The statistics on childhood morbidity and mortality in Haiti are staggering. One in every eleven kids born in Haiti won’t make it to their fifth birthday. One in five children are malnourished. Sixty three percent of kids under the age of five are anemic. Many Haitian children have no access to basic healthcare services at all. In urban and rural areas alike, cost and distance are barriers to care. The leading causes of death for kids in Haiti are malnutrition, diarrhea, and respiratory illnesses. I think that’s something that people in developed countries can hardly wrap their minds around. But in Haiti, kids are literally dying from a lack of food, IV fluids, or antibiotics. That’s the reality that’s just outside our gates and the reality that families in Haiti face each day. I can only imagine how easy it would be for families to feel hopeless against those statistics.
But you know what’s great? God doesn’t care about statistics, and neither do we. We care about God’s command to care for the orphan, the poor, and the least among us. We believe that these kids can overcome the odds stacked against them. We fight alongside these families because we have a hope that their children can live a healthy life.
COTP has known F and her family for a long time. She has been a part of our formula and Mamba programs, to help assist with her nutrition. Yet, despite this, F has always struggled a lot. F has some special medical needs, which make her care especially challenging in such a resource poor setting. She’s been admitted to the hospital countless times, many of which it didn’t seem that she was likely to survive. F’s mom was doing her best to care for her, but I can only imagine how desperate and hopeless she must have felt, watching her daughter struggle.
F came back into our care over the summer. At two-and-a-half-years-old, she weighed just 8.8 pounds, one of the most severe cases of malnutrition I’ve ever seen. She was admitted into our care, so we could help to get her healthier. Her progress has been slow, but steady. When F first came in she was so tiny, she didn’t even fall on any of the growth charts. She had so much spasticity in her muscles that she cried out constantly. She was running fevers, had diarrhea, and a cough. She was in rough shape, to say the least. But F has worked hard over these past couple months. We celebrated with each pound that she gained and now she is up to 15 pounds! She laughs and smiles, showing off the dimples in her now chubby cheeks. Several times, someone who hasn’t seen F in a long time, has looked at her and asked, “Who is that new baby?”, only to be surprised that this is the same malnourished toddler that came to us several months ago.
Now, when F’s mom comes to visit, she also has a big smile on her face. She tells everyone, “Have you seen F? Do you see how good she looks?” F has not become another statistic in Haiti. We are still working on a long term plan for her, but seeing the joy in F and her mother’s eyes fills us with so much hope for her future, for her health, and for her years to come. We have hope that F and all of the kiddos in our care can have a healthy future.
"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." -Romans 15:13
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