Our Work

 Day 6

He said he wanted to be there when it happened.

He is a pastor who is now working with Samaritan’s Purse. His family consisted of his wife and two little girls. The house was a single-story structure next to a three-story building. The quake brought down the building, and the top two stories ended up crushing the house completely.

The pastor and one of his children were away when it all came crashing down. He got there as soon as he could, but there was only silence as he looked at the thick concrete slab lying where his home once stood.

It’s been over three months now and they still haven’t gotten to the area where his home was to lift the slabs and remove rubble.

The heavy equipment operator for Samaritan’s Purse says he will begin the job as soon as it’s possible to get his machinery into the area. He will have to lift the slabs off first, and then begin gently removing one piece of rubble at a time. Until he gets to where the bodies are.

He’ll back off then. The pastor talks about his family being at that location. He wants to be there when it happens. He stands on top of the rubble and says he feels close to his wife and little girl when he’s there. He wants to give them a proper burial.

As a doctor, I can’t help looking at the reality of life and death differently. I have thought about the difference between the body and the soul before, but this picture of the death of the body looms heavy on my mind.

I am reminded that scripture tells us that the body will die someday, that our bodies will be laid in a grave and be like dust. It also tells us that our soul does not die, but lives forever.

You think about death in a different light when you are here and see its sting in so many ways. I know things as a physician but I can’t discuss it with him. The rat population is so great that all he will find is a skeleton with some clothes lying around the bones. That is the body. But their soul is with the Lord and it makes me so glad his wife and daughter had accepted Christ.

Coming to faith in Christ is unusual in Haiti. The spirit world is alive here. Voodoo is real here. I spent time this morning with a Christian gentleman whose parents practiced voodoo. His father called upon spirits for supernatural favors and protection. The father had a special lamp, and a candle, and a small glass of water present whenever he began prayers to a special spirit. The father would pray for healing for the children, or for protection for his family. Such things are difficult for me to understand. The man explained the power of evil spirits that I have never even imagined.

I think about the future of Haiti. Will voodoo continue or will this be a time for Christ? A pastor told me that he normally had 150 in attendance each Sunday before the quake. Now, over 500 come every week. Is this a time for awakening for this country?

In the Samaritan’s Purse clinics, many patients become first-time believers. I believe the work we are doing here—food, shelters, water and latrines, medical—is making a difference. I believe Haiti is on the verge. I believe we have one chance in time to change this nation. I believe now is the time for these people to connect with God.

Money is not the solution. The United Nations is not the answer. Nor is outside help from nations around the world. After seeing these people and understanding their past more than ever, I firmly believe that Jesus is their only solution, their only hope.

If they don’t change their hearts now, they will fail. There is urgency. We must do all we can to not only show them the love of Jesus as we assist them in this most sorrowful time, but we must also tell them the plan God has for their country if they will only give their hearts to Jesus.

There is an answer and right now is the time the Haitians must make a choice. Now is the time they must choose a new structure to rebuild their nation. And the foundation of that new structure is Jesus Christ.

As I head back to the States, my mind is full of so many stories and memories. I don’t know how these people are surviving through all that they have to go through. We must continue to do all we can to help them.

But as I prepare to leave, I have to put the overall picture in proper perspective. I have to realize that all the aid is temporary. We can give shelters and treat them medically and do a lot to make their lives better, but we have to keep our focus on something much more important—their relationship with the Lord

I return home with a single message on my heart. Whatever we do for the Haitians, it must be tied to telling them about Jesus. I can’t help but remember what Samaritan’s Purse founder Bob Pierce said: “When you come to the end of life, all the good things you’ve done will mean nothing compared to the question: Did you tell men and women about Jesus.”

“You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.” — The last verse of the last song we sang in devotions today.

Day 5

They call it the epicenter. The strongest force of the movement of the shifting plates below the surface of the earth is the epicenter, and I saw the area today for the first time.

Samaritan’s Purse has a base camp in the town of Leogane, the actual center of the earthquake. We attempted to get to the area on our first visit just after the quake. We gathered plaster for splints, suture material, surgical scrub, bandages, and all other equipment we might be able to use if we could get in.

No one had been able to get there because of road damage. I thought we ought to go evaluate, but we soon realized we couldn’t make it in. But today, roads are open, there are numerous camps of plastic sheets and blankets, and Samaritan’s Purse is busy setting up a second base camp here.

Ninety percent of the buildings are either completely flat or so damaged they are unsafe. Thirty percent of the 100,000 living in the area were killed. I thought Port-Au-Prince was bad, but Leogane is worse in a different way. It doesn’t have the larger downtown-type buildings, but almost everything is destroyed.

As I walked up to what is left of the three-story university, it occurred to me that 43 seconds is actually like a year of shaking to bring such a building down. It was full of students, I’m told, and as I stood directly in front of the rubble all I could see were three concrete slabs, maybe three feet thick each, one on top of the other. I tried to look between the slabs but there was no space. I knelt down to see underneath the first slab, but it was just flat on the ground. Not a single student survived. The roof and three floors just pancaked on each other. The student’s remains lie silently between those three slabs.

I talked to the head of the Samaritan’s Purse heavy equipment operation and asked him about the cleanup of such rubble. He responded that most crews were clearing only the sites where there were no known bodies.

He did remove rubble from one building that contained a body, and the family came to watch in hopes of finding the body of their son in order to give him a proper burial. The bulldozer operator shut his machine down once the main slab was lifted, giving the family time to pick up their son and carry him away.

I kept thinking of the three-story university building and all the bodies between those slabs. I mentioned it to another SP staff member and was told that the fiancé of one of the young men we had hired had been in class when the quake hit. What goes through his mind every time he drives past the three slabs? I’m just not sure how I would handle that situation if it were me.

I had never seen camps like today. House after house is destroyed and thousands of tent-like structures have been put up. Samaritan’s Purse has dug latrines for many of these camps, and we looked at seven in preparation for medical clinics. The rains are coming. Malaria is on its way. With flooding likely, more diseases are expected. We need to care for these people medically.

As we discussed how to set up our medical teams, one request was made: make certain that a local pastor is a part of the team. As doctors, nurses, and pharmacists, we can help them medically. We can even talk to them about eternity through Jesus Christ. But we want to make certain every patient is given the opportunity to come to an understanding relationship with the Lord.

We want them to realize that the earthquake is a reminder of the temporary. The scripture says that our life is but a breath. We may not have tomorrow or an hour to decide to accept Him.

Helping them get over malaria is not the solution to the problem in Haiti. The millions of dollars that have been poured into the country are not the solution for Haiti. Without bringing God into the picture, there will be corruption. And there will be no change except for new buildings and new roads.

If there is no change of heart of the people, there will not be a lasting change in Haiti. We are here to bring the knowledge of God. As I finish up my visit here as a physician, I have come to one realization: as we at Samaritan’s Purse work here, our job has one major objective—to expand the Kingdom.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Day Four

Today we re-visited the Samaritan’s Purse clinic in the area is called Cite Soleil. It has been considered the slum area of Port-Au-Prince. There are no police to speak of because the people sort of live the way they want to and run the area the way they decide is best.

I am told that the prison walls collapsed during the quake and that most of the prisoners who survived escaped. They returned to this area where our clinic is.

No one had even come to check on the area for two weeks after the quake. Medical care had been essentially non-existent.

This area produced some of the most horrendous stories of the quake. I was told of a family of six who were all trapped and crushed after their home fell. They could talk to each other. They could hear the agony of one, then another. Then they didn’t hear one of them talking any more. Another day passed and no more cries for help could be heard from two more. Finally a fourth became silent. When it was over, two survived to recount the event that will forever be present in their minds, of the silence of one after another of their loved ones, meaning death.

There was another story of an arm sticking out of a pile of rubble. The arm would move and the hand would wave. People tried and tried to lift the slab off the person underneath, but it was too heavy to be moved. They finally stopped trying once they realized the hand had quit waving.

This was Cite Soleil, where no equipment came to lift the slabs away, where people had to watch as their neighbors quit moving or crying for help. This was the area where the most severely injured died first and early.

The pastor of the largest church here talked to Franklin Graham and told him of the dire need, so our initial Samaritan’s Purse clinic is situated here. The volunteer doctor and nurses and pharmacist were excited at their numbers. Today, they had seen 97 patients and led 14 to the Lord.

They were most excited about a mother and her 8-year old boy. She had practiced voodoo and believed in reincarnation. She believed that when someone dies, you burn their clothes so their spirits will be clean and no harm will come from them.

The story came out as she was treated by our medical team. She and two other children had been on the other side of Port-Au-Prince when the quake hit. The 8-year-old son was at home alone. The mother heard the awful news a day later: her house was flattened and her son dead. She mourned and wept. She even burned his clothes and accepted fate as it was, and then left with her family.

A month after the quake a neighbor was able to contact her and told her the son was not dead. Someone had heard him and passed him food and water through a small hole from time to time. He was alive. No broken bones; just dehydrated and malnourished. A few days in the hospital and he was out.

Today, at the clinic with his mom, he looked like a normal 8-year-old boy. One of the nurses asked the mother if she were a believer and she said no. The nurse explained to her God’s plan of salvation through His son, Jesus Christ, and that someday we would all die but God’s gift to us was eternal life through faith in Christ.

After much discussion and praying, the lady’s head dropped and she said she wanted to accept Jesus. I am told she left the clinic still looking downward, remorseful for her ways in voodoo but with the real joy that can only come through the Lord.

At the end of this day, I can’t help but try to grasp what emotional swings this woman has gone through since the quake. I think of Lazarus, and the joy that had to go through his sister Martha when Jesus brought him back to life. And the joy that went through Mary the mother of James and Mary Magdalene when they visited the tomb and realized Jesus was not dead but alive.

I will always think of this 8-year old boy and his mother when I read of the angel saying that Jesus was not there, but had risen. This transformed mother, who thought her son was dead but now is alive, must have similar joy as the women I had just thought about.

But her joy goes even further. She has an additional joy that came from a nurse with the Samaritan’s Purse medical team who shared the love of Jesus Christ. This mother who practiced voodoo is different from the other women. She has an extra joy. She has a joy and a peace in a time of the worst devastation I have ever seen.

I am thankful for that medical team from Jacksonville who gave of their time to minister to these people of Haiti.

He is not here; he has risen! Luke 24:6

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of lined, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “take off the grave clothes and let him go.” John 11:44.

Day Three

It has been over two months since I first operated at Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital. World Medical Mission, the medical arm of Samaritan’s Purse, has sent doctors to the hospital for years on short-term rotations, but I had never been there before the earthquake. It was there so many patients touched me in a way I can never forget.

The man who lost his whole family— his wife had been bathing their two little girls at the time of the quake. The older gentleman on the mattress in the hallway who had broken both legs. The young girl who had been in school who was buried for a day before her father found her and spent two more days digging her out.

Those memories will be with me the rest of my life. The hallways were packed with patients that second week after the quake. The side hall was our overflow ward where we placed incoming patients on mattresses on the floor. It was always full.

But this time, I immediately could tell a difference. On the road leading up to the hospital, ladies and men were selling their goods on the curb. It was like a miniature market all around the hospital, busy with people doing business. There was nothing like that the first time I visited.

I went through the wards and saw patients I had seen on the previous visit. There was not a single smile on anyone’s face a week after the quake. The memory of loved ones lost was too recent, too soon. But now, patients we had operated on before who had come back for checkups were smiling.

