Delcys Journey

Delcy is a 20 year old young man who lives in a small village outside of Gros Morne. He has a chronic heart condition that will lead to his premature death if he doesn’t get open heart surgery.  Unfortunately, this is not available in Haiti.  The Religious of Jesus and Mary sisters here in Gros Morne have been helping to support him, paying for his education and medical care, etc. for seven years now, all the while trying to get him to the States for the surgery.  

How could it take seven years you ask? Well, the short answer is, “It’s Haiti.” When he was a minor, his mother had to be involved which is fine except, although she had multiple IDs, none of them exactly matched the mother’s name on his birth certificate. So, that was a dead end as far as getting Delcy a passport was concerned and without a passport, he wasn’t going anywhere.

 When, be became an adult, the process started again.  I can’t tell you all the obstacles along the way but I do know a few of them.

For some reason, in order to obtain a Haitian passport, among other things, you have to have somebody who already has a passport vouch for you. Not only that, but a passport holder is not allowed to vouch for more than one person.  Now Delcy lives in the mountains, in a town without running water or electricity.  He doesn’t know anybody with a passport.

The sisters were eventually able to locate a kindly woman who agreed to do it without charge. Down to Port-au-Prince we go with Delcy to fill out the paperwork with this woman. Then, the Haitian Embassy claims that she has already vouched for somebody else-somebody the woman says she’s never heard of. This means she can’t vouch for Delcy. Such a disappointed to all. 

Eventually, a friend of Delcy’s cousin agreed to do it for $500. That’s right, 500 USD! So, another trip to PAP and $500 later, we get past that hurdle.  Other hurdles followed but, in the interest of brevity, I’ll spare you the details.  You get the idea, I’m sure.

Finally, last December, we get the passport.  Alleluia!

The next step is to obtain a US visa. Essentially, in order to obtain the visa, we must demonstrate that all Delcy’s expenses will be covered. So, while the passport saga was playing out in Haiti, a former volunteer, now living in the US, was working on this portion of the project.  

Slowly but surely she put together all the pieces: a hospital and surgeon in Omaha agreed to provide the surgery without charge;  a woman in Tucson agreed to donate sufficient miles for Delcy’s airfare to and from Omaha; a family in Omaha agreed to provide room, board and transportation for Delcy while he’s there; another family in Omaha knows a young man there who can speak Creole; others donated money to help pay for his other expenses such as winter clothing.

On Monday afternoon, Sr. Jackie received an email from the US Embassy saying that Delcy had an appointment for his visa application the following morning at 7:00 AM at the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince. She had put in a request for an “emergency” appointment due to Delcy’s failing health. Little did we know it would turn into our “emergency,” seeing as PAP is a 4 hour drive from Gros Morne!  Fortunately, Delcy was staying with family in town so after much frantic gathering of documents, double checking the “check-list,” and packing for an overnight in PAP, Sr. Jackie and Delcy were on their way, with Tiden, our driver, at the helm.

Less than 24 hours later we heard the wonderful news that Delcy’s application for a visa had been granted. We were ecstatic, of course. It is so nice to have these little victories now and then.

He’s a little nervous, of course, but he has no idea how different life will be for him in the States.  It will be so, so far from his life in Haiti in so, so many ways. 

If you’re interested in following Delcy’s journey, please check the blog we’ve set up at www.delcysjourney.blogspot.com.  We’ll keep it updated. Now, we need prayers for a successful surgery and recovery.