Farewell medical team

We knew it would be hard to say "good-bye" and it was! In just five short days, it's amazing how bonded you can get with a group of people, especially people who know and love the Lord passionately and who are wholeheartedly all about serving him in this way around the world. This blog entry today is dedicated to these seven incredible people. The people who work at Southwestern Medical Clinic in Michigan take a pay deduction to support 11 full-time doctors in 8 different countries; plus they send teams. We were United Methodists, Wesleyans, United Brethren, Free Methodists, independent churches, Catholic and some we missed - all united together, serving Jesus.

Dr. Mark, surgeon from Vermont

Dr. Keith, geriatric & hospice doc from SW Michigan

 Rich, counselor from SW Michigan

Dr. Rick Johanson, pediatrician from SW Michigan

Dr. Ron Baker, SW Michigan family medicine

John, physical therapist from SW Michigan

Christie Case, nurse from SW Michigan - kindred spirit

And Dr. Dan Snyder, resident missionary doctor to 

Dessalines, Haiti, also affiliated with SW Michigan.

The day before the medical team leaves

The picture above is of the doctors as they head out to the hospital after lunch. It's rather symbolic. The picture looks a little like how we'll feel when they're gone, walking out of our lives. We are going to miss them! We will be a little depressed when they leave tomorrow after lunch, but we'll get over it. We will still have a group of three women here who are ministering to the hospital staff and pastors in the area. It will be a challenge, but that's OK. That's why we're here. 

We made an appointment with Rich, the counselor, to counsel with us re: our own grief & losses over the last couple of years. We say "oh yes, we're fine" and yet, maybe not sometimes. Our losses seem so close to us for some strange reason down here - Warren, Renie, loss of the school, Annie, Chris' dad...  We were going to be involved in grief counseling to the Haitians, but this is how it might be instead. The two of us getting counseled ourselves. And so we got counseled tonight. What a blessing to sit there, the two of us, getting to share our hearts, our journey, our grief with someone from the outside so to speak. He gave us some good things to work on and shared some awesome insights from his own life to bless us with. The Body of Christ is an amazing thing. 

From Chris: As I burned CDs of photos for the doctors today, I listened to the Haitian women downstairs sing "Wonderful Savior, Jesus is Mine" and "Come Thou Fount - my personal fave - in Creole as they washed all our clothes by hand. Remember, Antiguan team members, how we would take the clothes to the laundromat before we got the washer for Ronnie and Janice? Well, these sweet Haitian women have no clue how their lives would change if they had a washer here!  Think of it, hand washing clothes for approx. 18 people. Unbelievable. Frankly, we've been hand washing most of ours i.e. underwear and shirts. Why add to their burden when we are certainly capable of it? One thing is certain- we are helping their economy by hiring them. Greg is trying to cross that barrier himself. HIRE THE HAITIANS TO DO THE WORK!!!! 

A little side note to the laundry situation - it's now night time and the laundry is done and ours didn't get done. Now that's going to be a problem! We hope it happens tomorrow! Especially Greg's work clothes!

From Chris, another baby orphan story. The guy in the white tee-shirt below, Tilom, had a sister who died after giving birth. That little one month old baby nephew showed up with an aunt. She needed food for him. What a dilemma. She also wanted him to go to the orphanage. We had only a can or two of formula and again, it's $10 a can and that's way more than they can afford. The orphanage really can't take anymore children because Haiti has put the stop on adoptions and if the orphanages take anymore children in, they have to raise them. It's so sad. Someone was sent out to buy a bottle for the baby and give him our one can of formula, but who knows what's going to happen to him? I get a little angry thinking about Angelina Jolie being a spokesperson for UNICEF and she can adopt all the babies she wants and yet we've heard that they are behind the push on the govt. to put the kibash on international adoptions. This country cannot support their orphaned children. Just a little rant. Pardon me.

Our thoughts are random tonight. Things will be slowing down for Chris with the larger group leaving and picking up for Greg as he tries to complete his projects. Our missionary doctor and his wife will get a couple of nights of R&R, one with the medical team. We are praying it will be an awesome time for them. They need it.

