An Introduction to God’s Littlest Angels

How different my life is now!

– Instead of sweating all day, I freeze.
– Instead of cooking and baking, I feed babies.
– Instead of washing dishes, I change diapers.
– Instead of washing and folding laundry, I organize medical supplies.
– Instead of hosting teams, I hold babies and research developmental milestones.
– Instead of suturing, I retrieve beads from noses.

Thankfully, not everything has changed….. I still get to practice Creole, I’m still surrounded by gorgeous mountains, and I still get to eat Haitian food!

Let me start by explaining just briefly about God’s Littlest Angels, the organization for which I’m working. We have 3 locations – the toddler house in Fort Jacques (houses 41 children, approximately 2.5 – 13 years old), the main house in Thomassin 32 (houses 31 children ages newborn – 2.5yrs), and the guest house (about a mile away from the main house.) Today I’m just going to talk about the main house, where I live. I have my own room and half bathroom, and share a shower with several other Americans living here. The other Americans also living on this compound are the directors, John and Dixie Bickel (they started the organization over 20 years ago), their son Steeve, his fiance’ Chelsie (who is in charge of the sponsorship program,) and Miss Vickie (who is the personal caregiver for one of our children.)

We have the NICU/Intensif where the babies live, the nursery/Urgence A where the crawlers live, and the toddler room, where the walkers live. We have approximately 80 Haitian staff, including nannies, nurses, cooks, an accountant, cleaners, drivers, people who do the market shopping, etc. During the day, we have several other Americans who come to work from our other locations.
My official title is NICU nurse…..I’m still trying to figure out exactly what that means. 🙂 When we don’t have critical babies (like now), I fill in wherever I’m needed. Right now, I’m trying to get to know all of the kids, nannies, and nurses, and learn their names. Just a few of my responsibilities these past 3 weeks, in addition to that, included:

– Learning how to give TB tests and working with 2 of our Haitian nurses to give approximately 25 to our babies. They all came back negative, by the way! Praise God!
– Retrieving a bead that was stuck in a nose
– Researching the best way to de-worm babies
– Researching developmental milestones and making notes on what each of our babies should be working on, so our volunteers can help out
– And lots of changing diapers, changing clothes, feeding, holding, rocking, comforting, playing, clipping fingernails, and taking walks.

I’ve been here 3 weeks, now, and I’ve had quite an adjustment. But finally, God’s peace has taken over once again. I’m feeling hopeful and looking forward to the future. I’m starting to get excited when I think about coming back to my babies after my brother’s wedding. I feel like just maybe, I’ll be able to call somewhere “home” again. I still really miss my friends in LaDigue, and I miss going to the market and knowing what to expect each day, but God is good!
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. Exodus 14:14

This was one of the verses in church a couple of weeks ago, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. It spoke into the chaos that consumed my life, just 3.5 days after moving. How beautiful! God reminded me that I’m here for Him. This is His plan, His mission, and His job. I’m simply the vessel; His hands and feet. Thank goodness.

As I learn more about this mission and my job, I’ll continue to update you. Thank you for following my journey, Friends!
P.S. I just found out I can receive mail here!!!!! It does cost $1.50 a pound, after your shipping costs, so just keep that in mind if you choose to send something. 🙂 It can be sent to

Emily Smith
3170 Airmans Drive
Unit 2081-GLA
Fort Pierce, FL 34946

It can be addressed the same way if it’s shipped directly from a company. (Amazon, Target, Walmart, etc.) 

Beautiful Contrasts

This trip was different from all of my other trips. I was able to visit 5 different orphanages and glean information and see the pros and cons of each. It was full of meeting new people and seeing new things. It was a time to connect with people who have lived in Haiti and to learn from their stories and experiences. It was, like my other trips, full of beauty, sadness, and everything in between. It was full of lots of emotions. Below is a recap of the first half of my trip.

 Lonnie Murphy was the leader of our trip. She lived in Haiti for over 20 years and raised over 50 orphans! It was so fun to watch her return to Haiti and see all of her friends. Every few minutes, regardless of whether we were 2 minutes or 90 minutes away from her former home, she’d jump out of the car and run, with arms wide open, to embrace yet another person she knew. The love she has for these people is amazing. I’m beyond blessed to have been able to meet her and spend a few days with her.
Lonnie’s sister, Debbie, joined us on this trip, as well as Debbie’s 2 oldest boys – Ben (far right) and Jake (far left). Debbie had visited Haiti before, but this was Ben and Jake’s first time. It was so fun watching Ben and Jake’s worlds get a little bigger! They faced many fears and embraced the uncertainty very well. It was also fun to watch Debbie experience Haiti all over again through her boys.   KerriBeth has been to Haiti with Lonnie several times, and she seemed to jump back in right where she left off. She was well-known and embraced by many people.

