Noah

 March 3, 2011

I want to introduce you to Noah. The other day as I was busy working on the compound as the work never stops here. A car drove in and 2 Haitian Ladies got out of the car and then came a little boy. They looked official by the way they were dressed.

I will have to admit to you that the first thing I thought was … oh no, we can’t take him. I knew what they were after before I even walked up to them.

I greeted them and with Judy as my interpreter, I watched the little boy hold on to the woman that was with him… his eyes were glazed over, his face was full of fear and sadness. His entire body was covered in scabies and looked like they had been there for a long time. I could see that he was infested with ringworm as it was lumped all over his ears. His belly protruded from underneath his shirt and he was shaking. His feet and legs were swollen with fluid. He was totally malnourished.

The woman, who I found out, was the Head of EBas, which is the Social Service to children in Haiti. She told me that this little guy was abandoned and a Pastor was trying to care for him, but died of a heart attack. They found the little boy curled up in a fetal position. They don’t know how long he was left alone. They have no name, no records, and no birth certificate.

I will say the truth… I felt really terrible for this little boy… I wanted to help him so bad, but in my mind I was thinking…How could we take care of him? What would we do with him; he is full of scabies and worms. We have no room for him as we are already over capacity. Our Children’s Home was only built for 70 kids and one of our buildings came down in the earthquake and we now have over 100 kids. It’s hard enough to raise the support for all the kids we have; not including school tuition. Where would we put him?

I wanted to tell the woman a gentle no…but I didn’t know how… I was wishing my mom was here to tell her, but she had gone into town.

Just then, my mom drove in the gate. I said to myself, thank God… She came right over and new the woman from many years of work here in Haiti. She looked at the young boy and immediately sat down beside him and put her arms around him. She held him real close… scabies and all. I watched and listened to the woman tell my mom the story and my mom said, of course we will take him! She hugged him and still held him close. She looked at me and said “what should we name him?” We thought through some names, but none seem to fit… and then we came up with Noah. Perfect, somehow it just fit him. She called our head nanny to come over to get Noah. I said to her… how are we going to do this, he needs so much help and medical care and he’s full of worms and scabies and everything else… Where will we keep him so he is not around the other kids? How will we provide for him? My mom looked at me and said Sherry, this is what we do, its simple… this is how every child has come here and most were dying and in worse shape when they came.

First they will put him in the clinic away from the other kids. They will give him a bath, change his clothes, put medicine on his skin and then we will get our Doctor here tomorrow to check him out and get all his lab work. It will be fine… she gave Noah a big hug and sent him off with our nurse.

I still was not sure… I mean I wanted to take care of him, but it seemed like so much had to be done…

That evening Danny and I went down to the clinic to see how Noah was doing. He was sitting on a little bed with clean clothes, I could see that he had been bathed and he had a plate of food. I could see he was still very frightened. He had a spoon to eat with, but he would take large handfuls and shove it in his mouth. Anything that dropped, he was quick to pick it up and eat it… he kept looking at us as if we were going to take his food away… he was starving. I gave him a large bottle of pedialite and he drank it right down.

This was his second full plate of food and he wanted more. I could see that what he ate would fill an adult up, but what I could sense was that he didn’t know what it was like to be full.

We gave him worm medicine, he had terrible diarrhea, and we put more scabies medicine on him. When we were all finished, he laid down in his little bed with a pillow… I don’t think he has ever had a bed or a pillow from the way he was acting. I laid down beside him and I saw him smile for just a moment. He buried his head in his pillow. I gave him a small truck to play with and he hid it in his bed.

I knew my mom made the right choice and I'm so glad she did.

I look back now and as I look at the New Life Compound and the healthy kids that live here. I'm so thankful that my mom doesn’t wait on the world to say its ok, or the finances to be in the bank. She does what God asks of her and keeps going. Every building and every child on this compound is a testimony of God’s faithfulness.

I wish I could say that when Noah got out of the car, that I went to him and made him feel safe and that I went with my heart instead of my mind. That I looked to God to provide for his children and not me… but I didn’t.  

I see so many kids that have Noah’s fate. I pray that God will NEVER let me not help because I have taken my eyes off of him and his faithfulness and looked at the circumstances instead.

New Life would not be here today if my mom looked to the world. She told me that after 34 years of watching God do the impossible, she doesn’t look behind her as she already knows that he is faithful. She just looks ahead and keeps going.

Every day I continue to learn here in Haiti. I know God doesn’t expect me to have the faith that my mom has, but he is showing me and teaching me about true faith in him. Have I got it all…No, but am I learning, Yes. Will I do it right the next time? I can’t say. But I'm going to keep on this journey of trying to look at God and what he would do and not at the circumstances.

I use to wear a bracelet with WWJD… didn’t really take it serious then, but now I understand the true meaning of those letters.

I think that’s a really good saying to use in all of life …

What would Jesus do?

God when the circumstances of life face me and I don’t know what to do or how to handle it, let me think of those words…

Dan and sherry Frederick Moesly xxoo

There is nothing impossible for God