sleeping in scrubs

A video of Mickenson, our pastor singing in church Sunday

 My little student ... Here's to a year of learning!

 One of the many babies born at the Hope Center in the last week

 My little helpers on an easy Sunday morning

 Here are the ladies who cook for us, Vierge and Marie Therese and their new aprons mom made for them. 

 Bicly (top) and Johny (bottom), all fresh and ready for church

 More babies!

 Girls are ready for their first day of school. Not sure what grade either of them are in but somewhere between smart and brilliant!

 What the afternoons look like

 Pastor Mickenson and his wife Jasmin. Mickenson is an unbelievable musician and singer.

 (Top) Miguelson and I after he followed me (in the truck) up to the top of the mountain after Tropical Storm Bertha. (Bottom) Miguelson with the girls at dinner in Petionville the other night.

 Charles taking the doorknob out of our door to give it to a friend who he said needed one.

 Our new craft shelves! The Gulfport team built them for us and helped us organize all of the materials teams have left behind. It's so nice to be organized!

 One of the tarantulas that was crawling on my laundry when I was folding it. It was a little disconcerting when the armed guard walked away from it after I asked him to kill it. 

 Mack was ready to hike!

 At the top of our hike.

 On our way up!

 This is Charles with a line of salt on his shirt from all the sweat. Haiti life!!

 The girls at Visa Lodge during our Saturday morning cup of coffee.

 Ava fell asleep standing up after a long day of playing with friends in Port Au Prince!

Debi and I after another delivery ... notice the gloves and running clothes ...

I have blog entries stacking up in my head and have not sat down to write in more than a week.

I started this entry yesterday afternoon when I was up from a nap and waiting to play with Lilly and Ava. Debi and I had been up through the night with so many mamas in labor. I heard yet another lady screaming with labor pains. I am confident the Holy Spirit urged me to go help. I walked into the clinic almost reluctantly to find a 40-year-old, dark skinned mama pushing and writhing in pain. I gloved my hands and stood by the bed. A doctor and nurse were bedside too. Team members who were previously helping, stood by. The baby crowned, head's out. But the baby got stuck. As I watched the doctor maneuver the baby and mama for OVER 10 minutes, I couldn't help but think about the what ifs for this child. The mama was exhausted and trying her best. I have not seen a doctor pull with such might with such little progress. When the little life came out, the scene turned into an eerie ER room. Debi was amazing. CPR and resuscitation started right away. I had not seen a newborn so blue and without pulse in a long, long time. He lay there so lifeless. After 10 to 15 minutes Dr. Shubert, the Haitian doctor working with us, said the baby had a heart beat. A weak one, but he had one. Debi started looking for veins to get the epinephrine in him and finally cut the cord and threaded it there. The mama was still on all fours praying. Childbirth had wearied her and it wasn't over. Debi pounded his little chest with compressions and I did mouth-to-mouth. 3-2-1 breathe, 3-2-1 breathe, 3-2-1 breathe. It was unthinkable. He wasn't breathing on his own. Jilien walked in, touched the boy and started waving her hands high. Prayers were going up to Jezi. I was calling hospitals to see who would take him. I talked to Jordan from Haiti Air Ambulance on the phone and he was very matter of fact that they couldn't land here without training and coordinates, etc. Dr. Shubert looked at Debi and asked, "what do you think?" Debi and I both interpreted that as do you want to pronounce him dead or keep working on this? There was no question at the moment. Once his heart rate was low but steady, we dressed mama and wrapped the baby up in blankets for a trip into town. A number of things happened but an hour after this baby was born Debi, Marc, and I were climbing into the school bus to take them to the hospital. The baby still wasn't breathing on his own. We had another mama in labor. She and her friend were on the bus. We wouldn't be delivering her baby. Debi handed me the baby and I keep doing mouth-to-mouth for him but his heart rate is high enough we quit the compressions. Somewhere on the bumpy road I looked up and thought how strange that I was giving CPR to this newborn on a dusty road in a yellow school bus. I looked at the stoic mama and she couldnt look back at me. She hadn't even seen him yet. She didn't know her baby's face yet. Debi says we have to have a name. We need to call him by name. Marc interprets and the mama mumbles back for us to name the baby. Debi names him Elijah. The mama agrees that's a strong name. Within minutes Baby Elijah starts taking shallow breaths on his own and his heart rate increases. He fights to open his eyes. He's improving. I hear a strange Hallelujah in the bus between all the Haitians. We arrived at Bernard Mevs Hospital more than an hour later and the security guards want to stop us from coming in. Debi and I wave them off and keep walking. Baby in tow. The mama stood to climb down the bus steps and the ribbon of blood was too much. She looks dizzy and sits back down. We walk into the hospital and a bucket of memories pour back over me. It's the same hospital that Ava was in. The same walls, same smells. I ask myself if the nightmares will return. We carry Baby Elijah into the NICU and I see the same doctor who helped Ava. Debi explained what happened and what treatment she administered. He is surrounded by more sick babies. Tiny ones. Weeping moms. We talked to Jen who we knew. Jen was the lady who helped me briefly last time. We left the hospital within the hour and were back on the bus. Bernard Mevs doesn't have a maternity ward. Baby Elijah's mother couldn't stay with him. She wasn't able to get care. I stop back on the bus and her blank face says it all. Blood loss. Sick baby. Exhaustion. It was a quieter ride back to Croix de Bouquets where we go to a second hospital in hopes Baby Elijah's mama can stay and the other lady in labor who we couldn't help. We walked into a dark room where women are laboring with yells for Bondye and there are a dozen empty beds. Marc talked to the employee there and says the mamas we brought could stay. After a wearisome conversation and a hug, we left those mamas all in a dark, pain-filled room with a prayer. It was hard and sad. As we walk out to the street to find the bus, Marc reminds us there was a prison break two days prior in the same neighborhood. Our steps quickened and rode back to the Hope Center. As we entered, we told the guards there would be no baby deliveries tonight. It was the end of a long 48 hours of baby deliveries. I helped Debi deliver one Sunday, two on Monday night and another two on Tuesday. I go to bed Monday night willing to help Debi and sleeping in scrubs. Several hours later I just can't fight trying to sleep over the screaming. Through the night Monday we had a baby born on the floor, another mama climbing the walls and a sleepless night of screaming for everyone. Two babies, 4 mamas. Nonstop work. Debi and I had a long conversation about not being so equipped for this in more ways than one. Alex slept on the dental chair and Debi and I poured hot coffee between changing gloves. The need really is so overwhelming. One could work 24-7 and still be a drop in the bucket. But for those mamas and those babies, especially Elijah, it may be the difference in life and death.

