The Uncloudy Day-Haiti Jan-April 2010

A friend recently gave me a list of some favorite songs, and as I listened to them today while attempting to translate all of the summer team agendas, this song stuck out to me and reminded me of Haiti and the promise that they hold for a brighter future.

It may seem a bit ironic to show disaster photos along side a song talking about a land of cloudless days, but to me it somehow fits. I hope you will take the time to watch and that you will look deep into the eyes of the people captured here and maybe you too will find hope for Haiti in the eyes of her beautiful, hurting, happy, terrified, longing, faithful people.

Blessings!

Song: The Uncloudy Day
By: The Jolly Bankers
Album: Death & Taxes

You just got here? Move these bodies

I had been at the hospital a matter of days, working in the little pharmacy when during a riot scare many groups were brought up to the main hospital for about 30 mins. Nothing actually happened, it had been nothing more than a rumor or unfounded fears, but it was enough of a "threat" that many had cleared out of the building where we were working.

I went over to talk to the people in charge of the hospital. I introduced myself as a local missionary and explained the situation at the other building asking for some security guards just in case. Pleading for more organization to improve the quality of care thereby reducing the chance of riots.

They cut me off. They were going off shift, and we should be too, so the riot and such would have to be handled by the next crew, what he did need from me was a call to the morgue. "Tell them we need them to come put up 1 body and 4 limbs right away. Here is the number." I called and the morgue said that their vehicle was not available, so someone needed to go to the morgue, pick up the box, load up the bodies, and bring them to the morgue. I explained this to the hospital leadership and they responded, "you have a truck right?" "Yes," I replied nerviously. "Ok, come with me, I'll show you where the bodies are."

What? I thought I was supposed to be going off shift? Welcome to the crazy world of disaster relief work. Comfort zones and normal professionalism do not apply here.

A new outlook on bumpy roads

In the midst of the chaos of trying to transport patients to the Haitian side of the border I was given the special task of taking three of them in my truck. The bus had been too full and their special conditions made the doctors decide that having them go in my truck would be better than the overly packed bus.

Laying across the back seat of my truck then was a roughly 16 year old girl with a broken pelvis. She was too long to lie flat on the seat, so she was in that kind of awkward half seated, half laying type position. I can only imagine how fun that would be with a broken pelvis!

Up front, I had a mother and her four day old baby. I know that is not safe for a newborn to be in the front seat in her mothers arms, but there was no car seat and the pelvic fracture had dibs on the back seat.

So there I was with that precious cargo. The spead bumps on the Dominican side were less than fun for the young girl in the back and I took them as slowly and gently as I could, but then we crossed over the border to a road full of potholes and rough gravel. The girl tried so hard to be strong, but every now and then a small cry would be heard and in my rear view mirror I could see a tear running down her cheek.

I drove less than 5 miles per hour and did all I could to miss bumps and pot holes, but even the vibrations of the bumpy road had to have been painful for her. I felt horrible. I couldn't talk to her. I could remember the word for sorry in Creole. I felt so mean.

When we finally arrived at the hospital, the unloading process was extremely hard for her. She cried out in pain, but finally they got her out of the truck and onto a cot. I went over to her still feeling so mean and wishing that there was something I could do for her, and she in the midst of her pain reached out and grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes and said in English, "Thank you." I was shocked. Thanking me? Thanking me for that rough ride in the back of the truck that caused her so much pain?

I was shocked that in the midst of her pain she could at least tell that my intentions were good.

I look at bad roads in a whole new light now. I praise God for a strong truck that can take the bumps, and I thank him for a whole body that can withstand the jerks. And I pray for my friend and the many like her whose bodies were broken and who still suffer the hurt and feel the pain.

The communication barrier

I had become very comfortable in the Dominican Republic over the course of the last few years. I had become pretty proficient at Spanish and even had a pretty good grip on my street Spanish and could catch people off guard when they thought I was just another tourist.

All of a sudden I was working with Haitians. Almost none of them spoke Spanish and only a few spoke English, so I was going back to zero on the communication scale. Sure, I knew good morning, good afternoon, thank you and God bless you. . . but that only gets you so far when you are trying to reach out to earthquake victims.

