A Journey of Faith

The Trip of a Lifetime

article by Cindy G. Foust

What glorious weather we our enjoying this month in the Bayou community that I love so much. I hope this month finds your family doing well and gearing up for spring. Alas, the first quarter of 2019 is in our rearview mirror and we suddenly find ourselves anticipating the end of another school year. Time does fly when you are having fun, so we must be having a ball because I feel like I’m in a time rocket (a brother to a space rocket, and I kind of made it up but it sounds really cool and Sci-Fi.)

When I got my email from Cassie this month, I could hardly believe my eyes when she said we would be focusing on travel. Wait. I just wrote about that two months ago so what clever, fresh material could I possibly bring my readers this quick? What to do, what to do?

I got to thinking, which generally never bodes well for my readers because I will have us hopping down a bunny trail and forgetting where the rabbit hole was.

Anywho, this isn’t about me, it’s about travel. And since I haven’t taken any cool trips lately, well, unless you include my daughter’s recent dance competition in Baton Rouge. (By the way, go to District Donuts. You will thank me profusely.) But is that really a cool trip for me? I have to admit, I would rather have a cigar put out on my tail than be at a dance anything, but, after all these years, I have just learned to go with the flow and eat my way through Baton Rouge. Hence, the District Donuts recommendation, which does nothing for your diet or weight management but it sure makes you feel like you are on the set of Food Network and when you bite into one of their signature donuts, you will experience culinary Eutopia.

The fact that I haven’t taken any cool trips however, doesn’t mean no one in my family hasn’t. I got to tell you, my sister and brother-in-law, hereinafter referred to as Shelley and Terry, recently took the trip of all trips…to Haiti to pick up their newly adopted daughter, Solina Hamilton. Now, picking up might not be the right verbiage, as it makes it sound like they ran to Sam’s and picked up a case of water. They went to Haiti to pick up their new daughter and the whole experience is still surreal to me and my family. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

About three and a half years ago, Shelley and Terry went on a mission trip to this underprivileged country in hopes they could help in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that had wreaked havoc on them in 2010. The country was still in shambles and their church was part of a mission team that went to offer assistance in ministry, construction and medical needs.

It was life changing for my brother-in-law, and subsequently his entire family, as he worked as a medic in the little makeshift medical tents (think M.A.S.H.) and had his first encounter with Solina. Not to be too dramatic and gut wrenching, well, that’s a lie, I’m going for that effect, because it does show firsthand how fortunate we are to live in the United States, but Terry literally picked this child up as she was crawling to their medical tent for assistance. You see, she had severe stomach cramping and she had no one to help her. Solina’s mother had left her in Haiti and fled to the Dominican Republic, leaving Solina’s care to someone else who didn’t have her best interest at heart. In the course of two days, Terry bonded with this child and had quite a bit of anguish when he had to leave her.

Now, my brother-in-law is a bit of a macho, man’s man kind of guy and when he came home telling me this story, I was somewhat taken aback at his level of heartache for Solina. He began to feel God’s calling to do more for this child, and in the beginning, I think it was going to be more like a sponsorship for her through Save the Child or something. I have to admit, I didn’t give it much thought, because hey, what are the chances he and Shelley would decide to adopt a child from a foreign country? Slim, right?

They continued to monitor her care through different people they had met on their mission trips, and before you know it, we were having a “family meeting” so they could tell us they were adopting this child. I’m ashamed to admit it, but hey, I tell my readers everything about my life, so I’m going to flesh this one out with you, too, but I did not initially take the news well. It’s completely selfish of course, and my reasons were completely ridiculous.

In fact, looking back on it now, I hardly recognize the person in that family meeting. She was close-minded and selfish. She tried to justify that her sister and brother-in-law were adopting a child that was likely very sick and what if they brought her here and something happened to her? My family has already given up so much, and we could likely be doing it again? What if their children didn’t want another sibling, they were tweens after all, and did anyone ask them? Did they know this was going to likely cost a fortune and where in the cat hair would we get the money? Did anyone ask me how I could possibly love a child I had never met, that was halfway around the world, living in a cardboard box, as much as I loved my nieces and nephew? What about me?

But time marched on and Shelley and Terry stayed obedient to God’s calling for their life. I began to realize that it wasn’t MY calling, it was theirs and who was I to question this specific and admirable calling for their life. Three and a half looonnnggg years later, (yes, I know it’s misspelled but it adequately describes the process), and many, many hours of anguish, trips to Haiti to visit Solina, home studies, psychological evaluations (Terry barely passed, but he made it by the skin of his teeth), correspondence with the court system in Haiti and adoption agencies, we got the call to go get our girl.

Three weekends ago, on the very same weekend as the dreaded competition, Shelley and Terry flew into New Orleans, to a small, private welcoming party with Solina.

Now, ChaCha (as my nieces and nephews call me) had had multiple Facetime conversations with Solina over the years. For crying out loud, I put a wreath on my head and danced through Target for her when she called one morning during the Christmas holiday! Shelley has made her many scrapbooks with all of our pictures that she has kept it under her bed and prayed over every night. But this was my first time to lay eyes on this precious little child, and did it throw me for a loop. She ran through that airport, like a Hallmark movie, straight into the arms of her waiting brother and sister. She slowly made her rounds to each family member until she got to ChaCha. We made eye contact. She smiled shyly and said “Hello, ChaCha.” And just like that my heart made room for another niece…one that I love as much as the ones God has blessed me with.

Oh, how I admire my sister and brother-in-law, how I admire their obedience, their unwavering decision to change the life of this precious child. Oh, how grateful I am for their decision to bring this little creature into our family, and oh what joy she has already brought to us and will continue to warm our hearts with. And what fun it will be to have a front row seat to what God will do with her life…this little child, rescued from the ravaged streets of Haiti by two people who defied the odds (and public and family opinion) and fulfilled their calling.

This month’s travel edition couldn’t have timed any better for me as the “trip of a lifetime” might not have been to the luscious beaches of a Caribbean resort or the slopes of a beautiful snow covered mountain, but this “trip of a lifetime” irrevocably changed someone’s life. Now that, readers, is a travel story worth telling.