Nadia

Warning: This post involves my own personal Christian beliefs. You may not agree with the words you are about to read.

This post is about a girl named Nadia, She lives in a ravine-like area with one house and multiple tents/huts in Port-au-Prince. I visit this ravine about 4 times a week. Every day they are outside playing. When I am at the top of the ravine one of the kids is bound to see me before I get down there. They start yelling Sean and come running. They longer call me blan like most Haitian children I pass. I feel welcome here. Nadia lives with parents, her 3 sisters and her 2 brothers. Nadia wears a necklace made with a bone that is wrapped with string and tape. It is very unpleasant looking. The first time I asked her about it she told me that she was sick. I immediately suspected that it was a voodoo necklace and sure enough it was. I was told by one of the older ladies that she is having trouble eating (or at least that is what I got out of her little rant in Creole).

I wanted to take it off her the first time I saw it. Voodoo is scary stuff and I don’t want a child to be messing with it. A week later I went there on a mission. I wanted to trade her my cross necklace that I have not taken off in close to two years for her voodoo one. This was quite the difficult task due to my lack of knowledge of the Haitian Creole language. I tried my hardest. Eventually they understood what I meant. Initially I went directly to her and asked her. What she told me was quite shocking, but I have heard stories similar to this before. She shook her head no and said “M’ap mouri”. Literally that means “I’m dying”, but the way she meant it was, “I’m going to die.” She literally thinks that if she takes that necklace off, she will die. 15 minutes or so later, I had an opportunity to ask her mother if I could do it. At first another lady who just wanted my necklace for herself said yes and that I should give mine first. So I did, I gave the necklace to the her and told her she had to give it to Nadia, but she ended up just giving it back to me. Nadia told me she liked mine and did not like hers, but she still could not. Her mother just said “Li malad.” She is sick. The way she said it was like saying, duh! She is sick! She obviously needs this voodoo necklace!

This family really believes that that chicken bone is going to heal her. I know my cross necklace itself wouldn’t heal her either, but I was hoping for it to be a reminder of Jesus’ love. These superstitions are so engrained into their culture that they are telling little children they must wear this voodoo idol or they will die. There are real spirits involved in voodoo, but if they are not from God they can only be from Satan. As of right now, she seems healthy, but everyone in the community seems to think she is quite sick. The reason I am posting this is because Nadia and her family need our prayers. Not just because she is sick, but pray for these people that God may work in their lives and he will shine light into the darkness. Below is a picture of her.