TIH – A Guest Post

When you live in Haiti or talk to people who do, you’ll often hear someone say, “T.I.H.”

“This is Haiti”

There are so many things in this country that defy explanation or reason.
Like, why would you call yourself a gas station (or an electric company) if you only rarely have gas (or provide electricity)?
Why would people clear the pile of rubble off of the sidewalk … only to put it all in the street and reduce traffic to one lane … on a blind curve?
If the hardware store closes at 4:00 on weekdays and sometime before noon on Saturday … when are people with jobs ever supposed to go buy anything?
When you face those situations, all you can say is, “This is Haiti.”

Sometimes  people use “This is Haiti” as their explanation of why you should get used to various inconveniences … like having rats in your house but not having hot water.

You just have to get used to it.

I guess …

But there are things about Haiti that I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to.

One of those things is how many babies there are in this country that need homes.

We have several friends who run different orphanages.  According them, it is a regular occurrence for people to walk up and hand them a baby and then leave.  Sometimes it’s a mom who can’t care for her baby.  Sometimes these babies are true orphans with no parent to care for them.

The fact that these orphanages must either accept or reject multiple babies a week blows my mind.

How do you turn away an infant when you know that doing so may be dooming that child to death … or at best, a life of pain and poverty?
I know you can’t take every one.  There’s just no way.

But how do you say, “no”?

Meet Isabella Faith …

… at least that’s her name for right now.

This 4 week old baby was dropped off to some friends of ours with an orphanage in Tabarre.

She is a true orphan.

No mother.

No father.

So needy.

So tiny.

…

This is Haiti.