All in a day's work?

All in a day’s work; does such a thing exist? Maybe, but it sure changes forms at different times.

I was thinking today what it is I’ve done today. I’m kind of in limbo between returning to my prior work and schedule, and still dealing with the after affects of the earthquake. I’ve still got the same responsibilities as before – keeping the medical clinic running smoothly; still want to go back to learning French (and Creole) which I haven’t restarted. But I’m starting to understand my strong intuition in the fall that I needed to prepare the clinic to work smoothly without me there. Being able to do that has freed me so much; almost too much maybe.

Anyway, thinking of my day, I thought I’d give you an account of it. In a way it felt normal to me, but when I looked at it, it was far from a normal day. I guess it’s the part of you that quits having that initial disaster relief adrenaline, and now, this is how our job looks (I’m sure it’s very different for the foreigners in for the relief, but I’m talking about people like me that live here and have to continue with our normal lives as well as the extra stuff).

7 a.m.

-Adoption papers – I printed off certain emails, photos, and documents to prepare papers needed for certain people to try adopting a couple of our kids.

This is going to get harder again; they’re cutting down a lot. Not sure what the news says, but… they’re still working at getting the kids whose adoption was started before, ready to go.

Housing. Then S. Gladys, Wayne and I went around some of our building to see what we could prepare for post op patients, ready to leave the hospital but no place to go. This would include some of their family members to take care of them. These need to be brought back to the hospital one or two times a week, so are not to go too far. Plus, we have 3-4 nurses living here, so there’s someone to keep an eye on them. We have the building that we planned to start a French school, and we have also moved the older boys out of their dorm into another building, so now we have two buildings we can use – each possibly big enough for 50-75 people, or more. This would mean throwing mats on the floor to sleep, and “living” outside. We’re planning to put tarps out. We’re getting two young girls tomorrow with their families. (One is a femur fracture that had to have both upper legs in a cast, with a rod between them. The other had a very bad ankle injury. Most places in these situations, they would have amputated the foot. But.. first they’re doing every other option. So she had surgery and has pins in trying to keep all the fractures in the ankle together. Pray for her healing. She also has a fracture on her arm but that should heal ok. Some of these serious cases, like the ankle, won’t heal unless they have good nutrition, so we’re actually starting some of them on our Mamba (peanut butter), because it’s so full of protein. Before we can bring them though – shopping. We need mats, cooking utensils for them, and food, which they’re planning to get in the morning. We were told the US military provides food for refugees, so hopefully we’ll get some. With such great supporters as you guys, thankfully we don’t have to wait on them.

Amputation. After that, Wayne and I went to the Pierre Payen hospital to talk to the doctors there, to arrange some of these things. Most of them were in the OR, just starting an amputation of a man’s leg, so we stayed to watch. This was not an earthquake victim but uncontrolled diabetes probably. He had already lost part of his other leg; now this one was full of gangrene. They were able to save his life by doing it. Even though I basically knew how they do it, it was still a bit “gory”. (no, I won’t post pictures of that).

Home for back injury. Ready to leave the hospital, there was a young boy (about 14) who was discharged but had no home to go to. He had a back injury and the doctors had put in some kind of pins or something. Hearing we were going to Port, they wanted to go with us. When (with my limited Creole) I asked where they were going, I found they had nowhere to go, but that their 16 yr old son is there, also injured. A missionary from Montrouis, who was there at the time, asked me then to just drop them off at her house, so I did. Don’t know for how long or what, but … you do what you can.

Clinic. On my way home, I stopped at the clinic to make sure they were ok. I have two of my nurses back for the first time since the earthquake. 3 of the Canaan guys working there are actually in Pierre Payen translating for the doctors, but they’re doing quite well anyway.

Money. One of the ways Canaan has been helping is by giving the pastors of their churches money for the people that need it. They know the condition of their people. There are so many of them in the streets. We find there is still food to be bought in the streets, so if they have money, they can find food. It’s easier than us trying to find food in bulk and packing it all up. (actually one dilemma we’re seeing in Port is that with so many people leaving, there’s less people to buy the fruits and vegetables in the markets, plus the fact that they have less money. Food that doesn’t keep is going to be wasted. After we got back from the hospital, we made up little envelopes of $10-$100 so they’re ready to give to people. It’s working quite well and they are so very grateful (and needy).

Pickup. That took us longer than expected, especially since we had to send for money exchanging in between. It was after 1 p.m. before S Gladys, Wayne, & I finally left for Port. My reason for going was to find a vehicle for us to use for our Medika Mamba program and medical clinic. We have been raising money for what seems like a long time, and had decided to buy the kind of truck we could with the money we had. Then the earthquake happened before we got it done. For a while, it didn’t seem right to go buy a vehicle now. But more and more I realized how badly we need it now; and after all, we had the money many of you raised for us for that specific thing, and all of a sudden it just felt right. Others confirmed it, we prayed, and we went. Also, I imagine vehicles will be in greater demand soon since so many were destroyed. We found a Nissan truck that met all our requirements, and is a good price – less than what I expected to pay. We’ve reserved it; now I’m going back tomorrow to hopefully finish the transaction. That depends on money wires. I’m so excited!! Just sorry Bobi isn’t here for it. We’ve planned together for this for so long. Thank you Lord!

Pastor. After this, we found an Ebenezer pastor in Port and gave the money and food to him. (Another of our drivers went to a bunch of other Ebenezer churches). We were given some boxes of rice that we could give to the people. This is rice that is ready to boil and finished. Has chicken and spices already mixed. We also gave out a bunch of the vegetable cans that had been shipped to us for Canaan. How can we have cans of stuff and not give it out? S Gladys would give the shirt off her back.

Port au Prince. It’s weird how every time I drive through Port, I marvel again, almost like the first time. It’s so shocking to see the buildings, and people setting up sheets and tarps on the streets for the night. Remember the red blocks/legos that we used to play with as kids? Sometimes we’d get mad (or an accident would happen) and we’d slam it and the house we had built would crumble; maybe only part of the house and walls. That’s how Port is. It just really reminded me of playing with the red building blocks. Like I just took a fist and crushed a house.

Finally home again – supper at 7 p.m. At 10:30 another trip to PP hospital to drop of one of the doctors that was over for the evening, and now finally, it’s midnight and I didn’t get my laundry done tonight like my plan was. Gosh, this got long!

(I was going to upload pics but it's not working. If you have facebook, I was able to load up some there.)

All in a day’s work?