Can't You Hear Me?

                           

Meet Alexis. He is thirty-two. He arrived in our hospital, breathing hard. We tried to make him comfortable. We put him on oxygen. We arranged his pillows. We dosed up some meds. As soon as  we left his bed, he called out, "Nurse, nurse! Come here. Don't you see me?"

   So we returned. We arranged his pillows. Again. His eyes are still peeled back. He is afraid. We talked to him about becoming a Christian.

    We asked him a lot of questions, and tried to figure out his illness. He was swollen in his feet, and he was spitting blood. He had not urinated in a long time. Some days passed like this, because we didn't have a ride to town. We tried to keep him comfortable. We prayed and dosed up meds.

     Because of his dehydration, we put him on IV, but followed him closely because of his swelling. The doctor put him on a strong Furosemide push, but didn't get the normal results. Things were odd. Were his organs shutting down?

  Finally, we sent him to town. We wanted to know what was going on in his body. The doctor prescribed a whole bunch of tests.  But before long, Alexis got on a motorcycle and came back home. Then Alexis' family came back to us.

    "Alexis is not good. He is worse."
     He spent another night in our clinic. During that night we had dreams. Disturbing dreams. A sense of restlessness was in the air. Whitney and I went down and spent about an hour trying to make Alexis comfortable, during the tiny hours of the morning. We tried  to find something that would let him and all the others in the hospital get some sleep. We gave him a shot.
    But there was no peace for Alexis. He didn't want to make that decision for God, it seemed. Nobody else could choose for him.  And there was nothing else that our small hospital could do for his body. His family wouldn't agree to sending him out to a bigger hospital. Our only option was to take him home and hope that his family would change their minds. We prayerfully drove him home, and laid our hands on him for one final prayer before we walked out.
 

                     

     The next day we sent some people to pray with Alexis again. They told us that three demons were on him. We were hoping that Alexis still had time to think clearly enough to choose God and life..

                                  
     So we reallt don't know if Alexis made that decision for God or not. We were sobered by the fact that serving Satan is a disappointing journey. Was his body so weakened by the demons, that his chances of choice were over?
      We thank God for His protection over us during this time, and also for sending wonderful men of God, like Fre Nores, Fre Dolph, and Fre Direk,  our "Haitian fathers" to shepherd us through every step of the medical decisions and pain of Alexis' passing.
     We find hope again in the fact that "Greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the world!"
      -Mis Woda for the team

Healing from the inside out

" Mis, please, I need to tell you sorry." I nodded absent mindedly as I continued to apply pressure to his abcess.
"Mis,I lied to you." I looked up, slightly more interested, "About what did you lie?" " I told you I was a Christian, but I am not." I put my gauze down on the chuck pad and leaned on the counter, this could be interesting.

  Michael (the abscess man) came to our clinic about 6 weeks ago with a small but deep abscess on his right posterior side. Kate took very good care of him for 2 weeks. Instead of healing it was starting to open up. We were getting worried, Doc. Felix thought we should put him on a round of Cephtraxone. After a week it still wasn't closing up properly. Kate felt uncomfortable about it so we sent him Tit Guave.
 
 Two weeks ago I walk into the clinic and he is standing there grinning. I was happy to see him and thought he was coming to show us his healed abscess. Turns out it wasn't quite healed yet. It looked a lot better but it still needed care. This is were the above story comes in.

 "Mis, I am a very wicked man, I have always done everything I feel like doing. I have a lot of girlfriends and I live my life the way I love. I got sick about 3 months ago. I did not want to come to your clinic because I knew it was Christian so I went to Tit Guave, then on to PAP. My fever never left me.I still refused to come to your clinic. After a while an abscess broke on my side and people told me that this clinic was the best for wound care. I came, but every day I felt convicted as you nurses smiled and loved and prayed. I wanted to get better so I could leave. When Mis Katie told me to go to Tit Guave I was happy I could leave and not be in that Christian environment anymore. After a couple weeks the Tit Guave hospital went on strike so they sent me back here.  I didn't want to have to face Jesus again but I had too."
 By that time my eyes were starting to water and I didn't know what to say. I talked with him and told him that today is the day of salvation. Choose Jesus NOW!!! As I went back to work I had to wipe tears from my eyes.
  As soon as he was gone I ran to Rho and Whit  and told them. Their faces lost the sadness from our Alexi case and broke out in happy smiles.
 Friday morning he walked in with the biggest grin ever. "Nurses, I choose Jesus!!!!" He is so happy and you can clearly see already the changes God has brought into his life. 
 Sometimes we wonder if we even do touch peoples hearts for eternity. Sometimes we get tired of talking about Jesus to people that nod their heads in a stupid lie and say "Wi" to everything we ask, Sometimes we feel like being impatient with negligent patients.....but this story of Michael has lifted our spirits and helped us remember the purpose of our being here. To help them physically but also for Eternity.

Micheal.......

 

Keep us in your prayers as we as a team reach out to our patients!!

 

-Mis Mali