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.