Greg and two of his worker buddies

Kids at the orphanage with their new balloons (yesterday)

These are the neighbor kids looking under our gate. They're always there.

More neighbor kids. Some of them are the witchdoctor's kids.

(We know some of you have been unable to leave comments on this here blog. You can do it now as our friend, Peter, has changed the setting for that. PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS! We can also now see how many have looked at the blog, thanks to our son, Mike, for changing that setting. You don't have to be here to help us out! Praise God!)

Worship the Lord with gladness - Haitian style

We walked to church this morning. It was probably 15 minutes down into town. The church was packed, maybe 200-300 people, all dressed up of course. Thank you, Lord, for the comfy seats in our church compared to Dess., with hard wooden benches and one slat wood board to lean back on; for the 1 hour & 15 min. long service in North Branch compared to the 8:30-11:00 in Dess.; in English compared to Haitian Creole & French mixed in; AC when needed compared to bringing an old washcloth to wipe the sweat, but we had a nice wicker fan held by Chris & moving constantly; for written words to the songs compared to none in our Haitian church; -- and thank You, Lord, for the power, joy and presence of Your Spirit at our church AND here in Haiti. The same Jesus, the same Spirit, united together in the Hope of the resurrection!

Our afternoon adventures - the doctors took a hike up to a fort this afternoon. We.did.not. We are hikers and walkers, but not in this intense heat. We will attempt the hike next weekend in the cool of the morning as the roosters are crowing. We all went to the Peavey orphanage. This orphanage has been around since 1970. The Peaveys are originally from Coldwater and Reading, MI and came here all those years ago. Our driver, Jacqlin, is one of their earlier Haitian orphans, all grown up. It was quite an amazing experience. On our way there, we ran into many RA-RA bands out in the town. We had to skirt in and around them and finally got caught in one and had to drive through it. They are crazy. Drinking, angry,…what can we say? Sounds like the devil's work, doesn't it? We have a video of a RA-RA band, but will have to wait to post until we get home. We have posted a photo, however. The orphans - 60 of them - were adorable. The women of our group came home absolutely filthy. These little kids aren't potty-trained in the way we are used to, if you catch our drift. (Just pee where you are….you'll eventually learn.) This added bit from Chris - I will now mention why the men didn't come home as filthy. They had to see all the orphanage "stuff" - the Sun Oven which bakes their bread, the Tilapia fish tanks, the gym, the church, the machines and tons of solar power, including the wells.

We worshiped the Lord this morning AND tonight. The hospital staff came to the compound for a sing-around time. We are disobeying the rules and posting an amazing video of the group that blessed us. We need to do a little work on it before we post it. They just "sing together." They don't really perform anywhere. We told them we're posting them on YouTube and they'll get a million hits. The Haiti Hospital Earthquake Quintet. The pharmacist, Sydney, who lost the 16 family members, is in the group, as well as Dr. Junior Noel (a physician intern), Sydney's girlfriend, Rolande, and then Rooben (lab tech) and Nelson (an RN).

About the music we hear at night: last night, we heard LOUD Caribbean music, blaring until 4am. We were told it was the open air disco, right next to the compound. Right now we're hearing the crazy RA-RA - devil music. Come, Easter, come.

See the last photo...

About the electrical situation: city electricity operates  4 out of  7 days a week and you never know which days. It used to be PAP would use up all the electricity and Dess would get none or what's leftover. Since the earthquake, PAP is using less and Dess is getting more. The mission does not have an issue with it as our power comes from the hospital which is running a diesel generator when it's not hooked up to the city grid. It runs a gallon an hour which does not seem much to me (Greg) and may not be correct because we were told it was the hospital's biggest expense. 

Palm Sunday, truly a great day here in Haiti, but most of all that FIRST Palm Sunday, when Jesus came to Jerusalem in His own parade, hearing the people say, "Hosanna to the King." Truly He is the King. 

