"Ray and I first came to Haiti with a mission team from the Baptist church on Edisto, South Carolina in September of 2002. We were here for a week helping to run water lines to housing for single mothers in Port au Prince. Ray and I are both retired Army officers and have seen poor countries before, but they were nothing like Haiti. The people were so friendly and welcoming. The children were happy and smiling despite their poverty. When we returned home, I looked around our (still under construction) beach house and thought, “What are we doing here?” I felt as if God was tapping me on the shoulder, constantly, saying, “Don’t forget Haiti!” He was very insistent. I asked Ray what he thought about Haiti and he said “We have to go.” We began our preparations to finish our house, sell it, raise funds, and move to Haiti.

We were able to sell almost everything except the house, so Ray sent me ahead and he stayed at his job to pay the mortgage until he could find a buyer. I was in Haiti 6 months before Ray was able to join me. I started working with a mission in Verrettes, northeast of Port au Prince. I came in November 2004, and stayed with a missionary couple that also worked for the mission. After about a month, the husband of the couple where I was staying, woke in the night with chest pains. The doctor didn’t think it was his heart, but they were nervous and returned to the States.

So, I was living alone in a small town after only a month in country. I didn’t yet speak Creole. I only had electricity for a short time in the evening, and I used it to study the Creole workbook and dictionary. In the day I would try to speak to the kids in the street and they would laugh and correct what I said wrong. That is how I learned the language.

During this time, God put a young, sick Haitian girl in my path and she touched my heart. She was an orphan and lived with her grandmother who was quite poor. I saw her a few times in the street and she seemed sicker each time. One day I saw her and felt God tell me that she would die within 30 days if I did not take her home and take care of her. I emailed Ray and he agreed to bring Roodline into our home. I treated her for scabies, pneumonia, malnutrition, and gave her lots of love. She was getting better slowly, but after 2 weeks she got a high fever and I took her to the hospital in the next town. I discovered that she had been there many times since her birth. Her mother had died of AIDS when Roodline was 2 years old, and Roodline had AIDS and Tuberculosis! I was heartbroken for her ill health and short future. I asked doctors everywhere, but none knew of a place that had AIDS medications for children.

Finally, another missionary in Haiti, also from South Carolina, wrote me that she knew of a clinic in Paul Farmer’s hospital that had a program for children with AIDS and TB. I took her there and started her on AIDS medications. She slowly started to improve and grow. During this time, I began to feel that the work I was doing with the mission in Verrettes was not why God had sent us here. It was many months after Ray arrived that I realized that I had been arguing with God subconsciously for some time about our mission. He has shown us, in no uncertain terms, that our mission is to open an orphanage for children with AIDS. This seemingly impossible task no longer seems impossible to us, because He put a young, sick Haitian girl in our path and we were able to take care of her and give her a future."

-Trisha Comfort