Deseret News
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Chareyl Moyes' eyes are red.
She hasn't slept. But that's not the only reason her eyes are red. She has cried tears of anguish. But that's not the only reason, either. She has cried tears of joy.
It's hard to sleep when you spend every waking moment doing the impossible. It took every tear the Ogden woman could cry to persuade two governments to hear her plea for the children, the Haitian orphans she desperately wants to give a better life. She does not believe miracles occur without work.
"I banked about 60 hours at the embassy begging for approvals," said Moyes, Wasatch International Adoptions program manager for Haiti.
And with some intervention — she likes to call it divine — it happened. Children from the Foyer de Sion orphanage were on their way into the arms of adoptive parents. But not all of them.
And so she found more tears to shed.
Two Haitian boys, perhaps 10 years old, standing feet away from the new life Moyes assured them of were told they would be among those not leaving Haiti. The reasons don't matter. The boy in the basketball jersey wailed harder. But the boy in the red T-shirt delivered the gut-wrenching blow.
"I'm sorry," he said in English, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Moyes promised him his turn would come, and then she took the most difficult step of her life.
"It's a sad thought that the system beats you down so much that when you have to leave children behind, you're happy," Moyes said.
And she found more tears to shed.
Leaving children behind, this time, meant she had children to take, 66 in all who would get the life her own adopted 6-year-old Haitian boy has.
Moyes had no words to describe the feeling of knowing real homes awaited those children, that no longer would they have to sleep on a driveway or endure the pain of hunger.
"I'm at a loss," she said.
Words escaped her, but tears did not.
Those are the reasons Chareyl Moyes' eyes are red.
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