Greg has plans tomorrow having contracted with a welder for some work at the hospital and getting a residence established for hospital interns in an abandoned house close to the hospital. The other maintenance guy, Fred (Canadian who speaks Creole and French), has been sick for 36 hours so Greg will be winging it with his 10 words of Creole and his small bit of French. Pray for him, please.

First baby at the orphanage - what a reaction to the blanc lady!

The doctors and Greg, busy holding the babies at the orphanage.

The Ra-Ra Band

Rural Clinic Day

What a blessing and privilege to be a part of this! We drove about a 1/2 hour out of Dessalines, further into the rural countryside. We're sure these people don't leave their village very often. As Greg would say, "Haiti is more African than Africa is!" Mud huts, donkeys - the beasts of burden, naked little kids, goats, women with immense loads on their heads, -- you can just picture it, can't you? 

We ended up at a small clinic building that stood next to a church. We set up our clinic and worked six or more hours in the heat (of course), seeing 180+ people (close to 600 prescriptions), dispensing meds for malaria, worms, infections, blood pressure, headaches, - you name it. We (G&C) loaded up the meds into little baggies and handed them to the nurse and her translator. The doctors saw the patients and sent them to us with the prescriptions. Our pediatrician, Dr. J, said we did no overloading of antibiotics since these people don't ever get antibiotics. They should be cured - for 6 months anyway! (Ellie and Anna - just like El Pariso, except no ear cleaning)

All day, we had children hanging over the wall, watching us. At the end of the day, we gave each of them a Flintstone's vitamin and then some Creole songs started coming back to me (Chris). That was so much fun, singing and playing games. We even got them into Hokey Pokey. Such a blessing songs are! They break all cultural barriers.

Another team has arrived tonight, bringing the number at the compound to around 18 people. We are finding our tasks are all about support - making sure the stuff is running (see Greg in the last picture fixing the car that they used to push to start. It just needed the battery terminals cleaned.) and helping the doctor and his wife make sure the teams are happy and fed. We have enjoyed an evening on our own in our own place, Skyping with our kids and listening to the loud music and loud conversations outside our compound. The garbage getting burned isn't too fun. Sometime soon we'll share about how there's no electricity in the town. We have it, though! Like we said. Another day. Another story.

We are blessed by Haiti and burdened for it.

Chris and Christie getting the pharmacy ready. Children hovered by the wall all day.

Lunch Break - the patients just had to wait until we were finished

Greg, fixing the Montero - it doesn't need to be pushed to start anymore.

Dispensing care in the name of ....

Here we have a contrast of medicine - on the left, medicine dispensed by the witchdoctor in the name of the enemy. (you can see him in the doorway doing that very thing.) The picture further down - care dispensed in the name of Jesus. As one of the doctors said, "Jesus always answers our prayers. We just aren't always happy with the results." That's become very apparent to me this week as we've watched people preparing for grief, living with pain and living out their grief. We should add that there's much joy, too, with the doctors healing and relieving pain. 

We have heard that Dessalines Hospital was one of three hospitals that took in patients from the earthquake - because it was one of the ones left standing. It's a commitment to get here so people were really desperate to get help. Dr. Junior, the resident Haitian surgeon, said they saw 250 patients per day. They had to turn people away and he didn't sleep for 72 hours at one point. As to relief efforts now, most of the relief is going to Port-au-Prince. These rural and outlying areas, so in need, are not the focus of the craziness in PAP. And yet, this hospital is such a bright spot for this place. We learn more as we go, of course.

Today I hope to get to the hospital and be the official photographer for the medical team that's here. Pictures of them in action. These wonderful people, so used to sterile conditions, smooth-running schedules, great communication, and usually great results from their efforts are being challenged to say the least. There are seven on this team of which five have done medical missions before. Their heart is for this. They belong to a group from Michigan called Southwestern Medical Clinic - http://www.swmc.org/ - what a great organization! This group has docs all over the world. They say they're the largest medical mission group. 

