Melanie Wright Zeeb - Beauty from Ashes: An Eyewitness Account of Haitis Tragic Earthquake

Beauty From Ashes

An Eyewitness Account of Haitis Tragic Earthquake

2014 by Melanie Wright Zeeb

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-62020-262-3

eISBN: 978-1-62020-363-7

Unless otherwise indicated, Scriptures are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover Design by Hannah Nichols

Page Layout by Joshua Frederick

eBook Conversion by Anna Riebe

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DEDICATION

For the children who lived this story
And the families who call them their own.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to my parents, Dale and Joyce Wright, who allowed me the time and space to heal when I moved home from Haiti. Your love and support throughout my life have been invaluable.

Thank you to my husband, Matt, who married me in the middle of this crazy writing process and has supported me through it, even when he didnt always understand it.

Thank you to my mom and to Susan, who read through many drafts of this book, offering advice and encouragement as needed, and without whom this book might never have been completed.

Thank you to all the families whose stories are told in this book. I am honored that you entrusted your stories to me, and I know that this book is better because of them. I am even more honored that I was entrusted with your children when they and I were at GLA. My life is richer from knowing them and I am thankful that I was introduced to you through your amazing children.

Thank you to Joel Trimble, Joe and Jill Wilkins, and Bas Spuybroek, who shared their photographs and video footage with me, allowing me to experience parts of the journey that I was not present for.

Thank you to the publishing team at Ambassador International for believing in this story and giving it the opportunity to go out into the world, and to my copyeditor, JP Brooks, for making it a stronger story than I ever could have done alone.

Thank you to my heavenly Father, who has given me a life beyond any I could have imagined. You answered the long-forgotten prayers of this little girl who wanted to live adventures and write a part of your story. I am blessed.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

HAITI WAS NEVER PART OF my life plan. If living overseas was ever something I considered, it involved going to one of the many countries where they speak English, or at least Spanish, which I had studied for several years.

In spite of these and other objections, in June 2004 I ended up on a mission trip to Haiti with the church I was attending at the time. This trip changed me, how I viewed the world, and the entire course of the next several years of my life.

To be honest, I did not immediately love Haiti. In fact, by the end of the first day, I hated it. From the moment our plane landed that afternoon, I was assaulted by unfamiliar smells and sights: burning trash, crowded city streets, brightly painted trucks crammed with people, rough roads, nearly-naked children, and tiny shacks that served as homes. I felt like I had stepped into a National Geographic video, and I didnt know how to reconcile what I was experiencing with the world I had always known. Perhaps I didnt actually hate Haiti so much as I felt overwhelmed by it, but I was miles outside my comfort zone and I didnt like it.

By the next day, my attitude had begun to change as I started meeting the Haitian people. I had seen their poverty the day before, but now I saw them for the people they were. They had hopes and dreams and a resilience I would not have imagined. I was already beginning to love and admire these people, and I quickly realized that the only difference between us that mattered was where we were born. If I had been born in Haiti, my situation would be the same as that of these people I had come to serve. I had done nothing to deserve being born in the United States, with all its wealth and opportunity. By the end of the week, I had wrestled with these truths and, though I had by no means found all the answers, my experiences had touched me in such a way that I already knew I must come back.

So I returned the following year, spending six months teaching English in an orphanage. In 2007, I spent another two months in Haiti, teaching and volunteering at a different orphanage. Throughout those years, I also went on as many weeklong mission trips back to Haiti as possible. Every time my plane landed on Haitian soil, I felt like I was coming home.

Finally, I found what I had been searching for: an opportunity to live and work in Haiti on a long-term basis. I was offered a job at an orphanage named Gods Littlest Angels. GLA had begun thirteen years earlier with saving the life of one tiny premature baby, but it had since become a large orphanage that processed dozens of international adoptions each year. In addition to the Bickel familyJohn and Dixie (who directed GLA) and their adult daughter Laurieseven other staff members from the United States, Canada, and Scotland worked at GLA performing a variety of duties. There were also more than eighty Haitians employed to care for the children, staff, and visitors: office staff, drivers, nannies, nurses, schoolteachers, cooks, housekeepers, and laundry ladies.

I moved to Haiti in April 2008 to join the staff of GLA as their update coordinator. This meant I would be responsible for taking pictures of all the children each month and sending them, along with anecdotes about the children and their growth, to their adoptive families around the world. Best of all, I would get to spend time with the children.

By the start of 2010, as I was nearing the completion of my second year in Haiti, GLA rented three properties located within half a mile of one another in the neighborhood of Thomassin 32. The main house was home to the youngest children, from birth to approximately two years of age. It typically housed around ninety children, in addition to the Bickel familys apartment and the main offices. Several long-term staff members lived in a separate apartment-style building adjacent to the main house. The toddler house was located within easy walking or driving distance up the mountain. It was where the older children, ages three to thirteen, lived in separate buildings for the boys and the girls. Besides the sixty children and the toddler house staff living there, short-term volunteers stayed in dorm rooms at the toddler house during their time at GLA. The newest rental property was the guesthouse, which was located a few houses up the road from the toddler house. Visiting families whose adoptions were complete or who were required to come to Haiti to file paperwork stayed in the guesthouse.

This was the world that had become my life.

PART I

EARTHQUAKE AND AFTERMATH