Chapter Seven: When Things Don't Make Sense

Haiti is a complex country. That statement in itself could unravel so many stories, and as a guest in this country I can't even begin to understand the depth of corruption and poverty that is present within these borders. However, I have come face to face with some things here in Haiti that simply do not make sense.

Take, for instance, the currency. The national currency in Haiti is the haitian gourde (the r sounds more like a w). One American dollar is the equivalent of 44 haitian gourdes.

Sounds simple, right?

You'd think so, but no. There is actually another currency called the Haitian dollar. It is not legal tender, it does not have any actual paper note or coin, but yet it is frequently used by Haitians. Five gourdes = a Haitian dollar. 8 Haitian dollars = an American dollar. Some of the markets and street vendors price their items by the Haitian dollar. It makes my brain hurt to figure out gourde to haitian dollar, to US dollar... so we aren't even going to throw Canadian currency into this mix. ;)

There are things, like the choice of decoration at this local pool, that just don't make sense:

Photo courtesy of the lovely Andrea!

....Trust me, we were pretty baffled too.

It also happens in the moments where I am trying to kill the big spider near my bed, and it somehow VANISHES... that doesn't make sense!

It's even in the moments, like yesterday when I was carrying my laundry out to hang on the clothesline, that I look around me and realize... I'm in Haiti! It sometimes doesn't make sense, and yet it's real.

On a hike to Ti Boukan (up the road from the clinic)

Then, there are the realities that my heart wants desperately to reject, the things that my eyes see but that I can't process and I don't want to accept as real. They are the moments of being in the room as someone loses a baby, regardless of how far along this baby is, my heart aches for each mother that will wait until heaven to hold her child.

It was the moment we had to tell a woman who has already miscarried six times that 25 weeks into her pregnancy her cervix is beginning to open, causing her to be at high risk of losing this baby. It is in her tears as she longs for her body to sustain her baby, in her desperation and prayers for a miracle. It doesn't make sense that someone who could love a child so well has had a womb with child six times and yet empty arms...

It's in the sadness of a old man who had a stroke, who squeezes his left arm wanting to know why it won't work the way it used to.

It's in the bony ribs you can count on a malnourished child, in the swollen face of a boy with failing kidneys. It's in the cancer that steals years away... These are the things that I see and cannot resolve, cannot understand, cannot grasp.

Some things don't make sense. The most beautiful thing of all that I see might not make sense to some.

It's the fact that these beautiful people cling to the hope of Christ with everything they have, that they raise their hearts in prayer to God, that they praise Him authentically in the midst of suffering and endure in love... before stepping into this country, that kind of faith baffled me. This is a nation where I have seen a faith that intensifies when things don't make sense.

It has stretched me and inspired me to want to have that kind of faith.

Prayer requests:
-The x-ray machine at the clinic was sent to the US for repairs. The part costs $1665. Pray for provision of this part, and also for a quick passage back to us as it plays a vital role in helping us diagnose patients!

- One of my co-nurses (and a very good friend) has lost a family member this week, and I lost one of my most treasured mentors from my church back home... pray for our hearts to grieve and to live the legacy of love that these beautiful women left.

-There are still many Haitians who don't know the hope of Jesus. Pray for opportunities for them to encounter Him, and for us as we serve at the clinic to share openly and walk in the Love that we know through Christ.

-Pray too, as we work in the clinic, for our hearts as we process and respond to difficult situations, and for God's wisdom to guide us as we treat patients. Pray for healing for our patients.

I want to say again a huge thank you for journeying alongside me in prayer, it means the world to me!

Chapter Six: Sights on the Mountain and Stirrings in the Heart

This weekend, we had a little retreat in the mountains to celebrate easter weekend. It was a time of refreshment and reflection on the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. Yesterday, we decided to follow the road up the mountain to see what we could find. Here are some pictures of our adventure!

This is one of the beautiful buildings we saw on our hike! It was so intricate.

Emily and I found some nice new real estate opportunities

A beautiful painted rock along the side of the road

"She think's my saddle's sexy" 

Hibiscus flowers adding some color to our walk!

Okay, so get this. We are right at the top of a mountain, and one of the haitian girls we are walking beside tells us to follow her to where the artisans work. We end up in this little village where they have areas for artisans to set up, a covered area for a food market, and most bizarrely of all, a tennis court! This mural is painted at the end of the court.

This is the stage that borders the tennis court. 

The amazing view

This is at our hotel, where we spent our time in worship and studying the resurrection

The garden was gorgeous

This is the front of the hotel!

It was nice and cool being in the mountain air... I even wore sweat pants! We also came back from our hike drenched with sweat and the excitement of adventure, only to find they had turned the electricity on, which meant warm showers! It was my first warm shower in the past month, and it did not disappoint!!

I am always so humbled upon reflecting on the humanity of Jesus... that He would step out of Heaven and walk in flesh, as one able to empathize with our weaknesses. That He, having no sin of His own to confess, would take mine to the cross and die my death. And on the third day, the stone would be rolled away to reveal that my Jesus rose! It was impossible for death to hold Him. The picture that puts in my mind of Jesus fighting against the hold of death, motivated by the purest, most furious kind of love. Yelling out "I'm coming for my bride!" as He struggled and WON.
And He has made us co-heirs, more than conquerors... oh yes, this is a time to reflect on how very much we have to be thankful for!!!

