FA I T H
T H R O U G H
COVI If you ask Jean Renel Murat about his COVID–19 experience, he will tell you it was both bad and good. First, the bad. Murat, who helped start the Haitian ministry at the East Orange, N.J., Salvation Army, believes he contracted the virus in March from another employee at Stop & Shop. Murat suddenly started experiencing a fever, headache, sore throat, and pain in the back of his neck. He was in agony much of the time. “When I realized I was infected, I put myself in quarantine,” he said. “I didn’t want anyone else to get infected and I didn’t want to be in contact with anybody. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything.” Murat did go to the hospital a few days into his ordeal, but doctors sent him home. He got by on vitamins, Tylenol, and home remedies. “We Haitians believe in home remedies,” he said with a laugh. Despite Jean’s best efforts, his wife Wiselaine also contracted COVID–19. Things got so bad that the officers at the East Orange Corps, Captain Nephtalie Joseph and Lieutenant Tharonza Elmonus, took the couple’s two children for a few weeks.
20
2020 SPECIAL ISSUE: COVID–19
