One more quick Betsaida update

   Betsaida and her mom did not show up to go back to the hospital yesterday, so today we went out to see them. I am super super thrilled to report Betsaida looked great. She had been to school this morning and felt up to hopping down the beach on one foot. She was actually the perkiest and friendliest I have seen her yet and that made my whole day better.

    As always, I do have a related prayer request though. When we went to check on them it turns out her mom has been sick since Sunday with headache, tooth pain and fever. I gave her ibuprofen but obviously that is not going to help any infection she may have.  Join with me in praying for her tonight?

Thanks again friends!

Update on Betsaida

Hi friends,

I just wanted to give y’all a quick update on Betsaida. We took Betsaida and her mama to the local hospital today where she was seen by a doctor. The doctor wrote for some labs to be performed and gave us a prescription for liquid Tylenol. Some of the labs were done today, while others will have to be completed Monday. After that, we will go back and see the doctor again and hopefully get a diagnosis. Please keep her and the next part of this adventure in your prayers this weekend. Pray for compassionate and competent medical care and answers Monday.

Thanks everyone!

Grace and Antibiotics

     I spent the last three days working alongside a medical team that was holding clinics in remote areas. The clinic time was precious and productive. I was able to work alongside an experienced doctor who welcomes my questions and graciously taught me so much. Highlights from the clinic time included healthy, gorgeous six month old triplets, a beautiful hotel room, and my language skills improving to the point that I was able to communicate mostly on my own with my patients.

  The medical team was generous in both time and resources. At the final count, they left me with six suitcases and two boxes full of medical supplies. Friends, I was near tears at their kindness they displayed.  If you had told me January 9^th that I would be doing that six weeks into my time here I would be stacking medical supplies in my room because I was running out of places to put them, I would not have imagined it possible. It turns out that once again, the Lord and I define what is possible differently.

  I am still processing so much of what I learned and saw this week. The days and nights were full of grace and I hope to share more stories with you all in the next few days. 

 In other news, some of you may remember me writing about Betsaida a few weeks ago. Friends, she is sick again with what looks like the same ailment. I am at a loss as to how to help her. Her symptoms do not fit what I know of the major medical issues here. Tomorrow she and I, her mom and one of the guys at our house are supposed to be going to the Petit Goave hospital to see what they say. There are so many prayer requests in the statement. Take your pick, but friends, please join me in prayer for Betsaida tonight.

As always, thank you all!

Clinics, laughter and gratitude

 Sometimes I worry that my writing makes it sound as though life here is all intense feelings all the time. While I do have a lot of feelings, most days here are good days, filled with laughter and learning. Yesterday was one of those days.

  In the morning we visited a clinic in the next town over from us. We have been looking for a trustworthy place to refer people who need more medical care than my backpack full of supplies can provide and had heard good things about this clinic. When we arrived the women who worked at the clinic graciously showed us around the facilities and shared about how they operate, even though they were busy with patients. They let me assist with wound care and the Haitian nurse answered some of my questions about disease processes I am still learning about. I surprised myself with how excited I was to be in a medical atmosphere again.

 So often I hear of missionaries from different organizations, working in the same country absolutely tearing one another down, unwilling to help each other work with the people they all claim to love. The ladies at the clinic we visited were so different from that norm. I expected that they would at best set a later time for us to come and meet with them. Instead they took time out of their day to talk to us and answer my questions, though we had not met before. Maybe these sound like small things, but their graciousness held enormous meaning for someone like me who is learning so much every day about life here.

  On our way back from the clinic we visited a neighborhood. I had been to this neighborhood before visiting a Saturday morning kid’s club (like VBS but weekly), but I had not had a chance to go to people’s homes and visit with them there. We laughed and sang with the kids we were visiting and generally made ourselves ridiculous. in other words, that part proceeded like normal.  One of the sweeter things we witnessed was a dad with his sick daughter. I had treated her for malaria and for a while he sat and held her. Dads loving kids is a rare sight in this country, and is therefore especially precious.

 So friends, will you join with me in prayers of thanks for these moments of grace throughout the day? I am so grateful to have them and to be given the grace to see them in the midst of all the things that flood my senses. I do not want to lose sight of gratitude for the good moments even when life is challenging.

Abdirs

 Friday we visited an area I had been to only once before and I did not really know any of the people. Initially we went to attend a church service that some of the kids there have a few times a week. The service was fantastic, but it was what happened afterward that stood out for me. During the service I was introduced as a nurse and as we were leaving one of the girls came and got me, telling me her brother was sick at home.  I have been wrestling with if and how to write about this for a couple of days now, but I believe this story helps illustrate why the medical part of my heart is here, so I am going to attempt recounting it. 

 The sick boy’s name was Abdirs and he is eleven. On the way to see him, his sister told us that that he has had breathing problems his whole life. When I assessed him, he had a 102.9 degree fever, rapid heart rate and labored breathing with a wheeze that was audible without a stethoscope. I was pretty worried about the whole picture, but especially about his breathing. Abdirs’ mom said he used to have some kind of inhaler but he did not have it any more. I gave him Tylenol for the fever, hoping that if his temperature came down the workload on his heart and lungs would decrease too, easing his breathing. We talked about a few other simple measures to get his fever down and I recommended his family take him to the doctor as soon as possible, preferably that night.

  Life being what it is here, I was told there was no medical care available until the morning. Although we were close to a city with a hospital, there would be no one to see him until the next day. (It was around 5:00 PM). Let me repeat that. There is no option for medical care here after hours. There are no doctors at the hospital or any other options for people who need it.

