Micha grabbed her younger sister’s hand and spoke softly into her ear. “It’s okay, Jessica. You are safe.” Then she looked over at me and rubbed my arm, as if to say, Go on.
I couldn’t. I looked at Micha, told her I’d be right back, then ran to the bathroom nearly blinded by tears. Before the door shut, I was on the floor sobbing. I thanked God out loud for allowing me to witness one of the most amazing moments in my entire life. Reunification. Love. Redemption. Jesus.
I knew I only had a few minutes to pull myself back together. I murmured a quick prayer of praise to the One who performs miracles. Then I dried my eyes, splashed water on my face, and went back to the porch.
There was a knock on the metal gate as the judge Bernard had called walked in. Within forty-five minutes, four-year-old Jessica’s paperwork was finished and their father slipped out the door without saying good-bye. Maybe it was better that way.
I was excited and exhausted and talking to Bernard when I stopped midsentence, stricken. “Where is Jessica?” I didn’t see her. My immediate thought was, Great. I’m a mom of two for less than an hour and I’ve already lost one. I looked out in the front yard, calling her name. Maybe she was hiding. I walked into the house.
“Jessica? Jessica?” I called, louder and slightly more panicked.
At the back of the house, a friend named Mr. George was standing on the porch. He had tears in his eyes. “She’s right here,” he called out, pointing down.
I walked closer, afraid of what I would see. There she was on the tiled back porch, a tiny little girl bent down, shoulders hunched, with a mop clutched in both hands. She was attempting to mop the porch.
I stepped out to the porch and looked down at her beautiful brown eyes, glazed over in fear. Does she think I’ve brought her here to work for me?
Slowly I pulled the mop out of her tiny hand. I couldn’t believe that she even knew how to mop. I bent down, looked her straight in the eyes, and said, “Jessica. You don’t have to do that here.”
She backed away from me slowly, confused. A movement caught my eye; it was Micha peeking around the corner of the house. I waved her over and she came, tears welling up in her own eyes. I could see Micha’s own painful memories on her face as she looked at Jessica and the mop. Micha walked slowly toward her sister, holding out her hand. Jessica looked up at me again, terrified, but this time I smiled back the tears and watched as she grabbed Micha’s hand. They walked into the backyard together, holding hands, to play.
I crumbled to the floor of the back porch and rested my forehead on my hands. My heart felt as though it would implode with the cruelty of their situation. I throbbed with pain as I struggled to understand the confusion these two girls must be experiencing, about their worth, their identity, their rights as children, and now their freedom from being raised believing their only job is to serve others.
My mind flashed back to the feeding program at Bellevue Mountain. A group of restaveks had been trying to use a stick to scratch out their names in the dirt and laughing when they couldn’t remember the right letters. My heart burned with a passion for them to learn not only how to spell their own names but also to attend school and feel as though they belonged there.
To build the new school on Bellevue Mountain for Micha, Jessica, and the other children, we were going to need more funding. As Jessica settled into our family, I began to pray and prepare for my second fund-raising trip back to the United States. My Haitian friend Tachi, almost like a sister to me, would be watching the girls.
I hated to leave since it was only a few weeks after Jessica’s arrival, but I knew I had to do this for them. I had seen enough with my own eyes to know the need for education. I had enough stories of freedom through education that I was convinced it was the next step, and I had no doubt that God would provide for our school. What we needed was another miracle.
FIFTEEN
Be Bold
Never give up. And never, under any circumstances, face the facts.
—Ruth Gordon
One week later on a Sunday afternoon, the cute guy who’d performed the skit in Gressier, Josh Anderson, was driving me to the Denver, Colorado, airport. He had become a friend, and had helped put together a fund-raiser for Respire Haiti in Fort Collins. We had left the church and were headed to the airport, but I was struggling, not knowing how much longer I could hold the tears back. I swallowed repeatedly, feeling as though a ton of tiny rocks were grating in my throat. As he drove, I could feel Josh’s anxiety and knew he wanted to start a conversation. However, I was glad he kept quiet because I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to open my mouth and say anything without breaking down into full-blown sobbing.
I wasn’t crying because of Josh but because the fund-raiser had been less than successful.
My heart ached as I remembered how confident I’d felt in my prayers the week before. I just knew God would provide. But doubts had started creeping in, even before I left for my trip to the States. I’d started hearing whispers of criticism from other Americans serving in different cities in Haiti.
“Naïve girl.”
“She will never make it in Haiti.”
“This girl has no idea what she’s getting herself into.”
The comments echoed yet again in my mind as I rode in the car, and the tears won and started to trickle down my warm cheeks. Josh cleared his throat, breaking the silence and hesitantly asking, “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry for being such a sensitive baby,” I said in a hoarse voice. “I just thought this was going to look a little different.”
“You don’t need to apologize for crying,” he said in a gentle voice.
I took a few more deep breaths before trying again. “I just felt so confident that the Lord was going to provide.” Then I repeated the same story he’d already heard the night before, about how we had already started building the foundation for our six-classroom building at the school, and if I didn’t return with more money, construction would stop. The tears were flowing fast now, down onto my shirt. I stared out the window, growing less embarrassed and more angry. I wanted to shake my fist at the heavens but refrained, not wanting Josh to think I was any crazier than he probably already thought.
