February 25, 2010: Carla Ives is a seasoned Hope Force Reservist and found herself in Haiti recently doing what she does best – reaching out to the littlest members of trauma-affected communities. When Hope Force was asked to send in counselors to the Houston Astrodome to meet the needs of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina, Carla was there in full force bringing a message of hope and peace to children and adults alike. She holds the distinction of being our first non-medical Reservist deployed to Haiti and she is already making a dramatic impact. 

Carla uses art to help children who have experienced trauma deal with their pain and loss. Her booklet of drawings and animations depicts the common cycle of grief that those who experience trauma go through as well as tools for coping with their loss, confusion or despair. Carla brought 10,000 booklets with her that were distributed to children in an effort to help meet the spiritual and psychological needs of this segment of society drastically impacted by Haiti’s earthquake. In fact, we found the booklets to be so effective that they were used amongst adult audiences with equal success in conveying a message of hope. 

“I wrote the trauma booklet for the children... a sweet story of comfort that speaks of what life had been for the child before the earthquake, with food to eat, a home to shelter them, and a grandma to sing to them.

“...Then the ground shook..."

“I did not realize what that one sentence meant until my first night in Haiti. In the midnight hour when all was dark, I awakened to the ground shaking. There's a sound that comes with it - a rumbling, intimidating, frightening sound. The floor shivers under your feet and you feel instantly disoriented. And this was only an aftershock.

“Then I saw the flattened buildings and cars, with the homeless gathered in open fields and new tent communities springing up. For the first two days of my stay here, I met with children at a local Christian school as they began processing their experience. The school suffered some damage in the earthquake but is still safe enough in which to conduct school. The students suffered more. A loud sound could send them running.  

“We distributed “trauma booklets” designed to help them address their feelings of fear. This helped to open our discussion and I found that in each room, regardless of age, the stories were much the same as they recounted the earthquake. Each child spoke of falling down injured, afraid and feeling alone. They saw their homes become a pile of debris. They saw their neighbors dying. 

“And they can't sleep in their homes yet, even if they still stand. They are afraid because the ground still shakes. They have heard the media predictions of a greater earthquake that could come. Over and over I heard, "I think we will die." I thought of our first night when we had two strong rumblings that shook the guesthouse and made us head for the door and imagined the impact such an occurrence would have on a child, especially with the strength of the first earthquake. 

"Lauren" is about 12 years old and has had paralyzing fear since the quake. His home is gone and he sleeps on the ground in a tent community. He's a sensitive soul and has not been able to sleep. He has been sick and unable to focus in school. He remembers too well the sounds of screaming and weeping and the sight of dead people and a shattered home. We spent precious moments together yesterday and again today. When he left school today, he carried a small donated sleeping bag - a sign to him of care and hope. He hugged me tight and won my heart forever.