Today I started to get a hint of what these young missionaries are seeking. So I will let them “tell you”.
While they scraped away old paint off of cribs, I chatted with a few of them and asked them, why are you here? You will be amazed at their answer. Remember these are 17-year-old teenagers, just months away from their long awaited “freedom” — college:
“I really want to get a deeper and more internal connection with the world around me, seeing God through the love and action that was put forth and with the kids as well.
“I want to help babies and am here to get a new perspective on life. The most beautiful thing was everyone together helping each other out as a community.”
The missionaries realized the extent of the poverty and suffering, naming it “an entirely different world.” One of the missionaries said, “I ask myself, does the rest of the world know this exists? Death here is normal and accepted, almost unnoticed, part of daily life.”
Once again death knocked at the Malnourished Clinic. I was praying in the convent of the Missionaries of Charity while the girls were working on the cribs. When I arrived, one of them ask me, “Paola we just saw a lady carrying a baby wrapped in a white sheet, why?”…Sorry girls, it was a baby that died this morning. “Do you mean one of the babies that we held yesterday?” Most likely…silence… “Paola, when the worker came back she saw our sad faces and she made a gesture like Popeye…we understood: “Be Strong”…
The moms have visiting hours. When they leave, the whole room echoes with screams of “mama!!!” One missionary shared her experience:
“I was holding a baby as one of the moms was trying to put her clinging girl back in a crib. I held out my free arm offering to take her baby. Without meeting my eye, she gave me her little baby and ran out of the room. It was so good to be there and make such a hard moment easier for her.”
Here are some of the words the missionaries used to summarize their day: rejuvenating, connected, remembered, able to love, purposeful…
As you can see the hearts of the missionaries are expanding and taking in all of Haiti; it’s just day 3!
