03/16/06
Deacon Balliew

I remember asking once if you would save a baby’s life if you could. I knew you would - it wouldn’t matter the color of his skin, or nationality, we all would save a baby’s life if given the chance. That was more than a year ago.

Time goes by so slowly in Haiti; people just don’t get in a hurry, and that aggravates me. If I were living there permanently and had unlimited resources, things would probably happen sooner.

Most people who work with the Haitian people understand what I am saying. Things just don’t work like they do here. I was told by a Haitian friend that there is no reason to be in a hurry because tomorrow will be the same as all yesterdays and it would not change things any way.

That is part of the mindset that has developed over the years. I am beginning to understand, but it doesn’t matter when you are dealing with little people’s lives, tomorrow has to be different from today.

Mrs. Ivy Saloman, a lady I love dearly, as a nurse practitioner has for 30 years nursed many Haitians back to health, known by many as Haiti’s Mother Teresa.

A very religious mentor and good friend, especially when I’ve had doubts, she has been instrumental in my decision to help physically challenged babies when she said to me, “Deacon, you’re a doubting Thomas. The Lord will direct such a program, just like He has directed you and His mission over the years. You need to believe; you know how much He has helped you over the years.” I still had doubts I could develop a program that would save babies’ lives, especially the crippled babies, knowing what the people felt about them.

I - along with a pal Bill Childers - had been instrumental in sponsoring a pre school in a small town in the mountains of Haiti with churches and our community’s help that had become very successful, but to me there was something still seemed missing. I felt something else needed to be done, and it worried me.

A friend of mine Lee Walburn of Atlanta Magazine stated at the end of an article about how the Lord had blessed us in our work with troubled children, when he wrote, “If you will support him he will help save one child at a time even in that forsaken place like Haiti, like he has here.”

All of a sudden the Lord took away a worry. One little life at a time meant to me one crippled child at a time. I had seen little fellows in some of the homes who were crippled and had been told nearly all the handicapped children didn’t make it - they all died. Talking to friends in the medical field, Haitian school officials, other missionary groups and especially the Lord big time, I told each I was going to need their help because I had decided to try to help a few of those hopeless babies.

I will never forget the day we were assembled in the small Adventist Church in Roi, Haiti to discuss with the community the new program we were with God’s help going to initiate. A program we were told had never been considered in the area. We were going to try to work with as the Haitians called crippled little ones.

In attendance were many friends, families, state school authorities, as well as community leaders all agreeing with our decision to help the crippled babies. I could feel the skepticism when one lady said it has never been done, and every one of them shaking their heads in agreement.

Remembering over the years there it had been hard for me to make that local community and others understand that I had not come there as an evangelist as most people, and I hadn’t come there to doctor the people who were sick, pull teeth, or build buildings.

I came to help the kids. I am a Christian, I tell them, and a believer, but their little fellows were the reason I was there, on a mission I think the Lord sent me there to do. I tried to make them understand that I would like to try to help the poorest children.

I told them if our work plays a part in a crippled child living, what an awesome reward.

As I sit here writing this it’s hard to imagine a child living because of our efforts, but they are, which is pretty exciting and encouraging to me. I know my old buddy Bill must from Heaven be cheering me on because I think of him often.

I have made many decisions in my life, many not according to the Bible’s principles and directions. Many times I have asked. “Lord, I humbly ask You for Your forgiveness and Lord help me to keep the Devil at bay. Please help guide me in the direction You want me to proceed.”

I sure thought several prayers asking Him for directions helping those little fellows in Haiti. I don’t know if you’re like I am; I think a prayer many times when I’m walking or driving.

On a Sunday afternoon I had asked our school officials to let the communities know we were going to meet and talk about helping crippled children. As I sat in that small Adventist church along with Brenda Cooper and Connie Bradshaw, two missionaries, and other friends talking with the parents of those little kids. Some only weeks-old babies, many you could tell were very sick and malnourished, all looking lethargic never smiling, I was astonished at the number of children with so many different medical problems.

