Saddened heart

A writes:
Friday the 4^th of January.

Black Friday or Bleak Friday, It was the hardest and worst Friday so far in Haiti.

The day began quite normal, we have a team from Virginia here at the moment and 6 of them were coming to the garage to help load the drilling-rig with steel pipes. We left the orphanage with the team standing in the back of the truck, they love doing this as it is acceptable here, not so at home. We arrived at the garage and loaded the pipes; I gave them a tour around the garage and grounds, after two hours we decided to return to the orphanage as the work at the garage was completed.

We returned by a different route, at one particular corner I noticed something lying on the ground. I stopped the truck to see a child lying in the dirt. I got out too have a closer look, a child of about 1 year was lying face down in the dirt. A man walked passed, I asked him if he knew what had happened to the child. He answered “a dog got it” I thought this was a strange answer. By this time the girls in the team were starting to get upset, we drove back to the orphanage and asked the pastor to come back with us. When we arrived at the body the pastor said “Oh dear”, we went directly to the closet police road check point to advise them of a body lying in the street, and they said they would go and investigate. Upon return to the orphanage one of the girls said to me “I am a nurse, we have to go and bury the child”.  I assured her that although she wasn’t satisfied with the outcome that we couldn’t just go and bury it. To reassure her, I told her we would go past on our way home, even though it was out of our way.

After work we returned to the place, just to see if anything had been done, we were a little skeptical. As we arrived, there was a police vehicle there, they had placed stones around the body and covered it with a white sheet. Sometimes living in another country and culture, it is difficult not to want things done the way we are used to. We had to take the right channels of authority and allow their system to work.

That evening I could still see the poor little child lying in the dirt with one arm folded underneath them. Jutta and I said a prayer for the family of the child; we decided not to pray for the child, as we knew she was already playing with Jesus and had no more worries. The world is a hard place, and for a child even harder.