinking that my plan is going to work!

The nurse tells us to go to another area, and thankfully Bitho knows where to go.  We walk up a hill, and then down about 100 stair steps.  My legs are sore after the three hour hike up and then three hour hike down the mountain yesterday!  They hurt with each step, but I can’t imagine how Natalie would have enough energy to walk.  I pick her up and start carrying her.  I only walk a few steps before Jesper takes her and carries her.  After we walk down the steps, Bitho knows which building we need to go into.  He finally finds the right person to give her paperwork and then we sit on another hard, wooden bench to wait.  Finally they call us over to the feeding program area.  As we stand to walk through the room full of people, the Haitians gasp when they see Natalie.  I want to protect her, to not allow everyone to stare at her and gasp when they see how skinny she is.  Then, my heart breaks to realize that these people that have seen starving people often, know how bad off she is. 

We walk around the corner to the feeding program area, and the nurse asks how old she is.  We tell her 17, but we really don’t know how old she is.  The nurse says that this program is only for children and she is too old.  I am shocked!  Can’t they see that she needs help!?  All of the young kids I see in this room look chunky.  They don’t appear to me to need the peanut butter, but Natalie does!  One of the other nurses tells us to go ahead and take her measurements.  It takes us a while to get her shoes off because her knees won’t bend very well, but we finally get them off.  She stands on the scale, and I think my heart is going to break again!  They drop the largest weight to the smallest available, and then keep dropping the other weight to the smallest until it stops on 23.8!  I think that is 23.8 pounds, and I start crying.  I text Katie to let her know the weight.  She is as shocked as I am!  We later found out that was kilograms, so she weighed about 50 pounds and is about 5 feet tall. 

They tell us to go back into the waiting room, and as we go I again hear the gasps and the whispering about how skinny this young girl is.  We go out the door, across a breeze way, and into another building to have her blood, urine, and stool tested.  We sit on a hard, wooden bench as we wait for the results.

A man calls her name for us to go over and wait on some chairs for the doctor.  As we wait, I can tell that everyone is staring at me and at Natalie.  I am somewhat used to being stared at in Haiti, because I do stand out, but I want to protect Natalie from it.  I want to tell her that we are being stared at together, but when I look at her, I don’t think she even notices.  A man comes out the door, and another man tells us that Natalie is next.  We walk into the examination room, and the doctor tells Natalie to sit in the chair.  The doctor asks us what was wrong with Natalie.  I tell her to just look at her.  She is starving to death and that she needs nutrition.  She tells us that the blood, urine, and stool test shows that she doesn’t have anything wrong with her that requires hospitalization, she just needs food.  Ugh!  I try to keep my frustration in and listen to this doctor with respect, but this is NOT what I want to hear.  The doctor gives her prescriptions for antibiotics and vitamins, but other than that there is nothing they can do.  They don’t have room for someone in their hospital that just needs food!

WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NOW?  My wonderful plan of having a few weeks to figure out what to do is not happening!  What am I going to do?  I pray, asking God for wisdom.  I know that she won’t have the strength to go back up the mountain and that to send her back would be just like sending her to her death.  We get into the truck, and I make the decision that I am going to have to take her back to my house for now.  I drop the man who had brought her down the mountain back at the Peligre dam and Jesper off in Ledier.  I pull into our driveway, not knowing what I am going to do.

Papi is at our house talking to Katie when we arrive.  I bring Natalie out and set her in our anti-gravity chair.  It scares her when I lay the chair back, so I just leave her sitting up.  Her feet and hands are so very dirty.  I go into the house to get a big bowl and some soap.  I wash her feet, and can’t help thinking about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples.  The Lord gives me love for her in that moment.  I use some wipes to wash her hands and give her a peanut butter sandwich and juice.  She takes a few bites, but we made the mistake of putting her vitamin in the peanut butter, and she doesn’t like the taste.  She wants to get in the back of the truck, so I help her into the back.  She is content to sit in the back of the truck.  She hides away everything we give her.

Yolanda, a little 4 year old that is at our house every day, is a little scared of her.  I explain to her that Natalie doesn’t have a mommy or a daddy to take care of her so we need to show her love and take care of her.  From that moment on Yolanda tries to play with Natalie.  She goes to get her Barney DVD and they sit in the back of the truck and watch Barney together on the portable DVD player.

I am glad that Natalie is feeling more comfortable, but I still have the issue of where she is going to sleep.  I talk with Papi and explain the circumstances.  He has a heart to help her, too.  He goes to talk to a widow down the street, and she agrees that we can rent the back room of her house for Natalie, but we would need to find someone to take care of her during the day.  My heart soars with praise to the Lord for providing a place for Natalie to live!

Now, we have rented the room for Natalie for the next year.  We pay a lady each month to come cook her food, clean her clothes, and keep her company.  We give money to my friend Linda to buy her food each week.  We have gotten her a bed, sheets, blanket, clothes, and all the necessary cooking items.  For now, the Lord is watching over Natalie and she is gaining weight.  A friend of mine, Julie, has started Natalie in her feeding program which consists of a package of Plumpy Nut peanut butter each day.  She has gained 6 pounds the first three weeks.

Please pray for Natalie, that the Lord would heal her completely.  She is mentally like a two year old.  Our prayer is that with nutrition she will regain complete mental capacity.  Please pray for us, that the Lord would give us wisdom in what we need to do.  The story we are hearing now is that her dad was poisoned for his land.  We may never know the truth of what this sweet girl has been through, but our Prayer is that we will be able to show her the love of Christ for the rest of her life!

Natalie, December 23, 2015