The Work Goes On

The road between the clinic and the mission house is lined with growing crops.

 The last several weeks have been filled with visitors from North America. It's been great to have the extra help for some of the projects that we have been doing around here. Another blessing is the many things that are brought down in the luggage of these visitors. Things that friends and family have sent as well as some medical supplies for the clinic.

Ellamae does patients' vitals in the morning with our new vital sign monitor, a major upgrade from the home grade BP cuffs we've been using until now.

  Clinic has been going on as usual. Large crowds each day but not more then we can handle. Reflecting back on how things were last year at this time makes me realize how much we have to thank our Father for.  Last year around this same time we were dealing with many things such as life threatening complications during births that resulted in quite a few emergency runs out the long and bumpy trail. Things have been going much smoother this year.
  One project that has been going on is the building of a small screened in addition outside the back door of the clinic. This will create a much needed spot to take a quick break when things get to hectic inside the clinic as well as be a place where linens from the clinic can be washed.

  Some of our visitors helped finish up the painting on the little shed above the clinic, it has finally been transformed from a crooked little stone shack to something that actually has a touch of its own Caribbean charm. I'm reasonably sure that in the US no one would trust a laboratory that was being run in a building that looked like this, but here in Haiti, it fits right in.
 

Mali's younger sister, Isabelle, begins painting the front of the soon to be laboratory

  I am struck every day by the beauty in this corner of the world. The fields are now green with waist high corn growing up out of a dense layer of bean plants, the trees are about as green as they get, and the rain clouds gather on the surrounding mountain tops almost every day.
  No matter what we face, no matter how many discouraging setbacks we experience, God is always faithful. His work goes on, despite our own failings and shortcomings. Someday all things will become clear. Until then, we will carry on! Keep us all in your prayers.

  
  

Training, Processing, and Acting!!

Clinic life this week has been relatively slow compared to the past several weeks. Our week has been full though with training and teaching sessions. Brian Evelth, a paramedic and Mary Strubar a Nurse Partitioner/ Midwife came down for a week. Every afternoon is spent at the clinic filling our brains. 

One thing I have been thinking about a lot this week is why are we here? What is our goal for the clinic? To save lives our save souls? Of course, we would all like to see saved lives and souls. How many times do we focus so much in saving the life, we forget about the soul? If we have done all we can do with in our resources am I willing to give that patient over to God? We as humans will never have all the answers no matter how much education we may have. How quickly do I go to the one who has all the answers when I am in various situations? Do I wait until I have practiced all the knowledge/ skills I have before asking God for His help? 

These are some questions I had to challenge myself with. 

I would like each one who is in health care to challenge yourself and do a reality check. I know how easy it is with advanced medical care to get a diverted perspective. It is important to daily do a reality check and ask our selves, what is my purpose? What would Jesus do in these situations? 

As a soldier of Jesus Christ I want my light to shine in the hearts of each patient I see. 

Let's keep pressing on! 

~ Alyssa 

Smiling through your tears

The last while has definitely been the time for coming into the clinic with cuts. From either falling while working in their gardens or from a Machete. I had the joy of doing my first 2 stitch jobs. The one was a young boy who had fallen down the mountain at School. He had lots of little scrapes and knocked out a tooth as well as two nice big cuts on his forehead. Mali did a wonderful job at telling me what to do every step of the way, and making sure I did it right. The little boy was so strong through it all. When I asked him if he had pain, he tried his best to smile even tho he had tears running down his face. 

 This dear lady was on her way to clinic to have her baby, but she didn't make it. The baby was born at a friends house along the trail. 

One of my favorite parts of taking people's vitals is trying to get the dear little children to smile. As soon as I say "Good morning" and ask how they're doing, some of them reply right away with a chipper "Good morning, I'm fine". Others shyly hide their faces, not wanting to let the Mis take thier temperatures. Others tell me that they are sick. 