The language barrier was such an issue and time was so often of the essence that people would be quickly taken in for surgery and would wake up with missing limbs having little or no idea ahead of time of what was about to happen. It was horrible. Weeks after the earthquake people were still terrified when they were taken in for wound cleaning or fixator adjustments that they might lose more of their limbs and such. It was very hard, and I can't imagine what it was like for the people and their families to not know what was going on.

Communication continued to be a huge issue and it caused a lot of distrust both on the part of volunteers and patients. Frequently their were rumors among the volunteers that there was going to be a riot. Haitians tend to speak with large gestures and raised voices and look as though they are about to fight and then at the end of the conversation they shake hands and are clearly friends, but many of the volunteers didn't understand the culture. I didn't understand it either. . . But the Haitians were so patient with us. . . I might have started a riot if I was in their shoes, and had been treated like they were.

The rules kept changing. Public Health wanted to shut the hospital down and get all of the Haitian back across the border, so they made things more and more difficult.

Rule 1: Only one family member per patient. Everybody else had to get out. But they had no where to go. . .

Public health said that if the "extra" people didn't go quietly on their own then they would come in with armed guards and escort everyone out. The translation team told many of the patients that if they didn't leave quietly they would be shot. Lack of language skills can be dangerous, I might have started a riot.

We were taking a load of "extra" people on our school bus over to the Haitian side of the border to one of the camps where they would be allowed to stay. The people didn't really know where we were taking them. They were scared, and didn't know what was ahead. At the hospital, they had food and felt safe, the rumors were that we would be dumping them off somewhere along the road to fend for themselves.

We handed out snacks for the bus ride, and of course people tried to hoard them. They didn't know what was ahead. One of the North Americans on the bus with me almost attacked one of the Haitians who took more than his share and a shouting match began. I don't know what the Haitian said and neither did the North American, but what he said back to the Haitian made me ashamed to be an American. Luckily I don't think anyone on the bus understood more than the tone and gestures.

It is so easy to get trapped into thinking we know what is right and our ideas of what is fair is the only way. I am sorry though if I thought that the little pack of cookies might be my last sure meal, I would try to take more than my fair share too. It was scary for them. They didn't know what the road ahead would hold.

After I got the North American to calm down and shut up, I spoke to the people through a translator. They asked how they would find their families again. I was able to explain the process. Some of them, including the man who was fighting thought that they would be prisoners in the camp where we were taking them, I explained that they were free to go at anytime. Some of their questions I could answer, some I couldn't. We almost didn't make it across the border in time that night, but everybody was calm and had their voice heard.

Some times we just need to listen. Lord, help me remember that! MY schedule and MY agenda seem to leave so little time. . . help me to be human again and to recognize the importance and the gift of being human!

Invitation

As I work on these blogs, my main goal has been to reflect for myself about what I have seen and heard, but I want to invite you all to participate with me on this journey. Let me know what you think, challenge me, encourage me to think, grow and learn. I believe that God has placed us in community for a reason, so I welcome your comments!

How Great Thou Art

I am getting out of order a bit with this entry, but I think that sometimes it is crucial to write about things while they are very fresh in our minds, so here it goes. . .

I was in Brazil for a missionary retreat. At worship we had sung "How Great Thou Art" and the music filled the room. I have always loved that song. As we sang I had beautiful images dancing through my head. Forests, flowers, trees, brooks, mountains, ocean, etc. . . the beauty of God's creation. I sang with all my heart. With those images in my mind how could I help but sing, "How great Thou art".

Later in the service there was a call to a prayer of intersession for the people of Haiti. As we prayed together, I heard the song "How Great Thou Art" echoing in my mind, as I saw mental pictures of all of the horrors I had seen in Haiti over the past few months. With those images in my mind and the words, "Then sings my soul my Savior God to Thee, how great thou art, how great thou art. . ." going through my soul, I could feel God reminding me that He is God and He is still great in the midst of all the pain and disasters as well as in the beautiful moments of my life.

My eyes flooded with tears and it was almost painful for me to allow the words to the song and those images coexist in my mind, but there is deep truth in the fact that they do coexist in this world.

