Jeffrey

Haiti Day 4 Continued.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post (Sweet Baby Girls), while a couple of us were at each house, the rest of us stayed out in the street and played with the kids.  While I was at the house with the baby girl, something terrible was happening in the street.  I missed it, but the other girls told me all about it.

Bullying.

Bullying sucks, no matter where it is.  This time the kids ganged up on a little boy named Jeffrey.  Jeffrey is one of several children in his family, and is about seven years old.  He doesn't talk much, and he isn't quite as "good looking" as his siblings.  His eyes are a little bit different and his skin has some rough patches on it.  He may have had a slight learning disability of some kind.  Like I mentioned in an earlier post (They Are Weak But He Is Strong), in Haiti kids who are different or have a disability of any kind are seen as shameful or worthless.  I don't think Jeffrey's parents saw his as that extreme, but they definitely treated him differently than his siblings.  They didn't give him the nicest clothes or shoes they had.  The nice, new ones always went to his siblings.

This day (and probably lots of other days that we aren't there), the village kids were very cruel to Jeffrey.  I don't know all the details of what happened while I was in that house, but the end result was he was on the ground getting kicked and hit by the other kids.  Fortunately for Jeffrey, there were several adults in the street (and lots of them were mommas!) and they stepped in right away.  He was covered in dirt and had scratches and bruises all over.

We happened to be right by the ODH orphanage, so Tiroro (one of our translators) took him into the orphanage and gave him a shower and some clean clothes.  Jeffrey was at Tiroro's side the rest of the day.

Jeffrey in the red, resting on Tiroro.  

We saw Jeffrey a lot the rest of the week.  The next day he came with us to visit some other people.  And while I was leading some worship songs from the guitar, he sat on Angie's lap.  

When we left that house Angie looked at me and said, "Jeffrey was singing."  The whole week we didn't ever hear him say a word, except for telling us his name.  But he was SINGING.  How awesome!  That is why I do what I do.  Because people like Jeffrey who have nothing to say can somehow still connect with God and others through music.  WIN.

Throughout the rest of the week, our team took Jeffrey under our wings.  He had a whole bunch of mommas looking out for him!  There were several times that we caught the other kids being mean to him again, but we were quick to tell them "No!" (with the language barrier, that's about all we could say).  One of our girls held him while he took a nap.  We snuck him snacks when the other kids weren't looking (per our leaders' instructions).  We sent Tiroro to the store to buy him some new shoes.  We asked one of the other guys to give him a haircut.  And we gave him lots and lots of hugs.

A few days before I left for our trip, Jack had told me he wanted to get a card for me to give a little boy in Haiti.  I didn't know which little boy I would give it to, but by the end of the week I knew I should give it to Jeffrey.  

Giving Jack's card to Jeffrey.

I hope the card made him feel special.  During that week we got to know Jeffrey, he didn't smile a whole lot, but he was smiling when he got that card.  I showed him a picture of Jack and tried to explain that it was from him.  Whether he understood what I was saying or not, it was something special just for him.

In the card I had written, "Jesus loves you!  I'm praying for you!  Love, Jack"  I'm not sure he will ever actually read those words, but they are true.  Jesus loves Jeffrey very much.  And Jack and I pray for him all the time.