It was up to her and the small staff to cuddle them, wipe their noses, potty train them, and brush the tangles out of their hair. An elderly widow named Widelene came asking for work. All Bertha could offer was a place to sleep and meals which the woman gratefully accepted.
She had never expected braiding hair to be a problem for her. Every Amish girl and woman was used to braiding hair daily because it was the only way to keep long hair neatly coiled beneath their kapps. But Bertha soon learned that braiding a little Haitian girl’s hair took a slightly different skill. It had taken a few days for Mimose to teach her how to do it properly.
The children’s clothes became torn and needed to be mended. Bertha was no wizard with a needle and thread, but like every other Amish woman, she was raised to be at least competent enough to repair a rip, or sew up a torn hem.
As her mastery of Creole increased, she began to teach. Reading, writing, and arithmetic. There was so much more she wanted to show them, though. The children needed to know the history of their country and the victories as well as the mistakes their leaders had made and continued to make. There was a reason Papa Doc brought terror to the hearts of the Haitian people. She hoped to talk about this with the older children at some point. They needed to know these things so that when they became leaders, they wouldn’t make the same mistakes.
She also longed to do something about the eroding hills, which had been deforested for charcoal and lumber. There was enough farm girl within her that she hoped to teach the poor farmers how to rotate crops. She longed to tamp the ground in around sturdy, transplanted fruit and nut trees and begin to grow forests that could provide lumber with which to rebuild this country. The soil was rich enough to sustain the population if it was treated with care, but the people were too desperate to give it time to rest and regrow.
In addition to all her other tasks, there were patients to tend to who kept coming. The hospital was several miles away by jeep or truck. Word had gotten out that there was a nurse at the children’s home who had medicine and skill. Three days into her arrival, she awoke to find several Haitians at the gate with various illnesses and injuries patiently waiting to see her. She began to awaken earlier and earlier each day so she could tend to at least a few of them before the children awoke.
At least a third of the children in Haiti were infected with worms in their little bellies. Her children were not, but only because she and Mimose took strong measures to protect them.
She saw typhoid, tetanus, and tuberculosis. Malaria was also a problem. Bertha knew that people often inadvertently raised their own mosquitos, so she patrolled the area within and outside the perimeters of the children’s compound, emptying various containers of stagnant water before more mosquitos could breed.
Charlotte came to help her as often as she could. On those days, she would take over some of Bertha’s chores with the idea that Bertha could get some rest, but Bertha never rested. The bit of respite Charlotte gave her was much too precious for rest. She used that quiet time to sink into her Bible and prayer. It became food and drink to her because the work here was not just physically demanding, it drained her spirit if she didn’t take care to refill.
Some days, it seemed as though she could not bear to have her heart broken one more time. A child too ill to save. An aging grandmother with tuberculosis and no living relative to care for her. A woman hugely pregnant, standing in line to see her and Bertha discovering there was no fetal heartbeat.
Precious people with nothing to work with, clinging to the hope that she would be able to help them. Many times she could. Much of the time she couldn’t. Often, even Dr. Lawrence and the hospital staff could not help.
Sometimes the Haitians’ resigned acceptance of terrible things—gangrene from a machete accident, the horrific-looking elephantiasis, dengue fever— broke her heart even more than the fact of the diseases themselves.
In addition to experiencing heart-ache daily, she often found herself dealing with intense anger. The toll taken by the Vodou priests on the Haitian people was enormous, both emotionally and financially. The priests often required money these people did not have to remove various so-called spells. The people were threatened with all sorts of evil things by the priests if any of them turned away from the dark religion to embrace the grace of Christ.
One day, only three weeks after she arrived, Dr. Lawrence dropped in to check on how things were going. She broke down when she saw him, and to her deep embarrassment, she started crying. Exhaustion, culture shock, a too-tender heart, her inability to communicate in the children’s language as well as she needed to, was suddenly way too much.
Dr. Lawrence reacted to her tears like she was one of the children needing comforting.
“Come here,” he said and took her in his arms.
As she sobbed out her feelings of inadequacy, of being overwhelmed, and of her great sadness over what she was seeing, he quietly patted her on the back and said soothing words.
“You are doing a wonderful job here,” he said. “Please don’t doubt that. But your first job is the children. Focus on protecting and caring for them. If you can just save and teach these precious little ones, you will have moved mountains and God will be glorified.”
Although it had felt good to have him tell her that, she couldn’t seem to stop crying.
“I’ll ask Jane to come over in the early mornings and take some of the pressure off of you with the adults seeking medical attention. Would that help?”
She stopped crying and nodded. It would be nice to have Jane come every morning.
Dr. Lawrence stepped back and took a long look at her, making sure her tears had dried up. Then he kissed her on the forehead, told her she was an amazing woman, and the children were lucky to have her.
Later that night, she was a little surprised at herself for reliving that brief, physical encounter in detail. It had felt good to be held by someone stronger than herself. Perhaps a little too good even though Dr. Lawrence had meant nothing by it. He was only comforting a hysterical nurse. But she was wise enough to see the need to be careful. It would be entirely too easy to begin caring too much for Charlotte’s husband, and that would never do.