  I want to take a moment to clarify why I am sharing all of this because I have heard so many people criticize Haiti as a country, criticize the systems, the people, and how life works here. I agree, things are broken, incredibly broken. However I absolutely do not want this to be one more story bemoaning how wrong things are here, and tearing down the country as a whole. I think the consistent negativity tears down the Haitian people and causes them harm. That, however, is a post for another day. My goal here is to help illustrate the daily challenges the people I am getting to know face to survive, challenges that we as Americans cannot conceive of. We could no more imagine having no medical option available for our sick children than we could imagine living in a mud hut.

 All that being said, friends, this is why I went to nursing school, why I am here. Adbirs matters. His siblings and his mom and all the other people in the surrounding areas matter. Jesus took on human form for them, as much as for us, to heal them as much as us, and I cannot accept the inequity in their lives. I really believe that part of loving our neighbors as ourselves is fighting to help these precious people meet their daily needs whether they are medical, physical, spiritual and emotional. So, will you join with me in praying for Abdirs and his family and for the people in their villages and those like them who face challenges we cannot even wrap our brains around? Thank you. Or in Creole, mesi.

Note: I went and checked on Abdirs yesterday. His fever was down and his lungs were clear and he said he was feeling much better. Those were good moments J

I believe in the communion of saints

   Last year I began attending a Lutheran church. I quickly fell in love with the liturgy, particularly the creeds. To stand there, with a hundred or so other people and declare that we all believe in “God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and earth and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord…” was and is a precious part of worship for me. To know that I am declaring out loud things believed for thousands of years is staggering. There’s a phrase towards the end of the Apostle’s Creed where we declare that we believe in the communion of saints. These last few weeks I have lived that as never before.

  Two weeks ago I sent an email to people asking for prayer and help with a situation regarding a little girl I met here. Her name is Lori and she’s six years old. Her left leg was broken in the earthquake and has healed correctly. I asked for prayer for Lori and prayers for the situation and for wisdom and discernment for me as I sought a way to help her. At the end of my email I mentioned that if anyone had any medical contacts they could put me in touch with, I would appreciate it. Honestly, I was not expecting much of a response to that part. Friends, it was incredible the reaction I got. People were emailing others on my behalf all over two countries seeking to put me touch with orthopedic surgeons in America for advice and for places I might seek treatment for her in Haiti.

  Then, last Sunday we had a little girl named Betsaida over to the house. She’s five and had been suffering from severe stomach pains for days. According to her family she kept everyone in the house up all night with her crying. I gave her some medicine Sunday and held her for the afternoon. She alternated between dozing in my arms and crying from the pain in her stomach.  She must have been having cramping pains because I could feel her little body just clench in waves as she hurt. I was really worried about her on a number of levels and talked it over with Ed. She was not feverish and by the end of the afternoon had calmed some. We sent her home and agreed we would go check on her the next day. Ed had taken a few pictures of her, which he put on facebook, telling the story and asking for prayer, and I sent out a personal message asking for prayer. Again, the response was so beautiful. People all over America were praying for her and spreading the word, following the story as it developed over the week.

 The next day we were eating lunch at a local hotel and met a Catholic medical team working in the area. They did not have an orthopedic doctor with them, but their ER doctor agreed to look at Lori’s leg and give us an opinion about if and how to proceed. It was the medical team’s last day by the time we were able to get Lori there and they were obviously tired. When the doctor looked at her leg he said an x-ray would help him provide a better opinion. X-rays are an option at the local hospital (at least sometimes), so we got ready to head over there. Before we left the doctor gave us money to pay for the x-ray. In the scheme of things I doubt this team even knew how much they blessed us that day, but to see their willingness to inconvenience themselves on this child’s behalf was such a blessing.

 All of that to say, I’m not sure, but I think this is part of what it means to say I believe in the communion of saints. I think this is what the body if Christ is supposed to look like. Lori and Betsaida matter. They are people made in the image of God, precious in His sight and it is right that we would be concerned, be praying, and be working to help them. Too often kids like this and hurts like these get overlooked. Thanks to so many of you, and the grace of God, in these last few weeks, they weren’t. So, for those of you who knew about these things and helped me with information and prayer, thank you so much. It matters. Friends, will you continue to pray with me for Lori and for Betsaida, that even more than medical care they would see how much they matter to our Lord, how precious they are in His sight? As always, and though it feels so insufficient, thank-you.

Thoughts from this week

        This last week was incredibly busy. There was a team in from Orlando, so we visited different places a couple of times each day. In the mornings we visited schools and in the afternoons we either brought kids to the house or visited them in their neighborhoods. This week felt like a blur and I am definitely still processing much of what went on, but here are some of the highlights.

* Singing songs with the youngest class of kids at one of the schools we visited, especially when they  

   understood my broken Creole!

* Similarly, being able to talk with some of the kids about their ages, classes in school and families.

* Visiting schools and having kids call me by name, especially when I could remember their names too.

* Seeing a little girl from a few weeks ago who had had sores on her arm, and who is healing nicely

* Randomly meeting a medical team from Tennessee when we were at lunch. They bought us a (delicious!) 

   cake and helped me with something I needed advice on later in the week. More on that in another post.

* Watching teenagers from different cultures laugh together over card games and push-ups.

* Laughing in a truck full of kids as we ride down the street and they shout “Beep beep! Beep beep!”

* The holy moments where I’m holding a little one in my arms and see Christ. He is here, with these kids,

    with us. Working in them and in us, and it is precious.

  There were some tough times earlier this week with a little girl in one of the neighborhoods, but that turned into something beautiful too. I am still working out my thoughts regarding that time and will try to post more frequently this week. In the interim, will you continue to join with me in prayer for these people I am learning about? They are precious in the sight of God, made in His image. Pray that I would continue to learn what it means to treat them as such, as brothers and sisters and co-heirs of Christ? Thanks friends!