More than the name of a girl ...

In many ways this picture is the defining image of our trip. Yes it’s a Haitian child, her frail body belying her 5 months of life. Her weakness is eloquent testimony of this country’s poverty and need. She’s severely malnourished, she’s been abandoned by her family, she suffers from hydrocephalous, a condition which would, more than likely, have been identified and treated with little lasting damage here in the UK. But she’s Haitian and so she wasn’t treated and it is now severely life limiting for her. She’s a sign of injustice.


But she is more than a symbol, she is an individual who became a part of our team. She was abandoned half-way through our trip, the hospital rang and asked if our children’s home could accommodate her. She was collected, named by one of us, and brought home. Arms and legs the width of a single finger she was loved, nurtured and cared for. Fed, by syringe, first every hour, then every two, her body began, slowly, to fill out, just a little. Occasionally she would cry, just quietly.

She would be carried round with us, a constant talisman reminding us: that the building we were working on was being designed precisely to prevent such conditions being so devastating in the future. That the love she was receiving from Reninca and Carwyn, who run the home, and the other staff, was precisely what they did, and would continue to do, to all who they came across. On our final day she was dedicated to God, and we who have responsibility for her (that’s all of us by the way) made our promises too.

So she stood for much more than she knew, she was known and loved, eternally and today, she is more than an image of desperate poverty far, far away. She is a girl, she has a name, her name is ….Grace.