February 2, 2010

  • E-mail # 2 from Juanita in Haiti:

    Sun, Jan 31, 2010 06:58 PM

    You know that you're dirty when... you wipe your face with a cloth and it comes away with blackness on it... the creases in the palms of your hands and the backs of your knuckles are black... you leave black marks on the floor with your bare feet because they got wet... it's pretty much hopeless, admit it, you're dirty from head to toe!

    I pushed my feet into my flip-flops and pushed myself up off my mattress on the floor. It was still dark outside, but another day was going to be soon dawning and there were people that needed my attention. After a record breaking time of only an hour (it took us three once) to get to Delma 33 (the clinic/hospital), it was time to get to work. There weren't that many patients sitting out in the patient area waiting to be seen, but we only had one doc to see them, instead of two. We got more docs noonish or so. They were all Irish docs. One of our patients had lost her mom and dad in the earthquake, and she too would have died (although God of course could have spared her), but she was on an errand at the time of the quake. She did cry a little when she told us about her mom and dad. One gentlemen needed his stitches taken out. One of our Irish docs had sewed him up- three stitches on his nose- so I took them out.

       At some point during the day, a couple of UN guys came strolling in through the clinic with those awful long guns at their side. I think they came with a patient that had a gunshot/shrapnel wound through his eye. I don't know the details of the shooting. I wasn't able to find out. I did ask, but I guess I asked the wrong people, because they didn't know. The eye needs to come out, and tomorrow our new team of surgeons and some other medical people are supposed to be at the clinic. They came by today to look at the place.
       Today was part of a day. We were packed up and on our way a little after 2:30 pm instead of our usual 5:00 pm. We didn't head home right away. We went the opposite way and took a "tour". We went into a worse part of Port Au Prince and the destruction and tent cities that I saw I will probably never be able to fully describe. We went past the palace (where the president lives; although I don't know where he lives now). It looked worse than the picture that I had seen of it. Some of the others that were with us that had seen it on TV thought the same thing. 
       This is for Sonya, Carrie, Steph, Christian, and Michael- I went by the airport. What else can I say? I had to think of a night weeks ago....
       I saw a few cargo planes, big birds. One was a US Air Force plane and one was a Canadian plane. I don't know what all was behind that wall at the airport. 
       As we were driving through Port, I thought about how blessed I am. Why me? Why did God chose to put me in America where things are so easily gotten and the country is relatively (compared to Haiti) clean? Maybe for such a time as this? I won't know here on this earth....
       
       As for some other things... more supplies for the clinic/hospital were flown in from Europe and there were boxes and boxes at the Delma 33. Our x-ray machine came!! Now we can x-ray, although we can't do a chest x-ray, so we are still limited.
       Some other stories of patients... yesterday we had a mom and her, I think it was three, children come to the clinic. The four of them had shared one bowel of rice in the past week. One bowel of rice. Anyone want to guess how much of that the mom had to eat? I don't know, but I know mom's usually love their children a lot.... Another one was a man who had lost his wife and three of his five children. Who can imagine??
       I wish I could send some pictures along with this email, but I can't.
       Just continue to pray for me. And thanks for your prayers! Praise the Lord, I haven't had a dream about being in an earthquake for I think at least the past two nights. A new request is that I would be bold in witnessing. There's one doctor that I've talked to. He doesn't believe the Bible is all true, and he doesn't believe that Jesus was perfect. It's a challenge. It seems like he doesn't really want to hear it. Pray that God would soften his heart and that he would be open to listen to me. 
       Again thanks so much for all your prayers! God is definitely her with me!!    One of His servants, Juanita