Later - after the hospital…

The two of us have been to the hospital today. I am now officially the group photographer. You know this is a task I don't mind at all. I think I got all of them in action. Two new babies today. The little dehydrated baby is still alive, not sucking. There's no mother around, so how will this baby survive? They don't want them to go on formula (like the Americans) because it's $10 a can. They want to find someone in the family who will nurse the baby if the mother can't. Christie, the nurse, was able to be in the OR for a C-section. Very primitive, she said! I watched one of the docs do minor surgery on a guy's toe - the guy on the crutches, red shirt below. Another guy came in because his live-in woman bit his finger-tip off. That's what they say they do here - mutilate each other when they're mad. That's a new one to most of these guys. There was a little boy who came to get a cast off this afternoon. He was one of the miracles from the earthquake, buried for 3 days. He's been sent up country, here to Dessalines, to live with relatives. There's another young woman here who was visiting this evening. She was in the FOHO (Friends of Haiti Organ.) house which collapsed and killed three FM missionaries. We don't know the details yet, but she evidently jumped from one building to another. 

Tomorrow, we head out into the boonies to do a rural clinic. We're stocking up on meds tonight. Some will be the doctors, some will be the pharmacy, Greg and I will get lunches for our 10 (2 surgeons have to stay at the hospital to do surgeries) plus translators and drivers. Greg will probably dispense meds and solve problems. I will take pictures! All this could change as plans are continually in flux! 

We are so sorry we are unable to download more pictures. Again, there are restrictions due to the bandwidth here. The picture here is of the physical therapy clinic.

Below, you can see Greg in his element...
Thank you for your prayers AND comments! They are a blessing as well as Skyping with our kids, grandkids and my mom!

Greg here: I don't have cool photos to add, but Chris said we are limited anyway. Where to start? It does not seem to matter if you have been before or not. Each experience is unique. There is so much to do and not much to do it with, or even know where to start. There is the mission housing which is incredible yet when you build with wood in the land of termites, it doesn't last. Changing out a door frame that is built into the masonry took the better part of a  day. Then to work on areas in the hospital (like the OR) has to be done when the docs aren't busy, but when you are here with a medical mission team and they are doing toe amputations in the PT room because there is only the one OR.....well you get the picture. Conversation is the next thing. Everyone speaks Creole and those words just don't come to my mind. The sounds of this place are so different than at home....here, if you sit outside there are voices coming from everywhere. It is amazing how many people live right around here. It never seems to really quiet down and tonight is Friday night. I think I can hear music from at least 3 different locations and still in the mingle of it all are voices and conversations.
Every day  brings new and mixed emotions. One day it is so hot you struggle to have the energy to finish your project and the next you want to hire about five local guys and work with them so you can get more done. The mission is well-stocked, but as you can imagine, there is no Home Depot anywhere so it is a big process just to get a door knob or battery to replace the bad one hooked to the solar inverter. And here we are in the middle of all this connected to the internet. I guess the big question  is  "will Haiti ever get better?"....then  I ask "better" through whose eyes? Mine, the missionaries, the Haitian people, or is there a bigger picture in all this? Oh well.....that is a question for another day. 

Acclimation

It's strange how smells and sounds come back to you after 30 years and cause such a reaction. Our pastor was talking about familiar smells in his sermon last week and that keeps coming back to us. The rooster crowing at 5am, the sounds, the sweaty smell of Haitians AND blancs (us), kids yelling and calling out, dragging things in the dirt. This is Haiti. And we are so hot. We feel like we'll never be cool again. Definitely a day of acclimating and deciding "we shall feel like this until we get on the airplane to leave." Greg is doing a door frame for Dr. Dan and DeeDee's bedroom. He has tools, but not his own! That's OK. I am getting to know DeeDee well and enjoying visiting with her. She's giving the stories, the lay of the land, the rules, etc. Christie (not me), the nurse from Michigan that's here, took me to the hospital this afternoon. I wore scrubs so I could look official. I am once again overwhelmed. This hospital is definitely a Third World facility. I don't think I knew what that was until I saw it. All you young moms and young doctors that I know - you wouldn't believe it and you'd never worry about germs again. What is sterile? What is dirt? Today there was a large family sitting outside together waiting for a young new mom to die because she got an infection after giving birth. The picture you see of the tiny new born came in dehydrated and has vastly improved since yesterday but they still don't know if she'll live. Today there were five planned surgeries but as of this afternoon, none had happened because of a C-section and some other emergency. A young mother was there with her little baby boy - had been waiting all day for his circumcision.  Oh, the stories go on. I went into the delivery room, and thought of Dr. Ellie and her delivery room - wishing so much that she could see this. I am helping with the cataloguing of the many medicines that have been donated to the Dessalines Hospital.