Sitting in front of us were three mothers with young fellows that one could tell had problems walking. One was a little girl dressed in a blue dress with flowers that I had seen before. Her mother was standing aside the entrance to the school holding her in her arms with two small boys and a girl without smiles standing so close they actually were touching.

When it was her time to talk to us, the question was ask, “Have you talked to a doctor about your little girl and the reason she can’t walk?” Through her and the interpreter’s answer, “The doctor said she was crippled but we have been trying to help her and she can stand up and move her legs some.”

I saw her brothers and sister shaking their heads in agreement which meant to me they as a family must have been helping her. The little girl was moving around while holding onto her mother losing part of her clothing reaching for them and tossing them at her sister.

I started to laugh and noticed that no one around her was smiling. She was such a beautiful little girl. I could tell the mother was in charge of the children. You could tell all four were starving by their appearance; the little girl’s appearance didn’t seem any different than the rest of her children. That meant to us that she was eating as well as the rest. (After two more meetings she was to become out first physically challenged child along with her family to be sponsored for many years to come.)

Earlier in the day I happened to notice a little fellow with Downs Syndrome no more than 2 years old standing in the corner leaning feebly against his grandmother never smiling, very pale with places showing where his hair had fallen out. His appearance really hurt me. I kept looking his way when finally I got his attention, waved and smiled at him. He looked at me with a questioned look, eventually returned a slight smile.

For almost an hour every time I looked his way I winked at him, and he weakly returned my smiled and eventually waved. When leaving the church the grandmother asked what I had done to get him to smile because he never smiled. “Only smiled and waved at him,” I said. “He never smiles,” she said.

As he was leaving the church he turned completely around while holding his grandmother’s hand waved and smiled at me. He was such a sad little guy.

I can’t explain how heart wrenching those hours were, seeing all those little fellows with their mothers or grandmothers, knowing if we were not going to be able to help but one or two. Seeing those parents some with tears in their eyes when turned away was tough.

I felt horrible, thinking if those babies were at home we could do something —but we were not at home -- we were in the mountains of Haiti.

After the people and children had left the church, all of us sat there in silence a few seconds stunned and took time to regroup. A person had to. I turned and look behind me at all my friends and could see in their eyes they were hurting also. I looked at Brenda and Connie, two mothers and devoted missionaries, who had been to this community many times to help the Haitian people. They were sitting in silence staring at the empty church’s open door. None of us spoke for a while.

In the mountains of Haiti after the sun sets a brilliant white moon rises, so bright that the locals calls it God’s lamp. I can understand why, you can actually see a small pebble in the road as you walk. All activity comes to a snail’s pace getting ready for another tomorrow.

Each evening our group would assemble around the kitchen table to discuss the day’s activities before the evening meal. That night I was last getting there and was asked how I thought the day went and said, “All went well.” I knew if I started talking about my feelings I would lose it. Those sick and challenged babies and especially that little boy all were on my mind and I knew then was not the time to discuss how I felt.

To tell you the truth I felt sad, hurt, worried and angry. I had one question in my heart. I had been thinking, “Why Lord, those babies couldn’t help the way they were, they have absolutely no chance of survival?”

That night after going to bed I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t get that little boy off my mind. I went to sleep thinking that the next day I would find him and try to do something to help him and his grandmother.

When questioning people who knew him the next day I was told he had died during the night. The news brought tears to my eyes. The smile of that little guy will forever be in grained in my mind and memory. I wished I had stopped him and hugged his neck.

I again felt angry. I wanted to find a way to criticize some one or something but I couldn’t. I knew that little boy was here because God had a purpose for him. I have thought several times since then, was I and my doubt one of his reasons for being here. He was such a beautiful little fellow. I know when I begin to doubt again I will see that beautiful smile and feeble wave and know I need to stay focused.

I will never in my lifetime forget those precious faces that I saw in that church. Several will be gone forever when I get back in a few weeks. I’m trying to understand reasons why mothers I knew loved their babies had to see them die. I decided to try to find some reason behind such sad circumstances. One thing I knew for sure the Devil was playing a major role in all the sorrow.

