We Moved Part 1: From Jessica’s Perspective
We thought it would be good for everyone to get the story from both Matt and my perspective. I will pick up at the same point Matt did yesterday.
We arrived back to Haiti on March 13 after a few weeks in the states. March 14 started 3 weeks of back-to-back American teams coming down so we were preparing for that while also trying to get back in the swing of things with the kids. When we returned to the orphanage, it was immediately brought to our attention that there had been some trouble while we were gone concerning one of our older girls. In the middle of trying to take care of our teams while also trying to take care of our kids, after a series of other events at the orphanage, we realized we had to remove her and quickly. There were even a couple of nights I woke up in a panic that we would go back the next day and she would be gone. We went up on a Friday afternoon and told her to pack her things and that we had to go. At the time, it was a fairly big scene and that was not an easy thing. Neither Audancin nor Rosie were there at the time and although this made it harder later, I think this is the only way we got her out of there. Looking back, I think God designed it that way so we could get her to a safe place. We had found a family she could live with but were not planning to have her start this until the following Monday. We went back to our house at Christianville and tried to figure out what to do next. As usual, our amazing friends at Christianville came to the rescue. They allowed her to stay on campus with a Haitian woman for a few nights and also provided meals for her. Almost immediately after removing her, Audancin began to call Matt and make threats. For 3 days straight I sat inside our house with our girl (we were worried about taking her out of the walls of Christianville because we feared that Audancin would come and take her) while Matt fielded phone call after phone call from Audancin making threats. He continuously told Matt he would call the police and have him put in jail. I know you must be thinking that is just silly…there would be no grounds for that…keep in mind we are in a 3rd world country where anything can happen. I was terrified for our girl and her safety and I was terrified for my husband. Also, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking this was my fault because I was the one that pushed taking her out of the orphanage that day and that was the thing that set off a chain reaction of events we are telling you about now. We finally found her family and were able to set up a meeting with them that Sunday evening. Those days in between were very long and scary days.