"The best way to find yourself is to loose yourself in the service of others" 

-Mis Ellamae

The Battle Belongs to the Lord

  Spring rush is on! It seems that here in Alegue the start of the rainy season in early March always coincides with an increase in clinic traffic. Part of that is due to most of the local farmers having already planted their fields which gives everybody more spare time to do things like go to the hospital or assist family members in getting there. I'll try to highlight a few of the things that have been happening around here in the last week or so.
  Since the first of the year we've been doing some renovation on the little area uphill from the clinic to the fence.  Thanks to several of our local "bosses", Lucien and Auguste, the area that had always been an eyesore is now paved with rough yet tidy stones that help keep the mud at bay as well as discourage the ever present litter. I put a new clothesline up as well to the great delight of the cleaning ladies at clinic who until then had been patiently improvising with a few short ropes hung between the trees.
  Another project that has been in the development stage for quite a long time is renovating the old stone two room outbuilding above the clinic into a medical laboratory. That project so far has involved a new metal roof, reinforcement of some of the old framing, and running electricity to the building. It seems that we are legally required to have a lab to be able to finalize our clinic's registration with the Haitian Government and besides that, with the long distance we have to send our patients for blood work it will be a dramatic boon to our level of care if we can do some more basic tests here ourselves.
  Last Thursday we experienced one of the tougher things that medical faculty have to deal with. A young girl with a very swollen liver and abdomen was carried in in severe respiratory distress. A very sweet and friendly little thing, when we'd ask her how she was doing, she would barely gasp out between breaths, " Pa pi mal!" ( not to bad). However, she was not doing well at all but we elected to keep her at the clinic on oxygen and try to stabilize her and perhaps transport out to another hospital in the morning for a higher level of care. By 22:00 it was obvious that she would have a hard time making it through the night so we decided to transfer out to the Cuban hospital in Grand Goâve. Alyssa and Ellamae went along for patient care and we headed off down the rutted trail in the landcruiser. Halfway out to town our little patient´s struggling breaths finally ceased. Her heart had stopped. As I turned the rig around with a heavy heart and started back up the trail towards home the words of that song, ¨Oh Lord Jesus how long?¨ kept going through my mind. ¨How long till death will finally be vanquished once and for all? Why does life seem so unjust and cruel at times? Only God knows the answers to these questions and I am slowly learning to take these things and leave them at his feet and not spend to much energy trying to sort it all out. Dealing with these types of situations, especially when we are at our wit´s end to know what the next step is, forces us to lean on Jesus. He´s promised to take our cares and carry them for us. Sometimes I wonder why I´m so slow to talk to him about stuff. He´s always been there when the going gets rough. He knows his plan. The fight is His. The winner of this war has already been decided.
   Pray for the team here. Pray that we´d have an extra dose of courage and wisdom for the difficult times. Pray that we would through our love and service keep expanding the borders of the Kingdom of God.

What would it be like to have strange growths and lumps on your face? Everywhere you walk people whisper in hushed tones about the strange formation on your face. I'm sure if I would be a Haitian that lived in the mountains....I would have never let my heart dare to hope. Dare to hope that one day I could walk around and no one looked at me askance. Dare to hope to look normal. But for those who haven't given up hope....there is hope!! In the shape of 9 scrub clad doctors and medical students  from Tennessee.Ready and willing to work. A tangible evidence for those who kept hope burning in their hearts...

I watched in awe as the team banded together and performed amazing surgeries. 

This dear lady,in spite of her age,was brave and got on the operating table. She had told me on a previous visit..."My miss...if one day a doctor comes and can take this off. My heart will be light. I will be able to walk pretty in the street again."I held her hand and squeezed it tight. I looked into her eyes and was amazed at the strength I saw. "One day...hopefully I can call you and tell you that a doctor has come who can remove this for you." She smiled and walked away. Now....

Here it is. And she looks amazing. Just a scar the length of her jawline.

Tracing the incision lines on another patient.

The cyst that they removed from her cheek!!

Working late into the night. ...

This tiny little woman danced around the doctors,thanking them for having removed a cyst that was right inside her lip.


So....that's a little glimpse of our miracles. Sometimes they come  clad in scrubs, carrying bags of sterile tools and tons of guaze.

I love living here and learning from my Haitian neighbors. They have taught me more then I ever imagined. Their hopeful spirit and simple faith in God is beautiful.
-Mis Mali

A Peek Into Clinic Life...

