Going to the Chapel...

... and gonna get married... :)

My wonderful boyfriend is now my wonderful fiancé!! Yay! Sorry about the dearth of blog posts, but you can read all about wedding stuff it our wedding website, created with love by my amazing maid of honor:
http://www.justproposed.com/dianeanddavid2010/

More news to come soon!

Never a Dull Moment

So, today started out a little bit crazy... By 7:15 this morning, I had run along the beach, kept Sassie from being eaten by another dog, febreezed the dog I'm dogsitting, found and cleaned up his doggie doodle left on the living room floor, killed the largest cockroach I'd ever seen (more than 2 inches!!), gotten fresh spinach from the garden, been asked for a doll by a girl on the street, and talked to several people in Creole.

Maybe all of that should have prepared me for this afternoon's adventure...

Around 4pm, I left my house to go greet some visitors. They had walked up from the wharf because Trisha, who normally would have picked them up, had taken our friend Neil to the airstrip. I called Trisha who agreed to come get us and take us to the wharf to get the visitors' suitcases. So, we head down there and just as we arrive home with the stuff, Trisha gets a call from Neil, who's in the airplane.

The plane had HIT A TREE leaving our airstrip and knocked off one of its landing wheels!!!! Neil asked us to go to the airstrip and pick it up. They were still heading to their destination and were going to attempt a crash landing. Crazy!!!!

Matt and Bena took off on the 4 wheeler and Trisha and I and like 5 WISH guys piled back into the truck. The whole drive down it was thundering and lightening and starting to rain, and we prayed and talked and prayed!!! It felt like something out of a movie!

When we finally got there, Matt and Bena had found the wheel, and Matt took me over to show me the spot and the HOUSE that the wheel had hit!!!! The plane was a privately owned small plane being flown by a retired pilot, not the regular missionary (MAF) flights that we usually use.The pilot did not have much experience flying in Haiti and took off from the middle of runway instead of using its entire length like the MAF guys do. He didn't get enough lift and smacked the top of a tree. The wheel came off landing on the corner of a thatched roof shack and causing a huge hole in the ceiling. The people and goat inside the building all ran outside, unharmed, and rushed down toward the seashore.

Matt and I rode the 4-wheeler home dodging goats and pigs while lightening lit up the sky. Trisha called us with updates as we continued to pray for a safe landing of the plane. They got rerouted to Port Au Prince, since there's better safety equipment and hospitals there, as they attempted to land with only half their landing gear! Butch (who is in Port overnight waiting to bring a doc back here for a short trip) and Dan were asked to meet the plane at the airport. They arrived just in time to watch it come in, make a shaky landing, spin in circles on the ground, sliding off the runway and finally come to a halt!

Praise the Lord! No one was hurt! Whew! What a day!

Christmas in July!!

It's so exciting!!!

After almost 2 years without a functioning x-ray machine, my hospital is getting ready to celebrate (and accurately diagnose fractures again!)!!! It feels like Christmas is coming! On July 2nd, our new machine is going to be shipped from FL to Port au Prince. Please join us in praying that it flies through customs and that we get our machine and training on it so very soon!

Praise the Lord!

p.s.

Check out the Charite Service link for another post on all the little "coincidences" of the last couple of weeks... crazy awesome tales of summer homes, creole words, visitors, and good books!

My Life in Haiti, The Sequel

"Apre danse, tanbou toujou lou." (Haitian proverb)
"After the dance, the drum is always heavy. (i.e., after the excitement, life is boring)

About a month ago, that was exactly how I felt. One night, I was talking with a friend and realized that I felt like I was living in the epilogue of the my story in Haiti. The earthquake craziness is mostly over, we're settling into a new normal, and my life even has some semblance of a routine. We've started swapping war stories of what we all did right after "the event" of January 12th. It's almost easy to look back and to be able to say with some conviction, "yeah, I was supposed to be in Haiti for that season. I was supposed to help out. That was part of the plan." And that leaves this season sometimes feeling like an epilogue. There didn't seem to be much excitement or much to say now. I started to wonder if maybe my time here, my purpose here, was over. And there's not a lot to say in an epilogue; it's time to finish the book and start a new one.
My friend challenged me to live these next several months like I'm starting the next book. Instead of living in the memories of this crazy year, I want to focus on the new adventures that God offers for this time in Haiti. The dance isn't over yet.
And, thus far, the sequel has been incredible!!
God put some things on my heart last year and this winter that He is now bringing into existence! Last year while I was preparing to come to Haiti, I felt like God wanted me to do some discipleship with younger Christian girls and to spend time at the orphanage. And now He's opening doors for both!! My friend Esther (whose father passed away when she was 8)came over this week for a Bible study that the Lord showed me about being a beloved child of God (and which she loved so much that she invited me to share it with her youth group this afternoon!!). On Saturday, I had 9 older girls from the orphanage come to my house for a fun party of painting fingernails, eating cupcakes, singing, and sharing that same Bible lesson, with Esther as my co-teacher. How sweet to see God bringing to life dreams that He gave me so long ago!!
The Lord also put on my heart to work on offering continuing medical education (CME) at the hospital. And, Lord willing, this week we will host our first guest speaker, an OB/GYN from Texas who will share on difficult birth presentations, prenatal care, and eclampsia! While I love seeing patients, taking care of them, and praying with them, I can only see so many. But if we can pass more education on to the health care providers who will be here for years, what a wonderful thing to leave behind!!
Thus far, I'm likin' the sequel an awful lot!! This week looks like it's going to be an exciting next chapter!

Lost in Translation

David got the funniest email today! When he was in Haiti in March, he made friends with a guy who did a great job teaching him Creole. They've written a few times, and David sent him a gift when friends of his from Clemson went down to Haiti this week.
David was in Georgia when the group left for Haiti, so he had his buddy Adam pick up something for the Haitian friend. He mentioned something like a Clemson hat or t-shirt.
Today, David got a thank-you email from his Haitian friend, thanking him profusely in English for remembering him and sending him such a wonderful... casket!!
What on earth did David's friend pick up in Clemson?! I looked up the word casket for the Creole translation and couldn't find it. And then I decided to check the Creole-English side and found that the word "kasket" means baseball cap!
O the joys of translation!

