Earthquake Calendar: Day Seven, "The Great Escape"

Rousing the troops- at 3 am!
Pappa Kevin gets Rebekah ready.

Gretchen's two duffle bags of granola bars

come in handy- throughout the day we're feeding

the kids a bar every two hours just to keep them occupied!

The Cage

Awwwwww!

Finally inside the Embassy, the kiddos have some fun!

...For ten hours!

Here, we wait.

And wait...

Regan Blesh and her stow-away.

This little guy made it through American customs

without a word. (Maybe it was the 26 kids that

distracted the customs agents.)

Pappa Kevin takes special care of Stephania.

It was hard for me to think of the hundreds of other

kids like Stephy we left behind in Haiti. I'm glad now

that I was nearly unconscious throughout the whole process.

Denise Blesh. She and her four kids were a godsend- literally.

Without those extra hands our ship would have sunk- or more

appropriately, our plane downed!

Praise God that they were able to receive the same humanitarian

parole for their little Bethania that we did for our 26.

The adoption paperwork Jack and Marcia had slaved over for 8 months.

Jack and Marcia were ready. Apparently, so was God.

Gretchen and Jack jump through the legal ropes.

Finally- we're on the shuttle headed towards the airfield.

We're tired, but grateful.

At the airport, international news crews descend upon our

adorable and highly photogenic Haitian refugees.

On the plane, some of the kiddos nap...

Most of them play!

"Daniel, where are you going?"

By this time, the kids know.

They're going HOME!

Chloe Blesh goofs off with Djoulie and Nicot.

This young woman- herself a refugee- was another

blessing from God. Her hands were so helpful with our

babies! Needing transportation to the states, she joined our group

at the embassy and flew with us to Florida. There she met up

with her own adoptive family! Her English was very limited,

though. I can only imagine the bittersweetness of her own homegoing.

I am sure the adjustment has been difficult and very lonely.

Kethia and Rob. We're on American soil!

This precious girl almost broke my heart!

In customs, the tears careening down my face,

I had to tell myself, "If God can preserve little Bethany from

the throws of a 7.0 earthquake, He can protect her heart and deliver

her safely to her family." I believe He did. Faithful God!

The melee! The kids wait in a back room as we process them one by one

and hand them off to their familes, anxiously awaiting behind glass doors!

Twenty-six kids only took us six or so hours. Great job, Ft. Pierce Customs Agents!

Dave gives his signature sign of approval.

As I hugged each one of the kids Goodbye,
I knew this moment was a highlight of my life.

Monday 1/18
3 am- wake kids. Load cage. Pray with nannies; tearful farewell. They want us to remember them! We will, we will! We will come back for you! Sean Blesh’s family: his wife, Denise, and four kids, are evacuating today also. They have a Haitian-adopted daughter whose paper work they too must expedite to get her out of the country. We caravan to embassy, leaving at 4 am. The cage full with cargo and kids; I ride with Renato on my lap in Blesh’s vehicle to embassy. Eerie scenes on the dark drive there: crew working on extracting what they think is sixty (wrong estimation) live people from the basement of the collapsed Caribbean Super Market- corpses on the street outside the gate evidence their efforts; packs of dogs hunt together under cover of the black morning hours; sections of the street are blocked off where masses of people sleep; rubble everywhere. Sean and Denise remark how deserted the streets are of the usual traffic and how uncanny the silence is (the city before the quake was never quiet). My hungry and searching eyes devour it all. I want to Remember.

Arrive at embassy. Unload kids and cargo at embassy door- the side door. Wait past 5 outside. I am still painfully ill. Per an American medical worker’s suggestion, I eat a vegetarian MRE, which makes me sicker. The Blesh kids are in awe of the MRE heating system- me too! After this fateful meal, Tom snaps a picture of me lying on the road by the curb in the fetal position: I spend most of the day in this position, doubled over in pain, exhausted. Quite a long time later, after many Haitian embassy workers and cars have passed by the crazed American woman, I move from the lying on the curb to sitting in the midst of the children on the lawn. It is here, observing the simple actions of the kids eating (more!) granola bars, and pondering their interactions with each other that I quietly shed my first tears. This is it. It took a 7.0 earthquake and only God knows how many deaths but these kids are going HOME.

