Earthquake update

I've received a lot of messages on facebook and email about the situation here and how people can help, so here's an update for all of you. Thank you so much for your concern and prayers.

The earthquake hit about 20 minutes after we drove into our driveway (we had arrived in port that same day and went grocery shopping before heading home). I was walking in the road on my way to the clinic when the earthquake began. Ryan was outside in our driveway, and Eleanor was outside in the hands of Connie Nichols. We all struggled to keep our balance during the quake, which seemed to last forever. When the tremors subsided, I saw that the first floor of the apartments of Jim, Sandy and Jen (the apartment complex where I used to live) had collapsed. I ran to the clinic to see if they were there, then ran back when we realized they were inside. As I came back, I saw Jim and Sandy in the road, covered with dust. They had escaped through a new hole in the side of their house. Jen was safe also. Ryan came running up, and we walked back to find Nora together. At this point we had no idea of the magnitude of what was happening. We heard that there was a person at the guesthouse who was injured. I had some supplies in my bag from donations that Sherry Donovan had given me stateside, so I pulled those out and began working on the patient. I foolishly thought that she might be the only one injured. Soon after we began working on her, a steady stream of people began flowing into the yard. Some were injured and others were just homeless and scared. We separated the groups and began working on the injured. A group of people went back to the clinic and braved the gases and dust and cracks in the wall to get a truckload of supplies and bring them to our triage area near the guesthouse. Others set up lights, because darkness was fast falling. As we looked through the crowd and began treating wounds, the extent of the injuries astounded us. As soon as we thought we saw the worst case, another patient even more injured would come along. Many had severed and mangled limbs, many had serious head wounds, one woman was paralyzed from the waist down, the majority of the people who came had at least one broken limb. One woman was in labor and delivered in the driveway. Two other women came the next day and delivered their babies without complications. Several people were dead on arrival, and many more were so severely injured that we were confident they would die within a few days. Jim and I felt helpless at times in the face of such grave injuries and such limited supplies. We worked until about 5 am, and then tried to sleep for about half an hour. Then the injured came again, en masse.
We set up shop at the church, which was still standing, although it had some concerning cracks in its outer walls. Sandy and Nannie triaged the masses of people who came to the church for help, choosing about 40 of them. The rest were left to find help elsewhere, if possible. Jim and I, with the help of the team, sutured people and splinted fractures. Jim performed some amputations. Jen delivered a baby in a pew. A woman died of blood loss as she was lying in front of the altar. Almost everyone had a story of a loved one that was lost. Evelyn and Connie watched Nora for me so I could work. Ryan was busy attending to our house, which suffered flood damage. Throughout the day, small tremors kept our nerves on end, and as we were finishing up our last few patients, a large tremor rocked the building and sent us all running out the door. The building stood, but we finished up our last patients in the yard.
Today was a day of regrouping for the missionaries. We are basically out of medical supplies, so opening up a clinic today was useless. We focused on contacting loved ones, taking pictures, getting possessions out of destroyed houses. The eye clinic is not able to be opened because of stuctural unsoundness, so we don't know the extent of the damage there. The medical clinic is not too stable as it is. Our house is livable. None of us are sleeping inside at this point. There are too many tremors still. We have our mattresses in the open air, and Nora is comfortable in her pack n play with her mosquito net.
We learned of the death of our housekeeper, Daphne, this morning. She was only in her early 20s. We haven't heard from any of our other haitian friends in Port or Seguin. The Jacmel boys are safe.
God is good. We have heard of many people who want to come help, and at this point we are strongly urging no one to come. We don't have access to enough food or fuel to support more people here. If you would like to help, please send donations to Commuity Christian Church, 10001 W. Commercial Blvd, Tamarac, FL 33351 and designate it for "Earthquake".
Thank you for your prayers. Please pray for no rain at night, since everyone in this part of the country is sleeping outside. Pray for order to replace chaos, and calm to come to our hearts and the hearts of the haitians.

Marie Lourdes

Hello prayer warriors. I just wanted to ask you all to please pray for Marie Lourdes. Many of you know her... she was my neighbor right next to the clinic in Seguin. She and Emmanuel (the guy who used to be janitor at the clinic) have six children... two girls and four boys. Just recently Emmanuel called me and asked for help, because Marie Lourdes was so sick he was afraid she was dying. I forwarded some funds to him and told him to get to the hospital in Jacmel with her (it was about the time I was flying back to the states for Christmas, so I couldn't help out at our clinic). He brought her down to St. Michel hospital in Jacmel (horrible place, but the only hospital he could get to), and she is in critical condition there. I believe it is her ulcer and other digestive issues, but she is very near death. Danny is visiting her in the hospital and giving us updates on her condition. She left all six children in the mountains to fend for themselves (including her nine month old daughter). Please pray for her health and healing. Pray for the doctors to care and be wise in her treatment. Pray for her children, and for Emmanuel, who often is lost without her to help him make decisions. Thank you, and Merry Christmas!