The O.R. was the same. Same workers, equipment. Same supplies. But the wards were different. There were no waiting lines. No wailing. No patients crying when you asked them a question about their family. Now, smiles.

In the third bed was the patient who had made it out of his house only to have a wall fall on him and fracture his femur. He was back to have a final debriedment of his wound.

In the next bed was the man who I thought would loose his arm for sure. He remembered me and grinned as I approached the bed. It hit me that I had a picture of his elbow wound on my iPhone. It was bloody; an open wound that extended form a good six inches above his elbow to half way down toward his wrist. It was so impressive from a surgical standpoint that I had taken several pictures of it.

I pulled the bloody picture of bone and raw tissue and showed it to him. A friend of his looked over my shoulder at it and motioned he would like to borrow my iPhone. I handed it to him and he immediately began going from bed to bed, showing it around.

What a different atmosphere on this ward now compared to before. Today this man, as well as every patient and visitor on the ward, knew he was not going to lose his arm but that it was healed and functional. They were all feeling the same relief I was.

There was a woman in the last bed on the right, same bed she had before. Now, she looked relieved with her husband still beside her. The sorrow of her story hadn’t changed one iota but she looked relieved.

She had fractured her left femur and injured a nerve in her leg, and she could not raise her foot up at all. Now, she can move it about halfway and should continue to improve. They pulled the cover off her foot to show me that she could move her foot. She and her husband were both smiling as I walked on toward the next patient.

As I walked away from them, I remembered more of their story. They had one child in their home, plus seven friends who were visiting when the quake hit. The husband made it out untouched. His wife wasn’t so lucky and he spent the next several hours digging her out from under the rubble. Their child and all seven friends were dead. As I left them, I wondered how often they remembered those moments and how often they could smile like they were doing now.

The verse about how God can give us a peace that passes all human understanding came again to mind. I am thankful to know that in the bad times in my life, God is there to give me a peace I can ask for. I still find it difficult to realize that one could have peace after something that terrible happens, but that is His promise and I accept that.

I remembered the next patient. He was the old man who came in the night before I left that first time. Both legs were broken just above his ankles and someone had put casts on both legs and drawn in red ink what the fractures looked like. But what I remembered most about him was the fact that he did not know where his family was and they didn’t know his whereabouts either. He was across town from them when the quake hit. He knew one of them had a phone but couldn’t remember the number.

When I left the next day, I wondered if the family had been injured, or if they had been one of the bodies that had been burned on the side of the street or placed in a truck and hauled to one of the mass grave sites outside of town. Numerous families still do not know if some of their loved ones are alive or dead. They could only hope they were alive, but I know that hope fades as each day passes.

I was told this old gentleman’s legs were doing great. The only question I asked was if anyone ever located his family. I was answered, sort of matter-of-factly, that his family had located him in the hospital. It seemed such a non-concern to the interpreter that I didn’t even take the time to ask how long it had been before they found him.

I realized it was a good lesson in life. A lot of what I worry about is not all that significant in the end. Maybe there really are things I can’t change by worry. This man was a good reminder of that.

It was good to see all these patients I had come to know in a special way. They were not just patients who come into your office with a problem, who you can admit to the hospital and operate on and see back in two weeks and again in six to tell them they are completely healed and to have a good day.

No, these patients are different than any I have ever treated. They have left an imprint. They have had an impact that will affect me from now on.

The actual operations are only a minor part of what they mean to me. Their lives have left an impression on my mind and heart as to what extent humans can endure and continue on with life.

I wonder how you would do it without the Lord by your side to help you through. Scripture tells us that we will have difficult times. It also tells us He will see us through them if we only seek Him.

I have learned a lesson about life, my Christian life, that will always leave an impression on me. Treating these patients and knowing what they have been through makes a special impact more than simply reading scripture about struggles we can overcome with the Lord by our side. All I know is that whatever happens in my life, I feel assured that I can get under the shadow of the wing of the almighty and abide. I would hate to think of getting through anything without that assurance.

All the patients have taught me something. But the biggest lesson I learned today involved a 25-year-old man who had fractured his left elbow and upper left leg.

He was not the dominant person of the package. His mother was sitting on the bed next to him and she looked at me and the other doctors making rounds like she was the king pin of everyone in the room and we had better not mess with anything she had to say. She spoke English very well. Didn’t smile. Didn’t seem very appreciative of what we had done for her son, but just sat there and looked at us with a very unusual authority.

I was told that four out of 11 of her children had died in the same house this son was injured in. I don’t know why I asked her the question, but it came out. “Are you a believer?” Her response was instant: “Yes, and God saved me and my son.” She nodded toward him.

One of the doctors I was rounding with responded. “We know. We operated on him.” It didn’t really sound self righteous to me. But in a way, I guess it was. We had heard about the need and we responded and we came and we operated on her son.

I admit, whenever someone compliments me for going to Haiti I feel a little good inside. But not to that mother—she understood it. She had been through it. She had seen God’s hand working through it all, not the surgeon’s fingerprints.

Now, whenever I remember this young man with the orthopedic hardware we had placed into his arm and leg, I will think of one word: humility.

As a Christian surgeon I will never forget the mother’s response. No matter how good I think I have done caring for a patient, no matter how well the operation may go, I will remember her reminder for life.

She replied boldly and to the point: “You didn’t do anything. God did. God brought you here; you just operated. He is the one.”

She’s right: He’s the one.

"Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to Your Name be the glory" (Psalm 115:1a, NIV).

Day Two

I don’t see how they do it. Where do they get their food? Some of the camps don’t even have latrines. They get water from a river or an occasional water truck that drives by. Some are still living in little tent-like structures they have built from sticks and sheets of plastic someone gave them.

More than 240,000 are dead. They say 2,000-4,000 need prosthesis. You drive past thousands of small houses, destroyed. Driving through Port-Au-Prince, building after building is destroyed.

Today we stopped by what they call an IDP— internally displaced people—camp where shelters have been erected for families. There are different versions of these structures, from nothing more than sheets of plastic draped over wood to make a tent or lean-to, to a structure Samaritan’s Purse is making.

These shelters are 12-by-12 foot buildings framed in wood and covered by blue sheets of plastic with the words Samaritan’s Purse on the outside. Three bunk beds, where six children can sleep, cover one wall and an elevated piece of plywood gives their parents a place to lie down. The roof is tin. This structure will be home until something better comes along, and I am thinking that will be years down the road.

I was introduced to a lady who must be in her 60s or 70s, who was tired and weak for months. On examination at the national hospital she was found to have inoperable uterine cancer. She had blood hemoglobin of four, about one-fourth of the amount of blood she should have had in her body. But her treatment consisted of only a single unit of blood before she was sent home. There was no more blood available. She looked at me, eyeing me slowly from my face to my feet and back to my eyes, like she’s wondering if I can help her.

That’s why I was here making rounds with the Samaritan’s Purse team to evaluate the need for medical clinics in various camps. We are supplying temporary housing and will provide food as long as the government allows, but now we are told that the Haitians need to begin buying their own food from other Haitians if they are ever to get the economy recovering. I suppose they are right, but I still wonder how these people are gong to survive. And the medical need is so great. The rains are coming and the mosquitoes are bringing on malaria and dengue fever. We’ve got to help them from a medical standpoint.

This lady looking at me— about all we can do from a physical standpoint is keep her comfortable and visit her. Eternal life is her only hope and we need to tell her all about salvation, but we have to do what we can to keep her comfortable or what we say to her won’t have the same impact. That’s what the Good Samaritan was all about— you have to meet the physical need as you talk about the Lord.

We’ve visited several clinics run by secular organizations and all are doing a great job with what they have to work with. One particular clinic was primarily seeing pregnant women and a lot of them had malaria. At another clinic I saw what I think are the most pitiful patients, the amputees. They are outcasts in society, ambulating many times with a single crutch. Even when they get their prosthetic leg or arm, they will still be outcast because they are considered so abnormal in Haitian culture.

I watched at a prosthetics clinic as a little child was taking her first steps on a new leg. She would try a few steps and then cry, and then try some more. As I left, I saw her lying in her mother’s lap asleep, exhausted. I thought about her future, what difficulties are before her compared to my grandchildren of the same age. I know we all have difficulties ahead in life, but this little girl will have an extremely hard life just trying to reach adulthood.

My next visit was a Samaritan’s Purse clinic next to a church in Cite Soleil, the poorest section of Port-Au-Prince. It’s the slum section of the city, where the majority of the country’s criminal population lived. The city police never bothered to patrol this area before the quake. After the quake, I am told that no one even came here to look, much less help, for the first two weeks.

The church asked us to come and we set up the clinic. The hall was lined with patients waiting to be seen as I entered. There were benches full of the sick and ill. They didn’t talk or read, just sat.

This week a volunteer doctor, two nurses and a pharmacist are running the clinic, all from a church in Jacksonville. I asked them how the day was going and was pleasantly surprised by the answer: “We’ve seen 87 patients and 12 have accepted the Lord.” They were more excited about that fact than telling me about the cases of malaria and other medical problems found.

Seeing the excitement over salvation, while also seeing the patients waiting on benches, we came to an immediate conclusion. We contacted the pastor of the church and set up a meeting within the hour. The conclusion was to hire a full-time pastoral assistant just for the clinic. He will have a time of sharing the gospel and praying for patients who are aimlessly waiting to be seen. The doctors and nurses will continue witnessing to the patients, but now if a patient needs counseling or accepts the Lord, they will be referred to our new full time chaplain. We will also give spiritual pamphlets to each patient, and a New Testament to every new believer.

So the day was good. I write this in the evening reflecting back over the day and realize why we are here. I realize why we are different from the secular clinics and prosthetic centers we visited. We are different because of the primary reason we are here.

We have come to share the Gospel, to tell others about Jesus. And our goal is different. We want to help people just as much as all the other organizations do, but our goal is not just helping others. Our goal is Jesus.

"Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31b, NIV).

Day One

As the plane began its descent I could just make out Port-Au-Prince in the distance. There was a little fog, and the sky wasn’t as clear as it had been back in January. It was exactly three months since the quake, and I wondered how much had changed since I was first here a week after the quake hit.

I had never seen such devastation in my lifetime of traveling. I was shocked by the suddenness of it all. I can still remember asking our driver to quickly pull the car over because I had seen an arm sticking out from under the rubble— right there, not three feet away. I can still visualize the body trapped, lying on the front seat of the crushed car with her lifeless arm outstretched toward the driver’s door.

Read Dr. Furman's reflections from his first trip to Haiti.

I wondered if the crushed car was still there. I wanted to see if such dreadful sites had been removed. I also wanted to see if the man on the bicycle just behind that car was still there. I can’t get him out of my mind when I think how quickly it all happened. He was just riding his bicycle and all of a sudden, the door of life was shut.

Again, I remembered the time frame mentioned in the Bible, the shortest sequence of time possible: “In the twinkling of an eye.” I have thought about these people since the end of my previous trip but this time, as I watched the city get larger and the destruction become more visible from the air, it somehow seemed more vivid in my mind—his crushed skull and both shoulders pinned together, flat. But his arm—with a neat uniformed shirt with a stripe around it—still looked as if it had just been ironed.

The word “suddenly” has a different meaning to me now. I wondered if seeing it all again would have a similar effect on me as the first time.