Think on These Things

I've been trying to focus on the positive while I've been down for the count with typhoid... I've been attempting to work out my funny bone by watching funny movies (my mom's favorite prescription for when her family gets sick :). I've been taking my mom's advice so much that I think I could apply for a job as a movie reveiwer! :) I turned movie watching into an 8 hour day of work! I could also start my own weight loss program called "Got Typhoid?" as I've lost 5 pounds this week! It's amazing how you can make one slice of pie last 3 days when you're nauseous and have a funky white coating on your tongue. And using a rusty can opener can be an amazing workout when the furthest you've traveled all day is to your spare bedroom in a 700 square foot apartment. But I feel like having typhoid is right on par with getting a tape worm for weight loss-- rather effective, but you still have to work the bugs out!

So in light of thinking about happy things, a few weeks ago I saw the neatest thing. And the memory has been warming my heart even on days when I've had the worst chills!

That day, I was craving cookies. Big time. So, I set out down the street headed to the closest cookie vendor. And wearing my favorite skirt. It's always nice to try to feel kinda pretty in the 105 degree heat. As I walked, I heard some familiar shouts from children.

"Blan (white girl)," they called out as I strolled by. I smiled and debated on answering with my typical response, "My name's not 'Blan,' it's Diane."

Before I decided, I walked by 2 women. One was short and stocky and pushing a wheelbarrow heavy laden with a giant steel pot in it. The other was tall and slender and perfectly balancing a medium sized pot on her head. And then with the same insistent voice that the children yell out "blan," they called out, "Diane!"

I was quite surprised! I didn't recognize these women. And the way that they yelled my name is not the way that a friend typically greets you. Creeped out, I continued down the road to my cookies. After buying several packages of the tasty little coconut cookies, I turned towards my home again. And passed the same 2 women, who called out in the same way as before.

I felt the Holy Spirit prick my heart through my armor. When you leave to go out on the street, often you steel yourself. You know that the children will call out to you. Often, people will stop you and ask you for things... money, water, toys, a radio, your hand in marriage. Some are truly in need; others are just playing a game to see your response. But I felt clearly that God wanted me to put down my guard.

So, slowly, I turned around, forced a smile, and said to the women, "Ah, I see that you know my name, but I'm sorry that I do not yet know yours!"

The women smiled broadly and introduced themselves. We attend the same church, and they had seen me introduced in front of the congregation several months ago. They live on the Saline-- the poorest part of town-- and were headed to Kay Pov Yo, or the Home for the Destitute, with food. The shorter lady pulled the lid off her pot to show me a heaping mound of rice and beans. The tall, slender one took down her pan and showed me a red fish sauce that emitted a tantalizing aroma. While impoverished themselves, they feel strongly that the church needs to help those less fortunate, and they had volunteered to take food to Kay Pov Yo. Our church does that on occasion, they explained to me.

And they complimented me on my skirt, one that my mom had given to me recently. And they complimented my mom's good taste in clothing. And they thanked me for coming to Haiti.

And I was thoroughly humbled by their generosity. And their kindness. I'm also so thankful to know that others love the downtrodden ones that have captured my heart. And the memory of it still makes me smile. :)

Health and Haiti

Thank you soooo much for the sweet emails, love, and prayers as I recover from typhoid!! Thankfully, I'm finally starting to feel a little human again this morning. I have a little more energy, a little less abdominal pain, and a lot less nausea. Also, my labs returned to normal yesterday-- praise the Lord!! At the beginning of the week, my WBC was 3,000 and my Hct was 30, as can happen with typhoid. It's so nice that on paper, my body is getting better. Hopefully, the rest of me will follow along soon!!

My friend Caleb is doing food distribution, and he sent out this email update as a prayer request for our health. It so eloquently sums up my experience here, that I wanted to share it with you too:
Caleb

..."Actually, I would ask you to please pray for the health of all of the workers and missionaries here. It is true that Western hygiene and good diet help protect us but we need more than that. I don’t intend to be dramatic but this place is full of sickness and death, before and after the earthquake. I hear the death wails from the hospital so frequently I almost don’t notice them. Same with the stories, “oh so and so’s son died last night of an asthma attack.” “Oh him? Yes, his family was all killed.” “No, no, this was a different 3 year old who died of malnutrition.” I could write on and on, pages maybe, but my point is just that one gets used to this stuff it’s so common. And we who work here are only protected by the grace of God. It’s not that we deserve more protection than our brothers here, it’s that if we are to help them we have to be healthy and strong enough. God please give us that grace."

Amen.

Dangerous Dave and Dancin' Di

Another one of my adventures before I got struck down with typhoid...

"Pye, pye, fe bak... pye, pye, fe bak," David repeated and grinned at me over Esther's head. We were doing it! We were actually teaching our first swing dance lesson together, and it happened to be in Haiti... with explanations in Creole! Esther looked delighted!
And David pointed out to me a universal truth of dancing... Women everywhere love to dance, and male shyness crosses international borders! David's taught many beginner lessons before, but this was my first time helping him teach a group. And what a fun group to start with!! Esther had invited us to church that morning for David's only Sunday in Haiti, and after seeing lots of pictures on my fridge of David and I swing dancing, Esther asked us to teach the youth group how to dance. Swing is how David and I met a year and a half ago and something that we still love to do when I don't have a broken arm or typhoid. :)
The girls loved it! I think God planted a dancing gene into almost every woman's DNA. And there's something about the creativity and smoothness of lindy hop that beckons to that gene. Even in another language. Even if the boys hang back shyly.
The pastor and some of the younger guys bravely repeated our little mantra (foot, foot, go back; my attempt at translating step, step, rock step), and they picked up the steps rather quickly. David was the perfect teacher, and I loved watching him communicate through the international language of dance. All we need now are some good swing dance instructor names, as all the best instructors have names with a cool ring to it. How do you feel about Dangerous Dave and Dancin Di? Coming to a country near you soon!!! :D

Alo? This is Diane speaking....

