Meet Moses

I have been trying to figure out how to possibly describe all that I learned in Haiti.  For now I think the easiest thing to do will be to share a different person's story a day.  This is Moses'.

Jordana loving Moses for the afternoon.

A couple weeks ago a woman asked a guard at Heartline's maternity center if this was an orphanage where she could leave her son who looked to be around two years old.  The guard explained that it was not an orphanage.  Later that day the baby was found laying on the side of the road.  He couldn't sit up.  He couldn't even hold his head up.  He could have been run over.  The staff decided to call him "Moses".  This is what the Livesays said in their blog when they went to report the incident: "The police literally told our staff that they should have left 'Moses' in the street, that by picking him up they did the wrong thing.  They actually said that!  The staff members that went to report what happened (with 'Moses' with them) were reprimanded.  Oh.my.head.  Nothing like getting a lecture for doing what is CLEARLY the right thing.  How can leaving a living disabled human alone in the dirt be the right thing?"  T.I.H.  (This is Haiti.)  Our friends at Heartline use this phrase a lot.  For now Moses is living with the Livesay family.  I think their 16 year old daughter Paige has been the primary caregiver.  (She got malaria while we were down there too!  Thankfully I hear she is fine now.)
Sunday we met Paige at church and took Moses for the day to give her some rest.  It appears he has cerebral palsy.  It was so sad trying to feed him.  I don't think he was really able to swallow so we were scared food was getting into his lungs.  He started crying after we fed him. :(  He couldn't even suck on his sippy cup though he kept trying.  If you saw my facebook status last Sunday I was trying to find something we could be doing with him.  It's a tricky situation.  Some of Heartline's staff are scared his mom may change her mind and come back for him.  They don't want to put him up for adoption without her consent.  You never know if she is even watching from afar.  Meanwhile, the Livesay family is getting more and more attached, as is Moses.  Also, he really needs to be getting specialized care.  An adopted family in the United States could provide that.
These are the crazy situations that the Livesay family and other missionaries in Haiti have to deal with all the time.  They already have their plates full with their own families and the "normal" day-to-day activities at Heartline, not to mention bouts of malaria every now and then.  But then one day you can wake up to find out God is calling you to care for a disabled baby orphan for an unknown period of time.
Please pray for Moses to find his home.  At least for now he is happy and in a safe environment. :)  Look for updates on the Livesays' blog, livesayhaiti.blogspot.com.

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

-James 1:27