Evans Story

Today a few of us went to a town called Gonaives in Haiti. We went with Mola who runs the YWAM work there to see what the refugee situation was after the earthquake. Mola drove us around a little bit, showing us his home and some of the city and then took us to one of the hospitals in town that is caring for victims of the quake.

We saw people with leg injuries, head wounds and broken arms, but the one person that captured all our our hearts and attention was a little 20 month old boy named Evans. Evans was standing in his crib in the middle of the pediatric ward surrounded by lots of doctors, patients, mom’s and dad’s. The thing we noticed was that Evans was the only one with no one around him.

We asked Mola what he was in the hospital for. “Was he hurt in the earthquake? What about his mom and dad, where are they?” After talking with a few people we found out that Evans mom and dad had both died of AIDS and that he was alone and was infected with HIV. Our hearts broke for this little boy. What could we do? We didn’t speak any Creole and knew we couldn’t take him home, what should we do? There is nothing worse than seeing a horrible situation and feeling helpless in it even though with all your might you want to fix it.

Kody, one of the 3 of us who went to Gonaives continued to ask questions about Evans while Lindsay (Kody’s wife) and I hung out with Evans and took pictures of him with my i-Phone. He had been totally quiet and wary of us until we showed him the pictures, then he started making noise and grabbing for the phone with excitement. I am sure that Evans had never seen himself before this time, let alone seeing a picture of anything in his short 20 month lifetime. After a few moments we had to leave Evans and headed down the the pharmacy to meet Paulonne who is currently Evans caregiver.

Paulonne is a single mom with one biological child and one adopted child. She saw the need for Evans to have someone caring for him so she took it upon herself to be his caregiver. She wants to bring him into her home, but she cannot right now as she is currently housing 28 earthquake victims in her house. Here was this single mom who worked as a pharmacist at the hospital caring for 28 strangers in her home and also saving the life of Evans.

Kody told Paulonne about Pastor Niño. Pastor Niño along with his small church in Ensenada, Mexico raised $115 to give to the most needy person that Kody met in Haiti, Evans was that person. Kody told Paulonne that they had heard about the need in Haiti and wanted to give out of what they don’t have to meet the needs of Haiti. Kody then gave Paulonne the money and thanked her for caring for Evans. We prayed for Paulonne and asked that God would bless her and Evans. As we got up to leave she thanked us with tears in her eyes and Lindsay noticed a man who had been standing in the back of the room the whole time crying as he watched what had happened.

The three of us walked away not thinking that we had saved a life, but overwhelmed at the huge need in Haiti and at the generosity, love and compassion of one woman who was going way beyond her means to meet the need. We are falling in love with this country more and more every day and are seeing that regardless of why this earthquake happened that God has people here that are bringing change and hope to a wrecked and shattered nation.