A typical week of phone calls in the States consists of things like a call from my mom with an invitation to dinner, a call from David about when he’s picking me up for a date, calls from friends to set up coffee chat-fests, and maybe a long distance call to faraway friend or sibling who’s still close in my heart.
My typical Haitian phone calls in a week go something like this:
Monday morning, Mme. Soliet called to tell me that they were out of food. Completely. She sent the orphans to school without any breakfast and had nothing to serve them when they return. Is there any way that I could help them?
That led to a brief cry over orphans going hungry and then more phone calls around to see if there was funding available. Thankfully, the last team that was here left a generous donation that will get her through for a few more days, and another phone call lined up some things for the orphanage after that.
Next, Monday afternoon was phone call from Mis Vero, my dear Haitian nurse friend. She was calling to see if I felt any worse and to let me know that she was coming by to take out my IV, the one that she had put in that morning when she visited me at home. I’m so thankful that she makes house calls!
That night, I made a call to my family to tell them I have typhoid.
Tuesday consisted of calls from missionaries to see how I was and to discuss some upcoming visitors, a call from a Haitian buddy to tell me about the LaGonave soccer team playoffs on Sunday and how I should go if I’m better, and a thank you call from Mme. Soliet.
Wednesday, there were calls to set up a missionary flight in a 4-seater plane to Port in a few weeks, calls about hiring someone to cook and clean for me since I can’t get up off the couch, and calls to pray that God would protect the food distribution from rain and violence. The good thing about being sick is that you have lots of time to pray!
Today has had more calls from the orphanage (with a report that the kids are all healthy and playing, and sometimes playing too rough and Mme. Soliet gets to be referee), a call from Caleb about keys for somewhere and how the police on the mainland may have been looking to appropriate some of the food from his distribution and to please keep praying.
So, my phone’s been busy this week! And sometimes the calls feel a little bit like lines from episode of Burn Notice. Just another normal week here in Haiti….

A Note from the Sick Bed and How to Eat a Coconut

Some Follow Up on Being Sick:

Typhoid. {sigh} And anemia. {sigh again} Once again, I am thankful that none of this takes God by surprise, even though I had not been planning on getting sick this year. It's nice to finally have some answers on why my stomach still bothers me and why I'm exhausted, but I still covet your prayers.

While I've been convalescing in my home for the past week, I really have no new adventures to report. So, I've been working on reporting an older adventure. A few weeks ago, I learned how to prepare coconut here, and my experience is as follows...

How To Eat a Coconut in Haiti:

"Knock, knock!" someone called to me on evening a few weeks ago. It was Jon Bena, who was standing outside my door with 3 other Haitian friends and Caleb. Here, it's rare to actually knock on someone's door, and much more common to call out. Another typical greeting is for the visitor to say "One" (honor) to which you answer "respe" (respect). This particular evening, they had come to visit and see if I wanted some coconut.

In America, for me, coconut comes sweetened, shaved, and in a plastic bag. In Haiti, it comes from Jon Bena's 13 year old friend climbing the coconut tree in the yard outside my door. In an amazing feat of acrobatics, this boy climbed the 40 foot tree to throw down some coconuts for me.

After that, we walked over to a stump so that the buys could hack off the outside covering with a machete. Ben, Jon Bena's twin brother, is teaching the younger guys who to use a machete and still keep all of your fingers. Ben and jon Bena learned how to use one when they were 11 or 12.

After the thick outside layer was off of the coconuts, we migrated back to my house, found a drill, and made a small hole in the top of each coconut. That allowed us to extract the yummy coconut water. We poured all the coconut water into a pitcher, added sugar, and stuck it in the fridge for a couple of house until it was ready to be a nice, tasty, chilly treat for us!

Next commenced coconut smashing... which means going outside to my front patio and dropping the coconuts onto the ground to break the brown outer shell. It was then ready to pry out of that dark brown shell with a small spacula. After that (and sneaking a few small pieces to taste :), the coconuts were ready to peel the outside skin off. While I enjoy nibbling on it with the light skin still on, it's best for cooking and pies if you peel the rest off. I've found that a small paring knife is quicker than a potato peeler, but either way it's still a time consuming task. After that, the final step in the process is grating the coconut. At long last, your coconut is ready to be munch or added into granola or made into a delicious coconut cream pie!

David's Amazing Missions Blog :D

I'm so excited for him!!! My amazing boyfriend David got accepted into a missions internship program in Costa Rica for this fall! I can't wait to read all about his adventures there! He'll be doing civil engineering projects and speaking a ton of Spanish.

You can follow him too at: www.engineeringhope.blogspot.com

p.s.

Hi, again!!!

Just a quick note of enormous thanks to my dear friend Bethi for my lovely blog makeover!!!! While waiting for the arrival of her second adorable baby girl, Bethi made my blog look gorgeous! Thanks a million, my dear friend! And welcome to the world, baby Madeline! I'm so glad you're here!

You can follow her adventures at her amazing blog: http://www.bethibook.com/

Thanks, Bethi!

My Life as a Haitian

Hi, blog friends!
Sorry about the long absence! It's been a really busy but neat month! I feel like I've gotten to experience a lot of distinctly Haitian things, and it's been wonderful. Are you interested in some details on my adventures as a "blan" (white girl) pretending to be Haitian?
First, I got back into the country 3 weeks ago after a nice little rest in the US. Since life has been a bit more intense for us post-quake, our mission board asked us to work a certain number of weeks and then rest. So, I was up on the respite cycle again, and it was nice to see my family, some friends, and my David again. So sweet!
Since I've been back, it's been an adventure! On our way back out to the island, we stopped in a little town and bought pates, a yummy little deep-fried, homemade hot pocket. Then, we took the sail boat, The Wesleyanna, back to our island paradise. Shortly after I got home, I opened the cupboard door, and a tiny gecko ran out! Next, the water in my kitchen didn’t work, so I got just a little taste of Haitian life as I carried drinking water from the Guest House to my own (if I were really Haitian, though, I would have carried it on my head—the women here are amazing!!!). I am so thankful to have running water again!
I’ve also been exploring the local market. When we have short term teams visiting from other countries, I usually eat in the Guest House with them, so I haven’t needed to cook for myself very often. But this month, I’ve gotten to do so more. Matt (a friend of mine from SC who’s also here serving for a year), Caleb (a guy from NY who’s been here since the earthquake directing food distribution), and I all went to the market. Matt’s great at finding the stuff that we want, Caleb’s amazing at negotiating prices on mangoes and lobsters, and I am the coconut buyer (I made friends with a merchant and her daughter and they give me a good price ). Matt and Caleb also found (and tried) dirt cookies, much to the amusement of the women working in the market!). Dirt cookies are made from a certain type of clay, sold very cheaply, and are supposed to stave off hunger pangs when you’re starving. Matt says that they taste like—shocker—dirt! Please pray for those who don’t know where their next meal is coming from; for those who find that dirt cookies are their only option.
I’ve also been working in the hospital clinic. It’s been neat to get to know the nurses better, see patients on follow-up visits, and feel more comfortable in my Creole. It’s been slightly less neat that some of my patients share well, and I’m home sick today.
David’s here for a visit!! It’s been fun to have him (especially when I wasn’t sick ). We went to my friend Esther’s church on Sunday, and we were asked to sing a duet! That’s how they like to make visitors feel welcome!! And it really doesn’t matter how you sound as long as you make a joyful noise to the Lord (thankfully, since I’m not much of a singer!).
There’s a quick summary of some of my Haitian adventures! I’ll try to update again as soon as I have some more adventures!

