Passionately Pursuing WHAT?

Well isn't that a great question! HA! Where in the world to start, right? Well when I was thinking about naming this blog, a zillion things ran through my mind. It's sort of like trying to name a child, you have all this pressure because this blog will have this for the rest of its life! It has to be classy even when it's a grandma blog! (I warned you I wasn't the funniest) No, no I do not have children, so how in the world can I relate to that one?

Well, when I was in Haiti this past March, the mission we were at had a birthing center for women in the city to come and wait in line each day at the gates, begging to be let in to have their child within the mission, with food, water, a limited supply of medical 'needs, and delivering equipment. Can you imagine? We were told the first night we were there that we were free to go down to the birthing center and be lucky enough to witness, and HELP, yes HELP with delivering a baby! A REAL LIVE BABY! That stuff only happens on 911 Emergency shows, or on the TODAY show at a rare occasion. My first instinct was, HA, ya right. Well, into the week, I got really jealous of some of my other team mates that had guts to go down there and witness, AND seriously, catch a baby when it came out! WOW!

Below is the "delivery room"....thank Jesus for the mission and the people that give to have even THESE commodities. The women never had their own room.....

So one night, my friend Megan and I bucked up and went down really late and sat in a room with one of the younger mom-to-be's and waited, and waited, and waited with her (and her mom and sister) while she had just an IV of fluids hooked up to her, on a bed, with a sheet, and her screams. (We'll come back to this at another time, in another blog post, ha) We waited into the late hours of the night/early morning, with no avail. We decided to go to bed, and check on her early in the morning. No progress really. It was impossible to communicate to her our condolences of her pain, and impatience, being that we spoke such different languages. We just prayed that God would soon deliver her from that pain, and that little baby. (To this day I continue to check the Rosetta Stone website to see if they've added Creole to their list of languages to learn in a week or whatever- big thumbs down to that advancement.) Anyway, we went across the hall to the “nursery”. Basically, this is a giant room, with 10-12 beds with moms that just had their babies within the last 2-3 days, laying on a bed, with their baby snuggled next to them. There is no nursery with glass behind it to stare and gaze into your little baby’s eyes and beauty. Most moms don’t have a home, an outfit to dress them in, or adequate food to feed themselves to be able to feed their newborn. It was truly sad. I remember wondering what their life would be like once they stepped out of the mission gates.

While Meg and I walked through here smiling at the new mommas, we called a translator in to help us ask them what their newborn’s names were. We both came across two mom’s that, ready for this? Had not yet named their baby, and asked US to name them. Um. Woah. You think as a girl, growing up you fantasize about what you would name your future children, you make a list, either on paper or a mental note, and you’re set! Right? Doesn’t matter what your future husband thinks, you’ve gotten it taken care of, and these are great names you’ve prepared….well let me tell you. When a mom asks YOU to name HER child, one that I will never see again, and one that I just laid eyes on in the past FIVE minutes. Reality hits you that this is a bigger deal then a list of names you have at home on a sticky note or something.

I tried to shake my head and wave my hand, as in “No, no, no thanks”…like I think youuuu can handle this one. The translator told me that she really wanted me to name her son. It would mean a great deal to her. (I really have no idea why) After pondering, I had always liked the name Noah, not sure why, and it wasn’t on my “list”, but I thought about God, and how Noah for years and years lived in a community that people looked down on him because of his belief in God, and following God’s commands in telling his people what God was warning them of. They thought he was crazy, but in the end, Noah followed through and trusted God, and through the flood, the ark, and a rainbow- God shed a new promise and a new beginning on all the earth. So in the midst of Haiti’s devastation and my sole reasoning of being there to help with the destruction of the earthquake that came and went- I prayed for that little boy that little Noah James would become a follower of Christ Jesus, and lead his people in following Christ, and that the Lord would start a new beginning in Haiti. (Which as many know, is a desolate, poverty-stricken country, heavily into VooDoo).

Now this little story of naming Noah (which his mom had never heard before, and pronounced it quite differently than we would here, and when I told her what his name would be- had the biggest smile on her face and kept repeating it and repeating it over and over) is a branch off of what naming this blog would represent and what it would mean…So I’ll start on the explanation of that tomorrow! HA! Teaser, huh?

 --- I couldn't pronounce his mommy's name, and I don't think she knew to look at the camera either....but this is baby Noah James! (My hair is done by one of the girls at the mission that come in to get paid to do our hair to make a living, not my best look, but pretty neat!)

Goodness, this got mighty long, mighty fast didn't it!? Have a blessed WEDNESDAY! (Already? jeesh!)