Tent City Nursing

Saturday Rachel and I were able to go out to the city of Kanaan again and do a medical clinic. It is always a humbling experience to "play a  doctor on TV". Luckily the patients are pre-screened and most people are there with colds or allergies (imagine living in a dust filled tent). On Saturday we saw 33 people. It was a busy day. Awaken Haiti tries to run the clinic when they have teams in. Most of the teams help with the building and the rest help in the clinic. One time there was even another medical person there that was great. 

This is the view from the "clinic" (they are going to begin construction on a real clinic in June.  Until then, we use one of their houses they are currently constructing). The house pictured is one of the nicer houses as it has a tin roof. That is really great as we are not in rainy season. You can not believe some of the houses in these tent cities. 

This is the inside of one of the nicest houses. As you can see, it is big enough for a queen size bed and a table and chairs. There is a story behind this picture which I have debated about telling for sometime. But in the spirit of telling about Haiti, I feel that I need to share. 

This is the home of Suzette. Suzette is dying of ovarian cancer. There is nothing to be done here which is the most frustrating part of doing medicine here. There is no money to pay for the care that is needed and even if there was, there are not the services that are so needed. (As I write this President Martally is in a Miami hospital.  Now if there is not even a place that the president can go for good medical care within his country, the country has a problem).

Anyway Suzette, Deb (one of the founders of Awaken Haiti) wanted to introduce me to her. So we walked to her house. All the kids were with us as we were on our way to the beach so we brought them. Suzette talked about how God spoke to her in her dreams. She talked about how he had guided her on how to work with her pain. The things God has told her to do were text book medicine. 

She also told us how she had dreamed we would visit. She knew she would be seeing "ti moun blan" (white children) in her home. I imagine this would stand out in a dream. It was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life to hear this woman talk about how God talks to her in her dreams. It reminded me of Joseph in the Old Testament. 

As we were getting ready to leave, I was the last one out the door with BJ in hand. As those of you who know BJ know he is about as friendly as a Komodo Dragon. But I felt really prompted that I should tell BJ to give Suzette a hug. This was a little like asking a horse to fly, but he willingly ran over and hugged her. She very kindly said to me "I knew he would do that, I saw it in my dream." I am not sure it gets anymore powerful than that. 

Again, you go into these situations and think you are going to be the one serving and end up with these kinds of experiences for you and your family.