For Such a Time as This

We kicked up clouds of dust as we exited church two weeks ago. Not on purpose, but it's the end of dry season, and everything is covered in a layer of powdery, whitish earth. But not her...


The four year old's black patent leather shoes were still spotless. Her lacy socks were still a dazzling white. Socks and shoes that covered emaciated feet and legs that cannot carry their small charge around. The little one is a paraplegic. 


Curled up in her mother's arms, she never even offered us a smile. Urgently, the mother presented her child to the group of visiting Scottish doctors and myself. A year ago December, the girl fell. She was taken into Port Au Prince for x-rays and diagnosed with cervical and thoracic spinal fractures. This January, she stopped walking. Desperate, the mother hoped that the foreigners would be able to do something for her child. 


We prayed. And set up an appointment for her to see us in the clinic so we could review her chart. 


Tuesday morning, we shuffled over to the hospital in the swirling dust. And we saw over little girl with the clean shoes again. And prayed again. And tried to figure out how to help. 


Thursday night, another missionary, new to the field and just completing his first week on the island with us, rushed across the mission station, leaving small clouds of dust in his wake. "They'll see her!" he informed us excitedly! He had gotten in touch with the University of Miami Field Hospital in Port Au Prince, and they had a pediatric neurosurgeon who agreed to see our little friend. But there was a catch-- he was leaving Haiti on Saturday! 


But God's timing is perfect-- the Scottish team was traveling back to Port on their way back home on Friday. Excitedly, we called the child's mother, and the following morning she trudged through the dust with her husband and the child to travel to their doctor's appointment. 


Last I heard, the neurosurgeon was confident he could help the girl. He's scheduling surgery for her in the States. I  cannot help but think of how timely the Scots' visit and the arrival of the new missionary are! Truly, they are in Haiti for such a time as this.

Quick Note

Just a quick note as life hurries onward...

We've had lots of visitors in the last month. We've had teams from all over-- Canada, Washington state, Pennsylvania, Scotland, France, England, Indiana, New York, South Carolina, and Montana. O, and one more special one all the way from Georgia-- my wonderful boyfriend David! He was only here at my mission station for 4 hours on a Tuesday before going off to another part of the island to work, and then he returned to spend a day with me before flying out. What a blessing to see him, even if it was way too short!

I'm so proud of him! Here's a link to more of the story of his work in Haiti:

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20100327/NEWS/303270021/1186/Coffees-and-more-news-from-Our-Lady-of-the-Rosary-Catholic-School/Trip-to-Haiti-puts-students-engineering-skills-to-work

And here are a few pictures of the fun we had together: (a nice place to hang out during his brief afternoon visit :)

A visit with my friend Esther and her family:

Some of the sand, shells, and small children that we found on the beach... and that found us!

What a sweet visit! I can't wait for his next one!

An Rx for Listening

Koute se renmed ko.
Listening is medicine for the body. 
~Haitian proverb.


The last few weeks here have been busy weeks of talking and working. We have been hosting several different short term teams with different schedules and agendas. I've also had the opportunity to talk about some projects I'm excited about, to catch up with old friends, and to swap Haiti stories with my wonderful boyfriend who was here last week working on several projects. 


All that talking. 


How much listening? 


Tonight, when I came across that sweet little Haitian proverb while studying medical Creole, I paused. In medicine, I was taught that if you listen well, the patient will tell you what's wrong with them. Listening is diagnostic. I've been wondering how often I slow down from my busy bustling to actually hear what the people around me are saying. To hear their hurts, their fears, their needs, their passions, their dreams.  To learn more of who they are through listening. 


But listening is also therapeutic. Isn't it sweet when someone truly listens to you? When someone else knows you, hears you, and acknowledges you? 


As we host a team of 25 people over the next 2 weeks, I think I need to prescribe myself some listening. In my conversations with Haitians, I think God's already equipped me to listen more, since there's still so much that I don't know how to express yet in Creole. What a great time to offer others the sweet remedy of listening!

A Day in Pictures

Hello, again! I'm sorry that the last post was rather somber... it's actually taken me all week to write that as I sort through layers of sadness and grief. Today found me with a renewed passion for life and living it to the fullest with however much time the Lord blesses me with on planet earth. 


I realized that I haven't shared pictures in quite a while, so I toted my camera around with me to ask if "M met fe foto"(if I could take pictures) as I went through this day's journey. Below is the evidence of my day:

First, I found Gravy, one of the stray dogs who's adopted our missions station, curled up in this planter outside my door! She's so silly!! Potted dog, anyone?! Poor little ugly dear... she was probably cold. It was 75 degrees here today, after all. Our normal is mid to high 90's, so this morning found me wearing a jacket! I guess that means I'm acclimating well! I also got a cute shoot of Gravy cuddling with one of her new puppies. Bless her doggy heart, but Gravy is just not a very pretty pup. I'm so glad one of her litter favors the daddy! This is lil Sassafras...

I passed Gravy on my way back into the house after breakfast. I had a little time this morning in my home to answer emails and arrange a few things and to answer my door. It's quite common to have visitors come to your door if they need to talk with you. Not everyone has a cell phone (although having electricity is not a prerequisite to owning a cell phone as evidenced by how many cell phone chargers appear in the wall outlets in church on Sundays!). 

Then, it was on to the Kay Pov Yo (the very poor peoples house). I had visited for the first time last week and wanted to return to check on a lady that we had treated for a bad bladder infection. They were again so very sweet. It feels like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. The walls of the building are caked with years of dust. The inhabitants also are covered with a thick dusting of dirt. I wanted to wrap the whole building in Clorox wipes and deposit every inhabitant into a rose-scented bubble bath. They greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and sweet smiles. My little UTI lady was so much better! She actually made sense... I think. It's hard for me to understand Creole when the speaker only has 2 teeth! There are 15 people living there now, three of whom are children. 