One thing was obviously different. Last time, I was thinking emergency. Do I carry casting material with me in the car? Do I need suture sets to sew up lacerations? Should I carry gauzes and arm slings with me as we drive through the city? But this time, I had been discussing how many clinics we could set up with our Samaritan’s Purse medical coordinator. How many patients can we take care of in a day? If we have a physician’s assistant and two nurses, can one doctor cover all the patients?

Probably the biggest concern was the rotating mobile clinics. We had planned to have two that would rotate either once a week among six temporary camps, or once every two weeks among 12 camps. I voted for the 12, so we would be able to cover twice as many people, but was reminded that the rains had begun and that meant more mosquitoes, which meant more malaria than we could ever imagine.

What made the decision more difficult is that a child can die five days after he or she first gets bitten. So if we only visit a camp every two weeks, some of those children are going to die before we can get back to them.

So there was a different set of problems this time, but I wondered if there was really much change in the basic problems I had left earlier.

Minutes after we landed, I knew it had changed. In January, there was no working airport terminal. This time, I had to wait to get through customs. I didn’t like the wait, but I liked the change. As we drove through town, I saw that things were different. Much of the rubble had been moved. Crews of men and women were cleaning out the street gutters with shovels and wheelbarrows. There were no bodies wrapped in plastic lying by the street. Sheets of plastic still served as makeshift houses in the big parks downtown, but now there were numerous little markets at the roadsides, selling anything from fruit to sunglasses.

It was good seeing people buying and selling. Money was being exchanged. I asked the driver to pull over so I could buy a pair of sunglasses; I had forgotten mine. I know it will be my favorite pair for a long time, even though there was no brand name written on them.

One thing that really stood out—I now saw children playing and laughing. I couldn’t remember a single child playing during my last visit. No one smiled then.

We rode down the street where the car and bike were pinned, and I saw that the slab that had covered them both had been removed. There were many buildings still in ruins, there were many people still suffering. And there was still so much to overcome. But it was better. The emergency devastation was over and what was left in my mind was: what do we do with what we have?

And then it happened.

The Samaritan’s Purse compound is on the outskirts of Port-Au-Prince, and we drove through a network of small towns and villages to get there. I kept seeing the Samaritan’s Purse sheets of blue plastic making home after home. There on the left side of the road was a house with a white flag flying over it, and black circles painted on the blue plastic sheets. I saw the black circles all over numerous houses surrounding the larger one with the white flag. “That’s the home of the voodoo priest for this area,” our driver said.

Little else was said between there and the Samaritan’s Purse compound but a lot ran through my mind. I remembered the Billy Graham chaplains at the hospital where I was in January, telling us that all but one patient had accepted Christ. I remembered thinking, why does it take the tragedy of losing your wife and children, or losing your husband, or having your leg amputated to get right with the Lord? And now, the people in the house we had just passed came through a bad situation and elected to turn away from God.

The children of Israel did that. How could these Haitian people not wake up and look for a better life? How could they miss God in all He brought them through? And how in the world could they take a plastic sheet, which had been lovingly given to them, and paint black circles on it to ward off evil spirits? How could they miss out on God’s blessings after going through something so dreadful?

In that moment, it was easy to throw stones at the small segment of people in and around the voodoo priest’s home. They were definitely in the minority of the thousands of plastic draped homes we saw. And yet, I realized that as Christians we do the same thing.

We think of ourselves as believers, but so often we wait for a tragedy before getting our life right with the Lord. And worse than that, there are times when we go through a bad time and leave God out of the picture, just as some of these people have done.

Time passes. Sometimes exactly three months pass. And we turn back to our old ways. As we pulled into the Samaritan’s Purse compound, I considered that if we go through a tough situation and don’t grow closer to the Lord, all we’ve done is go through a tough situation.

"Your life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone." James 4:14.

A while back we came across a little 11-year-old girl with badly deformed arms and legs. Her name is Nellie and she sits on a folding chair all day long, unable to move around or play or take care of herself. This past week we were able to pick up a wheelchair for her! We praise God for this tiny, brave little girl who has such big challenges in her life, and we are thankful for His loving care.

The clinic at Cite Soleil dealt with a premature baby a couple of weeks ago named Lybensky Obas. The 17-year-old mom continues to come to the clinic and the nurses coach and encourage her in breastfeeding. So far, he has not gained any weight, but he hasn’t lost any, either. The medical team is still very concerned about him and asks for continued prayers for this precious little one, that he will start eating regularly, and that he flourishes and gains weight.

The rain started with scattered drops and then came down in torrents. In just a few minutes puddles formed and rivulets of water began snaking across the dry, rocky soil. Haiti’s dreaded rainy season may have begun with a fury.

Everyone’s thoughts and prayers turned to the thousands of homeless families living under sheets and blankets on the streets of Port-au-Prince and surrounding communities. There’s no way they could have stayed outside in this kind of weather.

I’m afraid that many sought shelter in the ruins of their earthquake-damaged homes. But the rush of wind and rain could easily cause damaged walls and roofs to collapse, potentially claiming more lives in the aftermath of an earthquake that already killed more than 230,000 people. The push to provide shelter for the homeless is more critical than ever.

This afternoon we walked through a new community of 56 families that had just moved into temporary shelters built by Samaritan’s Purse in Titiyan. The 12-by-12-foot homes are built around a sturdy wood frame, wrapped in our heavy-duty plastic, and topped with a corrugated metal roof. We were glad to know that the people we talked to today were safe and dry, sheltered from the storm.

A second community of 50 homes is being built several miles away. It will be finished in just a few days and more homeless families can begin moving in.

The push is on to build 7,500 shelters throughout Haiti in the weeks ahead. It’s a huge job, but the need is overwhelming. Please keep praying for the homeless in Haiti.

They are calling me McGyver here, although I have no idea who he is, apparently he is on a TV show.

Here is what happened late one afternoon, I think you may find it interesting.

A Jeep pulled into the mission hospital with a mother who was having a baby and she needed a Caesarean.  The medical team rushed up the hill to help her, got her in a wheelchair and into the Operating Room. Approximately 57 people followed.

There was a mad panic to find stuff, the supply room was locked, and of course, no key.  I sent three guys to find a screwdriver. While I was waiting I broke in with surgical scissors, the screwdriver arrived too late.

The team scrubbed up (I am getting pretty good with medical terminology). I call to get Nichol who is in the shower; she is the only nurse who has been here long enough to find everything - which is all over the place. She is brilliant.

Nichol asked me to help her make a suction tube for the baby. It’s easy, you tape a small hose to an oversize syringe, then tape the syringe to large suction tube, and voila.

I taped up an Operating Room curtain that hung in the way of everybody, which it has done ever since I have been here. I arrange for a standby van and a driver. Dr. Lance called up, he was awake most of the night with a burned little boy, but Dr. Potts wanted him up right away.

Chaplain Brian then made the whole event stop so he could pray, which is a good thing, I think. We cleared the 57 people out of the Operating Room, which had turned into a really popular place.

I refused to watch the operation, which the nurses think that is quite funny.

The baby came in the arms of Dr. Lance. The women were all screaming, “He is sooo cute.” He has 3 thumbs. Honest.

I took a lot of photos with Nichol’s camera and take the camera out to show to father and the 56 other people. We took him in to see the baby and he hugged everybody and was all smiles. It turned out he may not be the father because the mother won't let him in the Operating Room. She was afraid the he would steal the baby. And it also turned out she was rushed up to the hospital just after a voodoo ceremony which included getting beaten with sticks.

So, the medical team is brilliant, but I don't know how they would manage without me....

All the way home as I tried to find a space of serenity in the midst of the busy airport, I wonder why that last girl had to come to our hospital to die. Why did death keep winning? Thinking of that along with the disturbing realization of how easy it was for us to just get on a plane and close the door on all the tragedy we have just experienced, leave it all behind, I found myself in tears. Then the Lord said to me, “If they call on me, Death does not win. I give them eternal life.” There is really no mistaking the sense of urgency that exists in this small island country right now. It is urgency for complete healing of this nation to restore community, families, hope, and purpose. There is so much more going on than healing physical wounds because people have no homes, are missing family members to go back to or to be with in a hospital, and they relive their memories of the moment they escaped but left loved ones behind, every day. I wonder how they are not angry with God.

Haitians are very spiritual people. They believe in spirits good and bad. They live in fear of them. It is not a source of strength. The spirits control their lives despite them. They think it is unbelievable some of us don’t believe in God. But God never ceases to amaze me. That He could show Himself to these people in such a way that comforts them is incredible to me. That they can be comforted is amazing. That they could meet a God whom they don’t need to fear but who knows and cares for them individually is life-changing for them. I am so thankful we could share that with them, carry some of that burden for them, and take their load for just a while. I toured many other sites downtown and was met with the hustle and bustle of busy surgeons and nurses rhyming off all the cases they had done and all those they had yet to do. Bedsides were void of someone to wash them, turn them, to hold their hand. Names were numbers. No stories were told. It might seem appropriate in such a setting, but, on second thought, to believe that saving a limb is all that is needed seems simplistic, even foolish.

I realize that even when the fight feels so physical, with every chest compression and unit of blood you give; it is a spiritual battle we fight. The battle is no different than the one we fight afterward when we sit with the patients and pray with them, hear their story, feel their loss, encourage them. I realize it is a truth that seems strange to many of you. Some of you will call it a myth or “religion”, and this letter has already crossed the ‘comfortable line’ in terms of spirituality. But I think I would fail to do justice to the suffering of these people if I neglected to tell you about the rest of their story, the one that plays in all of us, and the one that will continue long after they’ve mourned their loved ones or learned to walk with their amputations. The story is about wholeness, purpose and hope and goes beyond limbs and loss of homes and family. Surely this must make you ask yourself what life is. What is it made of? What is it for?

Whether this was ‘the big one’ that hit or whether the predictions are true and there is another bigger quake coming, this is their chance to turn and call on God and be restored, before the clarity and truth that such tragedy brings, dies down, and they are overwhelmed again in the crippling hopelessness of the life they knew. Isaiah 55:6-9 came to my mind the day I landed in Haiti and it repeats in my mind even now. It says, roughly paraphrased, “Seek the Lord while you can find Him. Call on Him while He is near. His thoughts are completely different from yours, and His ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” It is not that He that hides himself from us, but that we often bury ourselves in our own concerns so we can not find Him or the bigger picture. It would be a tragedy for the world to extend a life only for it to be lived in hopelessness and lost for eternity. After all, what is life if it is merely the beating of a heart? There must be more to life than this. I know I would be a fool to think otherwise.

Thank you for listening.

- Kara Gibson

I am almost home. I think at two weeks I hit my wall. It is now almost three and I am ready to be done, but it is hard to reconcile walking out of so much devastation and loss for people with names and faces you now know. When you see the buildings, three concrete slab floors layered one on top of the other like stacks of paper you realize for many there wasn’t a chance to get out.  When you smell the air and the unfamiliar stench of Port au Prince, you realize hidden in the rubble are the graves of many.  Of course some have been found as the rubble is cleared, mostly by the hands of desperate friends and relatives, now by machines and people looking to scavenge building material.  The dead are frozen in time, arms up as if they were going to climb out.  Sometimes it is just two feet or an arm you see between the layers of rubble.  Some bodies have been retrieved with no one and no system to identify them.  To avoid the stench and disease that comes with the abandoned bodies they are burned in the street or tossed into mass graves.  People are everywhere, roaming the empty dusty streets, scrambling over fallen buildings.  But for a moment, Haitians all relate to each other again. They are united in tragedy for a time.

