A few weeks ago before Carol got back from the US I went to see Venita and her family at her family's homestead way up on the mountains above Port-au-Prince. It is hard to believe there is such natural beauty just 15 minutes above Port-au-Prince.
I went mainly because I had heard that they had been reunited with their third child who had been staying with relatives until they could afford to send her to school in the fall. Bejano, the Dad, had just gotten a job teaching men about domestic violence in the tent camps. Venita had her old job teaching school back, so with 2 incomes, it finally seemed that they would be able to build a house and live as a family again.
So I was delighted to meet Berjline, a tall, toothless five year old! She was all smiles and giggles and adored her little brother and sister. It was great to see them all together.
But then a few weeks later I got a call from Venita. She was talking very fast in Creole and knew she was very upset, so I asked Margaret, our cook, who is also a wonderful Christian, to try and make sense of what she was saying.
It turned out that Bejano admitted to having an affair with another woman that had already resulted in a baby outside of the marriage. Now he wanted to take Berjline away from Venita so she could help his girlfriend with the new baby, sort of like in Cinderella with the step-mother. Ironically, the man who taught other men about domestic violence threatened his wife and smashed her cell phone in his anger when she refused to let him take Berjline. He had already taken Berjline's clothes and was about to snatch her away, when Venita cried for help and her family hid Berjline for her.
We had been praying about the situation all week, and of course we could not contact Venita because her phone had been smashed. So Carol and I decided to go up the mountain on a Sunday afternoon because on Sunday's there is very little traffic. Unfortunately, it started to pour rain just as we got to the dirt road. The road quickly turned into a river flowing swiftly down the mountain. I looked at the road as a challenge, but Carol was a little frightened. But our trusty Toyota 4WD pickup made it up no problem. Venita was so excited to see Carol, she ran over and gave her a big hug!
It's hard to describe Venita's house when it rains. Picture drips all over the place, and one in particular on the bed where she and the 3 children sleep. In addition, she had 20 bags of cement taking up 1/4 of the house because during the earthquake, two out of the 4 walls of the house fell down. The other two walls are just tarps and plastic sheeting. She said that at night all kinds of insects and animals crawl inside for "shelter".
Later I found out one type of animal that visits her in the middle of the night: Tarantulas! When we were visiting a new-born baby next door, one tried to crawl into the house where the baby was sleeping, so I killed it with a stick.
Since Venita wanted to fix up her house, and had a week of vacation before school started, we invited her and her 3 children to stay with us while the house was being worked on.
Now they are peacefully sleeping in Ricky's old bedroom.
Poor Venita has been through a lot since the earthquake, so pray for her as she faces this next challenge. And pray for marriages here in Haiti and in the US, where Satan still seeks to destroy families by sin and unfaithfulness.
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