Chapter Five: His Grace Abounds in Deepest Waters

Due to my inability to remember to bring my camera with me, or to use it when I do have it, my picture taking has been very limited so far. But, I broke all my usual rules when we went to the beach, and managed to sneak a few shots of the beauty I had the joy of spending the day in!

As I floated in the wake, staring off into that distant horizon line, I felt small in a beautiful way. It's like the kind of smallness that comes from looking up into an endless canopy of stars. My smallness, beautiful playing out in the midst of my Creator's vastness. The small ripples of my life incorporated into the picture He was painting me.

This is Emily! She is a rock star of a nurse, and I have learned so much from her. She also has a gigantic heart, and it's so fun to watch her in action.

And this is all of us girls! Jen is stuck in the middle with me, she primarily handles the wound care and prenatal assessments in the clinic as well as managing the guesthouse and making me feel totally at home. She is absolutely hilarious, and she is great at what she does. Andrea is on the end, an intern at a neighboring mission for a few months. It's been a blast getting to know these ladies!

I'm going to highlight some experiences I have had at the clinic, but I want to give fair warning to those who don't like to read about medical procedures and nursing things... skip this paragraph :)
It's hard to know how to begin to describe a day in the clinic... but I will say this: you never know what to expect! We started this week off with a breast biopsy. Jim typically removes the entire lump and sends it to the US for pathology. The woman receiving the surgery, despite multiple attempts at explaining the procedure, was unable to comprehend that we were only taking the lump out, and thought we were removing her entire breast. In the middle of her procedure, she became anxious and grabbed her wide open incision, contaminating the sterile field and causing some bleeding. With all of this going on, a visiting student who was observing fainted. It got a little wild in there, but with some teamwork and Jim's calm completion of the procedure, all ended well. Sometimes, things masquerade as simple, and God has given us abundant grace for the suddenly complex moments! We also saw a woman that recently miscarried early into her pregnancy, who started hemorrhaging while attempting to expel what remained in her uterus. It happened fast, but so did the response of the clinic staff. She received fluids and oxytocin to contract her uterus, and once again, all ended well!

Today, the last patient of the day came in for a prenatal check-up. Jenn measured her fundal height and found some discrepancies between the size of her uterus and the dates given, so we sonogrammed her pregnant belly. Inside, we found not one baby, but two! It was a moment of joy as we watched these two wee ones squirming around, looking as if they were already kicking each other ;) It was a great way to end the day.

As I have already shared in previous posts, sometimes I get discouraged at wanting to be able to give more, but finding myself limited by still learning the language, or something silly like fumbling through a nursing procedure. I have been reflecting on the parable of the talents this week, found in Matthew 25:14-30.

"For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money."

I can't help but wonder, did the servants compare how much they had been given to be responsible for? Did they wonder why one received five while they received two, or one? My human nature, especially in a place of learning and constantly being humbled, identifies as the servant given one talent. Because of Christ, I have something to give, and it doesn't always feel like much!! But you know how the story goes... the servants who invested what they had received the master's praise, and the servant who squandered his faced his master's displeasure.

And so I am realizing... it doesn't even matter how much I can give, only that I give everything I have... and in doing so, Christ will be glorified! That is a very freeing thing. My "best" is adequate. My "best" is different from your "best". I may admire someone else's "best", but I am not called to duplicate it.

So today I leave you with this beautiful thought!

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'." -Erma Bombeck

Chapter Four: Mosquito Bites for Jesus

If pride had it's way, I would tell you of a girl who never struggles, a girl who's attitude could overcome the circumstances of day to day life in Haiti. I would tell you of her willingness to tackle new things, and her ever present attitude of thankfulness....

Yes, I could tell you all those things... but instead, I will tell you the truth.

Being in Haiti is not always easy. There are days when I get so frustrated at wishing I had more to offer, days where I compare myself to the people who have been here for months and find myself falling short There are days when I complain far too much about the heat. There have been days when a pepto bismol commercial lists everything I am feeling in it's jingle. There are days that I can't take a joke or days where I am quick to speak in anger. There are days I can't get a needle in a vein (which any nurse can attest to being frustrating!) There are days I forget to be thankful at all.
I am in constant need of God's abundant, beautiful grace.

I was sick halfway through this past week, and as always seems to happen, my heart faltered when my health did.  To me, sickness was a physical representation of failure, and that perspective poisoned my attitude. To top it all off, while I slept off my nausea, a mosquito (or a whole mosquito army!) chose to make a snack out of me! (So to everyone who thinks tropical temperatures are dreamy, remember they come with a cost!)

Yep, that happened. Now, I hate bug bites not only because of the itch, but also because I become so self conscious of how my skin looks. Having white skin is a glaring enough difference here without being speckled with red dots!