After a few moments, they spied my stethoscope, and I made the rounds. While most are frightfully skinny, they otherwise seem to be fairly good health. I would love to visit weakly and check up on them. When they are sick, it is difficult for them to get to the hospital. I went with one of the guys who works for WISH, the West Indies Self Help organization. They send food every Friday to the Kay Pov Yo.

After that, it was back to the WISH house to listen to the lungs of the wife of one of their workers. She has asthma and has been hitting up her rescue inhaler 10 times a day! The awesome group of Scotland just brought us some steroid inhalers, so I taught her who to use one and a spacer. She's so sweet. I also started teaching Sassafras how to sit. 

After that, back up to the orphanage to check on some wounds. One of the little ones had an eye infection that I've been treating, and he looks so much better! Above are some sweet little faces, and me being silly!Such a full day, but so full of life!

Lavi Se Yon Gwo Kado

“Petet ou ka mouri. Lavi se yon gwo kado.”

“Perhaps you could die. Life is a big gift.”

Such goes conversations that we hear on the street and in our mission station. Such is life post-earthquake.

This had been a week of the trauma of a major earthquake resulting in over 300,000 deaths superimposed on already harsh living conditions. And yet the perspective is still that of appreciating the gift of life. Every moment is a surprise present from God, wrapped up in the vibrancy of colors and smells and touch. Life truly is the present.

This week began with trauma. A motorcycle crashed violently early Sunday morning, leaving 3 critical patients in its wake.  Doctors and nurses worked valiantly to save them in the predawn hours.

Later that morning, I made a trip down to the airstrip to greet a small medical team. A married couple (an OB/GYN and a pediatrician/internist) and a pediatric nurse wanted to spend a few days with us. I enjoyed visiting with them. They were so nice and interested in doing some education in the hospital. They had been in Leogone, just up the road from where I served in the relief clinic. While memories flooded my mind from my time there, it was still neat to compare notes and see how things are progressing in the area now. I was encouraged to hear that Leogone had an orthopedic team pulling 14 hour days. Right after the earthquake, we were desperate for orthopods. The group put their stuff in the guest house and we went over to the hospital for a quick tour. The hospital staff pointed out 3 very sick children that they wanted the pediatrician to see. One was a severely malnourished 7 month old, her poor eyes sunken in and skin plastered to her bald skull. As we wrapped up the tour, I got a phone call from their director... with horrible news.

There was a guy with the rest of their group from Seattle that had come down for a few weeks with them. He was a believer and so excited to be there. He was an ER nurse, married with a 3 year old and a 6 year old. Last night, he didn't feel very well. He took 2 Benadryl, hoping to sleep. The OB doc had been up several times in the night with diarrhea, and she thought his breathing was a little funny, but she was so sick that she didn't pay him much attention. He aspired. A few hours later, he arrested. The director is a trauma nurse and tried to revive him, but to no avail. 

We were able to secure transportation back to Port for the doctor group so that they could be united as a group. While I was arranging that, they asked our missionaries to pray with them. That was neat coming from a couple of non-believers. Please pray for his family!!!! While our group was praying with them, a loud wailing noise permeated the air. The hospital is across the street from our missions station, and one of the critical patients from the motorcycle accident died. 

I was informed two hours after they left that the very sick, malnourished baby died. The pediatrician never had a chance to see her. I’m not sure that he could have done much else for her, but it was still another tragic death added to the day.

The Lord sent an amazing group of men to us later that evening. Two pastors and a doctor from the States spent an evening with us, and what a blessing they were! It’s neat to get to share life with people like that, even if the things you share are from a bleeding heart.

Tuesday was also a rather eventful day… There was a small malfunction of our new boat (a retrofitted lobster boat that arrived providentially in December! What a blessing it’s been since the quake!!). It involved a leak in the fuel line and a lot of smoke inhalation for the brave guys that acted as honorary fire fighters. Thankfully, everyone is okay and the repairs are minor!

Just as someone was telling me about the boat fire, a large group of people (probably about 50-75) paraded down the street in quite an agitated manner. A large boat had arrived in our port from the States full of food and lacking the appropriate paperwork. Sadly, the port authorities had to turn them away leading to demonstrations from the hungry people of my town. We are safe and sound, but it has been a difficult week. Please keep us in your prayers! 

Perhaps you could die. Life is a big gift.

I still don't like cats, but at least they're better than the alternative!

David knows that I don't really care for cats. I think that it goes back to a childhood memory of being viciously mauled by a feline at the tender age of 3. David, my wonderful boyfriend, and his optimistic family like to pretend that someday I will like cats. I'm still not a fan, but I'm hoping that today I really do have one in my house. 
What follows is an email that I sent David (and his awesome mom) describing the events of this afternoon...

Darling David...

I think that I might actually have a cat living under my roof!! Today I heard something really loud traipsing around in the attic and I saw something gray and fuzzy pop out of the ceiling tile cracks!!! (the earthquake and aftershocks have been shuffling around my ceiling tiles) Justine told me that we have cats who live behind our house who sometimes get into the attic and chase the rats! I'm actually hoping that I saw a cat paw...that or we have really, really big rats!!!! I'm putting up my mosquito netting tent right now just in case to serve as an extra rat-barrier!

Never a dull moment around here!

~your diane, the cat-in-the-attic-girl

Just a small moment in the life of this missionary girl!

P.S.-- There's also a goat out in the yard... Maybe there's a goat in my attic?!?!

All in a Day's Love...

I know, I know, the phrase is usually "all in a day's work"... but today I don't feel like I worked as much as I was given opportunities to love and be loved. And sometimes love hurts, if the ones you love are hurting, or hungry, or sick, or dirty, or lonely. 

Today's opportunities of love included...

~meeting the rest of Esther's family. I spent a lovely hour visiting in their home. I was so humbled to learn that they pray for me daily, that God would bless me and that He would protect me. They are very concerned for me that I live alone as that's a foreign concept to many Haitians. Many families live in a one room building or at least have several family members in the same bedroom. It was sweet to be loved on by them, and I am humbled to hear them pray that God would bless me, as I see them working so hard just to feed and clothe their family.