Kelsey (far left) is getting ready to finish up nursing school and this was her third trip to Haiti. After our week together, she was moving on to another facility to spend the rest of the summer as an intern in Haiti! Meggie (middle) is just starting nursing school and she, also, is moving on to spend the rest of the summer with several different organizations in Haiti! I am blessed to have been able to get to know these sweet girls.

    

 

These beautiful people live at Wings of Hope, which is a home for the profoundly physically, mentally, and/or cognitively handicapped. We arrived just in time to help with lunch! Having worked with many children with disabilities in the past, it was difficult for me to feed one of the girls who was laying twisted in her wheelchair due to how her body grew. In the States, she would have had a chair that helped her sit up straight. Instead, this is probably how she sits all the time. I had to remind myself how blessed these children are, and that this really was a happy place!

In Haiti, Voodoo is quite common and children with birth defects are often considered cursed. If not for Wings of Hope, these people probably would have died very soon after birth, having been abandoned by their families. Instead, they are fed and cared for! You can see the joy on their faces! It was also amazing to see the higher functioning children helping feed and give drinks to the children who were unable to do so for themselves.

  

We got to visit the Baptist Mission, which was founded in the 1940’s. It has founded many churches and schools and it has a shop that sells homemade items, made by men and women in Haiti, as a way to provide for themselves and their families. In addition, they have a hospital (so much fun to visit – we are SO blessed by the advancement of medicine here in the States), a park, and a small zoo. It was a fun stop to debrief from the emotions at Wings of Hope.

 

                     

I was so excited to get to visit God’s Littlest Angels! I’d heard so much about them! They are both an orphanage that facilitates adoptions, as well as a hospital of sorts, for sick and malnourished children. At the hospital, they arrange for surgeries, nurse kids back to health, and provide nutritious food, until the kids are healthy enough to return to their families. At the orphanage, they have small homes that house up to 12 children, as well as a house mother, until the childrens’ adoptions are finalized and they’re ready to join their forever families. It is a gorgeous place!

This ends the first two days of my trip…..stay tuned to read about the rest in the coming days! More stories to come. 🙂 Thank you all, so much, for your prayers and support during my trip, as well as continued prayers for wisdom regarding my future in Haiti. I look forward to what God has in store, and being able to share about His work in my life!

Stranded!

On our way to one of the clinics – a long bus ride – our bus started having trouble. It wouldn’t shift out of the lower gears. Our interpreters stopped and worked on it for a few minutes, and we started again. But it still wouldn’t shift. Then…….the bus died. As they worked on the bus again, Carolyn and Vickie needed to use the restroom (a row of bushes), so they climbed down into the ditch and back over the wall…..or tried to. 🙂

   

We were 2+ hours away from the compound and who knew how far from the clinic. Yes, they said it wasn’t far, but to people who may hike a mountain twice a day, 10 miles may be considered close.

  

It turns out, the transmission on the bus went out. So we got to do something I’ve always wanted to do – ride tap-taps!!! We had 2 of them to get everyone to the clinic. We got 15 people in the back of ours, plus the driver and 2 of our interpreters up front.

       

We made it to the site and held a successful clinic and ate an amazing Haitian meal provided for us by the women of the church. But since our bus wasn’t fixed yet, they told us we’d be waiting another 2 hours or so. So a couple from our group went out and taught a bunch of the kids and adults how to play “Duck-Duck-Goose!” It was amazing! The rules were a little different than in the States – everyone gathered in the middle and had to escape in order to be able to run, and the 6 or 7 blans (white people) were picked about as much as the 50 Haitians. If you acted like you were going to pick one of the adults, they would run away screaming and laughing so you couldn’t. 🙂

       

Then some of us explored the village. There was a beautiful stream that even had little fish!

     

It was amazing to be a part of this village for an afternoon. God must have known that we needed to be stranded somewhere for a couple of hours, where there wasn’t work to be done.

 

Peter 4:10-11 says, “As each of us have received a gift, he should use it to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.  If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God.  If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ.  To Him be the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.”

I’m so thankful God has given the gift of words to other people, and that my gift is to simply love kids.  I believe He gave me the assignment to go to nursing school so I can be more effective, but the only way I made it through and the only way I can go to work each day is through the strength He provides.  I’m so grateful He has freed me from the pressure of needing to succeed, because I know the only way I can is if He is blessing it.