Our team was simply a gift.  I have never experienced medical people, strangers, working together so well.  We became anything that was needed. Our general surgeon did only 2 surgeries but assisted and did dressing changes every day for dozens and dozens. He sat at bedsides, held patients hands, and moved patients in and out of their beds.  Everyone washed their own instruments and cleaned floors, even the administrator of the local hospital.  Surgeons brought and returned patients to their beds, did night-time rounds to be sure all the patients would make it comfortably through the night, filled empty shelves and sorted through boxes for whatever was needed whenever they had a moment. We spent evenings sitting at bedsides and you would even find us singing songs. We took patients outside until they were mobile on crutches, and drained most of our team’s blood into them. There was not one "that's not my job".  There was not a single showdown of wills or claiming of rights when it came to decisions. 

We lost a young woman, the day before I left.  She wasn’t even a tragic earthquake victim.  She wasn’t buried under rubble until her father found her by calling her name until she heard him under the 8 feet of rubble of her school.  She didn’t lose her spouse and her baby who were showering in the other room the moment of the earthquake, and then lay there for a day until she could pull herself out, knowing she was laying beside her dead baby and husband, not sure if she really wanted to pull herself out. No, she was chronically and profoundly anemic, with only minor wounds to her feet.  She had made it.

But her eyes were white like the ceiling.  I’d seen those eyes before… and lost the young patient.  I thought to myself, I just can’t do it again.  I had already fought for and lost so many young men and women.  She was about to go into cardiac arrest.  We raced down the hall with her on a stretcher to our mini ICU/OR.  Dr Claude, our young Haitian colleague, came in immediately with his arm out saying “I am O+”.  I quickly took his blood and pushed it into her, but she was already arresting.  With every chest compression I prayed, I plead, “please God save her,” but after two rounds of CPR and a CXR showing a very large heart we knew we couldn’t win.  Again, death had won.  I left the other anesthetists to finish.  I couldn't lose one more person.  She had come in with minor wounds to her feet, now 22 days old.  She had sat there all day in our hallway waiting calmly.  Then after moving her to a wheelchair and looking at her feet she suddenly went into heart failure and died.  We could not resuscitate her.  I don't know where their blood goes. The deaths are always unexpected.

Despite being emotionally spent and physically exhausted, you could not help but be blessed by witnessing the selflessness of the team around you, the missionaries for whom this work will continue for months to come, and the local staff working alongside us, many with their own tragic stories.  It was so humbling and beautiful to watch. We have done a very bad job being the church in this world, but if you want to see what the church is meant to be, being the hands and feet of Jesus, you had to witness these people serving these devastated individuals, sometimes unlovely but each one loved.

- Kara Gibson

There was a movie by that name in the 70's about law students chasing the paper licensing them for the Bar. Well this week has been a paper chase for me of a different kind.

There were two containers of plastic tarp that arrived in Haiti a week ago. All the documents were ready to be submitted to the officials on Monday, but when our broker submitted the documents, the Bill of Lading from the shipping company had an error. Because of that, the application was not accepted.

A request was made Monday afternoon to get the document corrected. Tuesday, there were more e-mails and phone messages. Wednesday the saga continued with no action from the shipping line. Thursday, the Haitian partner of the shipping line said that he could change the documents if I came to see him in St Marc - about 1.5 hours away. Friday, bright and early, I was on my way to see him but when we arrived, we discovered that he did not have the originals and could not make the change without them. That meant a trip back to Port au Price to get the originals from our broker and then back to the shipper's office. We returned to St Marc at 2 and by 4, after three attempts, I had the documents I needed to present, but the government offices closed at 3. Hallelujah, I had the paper we had been chasing for four days.

While I was doing that, the broker working on releasing our kitchen equipment went to the government department that we need to submit our request to for duty free importation. When she got there she was informed that they were no longer the department that accepted the application and that she needed to go to another department.

In Canada, this is frustrating, in Haiti after an earthquake, it is maddening. When you ask where the new department is, you are told “We don't know what building they are in now, but you need to go there.” Not every chase is successful every time. We are very glad that God is in complete control of all of this, as the song goes "God makes all things beautiful - IN HIS TIME."

Three nights ago, one of the young nurses and her friend, a surgeon from Quebec, began a sing-along in her ward. It took about 15 minutes for every mobile person in the hospital to find their way to the music ... people in wheelchairs, on crutches, with broken arms and broken bodies. Other staff began to carry people in.

The nurse began to pray and then to cry and it was like a wind of heaven moved across the room.

Every night since then, the whole hospital has gathered in a different ward for those who can't get out of their beds. They sing and they pray and it is like an old-fashioned revival is happening. You have to see it to believe it.

It lasted for almost two hours tonight. Little ladies with broken arms were praying at the top of their lungs. A little boy carried in by a nurse was singing at the top of his lungs. A young man depressed because his leg was amputated was laughing and singing and high-fiving everyone he could reach.

You should hear them pray ... and of course sing. This is really an amazing story. The whole hospital is singing and praying. There is incredible harmony with the staff, and the new team from America. We are all up there singing along as best we can. And the tall young nurse and surgeon from Quebec pray and cry and pray again—in French. I’ve never seen anything like it. All these battered and broken and hurt people … brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Best of all, several have made decisions to accept Jesus as Savior. Nobody has prayed or asked them, they just smile up at you and say I asked Jesus into my heart while you were singing.

Brilliant.

I’m back from the destruction and chaos that is Haiti. For the first couple of days I was relieved to be out of the stress, the long days and short nights, the images, the heat, the mosquitoes, the exhaustion. Normalcy and her sister, routine, are great antidotes for a man who has just returned from a physical and emotional context of total disorder.

For some strange reason, however, I feel drawn back again and again to the streets of Port-au-Prince. I’m physically home, but my mind has never left the rubble of Haiti. How does one go about the mundane tasks of the day when one knows something so monumental is happening on an island not-so-far away?

I see myself walking the narrow paths of tent camps in Leogane, wandering the dark and empty square of what was once the colonial gem of Petit Goave, now turned into rubble. Children dark as coal call after me “blanc, blanc” (white man, white man). In my dreams I’m organizing distributions, talking to camp leaders, digging pit latrines. I’ve never left the rubble and ashes of Haiti.

I’m still there, roaming the cracked roads between Leogane and Petit Goave. Using the cover of night to conduct drive-by distributions of tarps in IDP camps for fear our truck would be mobbed by the masses. Wandering the dusty debris of an orphanage that has completely been destroyed, not a soul in sight.

I was active for the whole time in Haiti. I felt like I was cruising on a wave of adrenalin mixed with caffeine and the diesel fumes from our Nissan Navara pick-up.

Our expeditionary team was sent from Port-au-Prince to set up camp in the Leogane/ Grand Goave area on the west coast, a place that had been the epicenter of the quake and that saw 90 percent of its structures damaged or flattened. We set up a sub-base, focusing on safe water provision, sanitation, and distribution of non-food item (NFIs) in displaced persons camps.

We also initiated a rubble removal program in the ruins of the cities using heavy machinery and local labor.

We all worked long and hard hours: 6 a.m. wake-up, on the road by 7, work ‘til 5 p.m. without any lunch, return to camp at 6 p.m.—sometimes later. Dinner served at 6:30 p.m. by the local cook, followed by a short devotional and a meeting to plan tomorrow’s activities, and then up to midnight or later on the computer most days. Once or twice I was too tired to feel the tremors and aftershocks and run out of the room.

But despite the seemingly unceasing activity, God provided supernatural strength and I was surprised that my body did not give in to the lack of sleep and the scarcity of food.

Regardless of the action and movement, my feelings and emotions were frozen for most of the time I spent on this half-island. The images, smells, and sounds were too monumental to take in and digest, the human suffering just too overwhelming to comprehend.

So one went about focusing on the activities of the day—planning and executing, delegating tasks, defining solutions.

The misery and hopelessness still seeped in sometimes, shaking our souls. Like the morning a motorcycle crashed into our pickup and rolled down the hill with its two riders. We thought we had killed them as they lay on the ground semi-conscious and bleeding. Just another day in Haiti; two more deaths added to the local suffering and pain.

We drove them to a nearby clinic and, miraculously, they walked home that day. I was reminded again and again that someone larger than us is in control. Our destinies are in His hands, whether we are Haitians or North Americans. Death is part of living, and no human has power over either.

The falling slabs of concrete did not distinguish between rich and poor, the weak and the powerful. No race or class was spared. Priests, beggars, businessmen, U.N. chiefs, street vendors, children, women, the elderly—death picked whomever it desired.

I have talked to local pastors and heard this notion often: the quake was God’s justice on Haiti for its iniquities. One pastor in Gressier was certain that the collapse of the presidential palace and governmental offices in Port-au-Prince were a sure sign of God’s wrath against the government and the years of corruption and abuse of power. The land is cursed, many say, because freed slaves made a pact with the devil in the founding of the Republic in 1804, dedicating their nation to the voodoo gods after winning the revolution.

Maybe. I’ve seen the voodoo temples myself (one was spared by the quake and stood intact at the center of Leogane), and heard their drumbeat rising at night as if from beyond the darkness.

But when faced with such a cataclysm, I like to crawl back to a passage in John 9, which tells the story of the healing of a beggar born blind. Rather than focus on whose fault it was that the man was blind and reduced to begging at the city’s gates, our Lord turns the question on its head declaring: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned … but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”

Clearly, sin has always been a painful part of the human condition and is always present where humans are active. But the lesson of the passage is this: do not focus on people’s sins, which always leads to judgment and to death, but rather focus on the opportunity to display the work of God in peoples’ lives, to manifest the power of the Spirit in the midst of suffering, even in this place of wrath and tears.

Thus in the darkest moments dwells the hope of light. The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the pain, the closer is God. It is no wonder then that thousands are now turning to Him in Haiti, turning to life, turning to the light of the world.

Two things struck me most in Haiti.

First, the resilience of the people. One needs to see it to believe it. How does a nation recover from such devastation? How does a mother face tomorrow when her home has been obliterated—with everything inside including appliances, toys, clothes, photo albums, and memories?

Her life’s savings have vanished in the rubble and dust that once were the city’s banks. Loved ones have faded into the eternal vault of death. How does one muster the strength to go on?

Another nation suffering such a calamity, with more than 200,000 dead and large segments of the populace displaced, might have sunk into collective anguish. I know I certainly would if I had seen my wife and sons expire under cement slabs and found myself on the streets, alone.

And yet the Haitian people are able to stand up, readjust to their new and entirely miserable conditions, and live. A week or so after the quake, markets re-opened and people tried to piece together what was left and adjust into some sort of normalcy.

It isn’t easy. Tent villages are built from twigs and old blankets and plastic. There is nowhere to go to relieve oneself. The next meal is uncertain.

Yet the relentless and extraordinary resolve of Haitians only grows. Nou pap lage—we won’t give up. Our heads are bloody, yet unbowed. We’ll fight everything you throw at us with the only thing we have left: our spirit and our will to stand firm.

