Last Sunday in Haiti

You sometimes don't realize some of the little blessings in life until you experience a change.  I laid down on my bed after tucking the mosquito netting up and out of the way to rest under the fan. Moments after laying down the electricity turned off. I figured that it was off for the day, to turn on again tonight.  What a pleasant surprise and cooling blessing for the electricity to turn back on and to feel the breeze of the fan, though for who knows how long.

Many of you are sitting in church as I begin to write this.  It's 11h00and we've been done for an hour. We were awakened at 06h30 by the music team warming up for the service.  Sunday School started at 07h15and ran into the service which ended at 10h00.

The Assistant Pastor (I recognized him as the father of the three month old baby boy I have been treating with OMT) taught about the three qualites of Noah as an example of how the head of a family should be: 1. Just  2. Irreproachable as an example for others and  3. He walked with God.  Genesis 6:22 says "Noah did everything that God commanded him to do." - not just some of it.  The pastor gave an example of if someone in NYC started building a huge ship down town then everyone would think that he was crazy.  Noah was no different, but because he was beyond reproach his sons obeyed what he said without question and they were all saved from the flood.

(I've moved outside to sit on some bricks under my favorite mango tree behind the kitchen. There is a bit of a breeze here & much cooler than the room.  The ladies are sitting on the other side of the banana trees washing all the laundry by hand in large basins.  Ripe mangos are being sliced and passed around for snacks as we await lunch.)

Lot, in Genesis 19:12-14, didn't have the same reputation as Noah with his daughters and their fiancés.  His children, in return, thought that he was joking when he told them that angels had told them to evacuate Sodom and they rebelled.  Lot's family thus died in the destruction of Sodom.

There was a lively discussion throughout the lesson.  Unfortunately I only understood some of the French and none of the Créole so I missed the majority of it.  It must have been good though because the conversation was rapid, men & women both, and lots of laughing.

Church today was different. There were only a couple of songs and then a phone call was made by one of the men on the platform.  Initially I thought that it was just a cultural difference in acceptance of making personal calls from the platform during the service, then I realized that he had called another pastor. This cell phone call was put on speaker phone and placed beside the mic on the pulpit ... the "Cell Phone Pastor" proceeded to preach an hour long sermon over the phone.This time it was all in Créole, but Fabiola (the one whose leg wound we have been redressing twice a day) showed me the Scriptures in Job from which he was preaching.

He focused on Job 1-2, 13:15 & 42:1-17.  Everyone read Job 1:21b aloud together.  I realized that I've heard this phrase repeated many times by the entire congregation at every service I've attended so far: "God gives, God takes. God's name be ever blessed."

Since I couldn't understand the sermon, I thought about what I was reading and what I've observed here.  The faith that everything is in God's hands is very strong.  We need not ask "why?" when something bad happens, but we need to ask "What do you want of me now, Lord, what do I need to next?" The "why" is not as important as the "what next?" I don't believe that there is any harm in asking why, our God is always big enough to handle any of our questions, but be prepared to receive the answer "The answer to that is not for your knowledge at this time." A lesson I continue to need to work upon.

Third Saturday in Haiti

Another week has flown by. Thursday we had clinic in the Tabarre 25 community and Friday we were in Croix de Bouquets.  Tabarre 25 was edged by some huge trash dumps that were being burned.  There was a very strong smell of plastic & rubber being burned.  I was having a hard time breathing, so I could imagine how hard it must be to live there.  I ended up diagnosing more cases of respiratory and skin allergies & asthma there than I have any where else so far.  I was very grateful for my HEPA respirator/mask.  I've now been using it whenever we are on the roads in the trucks.  The dust and exhaust is intense. No more simple masks for me.

Thursday we finally ran out of sulfur ointment (powdered sulfa mixed with petroleum jelly) for scabes. We've also run out of deworming pills for adults and antifungal meds for scalp fungus in kids (tineacapitus).  It's very hard to tell people that they have a very treatable problem, but we just don't have the medications.  Almost everyone has a poor appitite and belly pain due to worms.  Hopefully we'll get more from La Romana, Dominican Republic next week.  We had been trying to treat everyone for worms.

