Saturday Sunrise

     This week in clinic was a roller-coaster of emotions. (Really, what other kind of week do we have?) The first half was filled with the frustrations that come with working with sicknesses and people and the irritating fact that sicknesses don't go away just because I want them to. However,Thursday and Friday held some really specific and personal joys, moments of utter celebration. Hope was turning it's face to me and the work week ended on a high (and peaceful) note.
   This morning, for the first time in weeks, I slept in. In practice "sleeping in" for me means 6:45, but I didn't have to set an alarm clock, so it was glorious. When I got up the sun was rising over the mountains, reflecting on the water on the beach behind our guesthouse.

       It was cloudy this morning, which made the sun breaking through even more stunning. I couldn't help but think how symbolic it was, light piercing the clouds and darkness, beauty peeking out. A little cliche and a bit cheesy perhaps, but nonetheless true. So, I had a little gratitude with my morning coffee and it was lovely.

When grace trickles in

“Hope has a way of turning it's face to you just when you least expect it.”
Sara Groves

                I stumbled across the song that contains those lyrics a little over a week ago. The truth of them has been doing its best to make itself known ever since. The last week or so has been chock-full of challenges in the clinic. Burned babies, and malnourished babies and adults with too stubborn hypertension have filled our benches. The ache that always comes with learning more about the day to day challenges my friends face has been particularly sharp. The temptation to wallow in the hurt, to be overwhelmed by the pain and the need has been intense.

Then, in song lyrics, grace seeps in. A sermon reminds me of the call on God’s people to be a people of wild hope and grace trickles in. At the sight of a toddler I have wondered about since August, healthy and even a little bit chubby, grace slips in. In the miracles of burn cream and a house rebuilt in just over a week, grace rushes in.  In the incredible joy of unwrapping the bandages of a young man who has been fighting leg ulcers for years and finding the wounds filled in, grace streams in.

                My heart is still raw and bruised, but I find joy stealing back in. I find new reasons to rejoice and reasons for gratitude. I find hope turning it's face to me just when I least expect it.

Grieving

It has been a heavy couple of days here. Yesterday there was a fire in our neighborhood, killing one child, seriously burning another and destroying a family’s belongings. We are all grieving in our ways. I would have liked this post to be saturated with hope. I would have shared about the neighbor who rescued the baby from the fire, or the way the community has stepped in to assist the family. I would tell you about the opportunities we have had to literally love our neighbors, and the incredible compassion of the people I work with; but I'm just not there yet. 

Right now, I would rather we hadn't had those opportunities. I would rather see a little girl in uniform, barrettes bobbing as her mama and baby sister walk her to school in the morning. I would rather see a blue tent on a hill, with neighbors waving. I would rather not have firsthand knowledge of how deeply the people around me will share in another's pain.

Will you join with us in praying for this family as they start from scratch? There’s a toddler facing some serious burn care and a mama who has to rebuild a life as she grieves the loss of a child. Thank you.

UN Dinner

                Wednesday night we were invited to dinner at the UN base in a neighboring town. The people I work with have a long standing relationship with the local UN contingent, which hails from Sri Lanka. I enjoyed so many aspects of the evening, but two in particular stood out to me. The first one was the food. Three days later and my mouth still waters when I think about it. Meat, bread, vegetables and sauce full of flavor and just spicy enough to tantalize my taste buds. Full disclosure: at one point in the evening I seriously considered asking if I could have the leftovers, but ultimately decided that might be tacky.

The second thing that stood out to me, and something I am learning to appreciate when I experience it here in Haiti as well, was the pride of these soldiers as they talked about their home country. It seems that while I often hear people talk about how much they would like to visit my country, and how great America is, rarely do I get to hear people from other cultures and countries talk about the things they love about their home. While I do think America has many great points, sometimes I fear the beauty of other cultures can get drowned out by the sheer pervasiveness of American culture. Listening to these men detail the things they love about their country, eagerly sharing pictures and brochures to illustrate their points was such a delight. They were also some pretty convincing salesmen, and I definitely hope to see their land one day! 

Learning about community

              

           "Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid."

 Frederick Buechner

          The above quote sums up so many of my feelings about this incredible country I live in now. Haiti is a complicated country where beautiful and terrible things happen daily. Too often the narrative for Westerners coming down here is “oh, those poor people and all the suffering they endure!” And there is surely suffering here, but richness thrives here as well in ways we can miss when we become too focused on our initial impressions. I feel strongly about sharing the stories of hope and the redemptive things that are going on in this country I love, rather than focusing on the things that I, as a Westerner find odd or abnormal.  