Josh spoke up and began to softly remind me that God always provides for His plan, and it’s always in His time and in His way. But it didn’t help. Feeling more agitated than comforted by Josh’s words, I turned and shot him a glare that I regretted as soon as I turned my head forward again.
The conversation lapsed back into awkward silence. I replayed the previous night in my head. My sweet friends Rita and Brenda, Colorado women whom I had met in Haiti, had planned a wonderful evening for me. They had organized a home gathering with a group of people who wanted to hear about what God was doing in Gressier. I had felt relaxed and confident in the words the Lord gave me to share about Respire Haiti. Why didn’t anything happen, then?
As I continued to battle with the Lord in my head, Josh’s cell phone rang. Barely listening, all I heard was his brusque reply: “I’m sorry, but we’re on the way to the airport. Her flight is at six o’clock tonight.” He listened for a moment, then ended the call with, “Yeah, maybe next time,” while his eyes stayed glued to the road.
I looked over at him, not that interested in the call. But he told me anyway, his eyes a little sad. “That was Mrs. Nancy Richardson, my boss’s wife. She heard you speak last night and wanted us to have dinner with her and her husband, Curt, tonight.”
Exhausted, I let the tears of anger, fear, and frustration pour out. I could faintly hear Josh apologizing and trying to comfort me, but the negative thoughts grew so strong I wanted to bang my head against the window and scream, What am I doing? There are so many people depending on me in Gressier, yet I am going to disappoint them all. This thought kept repeating, revolving around inside my head like the repetitive chorus of a song you can’t seem to get rid of.
The car was silent again as I finally reached the end of my p
ity party and began to pray. I stopped thinking about myself and thought about Bellevue Mountain and the precious children there who needed a school, a safe and loving place to learn and to grow. I shuddered at how awful it would be to have to tell the forty construction workers that we could no longer continue building. I imagined how embarrassing it would be to tell Kyle, our builder who had just relocated from California to Haiti with a commitment to build our first six-classroom school building, that we did not have funding for his projects.
As the sorrow overwhelmed me, I took a deep breath, praying again. I thought about the freedom that Bellevue Mountain offered and the atmosphere of joy and peace. I closed my eyes, envisioning the school finished and full of children. I tried to release my feelings of guilt and shame at the failure of the fund-raiser, reminding myself that I was not solely responsible for supporting the construction workers, teachers, and students on Bellevue Mountain. What a selfish thought that was. I almost laughed at myself. Essentially I was thinking I was bigger than God. After all, He is the One who chose the workers, not me. He is the One who will provide for them, not me.
A peace came over me. I took another deep breath and released the anxiety and frustration. Then I looked over at Josh. “Thank you for all of your help and support, Josh.”
“Hey, it’s okay and . . .” He broke off when my phone rang.
I looked down at an unfamiliar number on the screen. “Uh, hello?” I said tentatively.
An auto-recorded voice came through. “This is American Airlines. Your six o’clock flight to Dallas/Fort Worth has been canceled. Your flight is rescheduled for tomorrow morning at 7:15 a.m.” Goose bumps.
I dropped the phone and looked outside at the beautiful sky. Then I looked at Josh and practically shouted for him to pull over. My heart was beating so fast I couldn’t organize my thoughts to get words out. Finally I gasped, “My flight is rescheduled for tomorrow morning!”
Josh let out a laugh. “Looks like we can go to dinner,” he said as he immediately picked up the phone and called Mrs. Nancy back.
My mind raced as I began to recognize the illuminating signs of God’s plan that was unfolding in front of our very eyes. Josh made a U-turn. I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled into the backseat to dig through my suitcase, hoping to find something semi-appropriate to wear for dinner. We stopped at a gas station so that I could change my clothes and then hurried off to meet Curt and Nancy Richardson for dinner.
As we pulled up to the restaurant, and before we stepped out of the car, Josh and I prayed. I tried to relax and not get my expectations up. I had already been let down and didn’t want that to happen again.
“Even if it’s just a few thousand dollars, we can continue working,” I said to Josh as we walked inside.
“Let’s see what God does,” he said with a smile.
Curt and Nancy greeted us as we arrived at the table. I knew a little about them since Josh worked for their company, OtterBox, a manufacturer of protective cell phone cases. I felt extremely unprepared for this unanticipated meeting, but it didn’t matter; they both stood up, hugged us, and made me feel very comfortable as they invited us to sit.
Mr. Curt began by asking Josh how his work was going. After a little small talk, he looked straight at me and exclaimed, “My wife was really encouraged last night by your story. She insisted I meet you.”
I laughed nervously as the anxiety continued to rise up in the back of my throat.
Then he asked me questions about what God was doing in Gressier. I relaxed a bit and told him about our school, Micha, Jessica, and the restaveks. My words flowed and our conversation was lively, filled with lots of back-and-forth questions and responses. Then there was a pause.