That day we were able to provide a very large family with a tent donated by REI for shelter.  Susan, one of our team members this last week, works at the REI store in San Francisco, CA.  This woman came with her seven children and two other women who are living with her & her husband and their kids.  The 11 of them have been without shelter of any kind since the quake.  The tent was never intended for that many people, but they were excited, especially since it had poured rain all night the night prior.  What a privilege for the team to be able to help in a simple but much needed way.

Thursday late afternoon & evening they took us on a tour.  We were expecting a tour of the destruction downtown, but we headed for the hills... Up through the "rich" part of Port au Prince to the fort at the top of the mountain.

The fort was built between 1804-1806 to defend Haiti from recolonization from the French.  The leader of Haiti ended up paying France a huge sum of money to buy off their freedom, so the fort and it's French & British cannons were never needed.

This stone fort is so strong that its first damage was this earthquake.  Amazing. I found out, as I began to see pine trees and other cooler climate plants, entered the fog layer & we began getting cold, that the fort is located over 2600 meters above the city, which starts at sea level (That's notably taller than Mt Kahtadin!)  After working in > 90°F all day, a drop to the lower 60's/upper 50's was a shock to the system.  Many were threatening to not take cold showers that night due to being too cold!  LOL.  Once down the mountain we warmed up pretty quickly.

Friday one of my first patients at Croix de Bouquets was named Marie Eva.  We both laughed as I was finally able to pronounce someone's name correctly the first try.  Of course I got a photo of us together.  I was able to help her get back on some blood pressure medication as hers had been lost in the quake.

I saw a 14 year old boy whose two complaints were difficulty sleeping and feeling anxious and afraid since the quake.  He moves to different places on the porch all night long trying to fall asleep.  All we have to help with sleep is some Benadryl, so I gave him some for a week nightly and the as needed for sleep.  Unfortunately only 30 pills. He was happy to hear that we had counselors to talk to and pray with.  I have no doubt that their time with him was more effective than mine.

I'm so greatful that God led the trauma counselors/full time missionaries to join up with us.  I can't remember how much I have said about them, but they had just finished three months in Rwanda working with war victims.  All of them have been all over Africa over the past several years.  What powerful prayer warriors they are.  An example for all of us.

Friday was finished with us bringing a woman who is 33 weeks pregnant to the General Hospital for preeclampsia.  She looked malnourished, too tiny to be 33 weeks along, along with her blood pressure was too high(170/100), headaches, swelling in her legs and urine protein too high to measure with our simple urine test strips.  Several leaving team members donated money for her for after the baby is born.  We fed her a good Haitian meal before taking her to the hospital.

Fortunately the OB is a Haitian/American so he was able to communicate with her & her sister in Créole. He was hoping to be able to get two days of steroids in her to help mature the baby's lungs before they induced her labor.  The first goal is to save the mom. They will do their best to save the baby, but there is no supplemental oxygen for use, let alone a ventilator or a Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

The OB said that he has seen lots of cases like this.  They just do their best with what is available in the tent hospital.  If you saw the CNN piece I posted about the night shift in Haiti, you'll realize that the rest of the hospital is made of the same tents, only the beds are jammed together to get as many patients in as possible.  TAMC, Cary Medical Center and our hospitals in the USA are seeming really luxurious to me right now.

Today was a day of relaxation.  I was finally able to drop by the World Food Programe office near where we are staying.  Unfortunately the older brother of an old friend from Congo works at a different office.  Fortunately I had been able to yell greetings for him to the driver of a WFP truck earlier this month.  The driver was going to see David Schaad in a few minutes.

I also had a chance to go by the MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) office and hanger today.  This is the missions organization my parents were with when I was a kid.  I was able to meet a retired pilot who joined MAF about the same time as my folks and remembers working with Dad in the late 60's.  I met several others who know Jim Abell, a childhood friend from Congo who works with MAF at the headquarters in the US.