We are winding down for the night, still sweating. Greg has showered and I'm waiting until right before bed!

The picture of the buildings - the house where we're staying is on the right and the house on the left is the witch doctor's. The next picture is the dehydrated baby getting hydrated.

We are very blessed to be in the fellowship of these wonderful godly doctors, a physical therapist, a counselor and a nurse who have come to give of their time. They continue to praise God and and testify to His amazing love and work among these people.

We have arrived!

WE.ARE.HERE. And it's true what we've been reading - the airport is utter CHAOS! Because of the damage to the terminal from the quake they have a temporary setup for immigration and customs. Of course, utter craziness - mobs of people, no baggage claim, no AC, no English (Creole and French), lots of people like us in the midst of the chaos (relief workers, white folks), guys in gray uniforms who wanted to carry our luggage and wouldn't let go, kids begging for anything and the most unbelievable gridlock outside the airport with sirens, horns, UN tanks, firetrucks, cars, trucks, tap-taps (Haitian taxis)… I hope we've painted a bit of a picture for you and maybe you can get the gist with our pictures. There was even a UN worker on a UN bus taking a picture of me taking a picture! I must've looked like a white nut, sitting in the back of the pick-up trying to experience the chaos.

Greg and I waited in the mission truck for two hours while Jacqlin, our driver, waited at the gate for our co-worker, Fred, coming in from Canada. We've been asked to move our truck now several times and there is NO WAY we're moving from this spot!

On to Dessalines, whenever we see Jacqnil and Fred - AND after we get out of the gridlock. Jacqnil and his wife have a new 3 month old baby boy named Josh. Guess who can't wait to get her hands on him? 

It's now 9pm and we are in our apartment at the mission complex. It's very nice. Our own space. They have told us we can only upload one or two pictures due to bandwidth costs. We're trying to soak it all in so we can be ready to go tomorrow. There's an awesome group of drs., PT, nurse, counselor here from SW Michigan. Three grief counselors come in two days.

The pictures we've chosen to upload reflect a bit of our 3 hour drive here which left us speechless with the culture of Haiti and the overwhelming of especially, the tent cities. (never mind the pictures for today. we'll try again tomorrow. maybe shrink them.) 

As we head to bed we are listening to a Ra-Ra Band - 100 or more people, drums, shakers, horns - they'll do this nightly until Easter. 

Waiting and watching

We're sitting in the Ft. Lauderdale airport, waiting for our flight to PAP. We're hearing Creole and French all around us. Lots of people are carrying tents. They told us to get here early (3 hours!), but now we're wondering why. Missed our free muffins at the hotel and bought pricey ones at the airport. Our stomachs are happy! Have met some friendly folks on our airport and hotel runs - retirees, a widow flying from Florida to St. Louis to her husband's funeral, some happy north east vacationers, etc. All of these people like to hear about our destination. The mention of Haiti makes hearts tender.

More information

We talked to Dr. Dan Snyder on the phone tonight and he gave us a lot more information to help us feel a little more comfortable. (One interesting tidbit - Dan is the son of Dr. Al Snyder who Greg worked with in Central Africa in the early 70's.)