Secondly, I was struck by the dedication and sacrifices of the group of men I worked with shoulder to shoulder, my colleagues, my brothers in arms.

These brothers were a collection of volunteers, engineers, soldiers, and aid workers who came to Haiti from different countries and walks of life. I suspect the camaraderie we developed held us physically and emotionally together, sustaining us from the strain and bewilderment of working in ground zero.

One of these men, an active lieutenant colonel in the Army, had just returned to the U.S. for home leave after six months of battling the Taliban in Afghanistan when the quake struck. With his wife’s encouragement, he decided to leave his family once again to help out in Haiti.

Another, a water engineer, worked without a break for three weeks, and was only relieved of his duties when a message came that his father had passed away back home.

I can still picture another colleague, a civil engineer, being lowered down a contaminated well on a rope to scrape human feces from the walls, so that people in the nearby camp would feel psychologically comfortable to drink the water that our chlorination plant would later filter.

Volunteer doctors serving with Samaritan’s Purse at a field hospital above Port-au-Prince donated their own blood while they took a respite from attending the injured.

Surgeons serving as nurses; lieutenant colonels serving as logisticians; security chiefs serving as pit diggers. What dedication. What love. In a world ever too absorbed by the material, the trivial, the superfluous, the superficial, every now and then people come together to forgo self and love their neighbor as themselves.

On this half-island, we all discovered the power of God displayed through us in simple acts of service drenched in sweat and blood. This disaster has brought the world together, reminding us of our common human frailty and our own mortality.

It also reminds us of the tremendous human capacity for action. Each has contributed according to his or her ability. Each went the extra mile to make a small dent in the sea of need and grief, to win a small battle in this place of wrath and tears.

Haiti has taught us that all God wants of His followers is to be obedient to His calling—and He shall do the rest.

And let it be on this half-isle, above the chocking dust, that tears have also bound His eyes, that on His heart we’re cast.

After graduating from university, I was looking for an adventure!  Growing up in a small community, “Love thy neighbour” was central to our Christian beliefs.  I was grateful to be chosen to serve God through Samaritan’s Purse, with the 2004 Bio-sand internship in Vietnam.  Since that time, I have also been honoured to serve on their Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) in Sri Lanka, Mozambique, China, and most recently, Haiti.  The people affected by these disasters are as much our neighbours as the folks down the street.

The media did not exaggerate the stories of tragedy, despair and destruction in the aftermath of the earthquake.  Images of blood and corpses were real.   In Leogane and surrounding areas, it is estimated that 90% of the buildings are inhabitable.  With the rainy season approaching, tangible results were desperately needed in a quick and effective fashion.  Samaritan’s Purse went to work, bringing in talent with medical personnel, logistics specialists, heavy machinery operators, health and hygiene promoters, water technicians, engineers, etc.  Then there was the material; Enough wood to build 2000 latrines, twenty community water filters, food, medicine, shelter, heavy equipment and the list goes on.  The organization, the quick response, the results were truly remarkable!

I was specifically involved with the community water filters.  Within one month of the earthquake, we had thirteen water filtration systems up and running.  Each filter has a capacity to produce 40,000L of clean potable water per day.  It is estimated that we were providing water for approximately 28,000 Haitians on a daily basis.  With seven more filters to be set up, that number will only grow!

I enjoy setting up community water filters.  You have the tremendous privilege to interact with a lot of people from the local community.  You get to see the excitement on the faces of the Haitian people when they first quench their thirst with clean water.  You form a bond with the local water operator whom you train.  You visit with them time and time again as you follow their progress operating such an important system.  Then there are the kids.  Kids being kids.  Laughing, smiling, playing.  They love helping out with the set up.  They ask questions.  Their curiosity and carefree attitude is admirable, and difficult to understand when so many have lost a parent, grandparent, brother, sister, or friend.

After completing set-up at the market in Petit Goave, we left knowing that 1000 people would benefit from the clean water being filtered at this one site.  We left feeling good, but knowing that there was much more work to do, and many more people that needed help.  When we came back a couple of days later, the words ‘Thank you’ were painted on the walls above the tap.  This brought tears to my eyes.  Thank you was written to those who made donations for a project like this to be possible.  We know that we are the stewards of God’s gifts of money and talents, and that whatever we do for our brothers and sisters, we do for Him. 

Three nights ago, one of the young nurses and her friend, a surgeon from Quebec, began a sing-along in her ward. It took about 15 minutes for every mobile person in the hospital to find their way to the music ... people in wheelchairs, on crutches, with broken arms and broken bodies. Other staff began to carry people in.

The nurse began to pray and then to cry and it was like a wind of heaven moved across the room.

Every night since then, the whole hospital has gathered in a different ward for those who can't get out of their beds. They sing and they pray and it is like an old-fashioned revival is happening. You have to see it to believe it.

It lasted for almost two hours tonight. Little ladies with broken arms were praying at the top of their lungs. A little boy carried in by a nurse was singing at the top of his lungs. A young man depressed because his leg was amputated was laughing and singing and high-fiving everyone he could reach.

You should hear them pray ... and of course sing. This is really an amazing story. The whole hospital is singing and praying. There is incredible harmony with the staff, and the new team from America. We are all up there singing along as best we can. And the tall young nurse and surgeon from Quebec pray and cry and pray again—in French. I’ve never seen anything like it. All these battered and broken and hurt people … brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Best of all, several have made decisions to accept Jesus as Savior. Nobody has prayed or asked them, they just smile up at you and say I asked Jesus into my heart while you were singing.

Brilliant.

Remember Radar from MASH? My hero. Popcorn, a nice cup of tea and a few episodes of MASH, perfect way to spend a winter evening back in Canada.

This is a little like MASH Haiti, and I think I’m getting the hang of things. I don’t steal stuff like Radar did and there is no Hawkeye or Colonel…I forget his name. Klink? But I confess I remember some of Radar’s…techniques.

We have choppers. I must tell you this episode, it is quite funny.

See, when the earthquake hit, the hospital here needed a landing site for helicopters. So Pastor Baker found a good sized cabbage patch about a kilometer up the mountain that was flat, relatively speaking.

The first challenge was to explain to the little farmer guy that owned the patch that the first time a Navy chopper landed, there would be an enormous amount of cabbage hitting the fan, as it were. In fact, I am surprised a few people didn’t really get nailed with some of the coleslaw flying around. 

The farmer guy insisted this was a very valuable cabbage patch and that he would be happy to sell it for a fair price. Pastor Baker tried to bargain, but he was up against it. When choppers are coming in with wounded, you have to work fast. So he made the deal. You can see the farmer guy wandering around here; he has a pretty wide grin.

 A couple of days ago, we got the word that a Navy chopper would be coming in to medi-vac one of the patients here. No set time, just be on 30-minute standby.

We also got word that Samaritan’s Purse little chopper was coming in.

Now I thought the Navy was pretty strict about things like schedules. Not these guys, without warning we heard this enormous “whump whump whump” and there it was, the Navy chopper circling the cabbage patch.

“Choppers, choppers!” I couldn’t resist, running around in circles, yelling and waving my arms.

We had everything ready, a pickup truck, and a lady on the stretcher and about 15 or so medics, nurses, doctors and me. We got the lady on the truck and all 15 of us climbed on to be sure she didn’t fall off. I don’t know how some of us stayed on.

With the horn howling, the engine roaring, and the gears grinding, up the hill we went, dodging motorcycles, roosters, pigs, and hundreds of people.

At the cabbage patch, sorry, the helicopter pad, there were already 500 people there, standing all around, kind of like a sporting event.

All 15 of us spilled out the back of the truck, rushing the little lady on the stretcher across the cow patties and left over cabbages to the huge Navy helicopter. What a brilliant show. Like a circus really. Better than MASH, hands down.

And then the funniest thing I ever saw. The little Samaritan’s Purse chopper twirled up the valley about 30 seconds after the Navy chopper landed and you could see it circling around overhead. Like a mosquito and a hawk.  

I’m still grinning about it…just brilliant.

It rained last night. That is about 3 nights in a row. Yow would think that would keep the dust down, but it doesn't. More importantly, rain is not a good thing when people in the shanty towns that have sprung up all over are hiding under blankets and scraps of anything that they could turn into a shelter from the sun.

Last Tuesday we made a call to the Haitian ambassador to the USA to ask him to help us get the materials released from the Port. They have been stuck there since we unloaded the barge Wednesday and Thursday the previous week. Wednesday afternoon, we received word that we were able to, over the next couple of days, transport everything to our base, including all the rolls of reinforced plastic shelter material.

Yesterday and today there have been hundreds of pieces of reinforced plastic shelter material cut to size to give to families. These teams are going to be cutting reinforced plastic shelter material pieces at a rate of up to 1000 per day. Church leaders have been coming to collect them for distribution to the people. There is an organization that David Torres connected with the other day that has 2500 members who are not sleeping under a proper roof and could use blankets.

The last food distribution of the first big push finished yesterday, 5791 families were given a big bag of rice. In the last 15 days in Cite Soliel (the largest slum in Haiti) Samaritan’s Purse has distributed food for about 330,000 or so people. The World Food Program is in talks with us to do much more.

John Clayton, from the Canadian office arrived Thursday and is leading the charge in prototyping a repeatable shelter structure that is relevant for places like Cite Soleil. It is very different from what we were able to do in Indonesia after the tsunami simply because of the mass of humanity in such a confined space.

There is lots more work to do here. The scope of the manpower and money need to resolve the need is staggering. Thank you to all of you who make it possible to change lives down here. An extra thanks to those of you who have or will continue to give over the two to ten years that are actually needed to do the job.

Even though we knew what to expect, we didn’t know the emotions we would feel, actually being with the people. Our first stop was at a feeding station at a tent camp where thousands of people from Haiti’s worst slum live. (We saw these “tents” all over the place in Port-au-Prince. They are made of whatever people could find, but most are made of bed sheets.) People waited in lines for hours for their share of massive bags of rice … and there isn’t enough even though 45 tons are given out a day at that one place, and there are 16 feeding stations around the city! The need is that great.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget the faces of hunger and desperation I saw that morning. A sea of people standing in the hot sun just hoping to eat a little rice that day. A few times I lost it and let the tears flow.

We drove around the city in a van with a Haitian pastor who lost his wife, baby, mother, and mother-in-law. He showed us his home where they died, crushed underneath a five-story school where many children lost their lives. It was an extremely difficult stop, and we gathered around the pastor and prayed next to the rubble of his home.

A wonderful U.S. Captain went everywhere with us (hey Jill, if you read this, you’re awesome!) We were continually blown away by the hard work and compassion of our military as they worked alongside Samaritan’s Purse (and everywhere else we went!) Pray for them when you pray for the people of Haiti. They are dealing with a crisis beyond what anyone is ever prepared for.

We walked around and talked to people at a “tent city” in a park right across the collapsed Presidential Palace, which you’ve probably seen in the news. Many of the people were worried about the rainy season coming up. Where would they live? Even the homes that survived are unstable and everyone fears aftershocks.

One mom said she had no baby food for her baby. The kids I saw were beautiful, and my heart went out to them. Their future is so uncertain. I couldn’t help but compare the little ones to my grandkids who have everything they need. I felt helpless to meet those specific needs, but so thankful to be giving to those who are doing everything they can to help.