Greetings from the Alleuge clinic snuggled in the mountains of Haiti. Even though you may not hear much about this clinic or have the most updated stories. There are nurses who strive day after day to share the love of Jesus and provide medical care to the natives who live in these mountains. 

The last several weeks we have had small clinic days. It has been nice to catch our breath and have time to enjoy our guests.

 A few recent pics from the past few weeks! 

      My sister Amy helped with a birth! 

  Mali, with one of her malnutrition children

          Ellamae,weighing a set of twins. 

Amber, adding the finishing touches to St. Luke's dressing! 

                 Our current team! 

This past week we were very grateful to have a team of Doctors here. They spent 4 afternoons performing minor surgeries. We feel very blessed it was possible for them to come and help the people in this way. Many of the people who received surgery would never had the procedure done due to cost etc..

Thanks very much to those who came. We feel richly blessed! 

Please continue to pray for much needed RAIN!! 

~ Alyssa

For the Last Time

I think everyone has their own ways of finding closure when coming to the end of a chapter in their lives.  For some it may be standing in front of a crowd to tell them goodbye, for others it may be in a good heart-to-heart with a close friend.  It may be in that last tight squeeze right before you drive away.  Or it may be as the tears slowly dry on your cheeks ten minutes after your plane takes off.

I deal with the big things by writing.  Whether on a blog, in a journal, on a random scrap of paper tucked in a book buried in a heap somewhere, or to a friend - if there's something major going on in my life, it will be written about somewhere.

Robert Frost once said, "I write to find out what I didn't know I knew."  So please bear with me, as I do a little sorting through the tangle that makes up my brain.

If I was to leave a word of advice to those who are thinking of going to Haiti (or - as I imagine this could apply - anywhere on a foreign mission field), it would be the following:

If you are coming because of your burning desire to help others, don't.  That's very sweet - and a wonderful thing - but that is not a good enough reason to leave the place that God currently has you.

If you are not reaching out to those around you in the place that you currently are, then you should seriously consider the possibility that maybe you are not yet ready to step out and go to another country where you will be placed on a pedestal and your every move and word closely scrutinized.

I believe that every single Christian is called to "go and teach", really, I do.  But we (or at least the majority of the readers of this blog) are from the United States of America, people.

YOU DO NOT NEED A PASSPORT TO BE A MISSIONARY.

You don't have to take a flight third-world-country-bound to find someone who needs Jesus.  The nations are coming to us.

And, if I may be very frank, from the looks of things, it is our fellow countrymen who need missionaries now, anyway.

But I digress.

I did want to explain the statement that I made about not going to Haiti to help the poor people there, in case someone out there feels that I am perching on their toes.  If you go to Haiti because you want to change lives, or alleviate pain and poverty, or even if you really just want to lead people to Christ - if that is the reason that you are going - then I believe that you will be disappointed.  Not that any one of those are bad desires.  I, in fact, think that you should want all of those things, but if that is The Reason that you are going -

 That is not enough.

I believe that there is only one thing that should move you to another country, and that is the very clear call of God in your life.

If you go because of wanting to change lives, you will be disappointed when you find that there are people who simply do not want to change their lives, or accept your help.

If it is to eliminate suffering, you may be shocked to find that there are people out there who actually revel in their misery.

You will face discouragement.

If, however, it is because you feel God moving you to Haiti, these things (yes, you will probably still face them) will not affect you in the same way, since it is no longer your sole job to fix the world.  That is in God's hands.  And knowing and recognizing that frees you up to serve Him and glorify Him with every ounce of your might, leaving the results up to Him.

And I'm not trying to say that you will not have any good results, on the contrary, I hope and pray that you do, just that life there may not be the glowing missionary report that you read about.  And if feeling good about all the good that you are doing is what you are counting on to get you through the hard days - well, you may decide to go home a little earlier than originally planned.

I loved working at the clinic.  I loved Haiti and the people there.  We had an amazing team that I was there working with, and a common goal and dream for the mission there.

Going to Haiti was a call that I heard as clearly as I heard my alarm waking me up this morning.  And the way every door opened up to take me there assured me every step of the way that this was God's leading.