~hugging orphans. I had the incredible privilege of going to the orphanage today to take care of some sick kiddo's. As I climbed the steep hill to the orphanage, I could hear the children laughing and playing. It was beautiful. While there, Mari Tares, a sweet little girl of five with red highlights in her hair from malnutrition, climbed up into my arms to just hug me and smile at me. I want to keep her and let her know she's loved every moment of every day (and to stuff her full of yummy protein rich foods). They have 7 new kids there now, all orphaned during the recent earthquake. 

~treating sick kids. While there, a couple of the kids needed some medical attention. I had arrived with several meds, but I need to go back tomorrow as I realized that another girl has a fever and another has a wound that needs further care. Madame Soliet, the amazing orphanage director, looked tired. She has 58 children and only 5 workers. She made time in her day to sit with me and talk. How sweet! In the midst of telling me about the orphans, a deaf man came to the door. She welcomed him in, greeted him (by waving, and he saluted me-- how sweet!), and mentioned to me that sometimes he seems very hungry and she feeds him. She proceeded to tell me about an asylum for the very poor in our town. The people who live there have no family (kind of a rare thing in Haitian culture) and no jobs. She told me of how dirty it is and how hungry they are. And out of their meager stores from the orphanage, she tries to share food with them. She looked me in the eye and said, "We have nothing. But they need it more." Wow. I am amazed at her generosity. I am overwhelmed by the need.

~Visiting the very poor. After the orphanage, a friend and I went to the Asylum. We were greeted very enthusiastically by an orphan. He's about 13, has cognitive deficits (doesn't know his own name or age), and a crippled left foot and arm. He ran up to us, grinned, and hugged me so tightly, leaving a dusty print on my shirt and an imprint on my heart. They heard that we were nurses, so they brought out a very thin, frail, elderly woman with a fever and a man with a horribly swollen leg for us to look at. I have been told that the town supplies this home with food. I hope so. I feel that my time with them is not yet done.

Sometimes the need is overwhelming here. And so is the sweet spirit of these people... a family struggling to get by that prays for a little missionary and worries about her, orphans who laugh and hug and play so freely, and a crippled, orphaned boy who runs over to a strange white girl to hug her.

All in a day's love. 

Update

Hi, friends!


Just a quick update on life here! I realized today that I haven't written in a while...


It sure has been busy! But I usually prefer it that way. :o) I'm back home in LaGonave, and it's nice to unpack and settle in... to my little home, my work, and my relationships. 


Last weekend I hosted a surgical team from Canada. They were a great group and did 18 cases in 3.5 days! Wow! We sure were busy! I assisted with a C-section of twins, and the anesthesiologist taught me how to do spinal anesthesia! Otherwise, there's only one person here trained to do that, and when she was gone one day, an OB had to do a C-section with only local anesthetic, which is a good deal less effective. 


Since then, I learned how to run our guest house and am flying solo in its management for a few days. That's been fun and certainly keeps one busy! In the last 2 days, we've had people here from Canada, France, Scotland, the US, and missionaries from other parts of Haiti. Wow! The dinner conversations have been very eclectic and interesting! I found out from the Scottish guys that I'm famous over there! When I was working in the relief clinic in Peti Goave, they arrived one day like a Christian calvary. They swooped in with a ton of medicines and equipment, sweet smiles and sunny spirits, and swooped back out. While there, one of the guys made a quick video tape of me caring for a patient. I talked him through what I was doing, and they left. He used that video as a part of fundraising dinner in Scotland, and they raised over $100,000!!! Wow!!!


I've also been coordinating the arrival of thousands of pounds of donated medicines. It's been incredible to watch God provide for the needs of my hospital as we are no longer able to buy medicines since our supply line disintegrated with the earthquake. 


We're still experiencing "small" (4.8) aftershocks. Last night, I couldn't tell if my ceiling was shaking from those or from the rats racing around in my attic! Never a dull moment around here!


My Creole lessons will be starting in earnest again. I love to talk anyways, but language skills will be invaluable over these next few months of coordination and running the guest house. My old friend Esther (the 16 year old who hung out with me in Port in November) is coming over tomorrow to visit and drink lemonade and eat cookies and teach me Creole! I'm so excited to visit with her again!


One last thought... This morning my devos were on Eph 3:14-21, and it talks about knowing the length and width and height and depth of the love of God which passes knowledge. What a miraculous thing to know His love, which is so incredibly great that it overwhelms our capacity to know things! THAT'S how much God loves us! Wow!!!

Charite Thoughts

A couple of new posts at one of my other blogs... a eulogy, some miracles, life's rippling effects...

Check em out at:

http://chariteservant.blogspot.com/

Quake Stories, Part Twa

I remembered a story today; a story that I had not thought of since it happened on January 17th.

It was our first day of clinic work, before we teamed up with the group from Michigan, before we set up shop in Peti Goave, before we had ample local anesthesia. 

I have been amazed at how my patients acted. How would Americans act under the same situation? How would I respond to someone debriding my open wounds without even a drop of lidocaine?!

Very few people just murmur... it's usually either shrieks of pain or an impermeable facade of stoicism. The lady I remembered today was the former. 

She had a wound that needed debridement. It was a 4 cm lower leg area of necrotic tissue that had to be cleaned up to prevent further spread... cleaned and cut away and dressed without even a dash of lidocaine. 

And she sobbed. And howled. And jerked. I focused on just working as fast as humanly possible to make her suffering end quickly. Dr. Kris, our awesome missionary doctor working with us, encouraged her with, "Kenbe kouraj, madam! Kouraj!" (Keep courage, lady! Courage!)

Dr. Kris then asked if she was a Christian, which the woman replied that she was. She was then encouraged to act like one! I'm not sure where that is in Scripture, but I agreed... and she was so brave after that! She quieted down and attempted to hold still. 

When I had finally finished sloughing off dried blood and dirt, removing nonviable tissue, and covering the now 8cm gaping wound with neosporin and gauze, I apologized profusely. My sweet, noisy patient grabbed my hand, pressed it to her cheek, and thanked me repeatedly. 

Wow. 

She lost so much-- members of her family, her home, and a few centimeters off her calf without anesthesia-- and her response was gratitude. I had so little to offer her in the face of such loss. I am humbled by her faith and her attitude.