God, you are God and I praise You as God in the midst of the beauty my eyes have seen, and God, I praise you and recognize you as my God even as I witness things that break my heart. Our circumstances change, but in the midst of it all, you are God and you alone are great and worthy.

Shout out to the variety of International relief workers

Those first few days were incredible! I had never seen so many people from so many different places!

Spain's teams was fabulous! The did more casting than anyone else. Incredible! They worked so hard and were so positive.

Puerto Rico was a lot of fun! They taught me to mix meds and referred to me as Nebraska. They were many and brought lots of supplies.

Japan's team was awesome. We had trouble communicating, but they we willing to do whatever kind of surgery that needed to be done. Some of the other teams only wanted to work in their particular area, but Japan would do what needed to be done.

Peru, Mexico, US, Canada. . . all of these volunteers represented some of the best of humanity. They heard of the need and they just came. Most of them just happened on the hospital. They had come and brought what supplies they could just trusting that they would find a place to lend a hand! Incredible! Some of us are still in touch. It was so neat to see the world come together for the people of Haiti.

I wanna hold your hand

There was one little boy that I will never forget. I see his little face in my mind even now. He was alone on the back of a large truck. There were three groups of people, but this little boy was clearly alone. He lay there crooked in an uncomfortable looking position crying. He caught my eye from the pharmacy. At that point we had so many new people coming in that we were forced to keep them waiting to be evaluated before unloading them from the trucks.

I went over to that precious little boy and I sat beside him on the truck. I rubbed his little arm and spoke to him. I didn't speak Creole and his probably didn't understand my English or Spanish, but he did understand my touch and he grasped my hand as if it were a matter of life and death. As I held his hand and rubbed his arm I noticed he was burning up with fever. I left him to get some tylenol and he screamed bloody murder when I left him. As soon as I came back he grabbed my hand again.

I called over one of the doctors to evaluate him. They took him off the truck and started to unwrap the bandage around his right arm. He was screaming as the blood and infection stained bandage came off. The screams and the smell coming from his wound made me sick to my stomach. I kept holding his little hand and trying to have him look at me and not watch the doctors.

I looked into his eyes, as I heard the doctors talk about the wound. The verdict broke my heart. His arm was full of gangreen and needed to be amputated immediately to save his life. They carried him off in that very moment for surgery. I never saw him again. I was told later that he had lost all six of his family members in the quake. He was alone in the world and now missing an arm as well.

I searched for him among the crowds. I heard he had made it through the surgery, but I couldn't find him. . . I heard that someone had come to pick him up later--maybe an uncle. . . I heard that he had been taken to another hospital or orphanage. . . the truth is I don't know. I have told this story a few times and it has been too hard to admit to myself and to others that I never really knew what happened to this little boy whose face I can't erase from my mind that I have lied and told one of the endings like I knew it was real. I don't. If I lied to you, I ask your forgiveness.

I long to know the ending to his story. The truth is I don't know if he is alive or dead, with someone who loves him or alone. And that truth tears me up inside. It is sometimes easier to try to make yourself believe the lie than it is to tell the bitter truth. I want to believe that he is ok, I pray that he is.

The great moving

I don't know much about disaster relief and how it normally happens, but one of the hardest things those first few days was a lack of unity and consistency. Every group and even every individual that came in wanted to do their own thing. With each new shift and wave a people there was a new way of doing things. One group wanted to give everyone their meds at the same time, another wanted to do it on an as needed basis and write down times, others wanted to give the patients meds to keep taking on their own.

So much was done and re-done in different ways. Someone would change a bandage and as they were just finishing taking off the bandage someone else would say, I just cleaned and changed that bandage 10 mins. ago. It was chaos!

Then we got a new leader on the floor. He had worked lots of other disasters and he was going to get us organized! First, he wanted everyone and I mean EVERYONE cleared out of the main area, which happened to be the open area outside of the pharmacy. That was going to be the intensive care area, so everybody needed to be moved out, then evaluated and only the worst off patients moved into that area. There would be NO EXCEPTIONS!