We stopped at a makeshift medical clinic staffed by U.S. doctors and nurses. There were long lines of people waiting, and it was a relief to know that, at least for these, there were capable doctors and supplies at the end of their wait. Just another way your dollars are going to directly serve these people!

After a packed day, we started back home and started processing what we had just experienced. My hope is that I can convey to you and lots of others how great the need is in Haiti. It will be great for several years to come, and Franklin Graham told me that Samaritan’s Purse will be there for the long term. I think our military will be too, and I plan to return for a weekend so I can lead Sunday morning worship. (I got a lot of requests!)

Finally, remember we are the hands and feet of Jesus. People are praying for and receiving miracles in Haiti. People are caring for the hungry, sick, and grieving. And those people are there because someone gave generously to get them there, with the supplies they need to help.

The people of Haiti are survivors; they’ve never had it easy. But our greatest hope is that this devastating tragedy could bring about a spiritual awakening that will bring true freedom to these people. God is on the move in Haiti, among his children who truly shine in the darkness, in spite of their own suffering.

Visit Michael W. Smith's website to read the entire blog.

February 13

It is a brilliant, blue morning filled with sunshine here in the mountains of Haiti. There is a cool morning breeze, a breeze you don’t get down in Port-au-Prince.

There are hundreds of people in the Haiti Baptist Mission church, spilling out the doors and the windows. Colors in motion, busy bustle. Men first setting up old school benches outside in the sun, then they are putting up a huge blue Samaritan’s Purse tarp for shade.

Beautiful ladies, dressed in white, yellow, brilliant reds and blues and greens. Children all scrubbed and clean, fathers dressed in Sunday best.

I stand quite a ways back pressing myself up against the wall of the hospital. I don’t really want to be seen. “I shouldn’t be here,” I think.

I don’t know what to do, what to think, what to feel. Death has won; hundreds of thousands are buried under mountains of bricks and concrete and iron bars. And there are survivors; over there a beautiful young woman in a wheelchair, a boy on crutches, and a little girl with her arm missing all bandaged up by the doctors and nurses here at the hospital.

And they hurt.

So I listen.

To the music. Infinite, as far into the human spirit as eternity.

Music of grief.

Jesus is worthy…I know that song, not in Creole, but in English.

No one ever cared for me like Jesus, there’s no other friend so kind as He…I know this one too. 

But I can’t sing, I don’t dare sing. It is not right for me to sing.

Then in the bright colors and gentle wind, a song of melancholy… I’d rather have the earth beneath my feet, yes I would, if I could, I only would…and then a solemn pause and from the unspeakable grief of a thousand souls a solemn wail…ummm, ummm.

Tears stream down my face. I press back against the wall. The fellow over there, maybe a father, his head on his arms, wiping the tears away. I wonder who he has lost. The young girl, well a teenager, head in her mother’s lap, still, silent, maybe she is singing. 

I help heal, we all do here. My friends, the brilliant surgeons from the US, the RN’s, and the Dutch nurse from South America.

I can help heal, but I can’t help grieve.

The music swells, rides the wind off the mountain. How high does it go, how far? Do the angels listen? Do they weep? Surely they can share the grief. I was given watch over her, my little girl, Father. I cannot understand the depths of Your Will, but she was my little girl.

A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, a wonderful Savior to me.

Over there a lady begins to sway, a man lifts his hands, another one and then dozens, and hundreds, swaying, singing, hands lifted in grief and praise to the Great Creator.

I know this song too. I begin to hum along, quietly. And then I sing a few of the words, He hideth my life in the depths of His Love and covers me there with His hand.

Jesus feels it. All of it. All the hurt, the pain, the suffering, the despair.

And they feel this. This is deeper than knowing. This is Cosmic, Divine. This is right There, in the Father’s heart.

And when you feel this, the greater song begins. Hope, that’s what it is.

There is something else I can feel, power unspeakable, filled with glory, eternal, mightier than any earthquake could ever be, stronger than death.

There is a Redeemer. Jesus. And this is enough.

He sees them, He knows them. Jesus loves them, He loves them.

I find myself whistling along now, here in the shade. A smile tugs at my face, not as wide or cheerful as theirs are, and maybe I can’t feel life and death like they do, and I surely can’t sing like they do, but I try.

No, I can’t share the grief. Or the Victory. I can only feel it. And for me, that is enough.

Younel, the shepherd boy, is 12 years old. He and his family live an hour or so out of the city of Port-au-Prince, high up in the beautiful cool, mountains of Haiti.

I call Younel the shepherd boy, but actually his sheep is the family’s only goat. Every morning his chore is—well, was—to take the goat up along a little path and up to the beautiful mountain meadows. In the evening he would herd the goat home.

Then came January 12, 2010, another seemingly gentle, kind Haiti evening.

The world will never forget it. Younel will never forget it either. As the massive earthquake rumbled across the mountains and down towards Port-au-Prince, boulders of all sizes began bounding down the mountainside.

Younel dodged some, but he couldn’t avoid them all. A large boulder got him square on his right side, smashing his arm and his leg.

His family found him and rushed him to Haiti Baptist Mission hospital. Hundreds of patients were horribly injured. The hallways were utter chaos, slippery with blood, panic, death. Yet nurses, doctors, and support staff were absolutely brilliant, somehow just getting it done.

Younel was soon on the operating table, and his injuries were treated.

Jack and Beck, chaplains with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team, visited Younel several days after his surgery. As they knelt by his bed and held his hand, Jack explained through an interpreter that he would be happy to pray for him. Younel agreed. They prayed, and over the next days became friends.

Then one day Younel prayed with Jack and asked Christ into his heart.

Younel, one of nine children, soon will be an orphan. His father died in December. His mother visits him at the hospital sometimes, but it is difficult for her. She has terminal breast cancer.

Please remember the little shepherd boy with the big eyes and the brilliant smile. Would you do that? Pray for his brothers, his mother—pray for Haiti.

Working in relief has some benefits. Yesterday (February 7), we got an invitation to watch the Superbowl with 3000 members of the 82 Airborne in a soccer field on a 20 foot screen. Today it is back to work, not that we were off yesterday. 

The second barge was scheduled to have a docking slot Tuesday morning, but over the weekend the ship's captain thought that he could get in between two other ships. We were called to the dock when he tried but it turns out that it was not a viable option, so we sit, waiting for the opportunity to unload the equivalent of 400 pallets. It is expected to be a six to eight hours process, minimum. 

The sub-bases in Leogane and Petit Goave have all the supplies they need to continue on, so the unloading of the barge does not affect operations focused on the people of Haiti. On the barge is lumber and plastic tarp (for emergency shelters), forklifts, trucks and other materials. Partnerships in the field are critical, especially with local churches and missionaries, who can help us get labor, equipment, and cut through red tape.

Our food distribution teams continue to be out of the compound before the crack of dawn, they tried to distribute 80,000 lbs yesterday (February 7). The rest of us get to sleep in until chapel at 6:30.

The clinic team is starting to see patients today in Cite Soliel, right on schedule. They arrived with me on Saturday and have spent the weekend packaging the pills in unit doses. The church and other Samaritan’s Purse staff have done a great job getting things set up in the clinic building for them.

9:30 a.m. On the plane again, this time an 18-seat twin-prop flying over the ocean. We loaded up and left Ft. Lauderdale at 8:30. I’m feeling restless and loaded with adrenalin. I got to bed at 1:06 last night, and my mind was racing till 1:48, then up at 5:45. Six of the other seven folks going into Haiti are medical volunteers who will be starting the clinic in Cite Soleil. The other lady, with years of experience in Jordan and Sudan, is looking at what Samaritan’s Purse can do in Haiti for the long term – livelihood projects, housing construction, and more.

We are flying to Turks and Caicos, where we will refuel and wait for our assigned time to land at the Port-au-Prince airport. I hear the food in Haiti will be rice and beans. Imagine, I was trying to order that in a Mexican restaurant this past Thursday night. Now, looking down on the ocean, I’m getting nervous. We are having fun now, laughing and joking, but what is it that awaits us?

9:06 p.m. I’m here. Getting through the airport was interesting. We landed on the tarmac and had to carry all of our gear and cargo out by hand. Trucks are no longer allowed to meet the planes. Immigration is up too. People that came a week ago didn’t get a visa stamp or have to stand in line at all. There are military personnel all over the airport, including choppers and aircraft of all sorts. We ran into a solder from Trenton, Ontario.

We found the Samaritan’s Purse team and vehicles. As we head out, we drive by the first big crack, which happened to be in the airport itself. Thirty seconds later we see the first tent city. There are many on the way to the base. We went into Cite Soleil, the poorest slum in Haiti, which reminded me of the squatter barrios in Brazil. Samaritan’s Purse has removed the rubble from the church there and has stocked a medical clinic that will start seeing patients on Monday.

My initial role will be to take over from the logistics fellow bringing in the barges. The second Samaritan’s Purse barge arrived today but it can’t get a spot at the dock until Monday. The captain tried to get in today but couldn’t pull it off.  This barge will have lumber, forklifts, and enough plastic to provide shelter to over 32,000 families. 

2:30 p.m. MST My plane just took off from Calgary. I am reflecting on what people have been asking me the last few days.”What are you feeling? Fear? Excitement? Nervousness?” I’m not feeling fear, except for what I might see that may affect me adversely for years to come. Post traumatic stress disorder has been seen in the people coming out of Haiti.

As I sit here on the plane, the feeling that is coming over me most is eagerness. Now that the preparations have been made and I am on my way, I just want to get on with it.

We spent Thursday morning in the Cite Soleil slums, preparing for the distribution of blankets and shelter materials to some of the neediest people in Port-au-Prince.

A man named Joseph showed us what was left of the two-room home where he and his wife live with their five children. The outside wall to the bedroom collapsed, putting the room on display to the world. The bed and furniture were still in place, making it look like a room in a doll house.

The house isn’t safe to live in. The remaining block walls are cracked and tilted, but as Joseph said, “We have nowhere else to go.” Thousands of people like Joseph and his family are in the same situation.

We stopped on the path to watch a group of teenage boys play an intense game of dominoes. Somehow, the game seemed out of place, but it was another sign that people are trying to move on.

A man with a shovel was working in a vegetable garden. A street vendor with a push cart rolled by, ringing a bell to attract customers. Kids were trying to make handmade kites catch the breeze. A woman named Michelene was making “te” cakes, a biscuit-like treat made from fine clay, mixed with water, butter, and salt. Three cakes for 12 cents.

Then we saw Suzette, a little woman less than five-feet tall, crouched among a pile of concrete blocks. She was knocking off the old mortar with a hammer so the blocks could be reused. Her hands were white with concrete dust, and her face was dripping with sweat from working in the hot sun. The pile of rubble had been her home.

“I was in town when the earthquake came,” Suzette said. “There was all kinds of chaos. Cars were crashing into each other. I fell down three times. I said, ‘Jesus, save us! Not just to save me, but everyone.’”

When Suzette finally made it home, she discovered that her three children were safe, but her house was in ruins.

“I have no men to help me rebuild,” she said. “My husband left me so I have to do it all myself.”

How do you begin to help? Blankets and shelter materials are a start. But the scope of the Cite Soleil distribution is expected to expand to include food and other relief materials in the weeks and months ahead.

Please keep the people of Cite Soleil in your prayers.

It has been almost three weeks since I left Montreal. The ice and cold have been out of my mind all this time, but not the thoughts of my loved ones. 