Quake Stories, Part 2

As I prepared for a year of medical missions work in Haiti last November, I thought that what I was about to see was going to be bad. At the end of December, after 1/3 of the patients I had seen that month died, I realized that it was really bad. After the devastating 7.0 earthquake shook Port Au Prince, it was absolutely catastrophic.

In November, I tried to prepare for third world medicine by reading up on tropical diseases. In December, I began planning the implementation of a CME program to train and equip my Haitian coworkers in first world medicine so patients wouldn’t die of things that people don’t die from in America and so nurses would stop putting tongue depressors in the mouths of seizing patients. In January, I moved to Port to work in a disaster relief clinic.

A huge part of me wants to give you stories of hope after the quake... stories of life and love and the magnificent human spirit.
But I realized that I have been a little remiss... You also need to hear some of the horror and tragedy and heartbreak to receive a balanced picture of where I have been and what I have seen. Many of the news stories are true... stuff is bad. Horrific. Hellish. Heart-wrenching. 

Much of what you see on the news is true. Only worse. On the news, you don’t get a sense of the sights and smells. You can’t travel through Port, knowing from the stench which buildings still have dead bodies trapped under them. On the news, you don’t get to drive by the grocery store where you used to shop, realizing that the man who used to slice your cheese and teach you Creole is now trapped at his deli counter, crushed under 7 stories of concrete.

This is a tent city... it's now where people live. Even if a part of a house is still standing, many are not stable enough for people to live there again. And we're still experiencing aftershocks, so no one sleeps inside. Malaria and typhoid have less barriers as people live right next to one another and good water is scarce. The aftershocks still occur daily. You never feel completely safe... and you never sleep too deeply.

It looks like a bomb went off. So many buildings are crushed... Can you count the floors of this building? It had at least 5. 
Haitians usually wail when a loved one dies. It's a loud, haunting sound expressing deep hurt and anguish. I've only heard it once since the quake... The magnitude of death and destruction is so overwhelming that I'm not sure the grieving has even begun. 
Everyone lost someone. All of the people that I treated in the clinic also lost their homes. It's hard to wrap your brain and your heart around devastation on such a large scale. 

Our clinic was rough... Bare bones medical. You had to be creative and flexible to attempt to treat what came before you. Babies not eating because both their parents are dead. Everyone has a headache and a stomachache. Baby fingers that are black with gangrene and need to be removed. A strangulated hernia that needed surgery after a son lifted a cement wall off his mom only to find that she was already gone. New accidents, as a motorcycle driver gawks at the rubble and runs into a pedestrian. A little boy with an open head injury, grey matter peeking out, after he gets hit with a pick ax that was being used to dig bodies out of the rubble. 

We worked in an outdoor clinic, with tarps set up to catch mangoes and coconuts that fell with the aftershocks, attempting to not create more patients. Patients lined up by the hundreds every morning to be treated. Every morning, I had to scramble to get a small bucket of water to be able to splint fractures. Every morning, it was a quest to find a little bit of clean water to wash out wounds. 

This is the background stress of clinic work. After the first day, I had trouble asking each patient their story, as despair threatened to overwhelm me for the loss these sweet people have suffered.
Every patient had the same history. “A wall fell on me.” “This bulge (a strangulated hernia) showed up in my stomach after I lifted a wall off my mom, only to find out she was dead.” “I’m the only one left alive. I was in a hotel with 200 people for a conference.” 

The Lord told me that morning to slow down, to look at their faces and love them. A couple of days later, my interpreters (I found that I worked faster with using them and it was a good check for my Creole) told me that I was working “dousman,” a word that I knew to mean “slowly.” I was a little discouraged to hear that, but they quickly reassured me that I was not to change and that the people talked about me and loved me. The meaning of “dousman” that they meant was “sweetly” and “gently.” It was sweet for me to know that God can use a broken heart for His kingdom. I was able to pray with several patients, and all of those I treated received tracts.

My favorite patient was an 8 year old who showed up with a crushed injury. Her left hand and wrist had been smashed by a falling cement wall. She had a few scrapes that needed to be cleaned up and she stole a piece of my heart (I wonder if that's how moms feel when they put neosporin on boo-boo's). She has a great smile and a black eye, where debris had smacked her in the face. She was brave as I examined her hand for gangrene (none yet, thankfully!!) and scrubbed her scabs off to bandage her arm and then molded a sugar-tong splint into position. She came back for a recheck two days later, no signs of gangrene and arm healing so well! I whispered in her ear that I loved her and did she know that Jesus loves her, too? She smiled back at me, nodded, and gave me a huge one-armed hug! Her dad leaned over to tell me that she liked me, and also that she was going to the Dominican Republic the following day. My heart rejoiced that she could be headed somewhere safe, and I cautioned that she really needed x-rays. She gave me another hug and headed out, hopefully to safety. 
There is hope mingled into horror, healing in the midst of heartache.

How to HELP!!!!

Wanna be a part of disaster relief?
We (my team and I serving in Haiti) would love to have you come along with us as we care for earthquake victims. How to help:
1.) Prayer-- Your prayers have been powerful and effective... Thank you sooooo much for those!!
2.) Donate-- Another huge assistance is our disaster relief fund. Money translates into food, water, clothing, shelter, and medicines for quake victims. One hundred percent of the donations go directly to our clinic and missions stations to help those in need. For more info, please check out: 
http://www.wesleyan.org/doc/news_article?id=658&src=news


Thank you for all of your notes and encouraging words!! Those have been a huge blessing to me (I almost made that #3 of how you can help... I wouldn't complain if you wanted to write me notes/comments :).

Quake Stories

Some stories from my first few days of clinic work....


Michael's Miracle


On Day 8 after the earthquake, a miraculous thing happened!!! A 5 year old boy arrived at our clinic (along with NBC) right after his family pulled him out of the rubble that had been their home! And he was absolutely fine! All that he needed was a good meal and a whole lot of water. NBC is calling him Miracle Michael, and here's the link to his story:


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34944333#34944333


On the morning of Day 9, my first patient of the day was an Amercian (kinda fun to start my day speaking English). He works with an American mining company located near Peti Goave, and they are using their large earth moving equipment to attempt to clear some of the rubble of buildings. The previous morning, he had been about to start clearing a home. As he pointed his large machine at what had previously been a 2 story home, a frantic mother and father rushed to his side. Using gestures, they got his attention to show pictures of two sweet children, their 5 year old son and 8 year old daughter, still buried under the debris. They begged him for a little more time.