On the Lighter Side

Most of my blogs are long and somewhat depressing, so I thought I'd switch things up a bit and tell a lighter story this month.
I was standing in front of a crowd of our patients last Tuesday, about ready to share the gospel message with them during our daily devotional time. As I opened my Bible to begin reading, I was interrupted by a commotion in the clinic's front yard. A little put off, I turned to see what was going on. There was a man trying to coax his donkey out of our courtyard. He was hitting it and pulling it and the donkey was being, well, mule-headed. Finally, after the patients and I had stared at him for a minute or two, he managed to pull the beast out into the street. I turned back to the passage that I had planned on sharing with the crowd, which was Psalm 32:9. "Do not be like the horse or like the mule, which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle, else they will not come near you." I had prayed earlier that morning that God would send His Spirit ahead of me to prepare the hearts of the patients to receive His Word, but I had not expected Him to provide me with a sermon illustration, too!

Beng A Mother In Haiti

I may be a mother now, and live in Haiti, but that doesn't mean I know what it feels like to be a Haitian mother. I have some patients who are Haitian mothers and have stories that are indicative of how hard it is to raise children in this country. Here are their stories.

The first story is of a woman who gave birth to her daughter, Isadora, just one month after I had Eleanor. She came to see me because she could no longer breast feed. She had severe post partum cardiomyopathy, a disease which is much more common in the third world and involves heart failure after giving birth. Researchers don't yet know exactly why it is more common in poor countries, but believe malnutrition may be a contributing factor. Her legs were swollen, she wasn't able to breathe well, her milk was coming out as clear as water, and she was too weak to hold her underweight child. We put Isadora on the formula fund, and put her mom on medicines to help her heart get stronger. Unfortunately, two weeks ago, I learned that Isadora's mother passed away, just 12 hours before her next appointment at the clinic. Isadora is not doing very well, either. A friend of her mother is raising her, and trying her best to give her bottles correctly, but she was not boiling the water for the formula properly, and Isadora has not been gaining weight. I gave her caretaker some instructions on how to better treat the water that she puts in the bottles, and I hope to see a healthier baby next week. Thank you to all of you who donate to this ministry, so that we are able to purchase formula for babies like Isadora.

The second mother I'd like to tell you about is a young woman who came to me with her 1 year old son. She came to see me because she had a very bad skin condition. I knew that the condition was more likely in HIV positive people, so I sent her to the laboratory for a test, and it was positive, as I had suspected. When I gave her the bad news that she was most likely infected with HIV, she did not seem surprised. She hung her head and told me about how hard it was to raise a son when the father was out of the picture. She said that she was humiliated by the way she was living, but that she couldn't bear to see her son go hungry, so she had been taking money for sex. She sat there crying as her son grabbed her by her sore arm and squirmed around for food. I asked her if she was going to church, and she said that she was attending a church, but couldn't talk to the pastor about her problems because he didn't approve of the way she was living. I asked her if she wanted to repent and turn her life over the Lord, and she said "I believe in the sacrifice Jesus made for my sins, but I can't accept Him until I get my life straightened out". I reminded her that Jesus died for us while we were yet sinners, and that if she would repent and come to Him, He would accept her just as she is, and help her to turn her life around, in His strength, not her own. She wanted to pray, so we prayed together for Christ to enter her heart and help her live differently. I pray that God will show her a way to provide for her son without compromising herself. I pray also for the pastor and members of the church where she is attending to accept her and help disciple her, instead of spurning her.

The third story of motherhood here in Haiti that I'd like to share involves a bridge in a city called Carrefour. It is a busy, dirty suburb of Port au Prince, not too far from Christianville. The bridge is well-known as a "dumping ground" for abandoned children. Several women, feeling that they have no other recourse, dump their babies over this bridge into the riverbed below from time to time. I have a patient who came to me one day with a small baby girl. She was a sweet little 2 month old baby with Down's syndrome and a precious smile. The woman showed me the baby and a vaccination card. She wanted to know how old the baby was and if the baby had any problems. The woman said that she had been passing by that bridge in Carrefour and found this girl, abandoned there, with her vaccination card next to her. We believe that the mother of the child must have gone to get her daughter vaccinated, been told that her child was mentally retarded, and decided that the burden of a special child was too much for her, so she abandoned her at the bridge. The woman who brought the little girl in to see me was just a bystander who decided that she had love in her heart for this little one and wanted to take on the difficult task of raising a child in Haiti. I told the woman that the child was most likely about two months old, and had Down's Syndrome, which would mean that she would develop more slowly than other children. I warned her that the child might never talk, and would most likely require attention well into adulthood. She accepted this and remained committed to raising this little girl. We put the baby on the formula fund, and she is doing amazingly well. Here is a picture of this precious girl now and the brave woman who took on motherhood in this difficult place.

