First, sorry for the delay in getting more Haiti blogs posted…
Second, check out Steph Tyrna’s blog for a video and the story of Michelle (one of the women staying in the hospital @ HCM.
Now on to some of my own story writing…
One of the groups of people serving at Haitian Christian Mission was a group of midwives from Canada. They were kept very busy delivering babies and doing pre-natal and postpartum care, but I did have a chance to sit down and talk to a couple of these incredible women. One of the women was Caroline, and this is just a small part of her story:
Caroline had been a social worker for about 17 years, and one of the teenage girls she was working with was pregnant. Since this girl had very little in the way of a support system, she asked Caroline to go to the hospital with her when she delivered the baby. As Caroline stayed with her through the birth, she decided that she wanted to become a midwife. She was in her final year of a 4-year program, but decided just after Christmas that she wanted to quit school. She went back home and for a few days didn’t feel well or sleep at all…and then the earthquake hit Haiti. She turned on the TV and saw women delivering their babies on the streets of Port-au-Prince with only the policemen helping them, and knew that she had to go and help them. One of her classmates, who didn’t know that Caroline had already decided she needed to go to Haiti, told her about one of the professors that was leaving for Haiti – 4 days later. The next day Caroline went on a hike on a trail she frequents, and met someone who offered to help finance her trip – she ended up having the whole trip taken care of before she left!
Another person I want to introduce you to is Guerdy, a teenager staying in the school behind HCM. Though I didn’t get much of her story, I was able to see a lot of her heart and her joyful personality:
The first thing you need to know is that Guerdy has an infectious smile. She is also (I think) Pastor Profe’s sister (Pastor is the head of HCM) but had been living in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake and consequently was staying in the back of the mission with the other refugee families. And the reason I didn’t get much of her story is the third thing you need to know: Guerdy is deaf. One night we had a conversation for about 45 minutes, a mixture of French, Creole, English, and Sign (by the way, I did learn a few words/phrases of Creole and French, and just like with Spanish, I can understand a lot more than I can speak…and the only sign language I know is what I learned from watching people sign during praise and worship in college…) Though we didn’t have any deep or meaningful conversations, the time I spent with Guerdy blessed me so much. It’s crazy how a multi-lingual conversation about different words for water and what the signs are for airplane and travel and USA and Haiti could bless me so much…but God put Guerdy in my life for this sweet short time.
Well, that’s all the stories I have time for at the moment. Some day I’ll post the story of my trip home… Also, don’t forget to check out the photo blog I just posted, and keep checking out other WR alum blogs for more stories about Haiti (Benny V, Aaron Bruner, Mark Newland, Steph Tyrna, and many more).