That seems easy enough until you are moving a patient with burns over about 65% of his body and another guy with a chest tube and others with severed limbs and others. . . and others. . . and moving them not once, but twice . . . first out then in. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I thought we might loose a couple of the guys just in the moving process. It seemed so wrong and so harsh. I hated being a part of it and throughout the process the echos of the pained screams rang in my ears.

Finally it was over. The next day success of the effort was declared because the only two patients that had died that night had died in the intensive care area, and so we knew that they were not likely to make it and were doing all that we could for them, while those who were in less urgent conditions and were going to make it through the night, were perhaps given less attention.

I still don't know why we couldn't just assume that the guy with the chest tube and the guy with the burns would be in the critical care area so that they didn't have to be moved twice, but it wasn't my call and I was kind of relieved just to have a leader at that point to organize the chaos.

It may not be worth much, but I did make one contribution that night. While the leader wanted to use boxes of supplies to divide the most critical area from the second most critical area, I convinced him to keep the supplies in the pharmacy and to divide the two areas with a ace wrap rope that I made. I also sent our team out to get tarps to keep the sun off the burn victim and our other critical care patients. Thinking creatively is crucial in these circumstances. ;)

Moses and Aaron

As I looked through the window of my little pharmacy, I saw many things. One image which I hope to never forget is that of two young women. They had been together in a church as it collapsed and one was severely injured.

Every morning and every evening, the healthy sister would sit behind the injured one and hold her up as they sang praises to God.

I remember being in that pharmacy questioning God and asking how He could be a gracious and loving God and still let this happen, and then looking through that window and hearing these two women praise that same God. As I looked on, the healthy young woman lifted her sister's weak arms holding them up as the praised.

My mind flashed to Moses on the mountain top with the army of Israel fighting below. As long as his arms were raised in prayer the army was victorious if his arms lowered they began to loose the battle, so Aaron held up Moses' arms as he prayed.

With warriors like these two young women, I knew that their was hope for Haiti and that hope is in the God that I questioned while they praised.

I don't think it is wrong to question God, but I did feel a bit humbled to be in that situation with a whole healthy body and be out praised by people who had lost everything they knew, nearly their own lives and whose future was so uncertain. It is good to be humbled!

Hording supplies

One of my most painful memories of those first few days was when I caught myself losing a bit of my humanity. You see, some supplies we had in abundance, some we were short on, and some we just didn't know if we had much of or not.

The doctors were giving out the meds, but I was able to hand out diapers and such directly. My life was a whirlwind of grabbing supplies for each doctor that came in to the pharmacy and mixing the meds that they asked for and also trying to attend to the patients and their needs as well. I was running around in circles. All of a sudden I realized that to the parents who came to me asking for diapers for their babies, I was giving out a single diaper.

How ridiculous was that? I know that babies poop and pee pretty darn regularly and the last thing that their parents needed at that incredibly difficult time in their lives was to have to walk over the the pharmacy every couple of hours to ask the silly American who doesn't speak their language for another diaper. I didn't realize who I was becoming until I turned to one parent who spoke English and said, "but I just gave you a diaper". And he responded, "yes, but the baby pooped again".

Imagine that!

It was at that moment that I took a step back and looked at the person I was already becoming. Stress does crazy things to people. I don't want to believe that I am normally the type of person who could behave so harshly and in a weird sense selfishly to other people especially as I am witnessing so much pain, but in that moment I saw that I was something far less than the person God created me to be. It still brings tears to my eyes to think about what kind of a witness I was in that moment. May God and my brothers and sisters forgive me.

Those first couple of days

When we pulled up to the hospital and the attached orphanage, everything changed. . . every ounce of tiredness melted away as my eyes looked upon human suffering like I had never seen. I felt like I was witnessing a horror movie as I looked at horribly infected open wounds.

We were told that only a couple of doctors were there and they were busily running from person to person doing what they could. One of the doctors had been on vacation with his wife in the DR and when he heard what had happened he rushed to the border.

Shortly after we arrived a large group of Puerto Rican doctors showed up with a huge container full of medical supplies. Those first few days are a bit of a blur. I mainly organized and reorganized the pharmacy, ran back and forth getting supplies, and witnessed the tears, cries and desperation of those trying to seek help for their families.