The sun rises. Helicopters circle above us. Lines of hundreds of Haitians become visible outside the front gate. We are escorted inside the embassy. It is quite the scene as the ten of us “big people,” 27 small children, and more than a dozen large totes make our way forward- a bedraggled caravan of tired refugees. Our cargo is deposited in the interior court yard where hundreds of relief workers have set up camp. This is unbelievable and the joke of the day- we are actually inside our own American embassy! Such a thing has never happened in Haiti before! Everything inside this sanctuary communicates that we are on a transported piece of American turf- the English-speakers, beautiful landscaping, orderly rows of matching chairs, flushing toilets, clean windows, offers of food and water, men and women in military garb. We are led to the second of a series of adjacent waiting rooms where we spend the next nine hours waiting. Hundreds of people filter in and out of our assigned space over the course of our wait; it is “organized” chaos.

Once inside, I collapse into my curled- up position on the ground with a sheet pulled over me- for hours- waking only to drink water, visit the bathroom, and recoil from kids crawling on me and dogs licking my face! Meanwhile, calls are received and made, VIPs consulted (and stateside, prayers offered without ceasing). Several hours into our wait somebody in our group (my guess is Gretchen or Denise- a mom!) suggests we turn the chairs inward to create a huge circle- much easier to contain the kids that way! Every once and a while I awake to overhear “Nicot, stop pulling your sister’s ear!” “Kids, you can have a lolly-pop if you sit down!” “Who needs to go to the bathroom?” “Lay down, Kethia!” “Don’t step on Stephania, Matu!” “You want a granola bar?” “Sebastian needs a bottle.” “Djuolie needs a diaper change.” “Reece, can you help?” Finally, finally, we are told we’re on our way! Again, we load ourselves up (or rather, down) with children and cargo to plod out to the shuttles.

The shuttle has DR plates and the driver speaks Spanish. Today, we love the neighbors! We are taken to the big airport where news crews prey upon Jack and Gretchen and camera men upon our kids! This was a mistake, though- we’re supposed to fly out of the smaller air field. We wait- what are we waiting on?! We need to move! Finally our driver gets the message and we start for the missionary airport. A CVS camera man accompanies us to film the kids getting onto the plane- a comfortable image to project for Americans to end the day’s Haiti news coverage . Hendricks Motor Sports has donated the plane and crew. With Jameslee and Dave on separate arms, I climb the ladder. On the plane, we try to position ourselves throughout the 40 seats to create an effective distribution of adults and kids. All day we have avoided talking with the kids about our actions and the desired result. Once settled, smiling to myself as I take in the sight of our giddy assembly, I begin to probe them one by one,“Reece, where are you going?” –“To Evansville.” “Daniel, where are you going?” –“Chicago.” “Steeve?” –“Arizona.” “Elmise?” –“Michigan.” They Know. Contentedly, my heart affirms, “Yes, you are really are going HOME…”

The engines gear up. We are the last plane daylight permits off the field today. Unfortunately I’m seated on the wing so I can’t visibly say goodbye to Haiti as we ascend. One week after arriving in Haiti from my Christmas vacation with the mind to serve there the next seven months, I am on a plane flying back to America. Once at altitude, our stewardess serves the kids snacks. The crew is so kind!

We land in Fort Pierce, FL, after seven pm and dress the kids in yellow t-shirts donated by the embassy and Hendricks ball caps. These kids are rock stars! The customs crew is waiting with food, toys, blankets (it’s very chilly!) and even cots for the kids to sleep on. Outside the air field, families cheer and camera crews capture the jubilee. Inside we spend the next six hours processing the kids through customs. After sleeping all day, fortunately my body is now cooperating with me a little more and I am able to help out. As I hand the children off one by one to eager and joyful parents, I am in awe. When I moved to Haiti I expected –no, hoped- to witness five, maybe six home goings over the course of my year there. Now five months into that year I am participating in the home going of all twenty-six and it is my privilege to personally hand off twenty of these to their families. The other six -Steeve and Jean-Baptiste, Sebastian, Bethany, Sara, and Lukeson- will spend the night with Gretchen in a safe house and be re-united with their (mostly west-coast) families in the morning. As I hug these children goodbye, humble thankfulness for God’s protection of each one and a strong confidence that He will continue to provide swells my tired and happy heart.

In Florida a surprise greets me: my own parents! They flew into Orlando and Mamma texts me that they are driving to pick me up! At one a.m. Tuesday morning Daddy rouses me from a dead sleep off of one of the chairs. We drive to a nearby hotel. Mamma has clean clothes, a heating pad for my back, and a new toothbrush waiting for me there! On the TV news coverage of the Haiti earthquake is surreal. I enjoy a hot shower and collapse into the most comfortable bed…