Without that knowledge, however, I would have gone stark, raving mad down there.  My niece was in the NICU, my Mom has bone cancer, and my grandmother passed away during the time that I was there.

It was the knowledge that I was where God had so clearly placed me, that got me through the hard days.  I cannot imagine being out of the country and away from my family during those times for any other reason.

You know that peace that you have, when you KNOW you are right in the center of God's will?

There are days that that peace is the only solid and stable thing that you have to cling to.  And I cannot imagine how a person can survive without it.

I am not an aged person that has seen many things and acquired much wisdom.  I am not even a veteran missionary coming back after spending decades on the mission field.  So if my theology is chock full of holes, go on Pinterest and find a pretty pin that says something like "Follow Your Heart" and don't mind me. :o) Really, I won't be offended if you disagree with me.

This is just a little overflow from a little of what I have seen in my time in Haiti.  Going to serve in another country is not something to be taken lightly.  Do your research before you go.  Understand that before you get there -in spite of that research - you. are. clueless.

Be okay with that.  It will open you to the leading of God and you will be more accepting of input from those around you.

And, if you are one of those called to the foreign mission field, you will find it one of the most stretching and fulfilling experiences of your life.  Let me know, and I WILL PRAY.  I've been there, and I know how badly you will need it, even if you don't yet. :o) I wish you the absolute best on your endeavors.

Anyway.

This was not the plan when I started this post.  I was planning on a short epistle thanking my fellow workers for putting up with me for as long as they did, and it just sorta morphed into....Something Else.

But I do want to say thank you.

To Donny and Thea - y'all are amazing.  Really.  You do an incredible job of keeping things rolling smoothly, in an underappreciated situation, while raising two little sweethearts, and attempting to keep a small flock of opinionated adults from...well, bad things. :o) Seriously.  Keep up the good work.  I am praying for you both, that God will continue to guide and direct you, as you guide and direct the mission there.

To my fellow nurses - your love, understanding, and support were so much more than I deserve.  It was truly a pleasure to work with each one of you.  You are my heroes (heroines?).  Never give up.  Keep smiling at the grumpy people, and laughing at Frè Norès' jokes.  May God give you wisdom and grace for each day, and each moment of each day.  You are never forgotten.  All you have to do is send a message saying, "Pray."  I will drop to my knees the minute I receive it.

To the guys - for your patience, as you waited on me as I got too chatty at clinic when you were wanting to get back to the house; Thank You.  You were never un-appreciated.  Hans - for the myriad of things that you do at the clinic, for your input on those confusing cases, for your strength when we needed it, for your willingness to help out with whatever escapades we girls got ourselves into, and for being a friend.  Brandon - oh Brandon, will you ever really know how much it meant to me to have you there?  To have someone that I could talk to without having to explain the history behind what I was saying, someone that knows me and my family for all of my life, and for it to be acceptable for me to ride out to town with you on the four-wheeler. :o) But really, thank you, for all that you do.  For being willing to do so much more than your job description, when it often goes unnoticed, without a word of complaint.  To you AND to your predecessors, thank you for keeping our vehicles working, our water running, the schoolfood hauled, and all things sharpened.  I know how easy it is for us to take it all for granted, but I do want you to know that it was not unnoticed.  You are both in my prayers.

Janell - you thought that I had forgotten you, didn't you?  You may not be listed on the clinic staff, but the clinic staff would not be able to function very well without you.  They certainly wouldn't smell as nice, anyway. :o) Thank you, for the days I came home to clean laundry on my bed.  For cooking for us.  For being a shoulder to bump.  And for being my friend.

And to all of y'all, who have ever sent a prayer up on my behalf.  To those who supported me.  Thank you.

And to you, the person that is still reading here at the end of this ridiculously long post.  Bless your heart.  I'm sorry.  I didn't mean to do it. :o)

So yeah, that's it.  I'm finished.

Do not waver in your pursuit of God's will for your life, and when you find it, wrap yourself in that peace and savor every moment of it.  Love your life.  Choose to be happy IN SPITE of the rottenness that may surround you.  Pray for those serving as missionaries - you never know when your prayers could be the difference between a blessing and a trial.

Keep the faith.  Live your life with purpose.  His purpose.

-Kindra