David Leventhal

Today we visited an orphanage that Pastor Bataille (our host) started.   There were about 24 boys at this orphanage.  When I got out of the vehicle I was immediately drawn to one little boy with a dusty button down shirt that was missing the middle button.  I went over and knelt down to get eye to eye with him.  In the best French I could muster I told him my name was David.

My heart broke when he finally looked me directly in the eye.  There was nothing there – no spark….no light.  Just a hollow stare that communicated he was emotionally lost.  I’ve been around lots of young kids but this little fellow was unlike any I’d ever met.  I found out that he was about to turn four years old & was a double orphan (i.e. lost both parents) & had been brought to the orphanage a couple of months before the quake.

I sat with this little fella in my lap for 45 minutes.  I tried every way I knew to coax a smile out of him – including handing over my iPhone so he could play with the doodle app (which he seemed to enjoy).  But he just sat in my lap – no energy in his body, no light in his eyes & no smile on his face.  He looked lost, detached & mostly sad.  I hated to have to put him down…I would have loved to have spent the rest of the day with him.

Highlights from the rest of the day included:

• Visiting with Pastor Fritz at his church to try & determine if they would be a good match for our church to church partnerships.  You may remember that Pastor Fritz also oversees the HCRM orphanage – see post from a couple of days ago. We stopped by and saw his house which had been destroyed by the quake.
• We visited the pile of rubble that had been Rood’s house.  Rood was the young boy I mentioned the other day that lost his family & his arm.
• While at Rood’s house I spoke to a woman who had lost her niece in the quake.  We stood on the rubble & she showed me, just feet away, where her house used to be (which happen to be on the second floor – right above Rood’s house).  She managed to escape, as did her two children, but her niece was killed.
• Our car broke down for the second & third time.  First was a flat tire.  Today’s two incidents included a battery issue & an overheated radiator.  I think we’ll be getting a new vehicle.

Here are some pictures from the day: