Epilogue

Weeks before our departure, I was having coffee with a friend who has had extensive mission experience. She knew this was my first time and had graciously offered to meet with me. Hour after hour, she listened to the litany of questions and concerns that poured from my Type A mindset. At one point in my self purging, I expressed marvel over why we should spend the funds to transport volunteers to Haiti, when, "We could just write a check instead." I will never forget her response. "Adam, it is because of what it does for those who go."

I now know how wise her words were. It is true that my perspective has been changed and my values have been reformatted. But it goes deeper still. The shell that had protected the constructed self of my ego is gone and my exposed heart beats with a new, strong, sensitivity.

Thank you Haiti. I have received so very much more than I gave.....

Dignity & Gratitude

Dignity is still alive in Haiti. Even before our week here was over, it became evident that there is an admiral spirit within the Haitian people. A determination to lift themselves above their circumstances, no matter how dire the surroundings. My thoughts return to a gentleman who was having his shoes shined amidst the chaos of a local street market. He could not have walked more than ten feet without stepping in the surrounding muck! Wrapped around that determination is a gratitude of thanks that can not be contained. Whether it be scrawled on walls, illustrated on the side of public buses, or communicated with broad smiles.......these people continue to be thankful.

Back in the USA

At 7:10 PM, our fancy jet landed at the ultra-modern Miami airport.  By 8:10 we had all cleared immigration, received luggage, and cleared customs. We dined together at a food court in the airport, and then split up for three different hotels. Our final conversation revolved on the spectacular blessing that we received to be able to have this experience in Haiti.  Already, it seems like the things we saw were impossible, as if we have returned from a distant planet.  The gaudy displays of wealth and consumption in the airport seemed preposterous.  Yet we know that this American society is just as real as the other that we saw in Haiti. Now that we have seen and experienced the stark, stunning differences between these two worlds, we cannot forget or cease to care for our brothers and sisters in Haiti.  The Haitians that we met were gracious, grateful, sincere, humble, and friendly. To be that way while surrounded by and living in such immense poverty is a testimony to their beautiful spirits and sincere hope for a better future. Haiti is no longer a mysterious, scary place for us.  We know it as the home for millions of wonderful people who struggle every day against disease, hunger, and hopelessness. 

It was only a one-week mission trip.  But we were changed forever.  May God bless and protect the people of Haiti, and keep them forever in our thoughts so that we never forget how much they need and deserve our help.  We can make a difference, each and every one of us.  With God at our side, how can we fail?

Parting Thoughts

Today is our final morning in Haiti. We have seen amazing things (albiet disturbing) and met amazing people and must now think about re-entry into our 'normal lives." How do you describe an experience like this? Well, we will have a long flight back home to process. Regards to all who have been following this mission and thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
Judy

Some photos from Christina

Tent Camp Photos

A visit to a tent camp.

A rainy day most of the time, but not ferocious rain.  No wind at all.  If this is a hurricane, I’m not impressed.  However, the day itself was extremely impressionable. We started after breakfast by helping to sort and inventory the many tools and medical supplies left by dozens of previous teams to Haiti.  They had no idea of how much of what they had stuffed in boxes and abandoned suitcases.  We haven’t yet finished with that, because we got to do something great.

Another team invited us to join them in bringing food to a tent community.  We first drove with them to the Christian Light orphanage, stopping to pick up Kez Furth along the way.  Kez is an American nurse, 26 years old, working in Haiti for the past 3 years.  She is one of those amazing people who make you feel as if you have wasted your life.  She was here during the earthquake and is credited with saving many lives.  Apparently she has been interviewed on CNN about that.  Kez got us organized at the orphanage, filling 106 bags with rice and a smaller bag in each one full of beans.  A man here from Mississippi had brought the large plastic bags with him to Haiti.  He didn’t know why, he just felt moved to bring them.  We had the smaller bags with us, and nobody knows why we had them.  But, the bags were all present, and we filled them with food for the tent community.  Then we drove there while some of us walked.  At the tents, each tent received one bag of rice and beans.  Each also received a tiny bottle of water purification tablets.  Four little kids from the orphanage explained to each tent how to use them.  It was sort of organized chaos.  Lots of crowding, lots of kids, lots of babies, lots of adults.  Tents were very crowded together.  People enjoyed having their pictures taken.  Several moms or dads asked me to take photos of their children.  Many kids had the orange hair of malnutrition.  One had a very bad cleft palate.  A proud mom displayed her two chubby twin babies (just a few weeks old).  This went on for about an hour, and then there was a more or less sudden order to get back to the truck.  Evidently things were getting a bit rowdy, and Kez was worried about our safety.  So, now we have a much better idea of what a tent camp looks like.  But, to actually live there for months and months and months is unimaginable.  The vast chasm between the comfort of our lives and the poverty of theirs is nearly beyond belief.  We need to fix this.  We need to do more.

Back in the paddy wagon, returning from the airport, a little wet, a lot happy (a photo)

Rain!

So this is hurricane rain.  How interesting.  I am alone in Pastor Jacob's house, waiting for breakfast at the main Guest House.  It has rained pretty hard all night, and it still is coming down. The rest of our party is spread out elsewhere, as many people are sharing this sanctuary.  I suspect they are just fine.  My room is very nice, but I have to keep the door closed or kittens keep wandering in, and a small cat likes to chase the large gecko up on the wall above the bed.
Today is a day for books, board games, puzzles, and lots of good Christian fellowship with people from all over the USA.  I wish we were still working on a useful project, but soon enough we'll understand why we are still here.  As Phil Campbell noted, "God evidently has more work for us here, it's kind of exciting to wait and wonder what it will be!"
By the way, the roosters are doing just fine in the rain.

"No Mercy" - "Many Blessings"

Today we tried to get out of Haiti ahead of Hurricane Tomas, but we didn't quite make it.  The flight on which we were to return to the USA never left Miami to come get us.  There were some complexities in getting in touch with the Guest House here to let then know that we had to return, but things worked out well.  We are now safe back in the Methodist Guest House, in very good spirits.  We'll ride out the rain and wind here tomorrow, and already have reservations of 6 November (our original return date) on AA 1908.  It will be an interesting day, as all of our passports have already been stamped to show that we have left the country.

"No Mercy" refers to our oft repeated phrase as we struggled through an almost crushing phalanx of wanna-be porters with our luggage.  It's a French/Creole term for "no thanks", but when expressed repeatedly in a Montana accent, it comes out as "no mercy!"
We were blessed by many in the airport who loaned us their cellphones to make connections here, and by the American Airlines staff who worked so hard to reschedule scores of passengers when the flight was cancelled and the airport was closed.  It will be closed all day tomorrow because of the storm, too.  Others in the airport were prepared to take us in with them had we failed to reach the Guest House.  Angels were everywhere.  A driver named Johnny found us in the airport at exactly the right time, just when we had received all of our previously checked luggage.  He brought us safely through the dark to this sanctuary. 
So far, it is only raining moderately hard, and the wind is mild.  We hear that things are scheduled to get more exciting soon.  The Guest House is crowded with many guests,as several teams have either been called in from the field or have not been able to go to their field site.

Thanks for your prayers!  We are indeed safe and comfortable and cheerful.

3 November, Wednesday

We stopped at a pharmacy on the way to Thor and bought some liquid antibiotics and other things that we were needing yesterday.  Our medical clinic got started a bit later then, at 10:15.  And, we had to knock off at 12:30 because of a scheduled visit to a mountain top a couple of hours away.  Still, we saw 35 patients in 2 hours.  That pace was ahead of the number that we were seeing yesterday, so you can tell that we're getting better at this.  The sickest person today was a woman of 67 years age, complaining of difficulty climbing up and down the very steep and very high hills around here.  Her blood pressure was very wide, 187/78, and sure enough, there was a loud holodiastolic murmur over her aortic valve.  She needs an aortic valve replacement.  She won't be able to get one. She will very likely be dead in less than a year. We didn't tell her.
After clinic, the pastor (Pastor Michel) thanked us profusely, especially for the kind way we had treated the people of his neighborhood.  He was very grateful.  His wife is a nurse, and she helped us.  His daughter learned to speak English on her own, and she helped as a translator.  They were a splendid family.  He told us how difficult it was for him after the earthquake, because his daughter was almost killed.  She was trapped in their collapsed home, and it took 20-30 min to get her out.  That doesn't sound like much at first, but we need to recall that the earthquake killed over 230,000 people here.  The scope of destruction remains very evident, and it had to be absolutely terrifying for him.  He looks forward to our return in February.

We spent most of the afternoon driving up a steep, winding (and terrible) road to near a mountain top. Had lunch there, at 2:30.

Must run off to a team meeting!  No rain yet, but the sky is cloudy tonight.

More about 2 November and the Medical Clinic

Of the 93 patients we saw:
-the youngest was 2 weeks old and the oldest was 84 (she wasn't actually sure)
-many were pregnant
-many were moms with children
-most weren't terribly sick
-several had very high blood pressure, and one 19 month-old little girl had definite protein malnutrition, with orange hair, delayed growth, and lassitude.  Her mom was very skinny and very anemic.

We needed more topical anti-fungal ointments and we had nothing for the little babies who needed liquid antibiotics or liquid tylenol. 
I believe that everyone feels tired and very properly used up after today.  For me, it was a very good day, with none of the nightmare scenarios that I feared (no riots, no screaming and shoving to get medicine, no government thugs or policemen bribe, no critially ill people that we couldn't help at all).  We had an animated and joyous after-dinner team gathering.  We laughed a lot, about many things, like the little girl with a condom blown up like a balloon, like the 80+ year old lady who said she was 12 years old, like the precipice that our patients had to navigate in order to get to a dark back room where a foreign doctor who can't even speak their language was waiting for them in the shadows.
Our team is a wonderful mix of personalities and talents.  I already am imagining how splendid it will be to run into these people in the distant future and exchange sincere, warm greetings and quiet smiles as we recall wonderful shared memories without even saying a word.  To say that a mission trip is a bonding experience is almost to ridiculously trivialize the genuine sense of Christian family love that we are realizing.  These people, our team, are part of me and part of my family - forever more.  Our shared experiences, our group tribulations, our common sense of shock at the things we've witnessed, and our sweat and labor to do good things as a team have brought us together in a way that can't be easily explained, but is sincerely and certainly wonderful.
Thanks for posting comments!  It let's know that we aren't forgotten.  Montana seems very far away right now.

Tuesday, 2 Nov, a Medical Clinic Day

Today we went to the church in Thor and set up a medical clinic.  We saw 93 patients between 10 am and 4 pm.  Not bad for 1 doctor, 1 pharmacist, and 5 very helpful medical assistants.  We had two translators, which was very good.  It was just a little hot, but we all hope to get a shower tonight.

The fear of the hurricane arriving soon is on all of our minds.  We seriously expect to be stuck here for a few extra days.  That will disappoint more than a few people expecting to see me in clinic next Tuesday.

Along our route to Thor

Pictures from 1 Nov 2010

Along the road to Thor.

Our first work day

Today was Monday, our first real work day.  The hard part seems to be getting to and from the work site.  That is a genuine adventure, with plenty of human tragedy to witness along the way.  The street conditions truly are awful, with enormous potholes everywhere.  Horns are blasting, to move people out of the way and to announce our arrival at blind curves.  The scenes along the roadside remain astounding.  Even though we have seen plenty of it, the magnitude of visible destruction and the abject poverty in which these millions of people live continues to astound me.  I see it with my own eyes, but I still can’t imagine it.

Our work today consisted of moving a lot of rubble from along the sides of the pastors future home to a pile in the street in front of it.  Evidently, eventually some young men will be paid to load it onto a truck for removal.  We’ve been told that the vast tons of rubble are being piled along the shore somewhere, perhaps to make a causeway, wave break, or just to expand the shoreline.  We moved a lot of rock and broken concrete, some small pieces of wood, and several items of buried and now worthless clothing. The stories behind the clothing we’ll never know.  Haitian workers did concrete work inside the house while we cleaned up around them.  Then we took 60 large cinderblocks off a truck and piled them neatly inside the house.  We carried a few 94 lb bags of cement, too.  But, like I said, getting to and from the site is a real journey.  So, we arrived at about 9:15 and left at about 2:15.  It doesn’t sound like much, but we were thoroughly soaked in our own sweat and ready for a break. 

Tomorrow, we will have a medical clinic.  We’ll set up at the Methodist church in Thor.  I have no idea how many people will come and whether or not we’ll be able to actually be of any benefit to them.  But, I know we’ll try.  The pastor has informed the entire community, so turn-out should be good.

Other Photos

Photos from Haiti, Oct 31, 2010

Sunday in Haiti

Church was about 40 minutes away from the guest house.  We rode in a "tap-tap" to the church.  The one that the Methodist compound uses is all white, covered in back with wire mesh on the upper half of the walls.  Benches run down each side on the inside, and they are nicely padded.  We were more or less locked inside, and if you can picture a big white paddy wagon, then you've got a good idea of what it looks like.  The streets are full of other tap-taps, so-called because the scores of people riding in them tap on the sides when they want it to stop so they can get out.  We were out of the sun, yet exposed to the wind while moving, so the temperature was nice back there.  But, it was very bumpy and the wire mesh made it impossible to get a good picture.  So we took a lot of wiry pictures.

Church was in a suburb of Carrefour called Thor. The destruction of homes and buildings along the way was very sobering.  It has been nine months since the earthquake, yet the visible destruction is everywhere.  It is sort of numbing to see large homes crumbled flat, piles of rubble along every street, and thousands (millions?) of people living in scattered tents and canvas tarp “homes”. The previous city parks are all packed with tent cities. Sidewalks are packed with tiny food and business stalls between a dirt wall or building and the street edge. Everyone seems to be honking at the same time.  Diesel fumes and other air pollution is truly awful.  A couple of us wore masks while traveling.  Life looks very hard.  People were working very hard selling and hauling things, shopping and walking somewhere.  Pigs wandered in some places, cattle or goats in others.

We spent about 2.5 hours at church, not really understanding any of it in Creole.  But it was clear that we were welcome and people were very nice to us.  Across from the front door of the church is a huge collapsed building or home.  I’ll post a photo of it.  Then we visited our work site to see where we’ll be working.  After that, we stopped at a large bakery/fast food kind of place and ate burgers and soda.  Then we passed by the collapsing presidential palace before stopping to visit the 40 or so orphans at the Methodist orphanage.  This afternoon (Sunday) we are getting organized and settling in.  Most of us are a bit numb, having seen plenty of earthquake destruction and human misery – more than enough in fact.  It will be interesting to see how our feelings evolve as we continue to build relationships here.

There are rumors of a hurricane coming on Thursday or Friday.  It may very well derail our departure plans for Saturday.  Oh well, I’ll let God worry about that for now.

We arrived safely!

Boy is it hot!  But, we seven are all here, safe and sound at the guest house in Petionville.  The three of us who flew out of Helena had no luggage arrive with our flight, but everybody else is OK.  The rest may arrive on a flight this afternoon.

The five of us who flew together from Salt Lake City to Atlanta and then on to Miami had a few problems last night.  Our plane in Atlanta aborted the take-off while accelerating down the runway.  Apparently there were warning lights on in the cockpit. We had to return to the terminal and change planes.  That meant a considerable delay, so we got in to Miami at about 1:15 and to the hotel at about 2:30 am.  Our shuttle for the airport left at 7 am, so it was a very short night.

For me, I can see that I'm going to have trouble dealing with beggars.  They are everywhere, clearly very needy, and not shy about asking for help.  I have great difficulty not giving a lot to each and every one of them.  I know that these very poor people deserve my help, and that I'm supposed to help them.  But I don't have enough for all.  There must be a way for me to figure this out.

Don Skillman

Cholera in Haiti

One week before our arrival, and an epidemic of cholera is breaking out in Haiti.  On 23 October, there were 2,564 cases with 194 deaths.  This ought to be interesting, and challenging.  So far, the disease is centered a long way from our projected work-site in Carrefour.  Maybe we'll get to help anyway.  If cholera is not stomped out quickly in Haiti, this will become an epic disaster.  I've tried to reassure the team that we'll be safe and that I know how to protect them.  But, this epidemic has raised our anxiety level substantially.

Commissioning Ceremony, Helena

Today, there was a very nice commissioning for the three of us from St Paul's UMC in Helena:  myself, Debbie Irby, and Phil Campbell.

I have already been getting donated bags of acetaminophen and  vitamins from church members.  A patient gave me a bag full of his knee braces, all in very good condition.  And I have several large boxes of sterile gloves to leave behind (and hopefully not require for personal use) in Haiti.

Our day of departure is coming soon!

Since I'm old and inexperienced at blogging...I want to see if this actually works. As we narrow the time for leaving, I am rapidly reading about and viewing Haiti information sites. The rubble and devastation seems so great, I only pray that we may all do our little part to put this section of God's kingdom back together!! To those on this blog, I have posted it to my facebook site!! sueb

Howdy! This blog will be related to the UMVIM Mission trip to Haiti from the Yellowstone Conference.

We're traveling on 29 October to Miami, and will arrive the next day in Haiti. On 6 November we'll leave Haiti, and will spend that night in Miami before heading home. It's not that we're totally in love with Miami Beach. We simply can't get to Miami from Haiti at a time that will permit us to continue our journey home on the same day.

The plan for Haiti (so far) is that we'll be working on construction of a Pastor's home and potential new UMVIM Guesthouse in Carrefour. Our motto is "Semper Gumby", so we're prepared to cheerfully modify our plans after arrival.