Explanation of a Broken Heart

Approximately four years ago I visited Haiti for the first time and fell in love. I fell in love with the country, the people, and specifically, I fell in love with two Haitian girls. One of the girls had just turned eleven years old, the other was only two. I met hundreds of orphans on my trip, but these two girls captured my heart. When I returned home and shared my experience with Kelli and my four children, we all spent a few weeks praying and seeking God’s perfect will, to distinguish if we should pursue adopting these beautiful girls. We all felt this was the direction that God had for us, and thus we began the painstakingly lengthy process. Over the next four years I would visit Haiti two more times, each stint spending more time getting to know these two girls.

In early 2010 a devastating earthquake hit the country of Haiti. Many people lost their lives and the country was in shambles. One bright light in all that darkness was the adoption process was sped up, literally overnight. For almost eleven months now, the girls have been in our home. Legally the adoption is not finalized and we are only considered a ‘foster’ family until the paperwork goes through. However, our hearts have always been that these girls were now a part of our family… forever.
The younger girl, Merci Klarrah, has grown leaps and bounds in that time. She is now six years old and is a constant joy to each and every one of us. The older girl, Marie Andre (Maria), is now fifteen years old and sadly, things have not worked out so well.

At first, we believed Maria to be shy. She exhibited all the symptoms of someone who had been through a lot of horrors in her life, such as physical, emotional, and perhaps even sexual, abuse. Our hearts were to love her through all of this and show her an unconditional love that would melt her hardened heart. At times, we could see huge progress in Maria, and she would smile and show signs of real life. But the majority of the time she would distance herself from us, from friends, and from anything or anyone that would try to get close to her.

We sought out a counselor. Then, another. Then, still another. We tried a different approach at education. We attempted all that we could, to try and win her heart. We read books and we sought the wisdom of others. Nothing seemed to help. A few months ago it began to worsen. Maria learned that she could manipulate the family with her behavior. She began to be increasingly mean to our eleven year-old, Michaela. We would talk to her about her behavior… to no avail. She wouldn’t apologize. She wouldn’t seek reconciliation. She wouldn’t simply be nice. We began to seek new ways to try and form her behavior, because ‘talking’ didn’t seem to work. We grounded her. We took things away. Nothing seemed to be successful. We grew tired of folks saying things like, “Well, that’s just a teenager for you.” We have never experienced this with our other ‘teens’… or any other teens for that matter. (I was a youth pastor for eight years and my minor in college was adolescent behavior/youth ministry).

We began to explain to Maria that when you are part of a ‘family’, unconditional love must be shown. Forgiveness must be given. We do not have the luxury of holding grudges, because it simply makes the entire household miserable. She wouldn’t change. We explained that the adoption wasn’t finalized yet and asked her if she would be happier if we tried to find a different family for her. She refused to give us an answer, but only asked if she could call her birth-mother in Haiti to ask her opinion. To this request, we agreed. Her birth-mother’s advice was for her to “count her blessings” and do whatever it took to stay in America, because Haiti was so bad. From this point on, Maria seemed to be increasingly sad. Each day she would seclude herself and remain very quiet. We tried and tried to love and minister to her, but we failed.

Things between Maria and Michaela grew so bad that we asked friends to keep Michaela for us for a week. Hurtful things were said to Michaela that cut her deeply. We were very concerned that Michaela was being wounded by the meanness of Maria. When Michaela was at home, at night we’d find her wrapped up in a blanket and sleeping in the hall, because she was afraid to go into her room. This was very unlike Michaela, and she was frightened to tell us anything, because Maria had warned her, “Don’t tell Mom and Dad anything about me!” At this time I began to research how we might find a place for Maria to go. Was there a place out there where she could be truly happy?

After much research, we did indeed find a Christian organization that takes in young people exactly like Maria. They have multiple staff that speak Creole (Maria’s native tongue) and counselors who are dedicated to the help and healing of Haitian children who’ve gone through much of what Maria has had to endure. Because the environment is Christian, Jesus is brought into every aspect of the kid’s lives. They were more than willing to take Maria in, after learning more about her.

Since all this has been decided, Maria has had her ups and downs. She had days where she would be a completely different person. She was kind and generous and completely loving. She wrote letters and showed us extreme love. She never seemed to act this way towards Michaela, but to the rest of us she was awesome. Apparently, she made it known to others that she did not desire to leave our family. When we would ask her about this, she would state that she didn’t want to leave. However, when we asked her if she loved her sister, Michaela, and could she be kind to her? She wouldn’t answer us. We had to take this as her not wanting to be a part of the Craft family. You see, the Crafts are: Michael, Kelli, Conor, Kolten, Caleb, Michaela, and Merci. You can’t just love six of us and not the seventh. We all must love all of us – it must be this way. Of course, kids will be kids, and arguments among sisters are going to happen, but this was different. Maria is good at hanging onto a grudge. The one she has against Michaela just didn’t seem like it was going away.

Today we said “goodbye” to Marie Andre. We cried… a lot. She cried… a lot. Our hearts are broken in two right now, there is no other way to say it. We will miss Maria, of course. Her leaving is the death of a dream. I wanted her to be a ‘Craft’. I wanted to walk her down the aisle one day. I loved it when she called me “Daddy”. I’ll miss that… a lot.

I have to keep telling myself that she just wasn’t happy. Although, today… and the past few days, (when she wasn’t around Michaela) she said that she was, I don’t think she truly wanted to be a part of our family. Kelli and I had just come to the realization that if we were going to be doing Maria any good, we needed to make sure she was happy and that she got the very best possible start here in America and in life. We initially thought our unconditional love would be enough to accomplish those goals. However, we have come to realize that it just wasn’t. We now feel that the best start for her is in Miami, Florida at HIS HOUSE, where she is going. We are saddened to admit that Maria needs so much more than we can provide.

We don’t think we misheard God, or that He made a mistake. We do believe that for a season, we were put into Maria’s life, and she in ours, for a reason. If we had not pursued the adoption, taken a second-mortgage on our home to pay for it, and put in all the time and effort – perhaps Maria would be one of the many victims currently suffering with Cholera, in the aftermath of the earthquake, in Haiti right now. Perhaps she would never have had the opportunity to become a citizen of America? Now she does.

I pray that she will be happy where she is going. I really do. I’d like to think we did what was best for Maria. I’d like to believe that God knows all things and that He has Maria… and us… in the palm of His hand. Perhaps he’ll bring Maria back into our lives at a later time – we certainly will keep tabs on her. Perhaps she’ll find happiness away from such a large and loud family like the Crafts. I just don’t know.

I do know that I’ve never been so sad. I know that I don’t like to see my wife and children crying. I know that I need some time to heal and grieve a serious “loss” with my family. For this reason, I’m taking some time to do just that. I hope you’ll all understand what we’ve been going through, and where we are at now. Some will, and have, judged us for the decisions we’ve made. My attempt at writing this long blog is that you will know our hearts, and why we are where we are at this time.

I love you. Please continue to keep us, and Maria, in your prayers. Many of you reading this have reached out and shown love to Maria. Thank you. Your kindness has not gone unnoticed. We have appreciated you all more than we can express.

Michael