As I had previously said it, this has been a focused, intense time of team work, and of seeing the shaping up of an organized, effective and forward looking Samaritan’s Purse team, fully engaged in relief, and the subsequent reconstruction work in Haiti. The barge arrived yesterday bringing heavy equipment for helping clearing out the piles of rubble that obstruct cities and towns, as well as many roads. Plastic sheeting, wood for temporary housing, and other relief products came in as well, in total there were 500 tons of materials & equipment on the barge.

Of all the places I’ve seen Cite Solei, especially Eglise Chretienne de Cite, has caught my imagination. I guess it has to do with the fact that I visited the church last October, as I recruited leaders for our Operation Christmas Child volunteer team. During that visit I was greeted by many smiling faces and gave fives to a lot of tiny hands. The entire campus, church, school and clinic, showed order, liveliness and an eagerness to make an impact on this impoverished and needy section of Port-au-Prince. This time, as a group of our relief team came inside the church campus in order to assess the extent of the damage, I was taken aback by the destruction caused by the earthquake. The walls of the compound were all down, the church building had serious structural problems and the sound of children at play was completely absent.

That initial assessment visit produced very concrete results as our team consolidated a partnership with the pastors of Eglise Chretienne de Cite. Our team leaders have enthusiastically and prayerfully planned massive distributions of relief materials – jerry cans for water usage, blankets, hygiene kits, plastic sheeting, also food items such as rice, beans, cooking oil – to thousands of families in the area.  Personally, I have felt the excitement rising at the prospect of these particular distributions.  Friday morning, a thousand families received the relief materials; there was order and safety all throughout the distribution.  The soldiers helping out with security, commented on the peaceful and well organized the lines of people receiving the relief items were.

Plans for next week include a team of doctors dispensing medical care to the residents of Cite Solei and further distributions of rations of food for thousands of families.

I leave Haiti this afternoon, much aware of the long and hard road ahead for the healing of a nation in grief, and the daunting task of sustained relief aid and eventual reconstruction projects. As small as my involvement in the relief effort has been, I’m thankful for the privilege of partnering with so many people in these past couple of weeks. Working side by side with my experienced and committed Samaritan’s Purse colleagues, as well as with national leaders, missionaries, Haitians of all walks of life, and many other volunteers, has been a great blessing and a source of much thanksgiving to God.  I want to thank our supporters for your prayers, sacrificial giving and your love expressed in so many different ways. 

Au revoir!

Of my many deployments with Samaritan's Purse around the world, this has been one of the most challenging.

In most disaster situations we are able to use local means to get the job done: local vehicles, phones, supplies, etc. When we arrived in Port-au-Prince, the entire city—Haiti’s major center of commerce, politics, and communication—lay in rubble before us.

It was even difficult to get our chartered plane into the airport because of the chaos below. We eventually were able to descend through the dust enshrouding the city. The runway was the only operational piece of the airport. There was no customs, immigration, or personnel on the tarmac. It was like landing in an abandoned airfield.

But the biggest challenges lay ahead.

From the very beginning I knew things would not happen as quickly as I had hoped. Transportation and communication were completely lacking, so we didn't have the means to get supplies out to the areas needed. We gathered as a team in prayer because this was way beyond our capabilities, both individually and corporately.

It was at that time we were reminded that despite the overwhelming challenges and immense needs, God has promised that He would go before us and He would make things happen.

When Christ sent out the disciples, they must have felt the same way we did. They were given a mission and told to take no food or water, to leave their former lives and families, and go and do His work. I guess everyone on the Samaritan's Purse team could relate to that, but the hard part to swallow was in Mathew 10:8—the part where they were also to “raise the dead, cast out demons.”

Doing without supplies was easy, but doing miracles—the really big things—was way out of our league. It was that realization that changed everything for us. We knew that if anything was going to happen in Haiti through Samaritan's Purse, we would have to do it in His strength. We had to get in God's league.

From then on it started to change. Things … just happened! Things just worked out. Connections were made, doors were opened, supplies got to hurting people.

We felt God's hand as I’ve never felt it before in any response. It was unmistakable! It was firm! It was unequivocal!

People on the team just started moving in one direction despite our lack of communication equipment. The Holy Spirit was speaking to people independently who would then arrive at the same place, at the same time, without any phone or radio communication. Supplies almost literally landed in our laps, followed shortly by a pastor who needed those exact supplies!

It was as if everything was being orchestrated by a divine conductor. The artist was painting the masterpiece, and the brush knew nothing of what was going on. It was as if His perfect will was being carried out right before our eyes, and our talents, skills, and resources were incidental to what He wanted to accomplish.

For many days we rested in this divine orchestration. At night when we came together to wrap up the day, we would rejoice as each team member said how firmly we could feel His direction in every step we took.

It was a great feeling! But we know why this happened. This was in no small part due to the constant and focused prayer we know was coming from people who were all following our progress, from headquarters to small churches that had invested in us.

We were told that people were praying like never before. We were told that donations were coming in like never before.

Despite what may be said about the people of Haiti, it has become unmistakably apparent to us on the ground that we have a God of Mercy; a God of second and third and fourth chances. We have a God who wants to redeem His creation and bring them to Him, no matter how far any person, people, or nation strays.

Many have given up hope for this little country because despite the tremendous amounts of money, effort, and resources that are pouring in, Haiti just doesn't seem to get any better. There are even whispers that Port-au-Prince should be abandoned. Almost 200,000 Haitians have already loaded on buses and left.

The rational mind might be able to justify throwing its hands up in defeat saying, “Yes, nothing here is salvageable.” But not our God, for we are assured that His love is perfect and cannot be diminished or overwhelmed.

His love is not in our league, and we can rest in this.

A few days ago I heard a comment made by a doctor talking about the small number of children injured during the earthquake. He suspected a large number of children were buried under the piles of rubble all over the city. My heart sunk after hearing his comments, I found it hard to fathom.

Today in Cite Solei, as we visited l’Eglise Chretienne, I noticed a young boy carrying a small transistor radio and a beaten down speaker. In his inventiveness, he had connected two small wires between the earphone jack and the speaker. I introduced myself to Jabor and congratulated him on his invention.  When he began to speak with me in Portuguese, I was even more impressed with the boy. A Brazilian sailor had taught him Portuguese, Jabor‘s dream is to go to Dominican Republic and look for work there; he’s only 12. The boy had seen his school collapse, as well as his own house; there was so much sadness reflected in his eyes.

As our team spent some time in Leogan assessing the needs at a camp, the big smile of a little girl carrying two plastic containers full of water, much too heavy for her size, touched me very much. She jumped at the opportunity to pose for a picture, kids just love to have their picture taken. Immediately she wanted to see the little screen of my cell phone, her smile grew bigger. 

Life in the makeshift camp seems oddly enough “normal.” A small poster hanging from one of the fragile dwellings read “We charge cell phones and I pods.” At another tent, a couple of young men were making kerosene lamps out of tin cans and empty baby food jars, selling them to passersby. At a corner of the camp, a woman was frying bananas and manioc at a small stand; her children were helping out. Japanese and Canadian soldiers were watchful of the comings and goings of everybody at the camp. Samaritan’s Purse is building latrines and planning distributions of hygiene kits, blankets and plastic sheeting for temporary shelter there.

Finally, I want to share about Jocelyn, a law student and secondary school teacher, who badly injured his right arm during the earthquake. Jocelyn is at peace and is convinced that no matter what, God works to make all things for the good of those that love him. His sharp mind is now focusing on trying to find practical ways to help the people at the makeshift camp on the Theological Seminary grounds. 

Three of us were in a pickup truck on the road back towards Port-au-Prince from Leogane. Outside the towns there are small settlements at regular intervals along the edge of the road or in the fields next to it—extended family groups or larger clusters up to village size. Sometimes these dispersed groups can miss out on the help more readily available to obvious large settlements in and around the major towns.

A senior SP worker had visited one such group and left plastic sheeting for shelter a day or so previously, promising to return with more help as soon as he could. This time we pulled up, got out the pickup and scrabbled up the low, dusty embankment. The half a dozen women and children in view suddenly became a small and friendly crowd.

One of the men stepped forward. “I thought we wouldn’t see you again,” he said, putting words to the quiet fear of abandonment which is commonly felt by those who have been left with so little.

We shook hands, chatted a little and then brought back two bales of Samaritan’s Purse blankets from the pick-up.

As we were getting ready to say goodbye, my colleague asked if they would like him to pray for them. I will never see a more eloquent answer as everyone—men, women and children—dropped to their knees as one and bowed their heads in a dignified silence.

In that late afternoon amber sun, under a dust-coated tree by the road, God brought His soothing peace to aching hearts and anxious minds.

We spent the last two days assessing needs and meeting with church leaders in areas devastated by the earthquake between Leogane and Petit Goave.

The town of Leogane was the epicenter of the earthquake. Just about every building was flattened. There’s a large tent camp there where about 4,500 families are living. They are all crammed together in makeshift shelters made out of scraps of whatever they could salvage from the wreckage. Samaritan’s Purse is gearing up to coordinate clean water, sanitation, and hygiene efforts at the camp. We are scheduled to begin distributing heavy duty plastic and warm blankets today.

Ten-year-old Louse Kentia is an orphan who lives at the Blue Ridge Children’s Home in Leogane. She was in the school’s dining room when the earthquake hit.

“It shook really hard and I ran,” she said. “I ran into the yard and lay down and prayed and sang songs with the other girls.”

None of the girls at the school were injured.

Our water engineers installed a water treatment system in the school compound, and we left some bags of rice, beans, and corn for the children.

We took a truck load of shelter materials, blankets, and hygiene kits to Petit Goave, a small town about 50 miles from Port-au-Prince where at least 500 people died. The materials are being distributed through 30 local churches to people with the greatest needs.

A 76-year-old pastor named Lys Beauge is coordinating the effort in Petit Goave. “Because of the earthquake, many people are seeking God,” Pastor Beauge told us.

He said there are also pastors from isolated mountain communities coming to get materials. Many pastors will need to travel for hours or even days to reach Petit Goave.

“This is a wonderful thing you are doing,” Pastor Beauge said. “You are the first ones who came to help us.”

We walked through the streets of downtown Petit Goave and saw major damage everywhere. There had been a Catholic cathedral in the center of town that was completely collapsed. It had been a beautiful church with huge columns, stained-glass windows and tiled floors, but now it’s just a pile of rubble. No one in the church was hurt. There was also a hotel that had been built in mid 1800s that was totally demolished. More than 200 people were killed when the hotel came down. People everywhere are living in their yards or on the streets outside their homes. They have nowhere else to go.

As we spoke with people on the streets in Petit Goave, all were thankful to be alive, but also concerned about tomorrow. A woman named Odette, was holding her 3-month-old granddaughter, Annabelle. She began tapping on the baby’s chest and gesturing toward the sky. The interpreter said Odette was concerned because her granddaughter was sick with a bad cough. She said they are sleeping outside and when the dew settles, everything gets wet and the baby’s cough gets worse. Shelter and sickness are big concerns.

On the drive back to the Samaritan’s Purse base camp we came across UN troops doing a relief distribution, guarded by a group of Sri Lankan soldiers. The UN guys were handing out packets that contained cereal, powdered milk, and basic first aid supplies. There are a lot of relief groups working throughout the area, but the needs are overwhelming and every effort is appreciated.