That morning, they dug out Miracle Michael and his sister. Michael, as you know, came to us, and his sister went to the hospital down the road. What a truly miraculous morning!


A Cup of Cold Water


Dr. Bill was a wonderful ER doc from Michigan who joined our team for a few days. He ran our splinting and casting center for a little while, and as he headed hack to Port Au Prince to fly out, was overwhelmed by the generous spirit of our sweet Haitian neighbors. 


He was sitting in the back of a pick up truck, stuck in traffic. An old man, with dusty feet and tattered clothes, perched at the edge of the truck asking about water. Dr. Bill didn't have any, so he sadly told that man that he had none. 


Traffic inched forward, and the old man shuffled off. He returned to the gridlocked truck a few minutes later, still dirty and dressed in rags but now holding a cup of water... for the doctor who didn't have any. 


What an incredible group of people I have the privilege of serving!


More stories to come....

The Setting-- What Life In Haiti Is Like Now

Hi, again!

I just wanted to send out a quick update that I am well and safe! I spent the last couple of weeks  working in a clinic just outside of Port Au Prince and then running a guest house for the teams rotating through. Whew! It was great and tiring and exhilarating work! And thankfully, it's my turn on the rotation schedule for a break! I'll be out for 2 weeks to rest up, and I'll try to post stories and pictures every few days as I process and grieve for the incredible people of Haiti.

Let me tell you a little more about the clinic today, and I'll try to write stories of my sweet patients over the next few days...

I met up with a medical team that flew in from Michigan-- what an incredible group of people to work with! We have established a clinic in Peti Goave, which is the town next to the epicenter of the earthquake; it's 40 miles outside of Port Au Prince. We have averaged 120-300 patients each day. We did wound care, quake injuries, and general medical complaints. We saw obvious closed fractures, with forearms bent at a 45 degree angle. Almost everyone that I saw the first day had a cement wall fall on them. We saw wounds that had been sutured (stitched up) on the first day, but had not been cleaned first. So, we removed the stitches on days 8 and 9 after the quake, and the wounds fell open and we scrubbed ROCKS out of them! I would start debriding (removing non-viable tissue) on a small dime sized wound, and by the time I had reached viable tissue, the wound was the size of a fifty cent piece and down to the bone. We started without even local anesthetic, and as awful as it was to cut away skin with a scalpel without any numbing medicine, it was so vital to do that to save people's arms and legs from gangrene and to save their lives. I assisted with several finger and toe amputations. We did awful, necessary things to save lives. 

All of the people in Peti Goave are living in tents made from sheets in the street, as no one trusts the structural stability of their homes if its still standing. The cooler evening temperates and the stress of the quake are contributing to a rise in general medical problems-- we're seeing malaria and typhoid along with the normal hypertension and diabetes. Normal medical clinics are not functioning, so primary care is half of what we've seen this week. 

There is a hospital less than a mile down the road. Currently, there are mainly Cubans there who speak very little Creole. It's almost completely out of supplies. We had a surgeon here this week who was invited over to do several surgeries. He brought supplies with him from our clinic. 

We camped out at the clinic in very primitive conditions. Our amazing hosts at the clinic/camp site are the Haitian general superintendent's wife and several Wesleyan church members. They do laundry and cook. There is no running water. They turn a generator on for a few hours each evening, and after that, there is no electricity. There are rats in the building that we slept in. 

I found that the most valuable traits for this week were flexiblity and creativity, in both the living and working environment. When you do not have the medical supplies or the streile environment of your hospital back home, you have to be ready to creatively treat and adapt to the problem. All the while, we tried to be as compassionate as we could, but still be prepared to be flexible in our treatment plans.

What a crazy, incredible experience! So, that sets the background for more stories... more to come soon!

A Place in Port Au Prince

Hi, all!

I got into Port Au Prince 2 days ago. Things are okay here. It's hard to say "good" in light of a 7.0 earthquake and the devastation that follows, but it's a much better situation for us than I had imagined. 

Things are getting better on the streets... Things are slowly getting cleaned up. There are no more piles of bodies in the street, nor bodies lined up outside of houses for identification, like we had heard reports of earlier last week. There are still dead trapped in houses, which you can identify by the stench. Everyone walks around with a mask on. 

But we have felt very safe. We're staying at Carl and Maya's. We gathered good information from the US Embassy that if we show up at the Embassy and ask to be evacuated, they will. That's a nice thing to know just in case. 

We drove through several places in the city today on our way to clinic. Many buildings have pancaked down, but they have cleared the rubble out of the road. There are white people, relief workers and UN, in soooo many places! This is the safest I've ever felt in Port before. Part of it is probably because I'm with a big group of white people and since I speak more Creole now, but the people are also very subdued.

Today, we saw people out walking around doing normal looking things. Some of the markets are open. Several gas stations are open with long lines.

We set up a clinic in Carfoufe yesterday. Our largest Wesleyan church is there, some of it is still standing. That area was very hard hit. We had the clinic in a classroom in the Wesleyan school. We had a bunch of help from people in the church, and they were wonderful!!

The sickest patients showed up for the first few hours. Probably the worst was a girl with a broken femur and broken wrist. Mainly, we cleaned wounds and splinted broken bones. We saw about 100 patients all together. Dr. Kris Thede, one of our missionary docs from the north of Haiti, joined our group yesterday morning, and it was so good to see her! Mis Viro, the Haitian nurse practicioner that I worked with in the hospital on LaGonave, has been here at Carl's, so she came with us too. It was good.

We did a lot of wound debridement, and gangrene is already starting to set in just a little. I spent 30 minutes carefully cleaning a wound and removing the nonviable tissue on one young guy. A piece of his house fell on this ankle where the wound was. His parents and all 3 of his siblings died as the house came down. He alone escaped and is now homeless. He was so brave while I cleaned him up with no anestehtic. We talked for a little while about how God has a plan for him, as he alone was spared, and also how he came for medical treatment at a critical time. Hopefully, with debridement and antibiotics, he will live to tell his story.

Much love, and I just wanted to report on what we're up to. We finished our clinic an hour earlier than planned since we ran out of patients, so we're hoping to link up with Bobby Boyer, a family friend from back in SC who pastors a church here, today and see if we can help out in their clinic. Dr. Kris also suggested that we get in touch with other Wesleyan churches and see if they need clinics there like we did today. We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Thanks for your prayers,

~diane