Deliveries

Eleanor Nancy Price came to join my family on July 12, 2009 at 2:33am. It turns out being a mother is a lot more wonderful than I thought it could ever be. It was quite a process, though, and throughout the whole affair I couldn't help comparing my experiences to those of the haitian women that I helped with labor and delivery in the mountains. Specifically, I kept comparing what was happening to me with what happened to my best haitian friend. Here is a point by point summary of the differences in our labor and delivery experiences.

-I had my baby one week late and was induced. She had hers five weeks early.

-I took a tour of the hospital where I was going to deliver about three weeks beforehand. She travelled to three different hospitals while she was in active labor before she found one that offered incubators and oxygen for premature infants.

-My husband and sister and I had to weave around a few orange cones in construction zones on our way to the hospital. My haitian friend had to pause on her journey to the hospital to wait for another woman to give birth in the bed of the truck she was travelling in.

-I was allowed to have my husband, my sister, and my mother present with me during my labor. My haitian friend was not allowed to have anyone in the room with her, and labored alone.

-The nursing staff at the hospital where I delivered checked on me every few hours and continually monitored my progress on their computers. My haitian friend didn't receive any nursing care. I found her at one in the morning, screaming, alone, with her IV materials lying beside the bed, still unopened. I had to wake the nurse up to tell her the patient was ready to deliver.

-I received an epidural and only felt intense labor pains for about four hours. My friend didn't even receive tylenol and labored in extreme pain for more than twelve hours.

-I received an episiotomy that was performed under anesthesia and was repaired immediately. My friend received an episiotomy without anesthesia and was repaired 14 hours later, when a doctor finally saw her.

-My baby was greeted by a team of pediatric specialists and taken to a special care nursery to help her breath better. Much later, she was given her first bath. My friend's baby was taken to her bedside and expected to sleep and survive the night, even though he was struggling for every breath he took. When I insisted that the nurse send him to the nursery for oxygen, she told me "if you think he needs it, you take him." I did, and the nurses in the pediatric ward spent precious time washing him off before they gave him the oxygen and medicine he needed to live.

In the end, we both survived, and so did our babies. Mine was labeled a "traumatic birth" by the medical personnel at the hospital. My friends' experience was considered normal to above average by the medical community in haiti. I guess "traumatic" and "normal" are relative terms. I don't know if I deserved all the specialized care and medicine that I got, but I know that my haitian friend and her son deserved more than what they received. The whole experience has just solidified my resolve to provide truly good medical care for as many people in Haiti as I can. They deserve the best.

Sharing the Good News, Breaking the Bad News

Medicine on the mission field is an interesting profession. The frustrations of practicing good medicine in the third world can be overwhelming, and the day to day struggles of working with a staff that is culturally very different can bog anyone down. However, the hardest thing about medicine, on the mission field or at home, is telling a patient that their illness is terminal. This is especially hard in Haiti, where doctors usually don’t tell their patients any bad news, but always hold out to them a little hope. Haitians are hope-filled people, and cling to any chance that they might get better. So, when I tell a patient, “you have cancer that is incurable” or “you have end-stage heart failure”, I often get a blank stare in response, or words of denial. Some patients cry, others ask ‘what else can we do?’ Sometimes there are a few more things that can be done, but many times we have exhausted the medical possibilities by the time we give them the bad news. Breaking bad news like this can be very draining, especially if it happens on a regular basis. However, thank the Lord, breaking the bad news isn’t the end of the story at a mission clinic like ours.

