Deseret News in Haiti: Med student discovers a daughter to adopt

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Bill Betz asked to borrow a cell phone Friday to make a call home to his wife, Amy, in Fort Worth, Texas.

The life-changing call confirmed the culmination of one effort and the start of many more, including a new family in Texas and a new partnership linking Utah and Haiti.

"Hello, babe. Can you hear me?" Betz asked in a near-whisper, his voice choked with emotion. "I'm sitting here with our little baby girl."

His fingers gently caressed the shoulder and back of a small, thin Haitian girl sporting a pink blouse, oversized white briefs and a pair of doe-like brown eyes timidly surveying new surroundings.

Amy asked for the details — age, size and appearance.

They had already agreed on a name — Lauren Elizabeth Betz — for the orphaned Haitian girl, her parents said to have died in the massive 7.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked the island nation Jan. 12, followed by aftershocks.

Lauren Elizabeth. Perhaps as old as 4, but more likely closer to 2 or 3. Extremely thin. Closely cropped hair. Occasional tears Friday afternoon, more from being tired than being scared.

"I'll try to send you a picture," Bill promised Amy.

While the couple talked, little Lauren Elizabeth slurped soup fed her by Marie Alice Laurent, first lady of the sprawling compound owned by her husband, Rene Laurent, an engineer and contractor who has worked closely on Haitian construction projects for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Though not a Mormon, Laurent has opened his home, guesthouse and compound this week to a visiting team of LDS volunteer doctors and nurses from Utah and the rest of the United States providing post-quake care.

Betz and a half-dozen Haitian women from the Laurent compound carefully scrubbed his new daughter from head to toe and found her the pink outfit.

One of the LDS medical volunteers, Provo critical care nurse David Sindel, examined her and declared she was basically healthy — but malnourished. Very quickly, little Lauren Elizabeth had become the object of attention and affection.

Bill Betz, a medical student, arrived in Haiti with a group of students and a medical college dean in the first days after the earthquake to do what they could. Betz hooked up with the LDS team after his group returned to the U.S.

Married for five years and unable to yet have children, the Betzes recently had talked about adoption. With Bill volunteering in Haiti, the talk of adoption increased; the couple and their extended families made it a matter of prayer.

"We felt like the Lord held us from having children so that we could adopt, that our family members were already out there," he said.