Wednesday, February 3, 2010

The last few days in Hispaniola

I realize I've delegated blogging to Johnny...I guess I can wrap up our adventure tonight :)

What a week. Yesterday was pretty eventful because one of the Haitian staff at the school fell while hopping out of a pick up truck and broke his wrist. The staff member, "Boss" Solon, was unloading fuel and then slipped while getting down. Everyone at the school is tired, and on top of that, he lost his son in the earthquake. He hasn't slept well since. Luckily there are 150 doctors staying on the school's campus. Of that 150, there were a few German orthopedic doctors that wrapped his wrist immediately and connected us with their team at one of the local hospitals that is still functioning. We got him there and into the xray room within 20 minutes of arriving. I guess that means 1 of 2 things...1 we were hooked up pretty good by the Germans, and/or 2, the initial emergency is taken care of so hospitals aren't as crowded. After some turf issues between the American and German ortho surgeons on site, Boss Solon was given local anasthesia as they set his broken wrist. We re-xrayed and everything looked great. Mission accomplished.

When we got back to the school, I did some data entry and talked with students during their breaks. I was able to see a few new faces around campus--more students seem to be coming back to Haiti. Unfortunately many are also leaving, so it is a constant cycle of kids in the school. Meanwhile, Johnny helped carry cokes to the Army guys stationed on campus. He was happy to report that he carried the cases all the way from the trucks to the Army tents, while the army guys had to take a break. Haha.

Oh, I've also been dealing with a cold that has definitely been a distraction. Yesterday, I had to blow my nose every five minutes or so then rub a little hand sanny in to protect everyone else :) I'm slowly coming over it now, but it's still driving me crazy.

This morning we decided to catch a ride back into Jacmel to hopefully meet up with our pilot. When we arrived, we found out our pilot changed his plans. That meant we needed to get on whatever flight we could out of Jacmel or stay there over night. We found a great pilot that took us into Santiago. You meet a lot of interesting people involved with disaster relief. We rode into the Domincan Republic with an ER doctor that has been all over the world. Very neat guy. Then we found out that a hotel near the airport has reduced rates for relief workers. What a relief :) We met more interesting people here that have been bringing supplies into Haiti since the first 30 hours after the quake. Amazing.

Our plan is to get up early and head back to the airport tomorrow. We should be on the first flight to the US and on our way back to Dallas by the afternoon. I am sad to leave Haiti behind (again), but excited about the prospects of raising support and awareness of the continuing needs there. No doubt CNN and Fox News will drop news coverage of the situation (if they haven't already), but we need people to continue to pray for and support Haiti. The worst may or may not be over....we are now in what we call "secondary infection" stage. Not to mention there will be needs that will emerge as time goes on. Please don't let your interest in Haiti wane with the news coverage!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Day 6 in Haiti

Today I got to speak in the school's chapel... What a great thing. I can tell that I will be in ministry because when I go a while without preaching I get an itch. After I spoke in chapel we got to spend time with the kids again...more came to school that day. Then I went down to the military side of the campus and worked on organizing all the school books that were moved to downstairs rooms. Kim was helping in the medical tent counting pills and putting them in bags. I did that for awhile and then Kim and I went to the market. After we got some supplies from there we went back to Quisqueya and dropped off the supplies. We bought some treats and 'wish list' items for the teachers and staff here on campus who have been going non-stop since the earthquake.
Later we visited Ceable, a good friend of Kim's who was the guard at her old apartment. His family lost there house in the earthquake, so now they are staying in a concrete storage shed. It is about 12 feet by 8 feet. I will try to get pictures to show you. The best part is that after we were done visiting with him he prayed for us. It was a good prayer--the best I have had in a long time. He started the prayer off by singing a song to God. He was singing his heart out to the one he loved most. After the song he started praying and while he was praying it reminded me of when I was in Nicaragua. When we were about to leave Nicaragua, the community we were helping pulled all of us Americans in one of their houses. They had scrounged around and put a very small meal together for us to eat. By American standards it would have fed only 3 people but it was all they had and they offered it to us. On top of that they made us sit down and they went around and prayed for us individually. How humbling to have someone who has nothing thank Americans who seem to have so much and offer us a meal. I was broken that day. The memories of that moment in Nicaragua once again flooded my mind when Ceable, who lost his home in the quake, was blessing me more than I have ever been by anyone else. I kept thinking of how God uses the humble and the foolish to confound this world and how inverse the laws of the kingdom of God are compared to this world. I was once again brought to tears as Ceable prayed for Kim and me.

Lord help me to stay broken, you never use those who are not!