Mr. Curt looked at me, his eyes intense, and asked a question I will never forget for the rest of my life. “If you could boldly ask for any amount of money for these children, how much would you ask for?”
My mind raced, and I began rambling something about the kids needing uniforms, books, and breakfasts.
“Boldly,” he politely interrupted me.
A large amount popped into my head, but when I opened my mouth to say it, an amount exactly double the number came out. My eyes shot wide open in surprise when I realized what had happened. I panicked and wanted to reach out and physically grab the words and stuff them back inside. I sat there frozen, afraid that I had overstepped my bounds.
Mr. Curt looked at me and smiled. He reached around and pulled his checkbook out of his back pocket. I couldn’t breathe as I watched him writing. My eyes began to blur as they filled with tears. He snapped the top back on his pen, then ripped out the check and closed the checkbook.
With a gentle, determined expression on his face, he reached out and handed me the check. Looking me straight in the eyes, he said in a calm voice, “I’m writing you a check for half of that, so you can continue to share your story.”
I looked down at the check in my fingers, careful not to let my tears hit the fresh ink. I concentrated on breathing so as not to pass out. My blurry eyes could just barely make out the amount—it was more than enough to finish the school, buy the uniforms, cover the books and breakfasts, and pay the teachers for at least the first few months.
A picture of the kids in the feeding program scratching their names in the dirt rushed into my mind as I cried yet again. I felt God saying, You are not doing this. I am. Let Me do it.
I smiled back at Mr. Curt and Mrs. Nancy, as the words “thank you, thank you, thank you” kept pouring out of my mouth.
They both looked up with tears in their eyes and explained, almost in unison, “God has blessed us to bless others.”
Images of Bellevue Mountain, the school, and the children flashed through my head again. Trust Me, I felt God saying, in those same words He had said to me from the very beginning, This is My plan, not yours. I pulled my Bible out of my purse and opened it, tucking the check in the center.
As I took a deep breath and tried to compose myself, I heard Mr. Curt say something to Josh. “So, I can see there might be something here.” He pointed to Josh and to me.
Josh turned bright red and chuckled nervously.
“She was bold. Now it’s your turn,” he said to Josh.
Josh shyly nodded his head. Then Mr. Curt issued one of the most pivotal challenges in Josh’s life. He said, “I want you to go to Haiti for a month and pursue what God is putting in front of you.” And to make it possible, he offered to pay Josh’s salary for the month so he could figure it out.
Like a deer caught in the headlights, his eyes wide, Josh shifted uncomfortably and nodded slowly, indicating he was willing to give it a shot. Embarrassed, he looked over at me and shrugged his shoulders, as if to tell me he had no idea that this would happen.
Like me, Josh had started a relationship with the Lord in college. He played basketball, baseball, and football and was dreaming about a master’s degree in sports training. During his last semester, one of his best friends became a Christ follower. Josh noticed the difference in his friend’s life, and before long, he began following Jesus too. Josh had been gradually learning to yield to God’s voice and plan.
As quickly as the night began, it was over. We stood up and said good-bye. My heart was overflowing with the inspiration given to me by this couple I had only just met. I left that night completely encouraged, exhausted yet exhilarated. Josh and I had no idea, however, that we were about to embark on something even more life-changing, and challenging, than either of us could have ever imagined.
SIXTEEN
A Warning from the First Lady
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Gabriel was gone, ripped out of my arms by a Haitian government agency after the orphanage sting operation, but I had not forgotten him. It had been several weeks since the sting, since he
’d been taken—his nails clawing at my hands as I reached out for him. They had locked him away in the back of a white government sedan as I listened to his earsplitting screams. That was also the last day I’d seen the orphanage and Pastor Joe.
The Son of God Orphanage situation still sat in my emotional in-box, marked “unresolved” in bright red ink. I had no idea of Gabriel’s whereabouts or even his safety. The only thing keeping me going was Christ, my hope. I read the verses in the Bible that mention the angel Gabriel. My favorite was Luke 1:19: “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.” I read that verse over and over. I was waiting, on Gabriel and the good news. Where was he? Micha missed him and asked about him often, and now Jessica had heard us talk about him so much she swore she knew him too. We prayed he was safe, healthy, loved, and secure. I knew—I believed—I would see him again. I continued to search for him and wanted him to know that I would never give up.
As bad as that was, what made me feel worse was the knowledge that even though Pastor Joe had been arrested months before, the orphanage had stayed open, stocked with dozens of other vulnerable children. Some of the older children, who knew where I lived, began running away to Gressier to tell me their horror stories about how they had not eaten for days. I could see by their emaciated bodies that they were telling the awful truth.
My heart grew increasingly heavy. My mind continued to flood with the thought that I could not give up on these children or on closing this corrupt and abusive orphanage.
My support team and I had been writing letters, staging meetings, and doing everything we could to spur the Haitian government to take action, but nothing seemed to budge. Finally some supporters in the United States had heard enough and decided to spring into action. Someone started an online petition at Change.org, and bloggers got on the bandwagon to spread the news and galvanize people to action:
Miracle on Voodoo Mountain Page 11
