Breath of Life
The last of the children line up. Each holds cup in hand to receive the milk along with bread and eggs…another meal and another step toward recovery for Haitian refugees living in Ascension Village in the Dominican Republic.
Just then a commotion stirs close by and a crowd is gathering. We run to help. Frantic yells and intense faces reflect the awful tragedy: A small child face down in a drainage canal.
Already this week, a child died of dengue fever. Now this.
As the crowd anxiously watches, one of the village men grabs the child up. Holding the toddler upside down by the feet and lifting him high he puts his mouth to the child’s. Some of us arrive and witness the struggle for life. Water still drips from the unmoving child as breath after breath is administered.
In this one moment there is no black or white, no rich or poor. We are all here together with one mind… that the child might live.
Then came a beautiful sound. Any other time a baby’s cry might be distracting, but in this case it was music. And as the cries came, the tense moment subsided. Anguish gave way to relief as the poverty stricken village breathed a collective sigh of relief. As Jana, the local missionary drove the child to the clinic for observation we could all look up to the Creator and whisper a thank you that at least this one still has a chance.
The feeding program is good, but the day showed us again that life and death hang in the balance in this village of Ascension. Through medical and construction work, teams here breathe fresh life into sad situations each day--physical life, and the spiritual life that only Jesus brings. You can be a part of bringing hope to despair.