A few more details about Dessalines, the hospital, the people.... the hospital has become a refugee center in the last few years from the '04 flood, political unrest and now the earthquake. One third of the population lived in Port-au-Prince so everyone knows someone. Please pray for the pharmacist at the hospital who lost 16 family members and the administrator who lost a daughter. The earthquake, on top of these other events have created much hopelessness among the people. They smile, he said, but they're sad. Dessalines has been a major area for voodoo worship and the nights had been loud with drums and noise before the earthquake. The nights are quiet now, he says. The churches are full.


We will be involved in a four-fold plan:
1) Manage the teams that come down. While we're there this time, there will be a surgical team from Michigan and a trio of women coming down for grief counseling.
2) Maintenance - a dream or a nightmare, he said. However you want to look at it. Hm, sounds like something right up Greg's alley, eh?
3) Grief counseling at the hospital with translators and tips from these women. And we can wear scrubs at the hospital. Whoa!
4) Organize pharmacy and central control


They have a plan to supply two tool shops. They would be very happy for any tools we could bring and leave there. Hm, I wonder if we have a few of those around?

We had an AWESOME Open House at SE Tools tonight! We think we had 200 people come through. The shop was so clean, so organized,...what great people helped to make it happen! We're proud of all of them! We had a raffle for great prizes, the first hotdogs of the season, awesome tour guides, a couple of massage therapists, and lots of tools to show off and sell! Great fun!

The piles of stuff

We need to practice working on this blog so here's another entry. This is our "stuff." We're taking food items down because we've heard that we'll be making sure groups have breakfast and an evening lunch. There is food there, but anything we can take is helpful. They have also asked us to bring some office supplies so we have those items. Other than that, it's clothes for the hot weather. Chris has to wear skirts as there is still an expectation for a conservative appearance. They say this is slowly changing.

It will be interesting to see how it goes with downloading pictures where we're at. When we were in Antigua two years ago, that was a continual frustration. It just took so long. We hope we will be able to do more than just writing it all out, but it will be better than nothing if pictures are slow. We hope to be able to Skype with our kids and Chris' mom...at least audio.

We are wrapping things up here at home. SE Tools has an Open House tonight. We get to see Josh and Ellie on Saturday. They are keeping the pooch for us. (thanks, you guys!) Carrie's in Puerto Rico. John might join us on Saturday. Our church is going to pray for us on Sunday. We wrap things up at work on Monday. We leave on Tuesday. We get to Haiti on Wednesday.

How did this come to be?

 













We have said “yes” to a tug the Lord put on our hearts. We are alums of an organization called VISA, Volunteers In Service Abroad, a lay volunteer arm of the Free Methodist Church. Thirty years ago we served in Haiti together for a two month long construction project for one of their schools in Port-au-Prince. (the above photo is of the school 30 years later. The courtyard of the school is being used for relief.) We always wondered if we would ever go back. Right after the January 12th earthquake in Haiti we looked at the VISA website and there was the opportunity to sign up as being willing to volunteer. Well, we have been asked by VISA if we would be willing to return to learn how to be on the ground coordinators for the teams from the States and Canada that come down to help in relief effort. Our statement has been “how can we say “no?””

This is the plan - we will be going Mar. 23 - Apr. 7 for training to be coordinators for groups coming into Haiti. We will be based out of the Claire Heureuse Hospital (Dessalines Hospital) and located in Marchand Dessalines which is 100 miles north of Port-au-Prince. This hospital is run by the Free Methodists with help from multi-denominational groups over the years. They have asked if after we are trained would we go back one month each year. Our desire for this year is to go back in July.

This is certainly a step of faith for us and really comes from a desire talked about by us, as a couple, years ago. We just never dreamed it would actually happen. Of course, the earthquake has stepped up the need for the smaller ministries to organize the many groups that want to come in to meet some of the vast needs of the Haitian people. We are taking this first step of faith and are open to the Lord leading however He would see fit.

There are always financial concerns when going out like this. The Lord has already made it possible for us to fund this two week trip. We are trusting Him for the month long stint as well. If He wants us to go, He will make it happen. We covet your lifting us up in prayer.