On August 30th my heart was forever changed. Although my family has had experience with adoptions, one with my son and closely living through 5 with my sister, I had NEVER experienced looking in a mother's eyes as she told you she no longer wanted to care for her baby.
It was a Friday morning when I walked into Go MAD's Firm Foundation Children's clinic. My interpreter quickly walked up to me and said, "Jenny, there is a mom that wants to give you her baby!" I calmly replied, "Ok, let's all just sit down and talk about this." I turned around to see the sweetest, tiniest baby girl with HUGE eyes, a mouth shaped in a little "o" and long skinny legs that were clapping her feet together as if they were hands. She immediately melted my heart.
We had to use several translators because mom is Haitian and speaks Creole to translate to Spanish and then to English for me. The first thing I asked was how old she was and they said 8 months. I asked if I heard them right because she only weighed 9 pounds! Surely they meant 8 days! They quickly confirmed she was 8 MONTHS! Her skin was light, her hair was faded, all signs of malnutrition. This baby is starving to death. After we spent hours explaining to mom that we can not "take" her baby because that is not what our ministry is about BUT we would help her in whatever way we could.....I went in to check on sweet Calencia that was napping on a bed. I found her in a huge wet puddle of sweat. I picked her up to find that she wasn't breathing. I tapped feet and started saying, "baby baby baby!" and she gasped a big breath of air. I watched her closely to only see her doing this same thing about every 15 seconds! She would begin to try to catch her breath and would finally wake up enough to get one and then right back at it. I soon found out she has been doing this her whole little 8 months on this Earth. We quickly took her to the hospital to find she had a birth defect that they classify as a cleft palate but with a little more to it. After 5 doctors and 2 hospitals we finally found that there is a foundation here that can place a temporary shield in the roof of her mouth until she is able to have a permanent surgery at around the age of 3. All I can say is she has more fight in her than most people I know! I also know that God has huge plans for her life.
So now the rest of the story. When mom came to us with her 8 month old baby....she was also 7 months pregnant. Yep....you read that right. We also know that mom works as a prostitute. She says she is 17 although we are not sure that is accurate either. It was a Friday when she came to our office and on Monday we picked her up to go to another doctor's appointment. When we saw her I patted her greatly diminished looking belly and asked how she was feeling. She told me that she had been in a car accident on Saturday and went to the hospital but the baby died. There were no signs of injuries on the mom and what is still hard for me to comprehend is.... no sadness. Since that time, the story changed and she told an interpreter that she had slipped on the floor in her bathroom and had a miscarriage. Many girls here, since abortion is illegal, will drink poison to abort their babies. I will never know the truth about what happened to that precious life and it will forever haunt me. I want to badly to get mad at the mom and tell her what I think and turn my back on her......but I can't. She's broken. She's a kid. I have no idea of what she has lived through in her life. She says her parents are both dead and her older sister kicked her out at a young age. Is any of it true?....I don't know. But who am I to judge? I am here to tell about Jesus and give hope. I am here to show grace. Right now....I'm numb and am asking God for strength how to handle that part of it. So we put all of our focus on Calencia and God provided us with hope and healing for her soon and much much more!
Birth mom and Baby
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
Debbie told me that had been expressing through Bible verses how He expects so much more from us than to live for our own comfort.
Being obedient to what God tells us to do....die to ourselves and follow Him.....they said, "If this is your will God....open the doors for us to adopt this baby." And that is EXACTLY what He did. Sweet baby Calencia is now Sweet baby Naomi. She has a Mom and Dad and who want her to be their child forever. She is now living with HOPE! She will NEVER have to worry about food, no medical care, and an unfortunate cycle of prostitution that occurs in families here. She WILL know the LOVE of JESUS!
Thank you God for allowing me to witness this miracle of a new life with you!
Introducing Naomi and her new family!
Amazing Dad and Mom!
Big Protective Brother Carlos!
Please pray with me for how I can help the birth mom. After I told her that I found a family for her baby she was excited and her next question was, "But do I still get to see you?" I told her definitely and I will take her to church. She also needs hope and love. As happy as I am for my sweet little patient my heart will never get over looking into the emptiness of her birth mom's eyes as she got out of our car. I snapped this picture of her walking in the distance....alone..... back to her home. She looks so alone.....I want to show her how to walk with Jesus.