When I got home I contacted several people who live here and in Haiti, about handicapped people who lived there and learned, there are not many people with handicaps in Haiti. There are a few in the bigger cities, but the ones who are there people stay away from them. They are considered the waste of society.

Nobody wants to deal with them; sometimes as babies their parents desert them like they were trash. If they live they are considered beggars; even with an education people will not hire them. Another person said, “Deacon’s handicapped children in Haiti are seen as the manifestations of evil spirits; people don’t want to have anything to do with them. People are afraid to touch them.”

I will never forget what a mother at the church that Sunday said to me. She told me she appreciated me touching their babies. I thought she meant helping their little guys, but was informed by a friend that she really thanked me for actually touching their babies. I was shocked because I had been hugging their little fellows and letting them sit in my lap like I have all my life.

I could not get those babies out of my mind. They were not waste, they were not beggars, they cannot help they are a burden to society, and they couldn’t help they were born handicapped. They were conceived in God’s image, and at that time they were perfect.

If they survive they are going to need someone to help them and their families fight for their lives.

I felt I needed some reason, some way to make sense out of this whole thing I was experiencing. I caught myself beginning to despise those people who treated babies like that. Then it dawned on me about what Jesus said in one of his parables about judging others, how he talked about us asking someone to let us help them get a speck of sawdust out of their eye when we had a plank in ours, how he called us a hypocrite for not taking the plank out of our eye so we could see clearly how to get the speck out of our friend’s eye if they had one.

I know today’s Haitian families are in a daily struggle for food. The mother in Haiti is usually in charge of food security for the family. She plants, harvests, sells, and cooks. She must get up before dawn, planning her family’s existence that day or she goes to market to sell her produce, often returning after dark. During the day the children have fended for themselves. Once home she nurses the hungry infant who has been on its back all day. The older children eat what little food there is to cook.

The toddlers are often lethargic, their bodies bloat, and their hair turns orange due to malnutrition and trace mineral deficiency. Diarrhea, malaria, or pneumonia many times invades their weakened immune system, and a baby dies. No doubt in my mind the Devil has him self entrenched in all aspects of the Haitian culture. The only known cure for the Devil is our and those babies maker the Lord.

Would you save a baby’s life if we could? Absolutely we would. Our dream of saving a few of those babies who can’t walk is becoming a reality. Last trip I met with doctors here and in Cap Haitian, bank officials about our banking, midwives who will keep us informed on the little guys, with school officials, I met with the UN peacekeepers and discussed safety issues.

I tried to get a community aware that we were going to help crippled babies. The most important people are families and friends in that community who will see that our program stays on focus. It excites me knowing we are almost ready to see my dream come true.

I have to stay aware of Haiti time, be patient and not worry. Again I have to remember it is so hard to start a program in Haiti. So many programs were started and never completed, and that causes so much mistrust and doubt.

I will be going back to Haiti in a few weeks to meet with doctors, bankers, Haitian school officials, church officials, our pre school teachers and director, children and parents and several more people who will be able to make the survival of crippled babies a reality.

The Lord has certainly blessed us with trusted people to administer our program in Haiti. My prayer is, “Lord, thank you for helping me get those planks out of my eyes so I could see that those mothers didn’t have a speck of anything in their eyes.”

I know I will have to keep praying asking the Lord to help me keep focused on His mission He has placed me on. And I say again the Devil has his advocates; some closer than we want to believe have been and still are involved. I pray that the Lord will help us keep them at bay.

We really need your help, feeding the 60 little guys in our school a meal a day that will help keeping them from starving; we now know if we don’t it may be too late. We now know the lack of food before their third birthday caused the biggest majority of our first graduating class to be brain damaged; after four years of instructions they couldn’t retain enough information to be successful first graders. It happened to them before they got to us.

The Group Inc. is the sponsoring agency that will accept tax-exempt donations for our Haiti project. Any help will help us care for those babies. Make contributions to The Group Inc., 980 Sugar Valley Road, Calhoun, Ga. 30701 c/o Deacon Balliew.

See our work on our Web site at thegroupof.org and you can make a contribution through the site.

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