Well, aside from the usual choosing to sit in the dark
because the mosquitoes are so bad, asking my roommate to check my head for
lice, talking about bodily functions I prefer not to with far to many people
(both male and female), perfecting the ability to eat with one hand and swat
flies with the other, work out in skirts and eat spicy peanut butter I’m truly
getting to see God and how ALIVE He is.
The majority of my days either start with going to school or
sweating for Jesus (i.e. painting, digging, etc). J
Over the past couple of weeks I have painted and screened windows for a
vocational school, transported dirt to fill a soccer field and relearned
grade K-12 (I hate algebra!)
Our days at Canaan are busy, but here and there we venture
out into the town. A few days ago
we traveled to what we thought would be the park to evangelize, only to find
out it was actually a hospital we were going to. For those of you who know me, you know nothing scares me
more than hospitals, let alone a hospital in the middle of Haiti.
Let me paint a picture for you. As we walk in my eyes turn immediately to fresh blood
splattered on the floor. Heading
into the main room where about 12 patients lay sick with various illnesses, I
sit consumed with myself and fear.
To throw me into a bit more shock, my ears turn to the most blood
curdling scream of my life…a woman just lost her sister who had lost her
newborn only hours earlier, most likely to inadequate medical
attention/knowledge.
As I try to calm myself down our translator grabs me and
asks me to pray for a teenage boy.
This young boy looks to be in excruciating pain at the site of his hand
holding his bulging stomach.
Surgery gone bad had opened the door to infection causing literal breathtaking
pain. I laid my hands on him and
prayed; sadly I admit I was still consumed with myself.
As we continue our time there I met a 27- year old woman who
sits with a look of emptiness. The woman looked like she was 40 and had not
eaten in months! Her condition?
Something to do with her stomach, that’s as much as they know. Just 14 days earlier she had given
birth to a child and lost it, now she lay with a great loss and pain. The next
bed is a 99-year old woman who looks to be already in the grave and of course
they have no idea what is wrong with her.
Forgive me, but I asked her niece if she knew the Lord, the reply was
yes so I asked the Lord to just take her home!
At the end of our time we venture to the maternity
ward. Women lay in bed with their
infants next to them, a woman about to birth a child walks around momentarily
squatting on buckets in pain. The
Lord leads us to one last woman.
After chatting with her we prayed for God to change her heart, she
wanted to want Jesus! J
It angers me that probably 50% of the patients here could be
healed with just an ounce of proper health care. I drives me nuts that these people have no education and
continue to make wrong decisions.
It hurts my heart that people are dying every day and have no idea what
they are headed for. It drives
pain deep in me that some have no idea that their messed up life in Haiti was
heaven in comparison to their eternity.
Though I hate that I was so consumed with my own fears and
worries, I praise God that He doesn’t NEED me, but rather He desires to work
through me. I didn’t expect my
first visit to a third world hospital to be pretty! There was nothing I could do to heal these people or comfort
them, but God could. I know that
through just a simple touch of my hand and a prayer that God was working. I will probably never know how God
worked that day, but I have peace that He did work.
“Be confident
of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to
completion.” (Phil1:6) I
believe with all my heart that God brought us to that hospital for a reason,
that reason being that He had plans and He had work to do through us.
Here are some random pictures from our time thus far. I want to send all my thanks and love
to my family, friends, prayer warriors and supporters. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!