There were volunteers from all over the world; Puerto Rico, Japan, Peru, Spain, the States, Mexico, Canada, all over. Everyone was trying to do the best they could, but there was so much confusion with people coming in from all directions, both volunteers and patients. No one knew who had and hadn't been cared for. Everyone pleading for you to help their mother, their son, their wife, their baby.

It was so overwhelming. We worked for three nights/days. I couldn't sleep. I think I slept less than 6 hours those first few days.

Upon arrival in Haiti

Four days had passed since the earthquake. I hadn't felt it. I was driving in Santo Domingo when I got a phone call from my fellow missionaries at the house. They asked, "did you feel that?". I didn't know what they were talking about. I called my parents in the States to let them know I was alright and have them get online and find out what was going on and what was going to happen. Dominicans were talking about the possibility of a sunami. I was a bit concerned because I had just arrived at a church service in a building located by the water.

My parents watched the news and kept me informed. One of about every ten calls went through at this point. Our partners in Anse-a-Pitre were fine. They had been shaken, and feared more, but they were ok. One of the first things I thought about when I heard the news was a question one of my co-workers, Luke, had asked me just days before. . . "Does the DR ever have earthquakes?" I didn't even know the word for earthquake. I had NEVER heard the Dominicans talk about them, so I said I didn't think so. He wasn't satisfied and kept asking others, but even the Dominicans told him that they don't really have earthquakes. It has been more than a generation since the last big quake, so it just wasn't on the radar screen, until now.

So back to day four. . . in Anse-a-Pitre, the main effect of the quake was that the border had initially been closed between the DR and Haiti and they couldn't cross to get food. They were hungry. We bought food and took it to them. We also borrowed a generator and took it to them to get the water system working. They used that system to take water to affected areas. By the time we arrived in Anse-a-Pitre the situation had changed. The border was open again, and all was well.

I had been strictly warned by government officials that I could not go into Haiti with donations. They told me it was all gangs and thieves attacking the vehicles of donations. I would surely be kidnapped and my vehicle stolen. I was pretty sure I knew Anse-a-Pitre better than that, and Pastor Andres ensured me that things were ok and that he would be meeting us with members of the UN. We crossed normally. Many people came and helped us unload the giant generator and things felt almost "normal" to me there.

I spent the afternoon with Pastor Andres' kids. They played with my camera and took hundreds of pictures. The earthquake was far from my mind. Pastor Bronny and Pastor Andres worked hard on getting the generator connected I played with the kids. It was a good day!

When we left to head to Jimani, I had no idea what to expect and I wasn't exactly sure why we were going. It was a LONG drive from Anse-a-Pitre. The Pentecostal Church had asked us (Bronny especially) to go and scope out the situation.

We arrived and met with Pastor Maccoris. I had never met him before, but immediately felt the quiet loving spirit of a man of God. He is raising 30+ orphans out of his house/church and had been doing so for years. We had intended to spend the night with them and then assess the situation in the morning. I was grateful. It had been such a long day, I was exhausted. I had been driving since early that morning and playing with the kids had warn me out.

But, as Maccoris told us about the situation and how hundreds of people were being brought over the border to a little hospital down the road where they had few doctors and few resources, we felt obliged to go check it out. I wavered between going that night and going to bed. Truth be told, I could barely keep my eyes open, but I wasn't about to be left behind, so I decided to go.

Time to feel again

Hi friends,
after an intense three months in Haiti doing disaster relief work, I feel the need to get some things off my chest. I have titled this entry, "time to feel again" because I know that there is much in me that I have trapped inside over the past few months. Things that I had to push inside so that I could keep myself going. I know there are tears that I have yet to cry, visions that I have yet to see, experiences that I have yet to feel.

The best way that I know to express myself and work through these thoughts and emotions is through writing them down. I know that I have had some powerful experiences that have shaped the person I am today, and will continue to shape me as I write to remember and remember to write. So here it goes. I don't promise that this will be pretty and it sure won't be organized, but I am going to do my best to be honest about what I have seen, heard and felt.