What a great chance to see the Cessna 206's and the newly arrived MAF Kodiak airplane.  Samaritan's Purse is lending two more Kodiaks for the relief work.  What a blessing as the Kodiak is larger than the Cessna206 & runs on jet fuel, which is much cheaper and more readily available than the Aviation Gas used by the Cessna's.

I was able to take many photos of the hanger (a huge sheltering roof surrounded on three sides by shipping containers converted into an office and maintenance shop) and the palettes of food, water, water purification equipment, tents and medical supplies, all waiting and being loaded for flights up country for distribution.  With the portnon functonal, supplies needed for existance are not arriving for the entire country.  Supplies that do arrive in the country are oftenstolen, so MAF is playing a vital roll in the basic survival needs of Haiti right now.  If you have a chance, look them up on the internet.  Any donations to them will go directly to getting supplies to the Haitian people and out of corrupt hands.

If I forgot to mention last Monday, thank you to all of you who have made comments back on the blog. Your prayers and comments are so encouraging.  I hope to be able to get on the internet again this weekend if I may borrow a computer and time at Le Plaza Hotel to see more, but that may not happen.  If not, I'll read them after I get home in March.  Please keep praying as this next week will be my last here... For this trip.

Tomorrow will be my last church service here.  Church is scheduled from 07h00 till 10h00.  I'm looking forward to the music especially.  Then, a day of rest.

Well, as always, I finish these notes late.  It often takes me a couple of hours to type these out on my little phone before I email them.  Sorry this one was so long but there was much to share and so little free time this last week.  God's Blessings on each of you.

Delmas 75

Today was a great day.  At breakfast Lila, wife of the pastor of the compound, asked if I would be willing to see another pastor's wife.  She has been having a fever for the past several days and her breasts were very painful.  She hurried over before our truck headed out for the clinic.  I expected to see that she had mastitis, a breast infection most commonly associated with nursing.  Instead she had an infection due to her baby not latching on properly.

After I treated her, I asked if I could treat her two month old baby boy.  We made a "lap table" out of her baby blanket across our knees.  His cranial mechanism was very slow, the base of his skull was very "jammed", and there was a strong strain through his entire body.  His little body responded to the OMT the same way as all the little newborns in the nursery at the hospital at home.  What a treat to be able to treat a baby with OMT here, giving him a better chance of good nutrition early in life.  I'll see him again on Friday morning.

After the treatment was over, Mom asked many questions about breastfeeding, formula and water. Apparently her sister had been killed in the earthquake, so her milk began drying up from the stress, combined with the pain of nursing right now. She has baby formula to supplement, but wanted to know if she should be giving him water as well. We encouraged her not to, but to try & nurse more to bring hermilk back in.

Clinic today was closer to our compound at Delmas 75. It was more up in the hills on the edge of town than our prior sites. We bumped our way on very dry dirt hilly roads, lined very closely with brick walls in varying states of condition, some standing tall, others totally demolished. Behind the walls were houses in like condition.  Some"yards" were full of tents.  Many are living in tents beside their homes as their homes are not safe for re-entry or they are afraid to re-enter them for fear of another quake.

Our clinic was held on someone's driveway & front porch.  Two little girls stick out in my memory from today.  They came today with their mother.  The eldest was 10 years old an her younger sister was five.  There are five children in the family, the oldest 10 and the youngest three.  Both little girls were complaining of stomach aches. I've learned to ask if the pain goes away with eating as much of it is due to lack of food.  The girls were no exception.

Haitians normally eat two meals a day; breakfast and a midday meal.  The girls usually get up at 04h00, eat some breakfast by 05h00, then off to fight the city traffic to be at school by 07h00.  They get out of school by 13h00 & the next/last meal of the day is eaten by 16h00.  No wonder these little girls' bellies hurt, they have less food than normally available and there is a 12-13 hour gap between meals.  Mom just laughed when I suggested that children, or anyone for that matter, should eat at least a little bit evey six hours.  Limited food and cultural customs are difficult to counter.