This is so ridiculous to admit, but it even got to a point where I shied away from taking vitals for waiting patients, afraid that people would draw attention to my polka dotted arms. As I moped about with an attitude that reeked worse than the clinic garbages (which trust me, REALLY reek), my heart was gripped by a simple, convicting thought.
Do I truly value the appearance of my skin over the work that Jesus has called me to do? Am I so worried about some silly red bumps that I would refuse to show love to some beautiful people?! Most concerning... the biggest question of all.... would I allow a circumstance I couldn't control to dictate whether or not I would go on serving?

I don't want the answer to be yes. I am claiming my mosquito bites, and any other silly inconvenience I may happen upon, for Christ. I will choose to serve. I will choose to love. With every mosquito bite I count, I will thank God for something. I will desperately beg God for humility. and for perspective over silly things like mosquito bites! Finally, I will remember that I am not here to succeed, I am not here with any ability to change hearts or to fly around as a super nurse. I am here as a testimony of a broken person that God has redeemed. I am here to learn, and to grow, even to fail... I am here to trust God to come through in it all.

Praiseworthy news... Three people came to know the Lord through morning devo at the clinic Thursday morning :)

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory which far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."
 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

"Not that we are sufficient in outselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency comes from God" 2 Corinthians 3:5

Chapter Three: Some Perspective

It's sometimes difficult to envision where people are and what they are seeing. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are seven that I took (on the compound only!) to give you an idea where I spend day to day life here in Haiti. I will post more pictures outside the walls later :)

This is the beautiful place I am calling home for two more months!

In my first post, I mentioned how if I had arrived three weeks earlier they would have trained me in a tent. This is the inside of that tent! In total, there are three. One tent was a waiting room, another tent was for administration and where Sally (the pediatric nurse practitioner) saw her little patients. The one pictured here is where the doctors and nurse practitioners saw their patients. They did all their exams and even surgeries under the roof of this tent! Now, I only stood in this tent for five minutes and was sweltering hot. Meanwhile, these amazing people spent a couple summers in these tents (which reached a temperature of  a whopping 114 degrees farenheit... that's 45 degrees celsius!!!) It really makes one appreciate the new facility that God has provided!

This is the outside of the tent. As you can see, the move was very timely!

This is the front of the brand new Haiti Health Ministries Clinic!

The new pharmacy is still undergoing construction, but they are working fast. When I arrived, those walls were a third as high.

This is the guesthouse kitchen. Instead of eating a big supper, here as clinic staff we all eat our big lunch here together. We also meet for bible study and a potluck supper on Sunday evenings!

 And this is me, sweating it out under the hot sun, some picture proof that I am really here! (I still can't comprehend it some days!)

This week, someone received Christ at the church I attended, and two more accepted Christ into their life at the Clinic. God is on the move! I am so humbled to be able to witness God at work in the lives of these Haitians, and feel Him so tangibly at work in mine. 

Chapter Two: Harsh Realities and a Mother's Love

Tonight, I will sleep very little as I wrestle with a heavy heart. The realities of this culture are too difficult for words sometimes, the symptoms of a broken world far too evident. Perhaps I was numb to the pain the first week of being here, caught up in the excitement of new experiences but dull to the fact that behind each new procedure was a person... and today, reality came pounding at the walls of my heart.

It was in the treating a four year old girl for a condition brought on by sexual abuse. The questions tumbled about in my heart of how anyone could commit such an atrocity against someone so innocent and defenseless. Though this is far from being exclusive to Haiti, I ache tonight for the little Haitian girl who fought so hard against our well-meaning hands, knowing that she has been exposed to the darkest of the dark in the world already...

Soon after, a woman came in, her body already in the process of delivering her stillborn child. Her fourth unsuccessful pregnancy. Though she did not wail or weep, there was sadness in her eyes. I was in the room, but not fully present with her, task oriented. Check the vitals. Check for bleeding. Unable to communicate, unable to connect with her pain in that instance for fear that I would let my own emotions go.

It makes me reflect upon motherhood, and the beautiful  role of a mother. A mother is the only home a child knows for the first nine months of it's life, and continues to be sustained by her body for months afterward, nursing at her breast. The mother is a giver, knowing a love so deep and sacrificial my mind cannot even fathom it. Mothers are shapers of the next generation. I pay tribute to all the mothers, both with babies old and young, both on this earth and in heaven, for their love, their sacrifice, and their toil.

I am thankful for places like Haiti Health Ministries that exist in these communities to offer good medical care, support, and most of all, the hope of Christ, to the hurting in this nation. I am amazed by the fulltime missionaries who have given their lives over to this work, to seeing these realities and continuing on in their faithful kingdom work.

I am thankful most of all, for a healing Father. For a God who is good when the world seems void of goodness. For a Comforter. I am thankful for His arms that opened up to receive this mother's child today.

Prayer requests that come to mind:
Again, for the staff to show Christ's love and for opportunities to offer His hope to the hurting.
Pray for this mother as she copes with her loss
Pray for this little girl, and the many children trapped in similar situations.
Pray for me to depend on God fully, and for His supply of compassion, grace and strength