It is very unlike me to not find out someone's name whom I have encouraged, and yet this is what happened on day #3 in Haiti. I am extremely relational and normally something like this drives me crazy. But God brought me a special opportunity on this day. If I haven't already mentioned this, I have a huge heart for families and children, but especially moms and children. It is what drew me to labor and delivery and it is the reason I am now and OB/GYN nurse.
So on this particular day, God gave me a special opportunity. The first day that I was at the clinic God gave me a vision to see all the kids outside enjoying fresh air and sun and playing, even if they couldn't get out of their bed. So we transferred all of the kiddos to little cots that we had available and took them outside as well as provided them with coloring books, barbies, my little ponies, toy cars and games to stimulate their minds to healing, dreaming and creativity.
On this day, I was walking around watching all of the kids play and occasionally stopping to play with them. As I walked past this mother holding her baby, she stopped me to ask me about an infection that he had. It became apparent very quickly that she was concerned about a raw area that the baby had developed on his genital area. God told me that this mother was very worried that she had either done something to affect this or that she had neglected him in some way. So I asked her if this was true, and she admitted tearfully that it was. She began weeping and weeping. I assured her over and over that she was a good mom (and she was a very good mom, very attentive to her baby). That he was a baby and that sometimes they develop infections. We had medicine that we would give her to treat him and he would be better in no time.
I then began to tell her that God was watching over her baby, we talked through Psalm 139 together. I asked her if she believed what the Bible said was true and she answered yes. She was still weeping. I assured her that her baby having an infection was not God's punishment to her. We then read through the story of the bleeding woman and discussed how it reflects God's nearness to us, His care for His children and His power that He pours out on us.
Through some discussion, she began to describe in detail to me a dream that she had about a year ago where a man in white appeared to her. He told her in the dream that she was chosen to go and be a witness for Him. She was a regular church attender and so had heard about Jesus frequently. The misunderstanding that many Haitians hold is that God is real, but very abstract and very far away, that He cannot really be known.
So, asked her what she thought the dream meant, She thinks it was God. What do you think God was trying to tell you? That she should come to Him. Had she ever thought about the fact that God wants to have a relationship with her? Yes. Had she thought about that in a fond way, did it appeal to her to have a relationship with God? Yes. Had she ever told God that is something that she wanted? No. Would she like to tell God that now? Yes. So, I asked her to pray from her heart. She told me that she didn't know how to pray. She was still weeping. The only answer I could give at that point was to tell her that all you had to say in prayer to God was what you were feeling. That sometimes, in my greatest times of sorrow, the only thing I could do was tell God all that was in my heart and hurting, and that I trusted that God not only could hear me, but that He saw me (just like Hannah's story in 1 Samuel) and that He had a plan to fulfill His promises. And so, she began to pray. Unfortunately, I got so busy I didn't have time to ask my translator what she was praying. But I trusted that if it was the Holy Spirit that moved her, He would lead her to pray.
The best part about this story is that I had really done nothing at all. In fact, the only thing I really got to do was be a part of what God had already started in her. I was so blessed to have gotten such a big picture of God, and to simply be asked to come alongside of God in what He was already working out in her.
Psalm 138:8
The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me; your love endures forever. He will not abandon the works of His hands.
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