Jane did come, and it did relieve much pressure. She heeded Dr. Lawrence’s advice, but even just protecting the children took a toll. Rabies was yet another evil she had to fight. Jane told her there had been several cases of human rabies the hospital staff had dealt with. Beyond a particular stage, there was no cure.
Rabid dogs occasionally roamed the area. Sometimes leaving pups behind who were also infected. Of course, the children wanted to adopt every stray animal that came near the place. Bertha could not allow that if she was going to protect them. It was not a popular decision, but she knew she could not back down.
All of that in addition to protecting them from all the germs and microbes little bodies could pick up, and Haiti had some awful ones.
Two little girls, twins, maybe nine or ten years old, waited outside the gate as she walked across the compound after supper one evening. The girls wore identical tattered blue dresses and were barefoot. They were the same height, the same skin color, and the same hair.
That is where the resemblance ended. One was lovely, her face unmarred. Her sister, whose hands she grasped, was what Bertha would forever secretly think of as the girl with no face.
She had read about Yaws in her nursing classes, but it was not a disease of North America, and therefore the instructors had not focused on it in her studies for long. It was just part of a myriad of nasty tropical diseases.
Knowing she would be working in Haiti, she had studied these various diseases more than most of her classmates. However, as she looked at this girl, she knew she had not studied nearly enough.
Yaws was a bacteria that ate away at the flesh and bone. Papa Doc had supposedly worked with an American doctor to try to find a way to cure it. She did not know how much Papa Doc contributed to the research, but certain antibiotics had been f
ound that could stop the advance of the disease. Fortunately, she knew Dr. Lawrence had a supply of those particular antibiotics at the hospital.
The two girls were ragged, extremely hungry, and they had nowhere else to go. The non-disfigured girl explained to Bertha that her sister had been cast out by their parents, who could not bear to look at her. The non-disfigured sister could not bear to see her sister go away alone. She knew the other children threw rocks at her. The valiant little healthy sister had come along to protect her until they could get to the children’s home where they had heard there was a nurse who would help.
A nurse was not supposed to flinch in the face of disfigurement or wounds, and Bertha had seen much suffering in the few weeks she had been here, but the sight and pathos of this poor child’s face when she raised the thin veil she wore to protect herself from flies and prying eyes nearly made Bertha’s knees buckle.
The Haitians had a strange medical folklore. They believed that a wound had to rot before it would get better. This, of course, was untrue. The wounds left to fester often turned into gangrene. Dr. Lawrence said he had been forced to perform several amputations because of that very philosophy.
There was so much ignorance on this island. Bertha knew it would take more time than she possessed to see that all the people learned the medicinal value of basic cleanliness, or even for them to have the supplies they needed to apply that knowledge. So many did not have the wherewithal to buy clean bandages and antibiotic ointments. Had they been able to do so, there would not have been so many cuts and wounds that became septic.
But to see a sweet child in this condition…
Bertha left word at the hospital asking Dr. Lawrence to stop in on his way home that evening. That she had a child he needed to see and to tell him she needed an injection for Yaws.
“Come with me,” Bertha said.
She helped the little girls wash up, then fed them in her room, not wanting to subject the infected one to the stares of the other children. Both girls were exhausted, so after they had eaten and had a sponge bath, she tucked them into her bed and let them sleep. The poor things had walked so far and were so young.
Then she sat and watched over them, praying that Dr. Lawrence would come soon. He would know what to do. He always knew what to do.
He came a little later than she had hoped, but he did come, and he had brought the antibiotics with him.
“I am a doctor,” he said to the girls, in soft Creole. “I want to help you. Can I look at your face, sweet girl?”
His tenderness and concern for the two girls was incredibly touching. What a saint this man was! How blessed she was to have someone like him to turn to when there were situations like this.
Dr. Lawrence’s voice soothed the little girl. She didn’t cry out when he gave her the injection. After he finished, he pulled her onto his lap and held her while he assured them that everything was going to be okay.
Bertha wondered how he could say that.
“I have a close friend in the states who is a plastic surgeon,” he explained. “Sometimes, he makes third-world visits. I think his next visit should be here, don’t you? And soon.”
Bertha nodded, unable to speak, fighting back tears of gratitude.
Over the following days, as she cared for the two girls and Dr. Lawrence made arrangements for his friend to come, she wondered when it would be her time for illness to hit, but it did not. At least not for the first few months. It was as though the childhood she had received in the Holmes County area had given her such a good start nutritionally, her body could throw off any number of diseases. She was grateful but doubted her good luck would last.
Chapter 37
“You might want to slow down a little,” Bertha suggested yet again, this time without even bothering to look at the speedometer. “I saw a sign back there that said the speed limit was sixty-five now. “I would hate for you to get a ticket.”
“I am driving the speed limit, Bertha,” Darren said. “I’ll get a ticket if I go any slower.”