          A couple of the areas where I have recently been seeing the richness of this country include how Haitians people treat family and live in community. This is a much more communal culture than America. I have been saying those words since I got here, but I think I am just barely beginning to scratch the surface of how these differences play out in day to day life.

        If you spend much time in Haiti, you tend to hear a number of stories of neglectful or abusive parents and families here in Haiti. Don’t get me wrong, mind-numbing tragedies and horrible stories do exist, but they are not the only, or dare I say, even the dominant story of family life in Haiti. Rather, there are cousins who take on raising five little ones, the youngest just born, when a mama dies after childbirth. There is a family that travels over an hour into the mountains to bring home a little girl who was being neglected. That same family then takes this precious little girl to multiple clinics seeking appropriate treatment for the consequences of that neglect. There is a grandma who takes in and raises a little boy after his parents abandon him. I see the people behind these stories and others like them often in the clinic, and I believe that some of these stories need to be known.

         Listening to the little bit of their lives that these people share with me, usually in the context of explaining how and why they ended up at my clinic that day, is such an incredible privilege. The caretakers are not relaying these stories as something to be proud of, just as the facts of their lives.When I sit and listen to them, when I see the lengths they go to for these little ones, I am reminded of the words of James 2 where we are told the poor of the world are the ones chosen to inherit the kingdom of God. I think perhaps this is part of what James meant. Will you join with me in praying for the families I have mentioned as they face the very real struggle of carrying out the responsibilities they have taken on? Will you join with me in prayers for health, and daily bread and grace to rain down on these precious people and the others like them throughout this country? Thank you.

                

Saturday Surprise

       We had a bit of a flood at the guesthouse this morning. Those of you who have known me for awhile know that I had a series of flooding incidents in a series of apartments during and after college which made me pretty handy with a mop and bucket. I was hoping, after a year of being flood-free in Haiti, that I had left that particular talent back in America. Apparently not.
     We started the morning very excited because one of the couples who lives here purchased a washing machine recently, which was supposed to make doing laundry a (relatively) simple task. Except that this is Haiti, and things never go as planned down here. In the middle of doing laundry a sink was broken and water came gushing out of the wall, flooding the bathroom with the washing machine in it. Twice. So we mopped the room. Twice. Then we finished off the laundry by hand after all. We went to a local restaurant that serves hamburgers for lunch, because sometimes, when you are an American learning to live in a foreign country and you have flooded the bathroom twice and then hand washed nearly every towel in the place, you really need a cheeseburger.

Chatting with Baby

                Periodically, we have a Haitian nursing student named Baby working with us in the clinic. She has not been able to come very often lately since our clinic hours overlap with her school hours. It is a holiday week here in Haiti, so schools (among other things) are closed. Luckily for us, this meant Baby was able to join us in the clinic for a few hours this morning.  There is so much Baby teaches me, from better ways to teach patients, to education points for patients. She has a way of putting patients at ease and getting them chatting that is incredible to watch.

                This morning, probably thanks to the aforementioned holiday, we finished seeing patients fairly early, giving Baby and I a few minutes to chat. She told me about what nursing school is like for her, what they do and what she likes learning about. It was so much fun hearing about the similarities and differences compared to when I was in school. We talked about learning to read physician orders, the first time we gave  a patient a shot. Some experiences in becoming a nurse transcend cultural boundaries! 

               The unexpected bonding time was a gift. It can be so easy for me to get so caught up in the day to day demands and responsibilities of the clinic that I barely take time to talk to people, or build relationships like I intend to. The conversation with Baby this morning was a delightful reminder of why those things are valuable too.

                 

Stomach bug

      One of the blessings of living here is the amazing people I work with. We joke that it takes a special (crazy) personality to come down here full time, and that’s probably true, but the people I work with are also some of the most compassionate and giving people I have had the pleasure of knowing. They demonstrated that this week when I got a stomach bug.Although it was not anything serious, I was definitely uncomfortable for a couple of days. The people I work with were incredibly kind to me while I was ill, bringing me juice and water, making sure I was eating and generally checking up on me. In the midst of my discomfort, they were a blessing.

            By nature I am both fairly private and stubbornly independent. The thing is, that’s not how things work in Haiti. We do things in community here, and that includes illness. That is humbling for me, since I prefer to act tough and hide in my room by myself when sick or unhappy. Consequently, having people serving me, taking care of me stretches me. On the other hand, living here, learning from a much more communal culture is such a privilege. From the ladies on staff who made me a special Haitian stomach-bug healing juice, to the man who works at our guesthouse going out of his way to ask how I was feeling, I was enveloped in compassion this week. It was humbling, but beautiful.