Lament

      I have been thinking a lot recently about the place of grief for for the people of God. Or perhaps lament is a better word for it. I love sharing the positive things happening at MOHI, especially in the clinic. I love sharing the victories and the times when hope takes me by surprise. These stories are fun, and remind people (me) of many of the reasons I came down here in the first place. There are many sweet moments spent giggling with the kids, or getting the chance to lavish a new mom with praises about all of the wonderful choices she is making for her newborn daughter.Those thing are only part of the story though.
       Most days are also full of things that demand to be lamented. My friends come to church exhausted because it was pouring down rain last night and their homes leak. A proud father who I have watched play with, sing to and love his toddler daughter all morning has to gather his dignity around himself and tell me that while he knows she would do better if she ate more often, he does not have the money. A woman in the mountains is in full blown heart failure. Another virus is plaguing bodies and magnifying suffering. Severe malnutrition (starvation) is a thing that even student nurses can recognize at a glance.
       I struggle writing this post. I wrestle with how to word what I am thinking and feeling. The last thing I want to do is be another foreigner who, in my ignorance or willful misunderstanding of the dignity and nuance of the people I love, devalues them. That being said, I am also coming to believe that part of the role of the people of God is to perceive the brokenness around us. To see suffering and lament it. I believe in the ultimate healing and putting right of all things as they are under the Lordship of Christ, but we are not there. Right now is the time of the "not yet." It is the time of starving babies and fevered joints. It is the time of limited healthcare options becoming even more so as funding dries up and organizations pull out. It is the time of sweat and tears. It is the time of a brokenly whispered "come Lord Jesus" and a desperate hope the He will. Soon.

The View from Wednesday

This is what I get to look at out the mobile clinic windows on Wednesdays:

     It's a rough life, I know.

Chikungunya update:

It is still everywhere and still causing a ridiculous amount of suffering. Please keep praying for my friends and patients as they fight this disease.

(Bonus points if you know where I got this blog title from!)

Bits and pieces from the week

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

•      My first patient of the week was an elderly gentleman with back pain whose son carried him into the clinic because the gentleman could not navigate our muddy yard.
•          Chikungunya continues its rampage throughout the country, causing an enormous amount of suffering. Please keep praying
•          A little girl to her dad, after I finish my lecture on not giving anyone else her antibiotics “That means I don’t have to share with my sister!”
•          Mobile clinic continues to go well, and since it is held on the same site as our St. Etienne school, I get an adorable audience of small people peeking in the back of the bus during recess and school dismissal.
•          There are a couple pictures in the main clinic showing proper tooth brushing techniques. We had an impromptu dental hygiene class one afternoon as some of the girls from our elementary school took the opportunity to tell me how they brush their teeth. We also discussed how part of protecting your teeth is that you do not in fact need multiple lollipops a day.
•          The last several weeks have had a higher than average number of moderately and severely malnourished little ones in our Thozin clinic. These babies are tricky to manage and often require more than our clinic can give them. Join me in prayer for them and their mamas? Life is harsh here.
•          One of our gatekeepers is also a midwife. Yesterday afternoon he was telling me about some of what he does for his patients, how he treats them and cares for them.  Talking to people who are passionate about their work is such an incredible and specific joy.
•          To my great delight, watermelon season has started.  It is possible that watermelon is the most delicious food in the whole world, especially when you are sweaty and thirsty.
•          For my Dieunison fans: He came waddling into the clinic Monday afternoon with something round stuck under his shirt, telling me he was in labor. I told him to go to the hospital.

My soapbox

    The chair I sit in when I am holding clinic is a little bit short for the height of the desk, a little bit inadequate to the task that it’s being asked to perform. We piled a couple of boxes of soap atop the chair, in an effort to make clinic go a little smoother.  I perch on the soapboxes and I talk to my patients about what ails them.

    Recently, my soapboxes have started coming apart. Bits of things that were once solid and certain tumble onto the floor as I talk to my patients and learn more about their lives. My patients will often halt in what they are telling me to hand the bits and pieces back, dusted off. Together, we put the pieces back together. The box is a little different shape now, but the better suited for the task because of our efforts together.

Chikungunya

    You may or may not have heard about the virus that slunk  into the Caribbean late last year, and has been an unwelcome island hopper ever since. As of a few weeks ago, chikungunya had officially landed in Haiti. A mosquito-borne disease that causes high fevers, joint pain, and in some, a rash, it is not (usually) deadly, but it is enormously uncomfortable.
     We have had a number of patients in the MOHI clinic with these symptoms, and they are miserable. It is rainy season here right now, so much of the country is a mosquito breeding haven, making it that much easier for the virus to spread. Which it has done. Quickly. I am less than enthused about the entire situation. When you think about it, please join me in prayer for these people I love as they face down yet another challenge.

