Getting Settled

We had arrived from Port au Prince at about 2:30 or 3:00 on Saturday, and by the time we had greeted Maude, Vinnie, and Calvin (The latter two are children who do not belong to Maude but whom she has more or less adopted and who live and work with her in the mission house. Another story for another day.) and gone to purchase the food for distribution the following day, it was beginning to get dark. Our tents were not set up.

Hurriedly we went to the "tent city" just outside the inner gate of the compound and began to work. Patience and Bill (my children) had shown me how to do that before I left home, and I had taken it down by myself; however, little things that were so important seemed difficult, especially as the light of day was gone! Finally enough had been done to make the tent secure for the night, and I fell into bed.

One problem, however, that I failed to mention. There was no bed! I had brought a pad and a very light sleeping bag, but all that went down to the ground. I got down with relative ease, but I quickly realized that getting up would be another story! If you are reading this and you don't know me, I should let you in on the secret. I will soon be 79. My knees do not work as they once did, so getting down is one thing, and getting up is altogether another!

Deciding to face the rising part only when it was absolutely necessary, I relaxed and quickly slipped into sleep--in the middle of my prayers of thanks for a safe journey. Sometime around 1:00 I was awakened to the sounds of "tent city." It was not really disruptive; it was actually an unusual experience I won't forget.

I listened to a mother speaking softly and soothingly to a child who cried. The cry was not a cry for attention but the little sobs that come being afraid. I realized this must be going on all over Haiti, as children still terrified by what they have seen and heard wake in the night, again afraid for their very lives. I pictured the mother, holding her child, and reassuring him/her that the worst was over, that all would really be all right. Though they have very little, this child must have missed the familiarity of home. Sleeping in that big tent with so many others was no longer a game. The fear returned in the pitch black dark of the night.

From another tent I heard the soft voice of a woman singing hymns. I could not understand the words she sang, but the tunes were familiar and I could whisper with her the familiar words that had comforted me at times in the past. "It is well with my soul," "great is thy faithfulness," "hallelujah, hallelujah." The great songs of our faith are not restricted to any one language.

A little gray goat that I had seen running around before I entered my tent began to plead to be released from the tent next to me, but no one would open the door. At first I wondered why, and then I realized that he'd been brought into the safety of the tent so that some hungry soul could not get him when he was unprotected during the night. I wondered how many times I had cried out for God to set me free from something that I thought was confining, only to have him refuse. Just as the goat did not understand being kept cloistered in a tent, I had sometimes not understood God's "no" to my plea to be set free. The following morning I saw the little goat bounce from the tent and welcome his freedom as he ran around the compound looking for whatever goats eat, investigating the new day as he paused here and there.

Just before I had entered my tent to rest, Pastor Maude had handed me a plastic pail. As I lay on my pad, I heard the reason for it. One after another, sounds of water hitting another pail came to my ears. Even in the midst of the devastation that surrounded us, people were trying to maintain some aspect of sanitation, using a pail in the night instead of going out to empty a full bladder on the ground. I, too, learned a "new exercise ' in the night in the tent city.

The wind picked up as I lay there, and as it blew rather furiously, I wondered if there were any warning when a quake occurs. It was just wind, but it seemed louder and stronger than usual. Was this just because I was in a tent and not inside four solid walls? I wasn't really afraid, but I was alert, wondering what I should do if the tremors began. I had forgotten to ask Maude about that before we crawled into our respective tents.

Then the rain began, a drop here and there, and then coming down in earnest. It had been a long time since I'd slept in a tent in the rain--about 40 or 45 years! I loved the sound as it hit the rain catcher on my tent, even enjoyed a slight mist that came through the screens on the open windows and onto my face. As I lay there listening, I was aware of God's holy presence. Here I lay, absolutely secure from the rain and wind, and I thanked him for the many times he has "tented" himself all around me, protecting me from the calamities of life, from the things that could harm me.

As I began to drift off, I remembered something God had told me to do while in Haiti, and I wondered how I would accomplish it when I had so little time there. Somehow, I thought. Tomorrow . . ..

I felt extremely safe and secure, sliding back into the comfort of sleep, grateful that once again God had used circumstances I could not imagine to teach me.