In Search of Happy Endings

Family and Friends,

Day 182 of our Haiti Adventure!

We continue to think about and pray for Sue and her family, who are mourning the passing of Mom.  We are missing Sue around here, that is for sure.  I know they miss her down in the clinic as well.  We will all look forward to her return with the next mission team on May 24th. 

Santia, the youngest girl in the orphanage, threw a big fit yesterday and decided she wanted to go "home."  She actually has family in the village, but Pam had taken her out of that negative situation over two years ago.  She decided she wanted to go back there so she could have more freedom.  Gertrude tried to talk her out of it, explaining how her life in the orphange is a great opportunity for her.  She wouldn't give up, however, so after checking with Pam, they decided to let her go.  I guess she has done this before and come back.  We'll see how this situation turns out.

The lady I wrote about on April 30th (see post, "Back to Normal Life") came home yesterday.  Patchouko and I and her brothers went to pick her up after the hospital called and told the family they couldn't do anything more for her.  Sure enough, when we got there she looked even worse.  She was down to her last few days for sure.  That whole situation left me with a bad feeling for many reasons.  First of all, her brothers were always doing everything they could to get out of taking care of her and paying for her medicines.  It kind of irks me when someone says "I don't have any money" as they are holding a Blackberry in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  Also, the wing of the hospital where she stayed was absolutely disgusting...piles of garbage, dirty beds and equipment, indifferent staff, etc... 

Finally, and maybe worst of all, I just felt like I myself and the others who work with me just didn't have the emotional energy and the faith to really do anything about the whole situation.  We didn't sit by her bed for hours and pray that she be healed.  We didn't make sure she had everything she needed (except medicines which we paid for).  We didn't help the family rally together to take care of her and grow closer to God through the whole ordeal.  We just kind of stood back and watched her die.

One more situation that needs prayer is the new orphanage construction.  It should have been finished and ready to move into months ago, but the project just lingers on and on.  There is so much work left to do over there, and we haven't seen any workers there for probably a month or more.  Pam is working on the phone to try to get the contractor to finish what he started, but everyone here has stopped being excited about the move, because it just doesn't seem like it will ever happen. 

So we are in search of happy endings right now.  Happy endings are hard to come by in Haiti most of the time.  We are hoping the current president's tenure will come to a happy ending.  In other words, we hope he hands over the control to the new guy without incident!  That would be nice, but everyone is on edge as May 14th approaches.  Also, we hope our first school year in Haiti will come to a positive end.  We are ready for a break and a chance to visit family and friends and ministry supporters, but we also want to end our time here in a positive way and not miss out on what God has for us in these last days.

Life is always complicated, is it not!  What a comfort to know that the biggest ending of all will be a happy one for those of us who are in Christ.

May Your Adventure Today Have a Happy Ending!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers