Home for sick and dying

This blog entry is probably going to be one of the hardest to write. My emotions remain high as I try to hold back my tears. I find comfort in the verse below...

As your name deserves, O God,

you will be praised to the ends of the earth.

Your strong right hand is filled with victory. (Psalm 48:10 NLT)

Through every sickness, His name will be praised. Through every malnourished little body, His name will be praised. Through every voice that cries, His name will be praised!! Through the heaviness of my heart and the tears, I praise the sweet name of my Jesus. I know He is faithful. I know He cares and I know He feels what these people feel. Jesus may your name be praised in all the earth! Your hands are filled with VICTORY!!

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. -John 15:12 NKJV

This morning we visited the home for sick and dying. This is a home where mothers bring their very sick infants when they can't afford to go to the hospital because of the expense and they realize that the sickness of their child is way more than they can handle. This was my second time to go and while I couldn't wait to go love on these sick babies, I was so anxious about the overwhelming sights I was about to see. My experience last year with the baby that died in my hands, still remains vivid in my mind. As I walked through the doors of this home, I knew I was right in the arms of my savior and that through Him I was ready to share his beautiful love with every sick baby and give hope to every broken mom. I know my God is a healer and no sickness is too big for Him. "The Lord nurses them when they are sick and restores them to health." -Psalm 41:3.  I prayed over my hands and asked the Lord to work through them.  We drove up to this home and as we got off the tap-tap, I noticed mothers and their sick children sitting outside the gate. As we entered, I realized it must have been food distribution day for these moms. We passed by a station where they stood in line and waited for their bag of rice and cooking oil. Past the line we entered a room full of moms holding their malnourished, dehydrated, and critically ill infants. The feeling of hopelessness was so strong in the room I had to fight tears. I smiled at every mom I saw and made it a point to touch their shoulder to let them know Jesus loves them. I could see the helplessness in their eyes as they knew this was the last hope for their sick baby. They could not feed their children or care for them and they were trying to ignore the fact that their sweet infant was dying in their arms. They were screaming out for help, but so afraid of the reality before them.  I kept hearing the Lord say, "Walk in boldness my child. These babies need your love. Love on them and pray over them. I am with you. I have invested my power within you." The Lord's peace is so amazing and the minute you just surrender your emotions to Him, He is your greatest comforter. 

In this home the bottom floor is full of very sick and dying babies laying in crib after crib. The cribs line the walls and each baby has a number on their band around their wrist. When you finished holding them you replace them back in the crib that matches their number. This part of it all is so hard for me. I know that this is necessary to keep track of all the babies but it still just breaks my heart. I wanted to tell every sweet baby "your identity is in Christ and you are highly valued and favored!! You are not an accident but chosen!" The second floor of this home has sick toddlers but they are getting stronger everyday by the power of Jesus! I picked up a tiny little girl who was 3 years old and appeared to be not even a year. She was so thin and frail I was almost afraid to pick her up. I reached my hands in to get her, brought her to my chest, and the heat from her body revealed she had a high fever. The nanny's gave me some food and I sat down to feed her. After three bites she puked everything she had just eaten up. She couldn't hold any sort of food down and her body desperately needed the nutrition. I gave her a sip of water and she puked even more. She couldn't even hold down a drop of water. She was weak and frail. I have never seen a baby so malnourished.  

Most of the morning I remained on the bottom floor. Now that I am a Neonatal Intensive Care Nurse, I felt myself being able to think critically and process the sickness of these children. I scanned these children and infection goes through my mind. There is NO sterile technique about caring for these children. I began to observe the IV's and the majority of them were infiltrated and backed up. Very few of the children were on fluids just to help with dehydration when inside my heart I knew there was so much more wrong. In the corner of the room a very sick baby laid in the corner with her mother sitting right beside her holding her sweet hand. She was about one year old and weight 4 pounds (if that). I could see every bone in her body, her eyes were sunken in from dehydration, and her belly was protruding. She was so sick. She was sweating profusely and was so lethargic she didn't even have the energy to turn her head.  She was severely retracting and her breathing was fast and heavy.  My heart broke. She was on minimal oxygen (a very old oxygen machine that looked like something you blow up balloons with Helium) and the machine kept beeping because of LOW oxygen and all they did was turn it off and back on to fix the problem for the next five minutes. As a nurse, I wanted to jump in there and fight for the life of this child and then reality hit me; I don't have the means to help this child, only the healing power of my Savior could restore her body. Back home, we are so incredibly blessed to have what we have in a hospital NICU to save the life's of so many premature and sick infants. It is unbelievable at what we have and here I am in the midst of a country that has next to nothing. I can't not acknowledge the fact that this home is doing is all they can and all they know to do. It is actually beautiful because they are trying their very best to save the lives of these infants and toddlers. I looked at this sweet baby, took her tiny little hand into mine, and prayed for her life. I claimed her destiny knowing that God has her right in the palm of His hand.  

A few minutes later I walked away to a room full of crying infants. As I walked down the aisle of cribs, hand after hand reached out screaming for my attentions. Every infant wanted to be held.  Every infant wanted to be loved.  And in my heart I know that as hard as this was for my MY JESUS cares for every single one of their lives. Their live matters and they were NOT an accident. Yes, they may have AIDS or a product of rape or cancer may be destroying their bodies, but GOD cares. I held two little girls close to my chest that were severely underweight and cried and prayed as they buried their head into my chest. And then I began to sing, "Be near O God, be near O God..." And their cries settled. 

Later into the morning I noticed the room where the moms were waiting with their children started to get very congested. I jumped in and helped triage babies and get their IVs and fluids going. This was hard for me because it was so different from what I was used to. Very limited stuff to work with and these babies were so dehydrated; to get an IV was very challenging. The first baby I had was a very sick little baby girl and every time I had to stick her for an IV I prayed God would guide the needle because she was SO dehydrated and lethargic, she needed fluid FAST!! I finally got the IV and we got her fluid going! Praise Jesus. It was also difficult to watch the way they do things. There is no sterile environment whatsoever and the conditions aren't very clean at all! Infection kept running through my mind and all I could do was pray. There was so much education that was needed. 

Tonight we had "Word of the day" with our team and my word today was broken. Working in a NICU back home and being "broken" for my babies there, it was magnified at the home for the sick and dying. The hardest part was that the majority of the problems are treatable but the infants and children will die because they don't have the resources to help them get better. The majority of their sickness starts with malnutrition and dehydration; breaks my heart into pieces. I do have to say that the Lord has made me so much more grateful in many areas of my life. 

Tomorrow we have another water truck day in Cite Soleil and then tomorrow night we are going to visit the tent cities in Haiti. We will set up a medical clinic in the back of our tap-tap. Keep our team in your prayers as we are the hands and feet of our Jesus. Pray that the Lord would prepare our hearts for what we are going to see there. Every step that we take, we want to exalt Him in ALL we do :)

Love you all so very much and thanks for ALL your prayers and support !!! To God be the glory!!!