They had made three bathroom stops so far. Two had been at McDonald's so Darren could get a large black coffee to go. They had eaten about half the food in the cooler. Darren had not shown any signs of accidentally falling asleep that she had seen. She was feeling much better about him.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“About half-way through North Carolina,” he said.
“Are you still feeling all right?” She was concerned. “You’ve been driving an awfully long time.”
“I’ve driven all over this country, Bertha,” he said. “I haven’t fallen asleep at the wheel yet.”
“Would they really ticket you for going too slow?” She turned to check on Anna, who was lying on the back seat, sound asleep.
“Yes. Some people have gotten tickets for driving too slowly.”
“That is a bad rule.” She thought about it for a few moments. “But I trust you. I apologize for nagging so much.”
Darren glanced at her. “You trust me?”
“Yes.”
“That surprises me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m Darren—the black sheep of the family.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment. “Joe was the brother people trusted. I was the prodigal who wasted my life in what the Bible called ‘riotous living.’”
“I was the black sheep of our family as well.”
“That’s not the same thing,” Darren said. “Leaving your church to become a nurse isn’t exactly riotous living.”
“Becoming a nurse did not go over so well with my family, that is true,” she said. “But I have been disobedient in my own heart many times.”
“Being disobedient in your heart doesn’t count,” Darren said. “You can be a little bossy sometimes, but overall I’ve never met anyone who lives with more integrity and righteousness than you.”
Bertha gave a small snort of derision.
“What?” Darren asked. “Everyone respects and admires you.”
“Then they are foolish,” Bertha said.
“Come on, now. You’ve led an exemplary life.”
“I have tried to, yes,” Bertha said. “But sometimes a person does the very thing they think they will never do. That’s scripture, Darren. The Apostle Paul wrote those very words about himself.”
“I know,” Darren said. “It’s one of my favorite passages.”
“You’ve read the Bible?” Bertha was surprised.
“I was a missionary’s kid, remember?” Darren said. “Of course I’ve read the Bible. But you couldn’t have done anything all that bad. It is not in your nature.”
“Oh?” she said. “And you think you know my nature so very well?”
“I know what Rachel thinks of you, and that’s enough for me.”
“And what does my niece think of me?”
“She reveres you,” Darren said. “And I revere Rachel.”
“Rachel is worthy of your respect, yes,” Bertha said. “But even our Rachel does not know me as well as she thinks.”
“I imagine that’s true with most people. There are always things that are best left between them and God.”
Bertha glanced at him in surprise. Darren had mentioned God again. There was more to Joe’s brother than she realized.
“Don’t look so surprised, Bertha,” he said. “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, and I’ve made some stupid decisions, but I never stopped believing.”
“I’m glad.”
“Are we there yet?” Anna had awakened. She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over the seat.
“No,” Bertha said. “We aren’t even close. In fact, where are we?”
“Almost to South Carolina,” Darren said. “Does anyone need to stop?”
“No.” Anna shook her head, obediently put her seatbelt back on, and settled down to watch out the window again.
“What about you, Bertha?” Darren said. “Are you holding up okay?”
�
��I feel fine,” Bertha said. “I almost always feel fine. Except for breaking my leg when I fell down the steps a couple of years ago, I’ve hardly had any issues with my health.”
“Then you are fortunate,” Darren said. “Hey, I see a McDonald’s up ahead. You and Anna can use the bathroom, and I’ll get another cup of coffee.”
As Darren parked the car, Bertha realized that she had told Darren a lie. It wasn’t deliberate, but sometimes her memory wasn’t as good as it used to be. She had once become extremely ill, and it had been her own fault.
Chapter 38
The tub was rust-stained as she stepped into the cloudy water. The water felt scalding hot, and she jerked her foot back as Charlotte steadied her.
“I don’t want to do this,” Bertha said.
“You are burning up,” Charlotte said. “The water is barely lukewarm. It will help bring the fever down.”
“No.” She was chilling and just wanted to go back to bed. “Please, no.”
“Trust me,” Charlotte said. “Anthony says you have to do this.”
Anthony?
Oh yes. Charlotte’s husband. A doctor.
Bertha started shaking, and her teeth began to chatter.
“Anthony!” Charlotte shouted. “Come in here. I need help!”
That was the last thing Bertha remembered.
She was surprised when she awoke in the hospital with an IV emptying into her arm. Her nose itched, but when she tried to scratch it, she discovered that she barely had the strength to lift her arm. Every bone in her body ached. She glanced around and saw she was in a ward with other patients. Dr. Lawrence was talking to a woman several beds down when he glanced up and saw her watching him.
“Finally awake?” Dr. Lawrence finished with the other woman, came over to where Bertha lay, sat down on the side of her bed, and felt her forehead with the back of his hand. “How are you feeling?”
“Weak,” she said. “What happened?”
“Malaria.”
“Oh.” She relaxed back against the thin pillow. “That makes sense.”
Bertha's Resolve: Love's Journey in Sugarcreek, Book 4 Page 15