Re-Entry… and the perfect boyfriend.

Re-entry. The act of re-entering.

Tonight I received word that back in Haiti, the mama and her 3 kids were all discharged home. They survived cholera. They spent their time in our cholera treatment centre and are now being sent to re-enter their lives waiting for them beyond the tarps and tents.

And I can’t help but wonder… is that what is waiting for them at home as well? More tarps and tents? And who will smuggle them in rice and beans and PB&J sandwiches?

And what about the little girl whose young mother was so frustrated with her unwillingness to eat or drink that she came in with a stick to beat her? I have also received word that she was well enough to leave the clinic and re-enter her world. And if her mother was willing to beat her while she was on her death bed, literally… I shudder to think at what awaits her outside the sanctuary of the clinic.

*Sidebar… do you really think I would let a mother beat her child? Have you met me? After very gently asking her to please not place her hands on her child unless to show her love I then invited her to share a coke. Bahaha. Ok Ok… I yelled at her and made her sit on a brick outside the clinic. And then I yelled at her some more. Hey… I am a work in progress.*

I know we are not supposed to have favorites but I totally did. Look at that girl’s sweet face. Oh she was so sick it broke my heart. I honestly thought we might lose her. And I remember my charge nurse thinking the same thing… in a desperate attempt to get her to eat something… anything, she sent me out to buy some fried plantains and sprite. Never has the sight of a disappearing plantain brought me such joy like it did when I watched her nibble away. Later I sat down and explained to the mother that what this child needed even more than sprite and plantains was a reason to live. She needed her mother to love her and embrace her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

Re-entry is also a term used in the mission field. It refers to the struggle people have when they get home and find themselves feeling isolated, disillusioned, misunderstood, depressed and irritated with their own culture. Do I feel these things? Some of them. It’s hard to go around feeling like I have two separate lives… both constantly being compared to the other. And one just never quite measuring up. Kinda like the perfect boyfriend. You know what I am talking about. There is that one person in your life that you just loved. And no matter what they did your love was unstoppable. But life went on and so did the one that got away. And then everyone from then on was always compared. Ok… a stretch but it works. (Also… I never had a perfect boyfriend but I have heard rumors of their existence)

And while I am struggling with my own personal issues of re-entry I am also caught up with thinking about how much it applies to the people of Haiti as well… Will that little family feel isolated as people scorn them and act as though they have the plague?  After being fed sandwiches and crystal light all week will they grow depressed at their lack once they are home? Do they even have a home? And what about the little girl? Was our clinic more than just a solace from cholera? Was she spared the wrath of her mother while in our confines?  How will her life story play out upon re-entry into it?  She needed to be shown that even once she was ready to re-enter her life outside the clinic, she would find love.

Will you pray for the people of our treatment centres? Pray that as they re-enter their lives outside the clinic they do so with gratitude and vitality. Let them boast of the miracles they have seen, and not dwell on the misery. And since you are praying… pray for those of us who have been there and are attempting to re-enter our own lives back home. Pray that we will boast of the miracles we have seen and not dwell on the misery…

One Love, ♥