What makes Samaritan’s Purse unique is that we provide not only emergency aid, but hope through Jesus Christ. When we coordinate our work through local churches, people get to see the Body of Christ in action and it opens the door for sharing the Gospel, especially at a time like this, when people are hurting and seeking for answers.

I try not to get too overwhelmed by the amount of information I have to take in as I encounter new situations in my daily work. Friday I went to a UN-NGO cluster meeting having to do with the coordination of citywide water distribution and the technicalities of levels of chlorination. John Dallman, our water engineer and water filtration expert was out in one of the areas where the earthquake's epicenter had left indescribable damage outside Port-au-Prince. John has been installing water treatment systems for a few days now; this was the reason for my presence at the meeting. Again, I’m encouraged to see the willingness of the international aid community to work in an orderly fashion, in order to be efficient and wise with the resources available. Water distribution will improve in the days to come.

This afternoon I took some colleagues to assess the situation near the presidential palace. Thousands of displaced are camping in makeshift tents, in the midst of squalor, stench and need. As we left the area, my heart was very heavy. Suddenly I remembered that an organization has opened up a daily clinic and a feeding center, in the middle of the place, that brought me deep comfort.

The words: Eloi. Eloi. Lama Sabachthanai, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” were displayed in big, bold letters on the windshield of a truck at the airport. The words caught my eyes and brought me back to the Calvary scene. How poignant I found those words, in the present suffering of the people here. What would be my own words to God, if I were one of the survivors of this tragedy? To feel forsaken of God is a painful and despairing state, one more reason for our being present here in Haiti.

Yesterday morning I was able to get a haircut. I found a “hair stylist” with a minuscule room barely enough for the two of us. His tools were a simple pair of scissors a small comb and razor blade. He did a super job and I feel like new! I also had the joy of holding a nine month old baby girl, Nairobi, in my hands. Her father allowed me to hold the baby as we talked about the situation his family is going through, with four children and no chance for work. I encouraged him to not lose hope, to continue seeking help, to knock in order to find. This week I have often prayed with groups of men seeking the Lord, clamoring for his intervention as so many people look desperately for work. The Lord’s promise is that he will provide. He is a God of compassion and love.

The image of the day has to be of a pastor we met in Leogane, standing amid the ruins of what had been a neighborhood church and school. The framing around the church entrance was still barely standing, but everything else was just a pile of broken concrete.

When we met him, Pastor Nema had a contented smile on his face. He led us on a path through the rubble to a small clearing at the back of the church. He was excited that they were clearing an area where they could meet for services next Sunday.

Leogane was the epicenter of the earthquake that destroyed Port-au-Prince. Just about every building we saw was flattened, including a hospital we drove by. I don’t know how many people died in that hospital or in Leogane, but the town looked like a war zone after a bombing.

Leogane was just one stop on a trip I made with a Samaritan’s Purse assessment and distribution team. We drove to some of the worst-hit areas to meet with local pastors and distribute shelter materials in some of the tent camps that were scattered throughout the area.

Most of the little shelters the people have built are made with old blankets and sheets that would never hold up to a hard rain. The heavy-duty plastic tarp material we handed out will make a difference.

On the way to Leogane we also stopped at STEP Seminary, a Bible school in Bolosse, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. The Bible school and administrative offices had collapsed. The rubble was littered with school and office papers, and one black shoe. Sadly, one student was killed.

Below the school is a slum area that is home to about 25,000 people. Every night, more than 4,000 people gather on the compound to sleep because they are either afraid to sleep in their battered homes, or their homes have been destroyed. The school is a candidate for a clean water system.

We also visited the Blue Ridge Children’s Home. It’s a Christian boarding school for young girls that come from the most destitute area in the area. None of the children were hurt during the earthquake. We plan to return to the school tomorrow and install a water filtering system.

The team is going out tomorrow to meet with more pastors and distribute more materials. The needs are overwhelming, but Samaritan’s Purse is making a difference. It’s sure to be another long, but good day tomorrow.

This is day 5 in Haiti, and I hope it doesn’t sound like a routine, it shouldn’t be. Without any exaggeration, this experience has been one of the most incredible happenings in my life. Although, I’ve been at the airport in the early hours of the morning in the last few days, today was the first time I heard the call to Muslim prayers coming out of the UN compound. I felt as if I was back in West Africa, quite a strange feeling. On the same theme, as my colleague and I were sorting our cargo out in the fields across the tarmac, we noticed the cargo from Iran. How interesting to see the US army handling Iranian help at the Port-au-Prince airport.

On our second trip to the airport this morning, our base is located some 30 kms to the northwest, someone pointed to us the debris from the earthquake that is being thrown away along the highway. Human limbs and other human parts could be seen through the debris. What a painful reality, especially seeing the people trying to scrap any useful materials from the piles of debris accumulating along this highway.

The sight of Canadian troops and other supporting rescue teams is an emotional buster. In the midst of my running today, I got to speak with the crew of a Canadian rescue helicopter, friendly folk and very encouraging with their words of affirmation for the work Samaritan’s Purse is doing in Haiti. Another sight that warms my heart is to see the rescue dogs brought by some countries. Yes, how important is team work. All this aid and support for Haiti wouldn’t be possible without team work; our SP personnel and local volunteers are a good example of this.

Today, I had a chance to get closer to the people, since I accompanied a colleague that needed French translation for a meeting with the UN. Because of the heavy traffic, we decided to take a long walk trying to find the place where the meeting would take place. There are lots of people on the streets, many of them young and extremely anxious to find work. The airport is attracting a lot of nationals, some trying to catch a plane that will take them away from the destruction and human need.

As I walked the streets of Port-au-Prince today, I got to see great resilience in the lives of the people here, I’m convinced that the prayers of so many believers, combined with the trustful response of the national church to the suffering they’re going through, is making an eternal impact for the Kingdom.

Carlos

 

The day began very early yesterday. With the bright light of dawn, one of our planes came with more cargo aid.

 

I want to share a very neat story that encouraged our team very much. The pilot of one of the planes doing the runs from Florida to Port au Prince asked me to come on board as all the cargo was on the ground. With a big smile he handed me an envelope and said, “this is from our company to Samaritan’s Purse.” He is one of the small airline owners. I counted the bills and it was a very generous gift, my heart felt so warm. We sat down in a small area by the cockpit and chatted for a little while. The juice and muffins he offered me were delicious, especially after a night of vigil at the airport. Then, with his index finger, he pointed to a small crucifix hanging in a corner. “Do you know the name of my plane,” he asked. “The bread of God.” The day before, we had talked for some time, and I really enjoyed his stories and outlook on life. So just before I climbed down the narrow ladder of his cargo plane, I asked him whether he mind if I prayed for him. I put my arm around him and prayed. We both had watery eyes as we said good bye.

As I had mentioned earlier, the overwhelming response of the international community to this disaster is felt in all of its force here at the airport. Bolivia arrived today with aid. Once again, I felt so touched thinking of a country with so many needs like Bolivia, and yet being present here in Haiti.

Tensions have increased as the needs of the population get more desperate. This morning there were more military reinforcements by the gate we use to get in and out of the airport. Security is an issue we all are concerned about, with many inmates are on the loose as prison buildings collapsed during the earthquake, besides the heightened incentives for looting and lawlessness.

Our team is working very hard. Distributions of plastic sheeting for temporary housing, blankets and basic survival kits are being distributed through our local partners and churches. Tomorrow, the water technical team will be travelling to some of the areas Southwest of Port au Prince, where there is much damage, in order to assess the needs for water. We continue supplying the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital in Fermat with much needed materials. The operational capacity of the hospital represents a lifeline for many people that otherwise would not be able to have access to medical help.

Please continue supporting us with your prayers and with your financial help.

Carlos

It is Sunday night, and we are now able to eat and shower. I have had the same clothes on since I left Montréal!

The airport in Port au Prince has been home since Friday. Next to where we're camping, there is a tent city, showing all sorts of flags and tents for the rescue teams and disaster teams from all over the world. 

The camping out has been a true adventure. There is lots of activity night and day, with very little sleep because of the deafening noise of so many planes landing and taking off all the time, and all of the US army helicopters, like a scene from Apocalypse Now. 

The mosquitoes keep biting through the night, and the sky is filled with stars. Last night, I and my logistics colleague, Eric from Honduras, kept taking turns, in order to share the little mosquito net/tent we had. 

The world is here! You name it. I have never seen so many planes, military and otherwise, with so many country flags at such a close range. Eric and I walk and run all over the tarmac, walking underneath gigantic planes, not so much afraid of being running over by one of them, but mainly trying to stay away from the many heavy vehicles moving things around the airport.

The planes with Samaritan's Purse supplies arrived through the night. A DC-6 and a huge C-130 Hercules, carrying much needed medical equipment, water filtration equipment, and other materials. This is in addition to the DC-6 that landed on Friday.

Samaritan’s Purse have now moved to a compound where there is safety and a huge place to store our supplies and equipment. Gasoline is very scarce and we need to keep moving lots of stuff in the days to come. We have the help of a group of Haitians handling the lifting and moving.

The hospital at Fermat had 60 surgeries yesterday; the medical supplies are coming just in time.

The stories are heart wrenching, as I run from one end of the tarmac to the other. I see so many desperate, tired faces trying to catch a military plane and find some help somewhere outside the horrific scenes many have had to live through.  Haitians with French citizenship were lining up to go on a jumbo jet waiting for them.

I spoke with one woman, Marie, and she told me about how helpless she feels. The house where her relatives lived collapsed, burying all of them.

Yesterday morning, as some of my colleagues and I were coming back from Fermat, on the hills above Port au Prince, we witnessed a very gruesome scene. At the two entrances of a small cemetery, there was a pile of partly burned human remains, ribcages protruding from the fire.  At the other entrance, decomposing bodies were left out to rot.

It has been difficult to process so much, I feel tired. There is comfort in knowing there are so many people involved in the relief effort. As the days go by, the UN coordinating body will be able to organize in a more efficient fashion all of the efforts. Samaritan's Purse has already begun some distributions, as well as supplying the Fermat hospital.

Once again, thank you for your support, prayers and your lives!!!

Big hug, 
Carlos

 

Our team made it to Haiti around 10:00 am today.

Our DC-6 arrived this afternoon with 25,000 pounds of materials: plastic tarps, blankets, water filtration equipment, and medical supplies.

Our partners in Haiti run a hospital that has capacity for 120 beds, but now they’re overwhelmed with more than 300 patients, the most serious cases.  The doctors have been working almost non-stop.  Travelling with us today was a group of six doctors from Ecuador. They’re specialists and were soon on their way to relieve the doctors at the hospital.  

There are shortages of food, water and medicines.  Medical personnel from the city hospitals died in the earthquake; therefore there is tremendous need for medical aid.  We’re expecting another group of doctors sometime today.

Search teams have been able to provide support in trying to rescue people out of the collapsed buildings.

I spoke with a Haitian man helping with security at the airport.  He lost three members of his family.  I asked his name and with sad eyes he told me his name is Exumé, which means taken out of the tomb.  I spoke to him about Anastasia, the resurrection.  I prayed with him and comforted him in his great need.

The situation in the streets is bad; however gas stations and stores are starting to slowly open.

Our team will be travelling to the hospital sometime late today.
Blessings,

Carlos