A Sad Day

Today is a difficult day.

Today is the funeral for our sweet Maggie. Maggie is one of our children here at our hope house orphanage. She died late Monday night.......

Maggie was a special girl, a very special girl. Almost 6 years ago Maggie was found beaten and burned and left to die in a dump. She was about 10 years old. She was unable to walk properly due to post-polio syndrome and had no hope. After the Hope House (Mission of Hope orphanage) took her in she started to heal, she thrived, she learned about Jesus and best of all she had hope. She lived like that for almost 6 years with the love of Christ in her heart and a hope for her future. She had dreams. She wanted to be a cook. She loved braiding hair. She always helped with the chores. She had many many friends.

This summer she started to get sick. She had fevers on and off and she would get very fatigued. As time rolled on, she had more difficulty walking, she developed severe anemia, bone pain and unexplained swelling in her long bones and joints. Her skin hurt to touch. She started to loose weight. I spent a lot of time treating her body pain, stretching her tight muscles and giving her massages. She claimed it made her feel better. Our doctors here could not figure out what was wrong with her. Her blood work was inconclusive. I took her to an internist in the city and he started the process of ordering more tests. I lined up a psychologist in the meantime. She never got the results...she did not make it back to the internist. Last week she took a turn for the worse, she lost a lot of weight, her anemia and white blood cell count skyrocketed. She stopped eating. She was admitted to the hospital last Friday. In Haiti, nothing in the hospital happens fast. You have to bring your own linens, your own medicine and in our case, your own doctor (Dr. Jennifer our Haitian doc and the internist). It was very frustrating. On Monday, Maggie was in a lot of pain and she cried out for Jesus with every breath. She died later that night holding the hand of the orphanage director Madam Delva.

Goodbye Maggie you will be forever remembered.

It has been a long week. We have had to deal with this loss at the same time as we have been hosting one of our largest North American teams here. They have been very supportive but at the same time it is very hard to find time alone to grieve. This week we have had nights of heart break, holding our little children at Hope House while they wail, clinging to us with all their might.... Today as I said is the funeral. Please pray for the 42 other children in the Hope House today as they deal with the death of one of their sisters. Please pray for Rachel our Hope House activities director as she loved Maggie as her own child. Please pray that the kids will be at peace, that they hang on to God's teaching regarding death and not voodoo beliefs, and that they know God is near. Very near.

Thank you for all your support. Please see the attached picture from Rachel of Maggie before the effects of her illness.
God Bless
Cheryl (and Laurens)