(This is Brent typing.) It's late Monday night, and I've just received an email update from Mark L. and a text message from Connie. Connie didn't say much about the day, and talked only briefly about tomorrow. Mark, however, had quite a bit to say. I have cut-and-pasted his email here:
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Friends of Haiti,
A few updates to begin. We have not had a team member much impaired thus far. No travelers illness, or food-related problems. It seems a case of dehydration may be appearing, but nothing some IV fluids might not relieve. There was some tent flooding on rooftop. (Edit from Brent: Connie feared this, as she is sleeping in a tent on the rooftop. She said the rooftop might get a lot of standing water if it rains too much. I hope she sleeps well and stays dry. She said it rained almost all last night and dogs were barking and roosters were crowing at 4:30am.) Nothing was lost downstream, but dampness abounds in more than the humidity level. Parties have taken to their tasks and seem to be operating at a sufficient level to not mourn for lack of most skills. The team, though, has limits and thinning staffing that could cause us to chug slowly with key loses. A couple examples include malfunction of the autoclave sterilizing oven. Slow cleaning of the equipment means fewer patients served. We also had some interpreter absences at critical times keeping doctors from giving rapid prognoses for treatment choices. All told, the Lord has provided a way to help our Haitian friends.
Try looking at it from a Haitian point of view. (Edit from Brent: These are comments from Haitians to members of the I-Team.)
''In a land where driving between two good-sized regional cities takes an hour to go 8 miles, I walk that distance in 3 hours to make it to the metal gate (the entrance to the mission) with 100 other countrymen by 8am.''
''My mother, 65 years old, lives in my family hut with my wife and 4 children, sharing the 10'x10' dirt floored place we rent with no electricity or plumbing. I work moving rock in a wheelbarrow for $2/day but only a few days a month. When she goes in for eyedrops to treat her advanced glaucoma, my wife leaves 3 of the 4 kids alone at home while carrying one and holding Mom's arm. The appointment takes hours.''
''I live on Tortuga Island (about 5 miles north of Haiti's northern coast). We are very poor, with even less access to healthcare and education than most in my country. The 8-mile sailboat ride gets me to the mission in Saint Louis du Nord to see the Blanc (white) doctors. They are all doctors to me since I have never seen a doctor come to my island of 45,000. Strange that some doctors look only 12 years old, but I trust them because I don't know what to do about this blur so thick like Cuban cigar smoke. They say cataract. I don't know that word.''
''We thought it would heal when our boy Pierre Charles was hit by a rock, shot from a truck tire last year. It didn't. It grew from a poke to a darkening red. He can't close his eyelid, so tears well all day and night. He can't see out of it. We thought the Blanc doctors could give him a pill or use plant leaves to make him see again. They asked if I would let them cut it out. My little Pierre!''
''Mom started to lose her eye sight 3 years ago. Growing from her eye was a bump, at first no worse than the kind you get when a banana branch pokes it. But bigger and bigger it grew, now there is no eye, just a two inch blob that touches here sunglasses lens. No eyelid, no blink, no end to pain. The doctors say tumor. What is it? Cancer, I don't know that word. Cut it out and she still won't make next birthday?''
The raw emotions would make a formidable story where success and sunshine happen as the curtain drops. But, what our eyes can see is just a snippet of life on an island where currency is not as useful as barter, and a child in school is a great drag on family survivability.
We bring eyecare, encouragement, tourist dollars, education, hope, an enduring commitment to raise our brothers from the country's downward gaze to a view of more than today's troubles. God's love compels us, blessed to be a blessing like ancient Abram.
Mark L.
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There is good news coming from our friends at the mission, but, as you see, there are great challenges too. Please pray for everyone in Haiti. I won't ever complain again about having to wait a long time in a doctor's office, that's for sure.
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