Just another Monday in the clinic

      We had a pair of sisters and a lot of laughter in the MOHI clinic to start the morning. Nafca has been being treated for skin condition for a couple of months now, which has given me the privilege of observing as her baby teeth start falling out and her adult teeth start replacing them. Spunky and curious, seeing her in the clinic line brings a grin to my face, usually matched by one on her own.

Today Belove, her older sister came in for consultation too. As animated as her sister, she even got their mama laughing.

Tammy got in on the action, making faces with the girls while I chatted with their mom.

Possibly, there was more giggling than medical consulting going on. 

Not a bad way to begin the work week!

Bon Fet Dieunison!

      Yesterday was Dieunison's birthday. He has been telling us it is coming for months, so that we would be sure to remember and get him a gift, which we did. There were sunglasses, new clothes, a soccer ball and brownies. Celebrating him was a welcome spot of joy in an emotional week. Dieunison has a way of crawling into your heart and rooting there, whether or not you planned for it.
      Loving this half grown boy is hazardous to one's emotional health. He has this way of walking when asked to help with some chore, back straight and head held high, full of grace and purpose. Knowing he is contributing gives him dignity. Dieunison has also had a huge growth spurt since January. Taller than I am now, he is brimming with life and long legged promise. Some days he looks more and more like a young man, with broadening shoulders and a swagger when he walks. At other times he is still the kid who would rather walk a longer, sunnier path than a shorter, shaded one because he likes looking at all the cars on the longer route. He is full of curiosity and mischief, asking for money for the house party he plans on hosting  one day, and telling a visiting group his name is Obama the next.
      Loving this half grown boy also keeps me on my knees on prayer. He has so much promise for the future, his people skills and intelligence mean there is little he is not capable of. Sometimes that scares me, as I think about all the ways this world, this country can tear down young men with promise. Will you join with me on prayer for this precious boy, as we continue to celebrate him? Join with me in prayer that he would be filled so full of love that this world would not tear him down or quench his precious spirit? Thank you.

Great Expectations

         In the afternoons after I am finished seeing patients I have this long and growing to-do list. There are inventories to be caught up on, medicine bottles to be cleaned out, emails and Facebook messages to answer, and research to be done. Just thinking about it makes me panic a bit. Almost every afternoon I have the wild hope that this will be the day that I finally catch up on my list and perhaps even address the stack of papers multiplying on my desk.
        Then I step outside of the clinic to get a drink of water, or to eat lunch. I see some of the little girls who come to MOHI to get water for their homes, and I cannot resist stopping to giggle with them for a moment.  There are preschoolers in the yard who come over running over with hugs and shouts of "you!" A staff member has a question or needs something from me. Some of my buddies from the elementary school have a story to tell me. Construction is going on and I go see the latest changes going on around campus.  I start laughing with the people I work with and 45 minutes zip by.
      The next thing I know, the afternoon is almost over. My papers are definitely not sorted, the bottles are still not washed, the inventories are still behind and the emails remain unanswered. Again. So, I sigh to myself and hope for tomorrow.All of this to say, if I take awhile to answer you, I am sorry. I'm just really, really good at getting distracted.

When other people's conversations made my week brighter

     One of the cornerstones of my work in the MOHI clinic is teaching. We talk about safe medication practices, nutrition needs, and positive parenting techniques, among other things. I am a community health nurse at heart, and I deeply believe in a person's capacity to make positive changes when they are armed with good health information. In practice, that looks like me saying things like "drink more water," "here are the foods that are not good for you when you have high blood pressure," or "here are foods that help make your blood stronger when you are, or think you are anemic" over and over and over. The thing is, lifestyle changes are hard for people with an abundance of material resources, let alone for my patient. I often wonder if the teaching I do is really helping my patients or speaking to their needs (doubting myself is something I am really good at, especially when operating in a foreign culture).
      I share all of this to help illustrate why a small incident Wednesday was so significant to me. Wednesdays are mobile clinic days, where I hold clinic out of the bus up in the mountains. We have patients come and sit in the seats at the front of the bus, while I consult from the back of the bus. Wednesday morning, as I was assessing one patient, fragments of the conversations from the front of the bus started drifting down. Curious, I paused to eavesdrop. What were the people talking about? Foods that are not good for people with high blood pressure, and foods that are good when you are anemic, with patients teaching other patients the points I have been covering constantly for months. I did not instigate any of this, and I cannot overstate how thrilled I was!
      There are those who would tell me Haiti is just too broken, that change is not really possible here. Those who would say that Haitians are not capable of learning or changing. Well, my answer to those people came Wednesday morning. My answer showed up in the form of people, sweating and sharing information with their friends and neighbors. My answer came as hope in the form of blood pressure teaching. Amen.