Evidence of clean-up and rebuilding is everywhere.  Within the past two days I have seen lots of cement work, new scaffolding on buildings for repair work, even painting to walls, gates and business signs.  The ever present trash and rubble in the roads are disappearing.  Teams of young people in "sponsorship" t-shirts (USAID, etc) are armed with brooms and shovels, making piles for the garbage trucks that are slowly appearing.  Men are on top of crumpled buildings, chipping away at the cement with hammers, sawing at the protruding rebar, dragging full buildings away, one wheel barrow at a time.  Order is slowly returning, there is hope everywhere.

Bridges of Faith & Shower in a Bottle

So, how are these related? Well, they describe the last half of my day.

Yesterday I turned on my phone to find messages from my Mom, Tom Benz & his wife Larissa.  Several years ago Mom & Tom had worked together at Global Action.  Tom now runs Bridges of Faith, an organization that works with international orphans and getting them adopted.  Most of their work is in the Ukraine, but they felt a burden to help the new orphans of the Haitian earthquake.

Tom had mentioned in his newsletter that he was coming to PaP.  Mom contacted him to let him know that I was here.  A very long story short, I spent the later half of the afternoon with Tom & his team: Jerry, Andy & Polo.  What great conversatios we had, discussing our experiences and plans for coming back for more work in the future.

They had spent last night in tents at a flattered orphanage. They brought us "home" & we in turn offered them a place to sleep, cold shower & hot meal for the night.  They will be closer to the airport for their flight home tomorrow.  God continues to amaze us in His provision.  We had no transportation & they had nowhere to sleep for the night. Our cooks were awesome in extending dinner for extra mouths as well.

While at the hotel today several reporters from different organizations overheard our conversations and asked if they could document our clinic work in the outlying clinics.  It will need to be cleared with Kristy tomorrow, but then NPR may end up following us one day this week.  Keep your ears open.

Ok, so what is a shower in a bottle?  Well, it's what happens when you are too sticky to go to bed but there isn't enough water pressure for the shower.  Fabiola & I took turns filling my 20 oz water bottle from the tap and showering with that.  One to wet down with & two to rinse.  Cold water never felt so good!

The new team arrives tomorrow morning.  The should be loading on the bus in La Romana now, leaving by 23h00 to be at the Haitian border at opening time.  The new week begins in the morning.

Le Plaza Hotel

Still sitting around the hotel bar lobby. Meeting lots of new people.Miguel is still working on backing his up his data, then he willreload the OS for his Mac. Jeremy is connecting to the world, havingvideo talked on Skype with his wife in London a while ago. I'm waitingfor a missionary friend who used to work with my mom to arrive.

We met a young freelance photographer who is helping Miguel with hiscomputer. He has some great photos. David gave permission to post hisblog: news.davidsperry.com . I like his B&W photos.

Yesterday was the last day of the national three days of prayer. Iwasn't feeling well, over tired and achy, so I stayed back to rest.Claudia & I ended up going to church on the compound. Last weekend Ifigured that there were over 300 people at the service. Yesterday wefigured that there were over 800 people due to the weekend of prayer.

Claudia and I joined the service at about 08h00 and finished about13h00. The majority of the service was worship & praise music mixedwith a lot of dancing in worship. It was so cool to see everyonesmiling and happy, worshiping with their whole beings. We readtogether Ps 148, 47, then 148. The sermon was based on Eph. 5:1-2.

After the service we chatted for an hour and the I finally took thatnap I really needed. Sleeping was tough in the heat without the fanson to cool off, but, I must have been exhausted as I slept 3.5 hoursin the hottest time of the day. I was awakened for dinner: rice withsmall brown beans and a little bit of chicken & sauce.

After dinner we sat around with a couple of the teachers from thecompound, teaching each other English & French.

Well, heading out in a bit to shoot some photos, buy some artifactsand go by the ED to see if I can find the hat I forgot there.