Sick people tend to think about the future. Very sick people tend to think about death and life afterwards. That’s what is so great about working in medicine as a missionary. The people we come into contact with are ripe for hearing good news. They want to hear that there is hope- in this life and in the next. When I worked in Seguin, we had a local preacher come and share the gospel with our patients three days each week. Here at Christianville, the staff of the clinic takes turns sharing the gospel each morning. So I get to share the good news every Tuesday morning. Two weeks ago, I talked about my river experience, and explained how I called on the Lord in my time of need, and He was there to rescue me. I explained to my patients that He heard my voice because He knows me… because I walk with him daily. I urged them not to wait until they were in the middle of the river to cry out to God, but to call on Him today, and start their relationship with Him. Two people responded to the message that day. Sandy was able to pray with them to receive Christ. Another day, several weeks ago, Marie (our pharmacy tech) was preaching to the patients. A young man responded to the gospel message. Sandy prayed with him to receive Christ. Later on, I saw him in my exam room and gave him an HIV test, because of a suspicious rash he had. The test came back positive, so I counseled him. I found out he had accepted Christ that morning, because he was worried about his future after death, and wanted to get his heart right with God. Even though I had to break the bad news about HIV to him, I was able to share with him in the joy of finding life eternal. We see people coming to Christ each week at the clinic, and that is what medical missions is all about.

Last week, an old man was carried into my exam room by his crying family members. He had had a stroke, and was very weak on his right side. He could not say more than a couple words, and they were very slurred. I gave him some medicine to help prevent another stroke, and gave him the bad news that usually the damage done during a stroke is permanent, with very little that medicine can do to improve it. I gave him physical therapy tips along with medicine, and sent him on his way. Today at church, an old man got up to give a testimony of God’s goodness. He looked remarkably familiar to me. He said that he had been carried into the clinic this past week. I didn’t think it could have been the same man, though, because this old man in church was holding the microphone with his right hand, was walking without a limp, and was speaking clearly and without difficulty. But as he told his story, it became clear that it was indeed the same man. God had healed him. And he gave his testimony to the church, not to give glory to the clinic or the doctors, but to God alone, the great Physician, who healed his body. I’m glad that in this instance, the ‘bad news’ I gave him and his family was turned into a testimony to the whole church congregation of the good news that God is alive and powerful, and heals our infirmities.

Several years ago, when I was first entering college and debating what type of missionary I wanted to be, my choices were Bible translation, business administration, or medicine. While I’m sure God could have used me in any of those areas, I’m glad He led me into medicine.

My Community

Eight years ago, when I announced to my church in Florida that I would be leaving for full-time service overseas, I never imagined what I was getting myself into. I knew I would have to face lonely times, disease, danger, a foreign language and culture, and fund-raising, but I wasn’t sure to what extent God would test me in each of these areas. And of everything on that list, fundraising was the thing that really made me tremble. I dreaded it. So it came as a total surprise and complete relief when the ministry team at my church (Community Christian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, called me in for a “talk” just a few short weeks after my announcement. They expressed to me their desire to support me fully, as a living link missionary of their congregation. I was overwhelmed with a feeling of relief (no begging!), with a feeling of unworthiness (how could God or any church love me that much?), and with a feeling of responsibility (I’ve got to make them proud!)

Over the years, Community has come to my aid again and again. Not just with their faithful financial support, but with advice, wise counsel, encouragement, rides to the airport and places to stay while stateside, and even a new truck when I destroyed the one they bought me in the river. Each summer, the kids in VBS raise funds for the kids here in Haiti who need formula or money for the hospital. Many of the kids at Community still greet me with a hug and a “hello miss Teresa” each time I come home to visit. The kids even showered my exam room with valentines this year. I couldn’t ask for a better sending church. There was one thing that was lacking, though. A team to come visit me. I wanted the church to see the work here in Haiti. It seemed that each year they would plan something, a coup d’etat or a food riot or some other civil unrest would upset the plans and cause a cancellation. But finally, this year, the time was right. The teams were planned, the flights were purchased, and two teams from my sending church arrived! Each team spent one week here, and it was wonderful to have them. Both teams jumped right into helping out wherever needed. Christianville has had some pretty finicky teams come and visit over the years, but Community Christian Church was not one of them. They were voted “Most Easy-Going Team” of the year by our guest house coordinators, in fact. They worked on construction, evangelism, teaching, upkeep (painting and cleaning and organizing and counting meds) and they even washed my dog. Some of my favorite memories of their visit are of Carla Behrenberg, perched on luggage, enjoying the sights of Port au Prince from the bed of the truck, and Terry Harding signing with a hearing-impaired girl here who hadn’t had a real conversation with anyone in years. I also thoroughly enjoyed the storytimes we shared each night. It was great to get to know everyone so much better.

I thank God every day for His provision for me. Only He knew what a blessing He was leading me to 12 years ago when I chose Community Christian Church out of the phone book and spent my first Sunday there. I couldn't have guessed that it would lead to such a faithful and meaningful relationship. Thank You, Lord, for Community!