This morning we heard word that Baby Elijah's condition had improved and he was showing better vital signs. Praise Jesus.

Hours later I walk into the clinic and a grandmother holds a 3 pound baby girl who looks smaller than Ava's baby dolls. Her cry so muffled it seems fake. Debi fills me in that she was born prematurely last Wednesday at home and the mama doesn't want to nurse. We fill the cup up with sugar water to help with her low blood sugar. She is a skeleton covered in skin but no fat. Debi talks about options and chances and what do they want to do. The stoicism in the moms is so unfamiliar to me. No tears. No worries. We agreed to get her to Kinskoff a couple of hours away that specializes in such cases. We wait for the truck and hope she gets there in time.

Hard moments. Struggles all around. My bubble of complaining kids and home school woes look shallow. I'm overwhelmed. I go to bed thinking to myself I wonder what the days ahead will hold.


Yesterday's post ....

Now I have a minute in my post-nap stupor state.

In the two weeks since we touched down in Haiti, we have hosted 5 teams and a new intern at the Hope Center. Charles and I are amazed at all that goes into the operations of the Hope Center on a daily basis. Because I can't actually store that many blogging thoughts into my brain, I'll hit the highlights from lately.  If you were on my runs you would hear the longer version.

I just heard the air conditioner unit turn off. I can count to ten and it will turn back on. I think about how thankful I am for the electricity that runs through here. I am grateful it's not warm and dark as often as it could be. I still wake in sweat and to the sound of chickens and Creole jargon among Geremy and Daniel in the garden outside my window. I hear another tiny piece of concrete fall into the bathtub. I'm not sure why concrete is always falling into the tub but Jilien is always bent over cleaning it out and on the days she doesn't, I'm reminded by it under my feet in a shower.

This past week a team member pours bleach and chlorine into our pipes to clean them out. Besides smelling like we all went swimming, we survive the smell and thank him for helping out. Then the pump breaks. No hot water. No water pressure. I stand under the drippy shower head in a cold heap half relieved to cool off. I think about all the Haitians in ear shot who would take a drippy shower head and some cold water. Same shifting thought from poor me to gratitude. Thank you for a shower. God's timing is perfect. Saturday night I ride back out with "the plumbers" - Mike and Jann Kenney, who have been coming to Haiti much longer than us and have been fixing and installing plumbing for all of But God Ministries' needs. Mike is under the sink when I walk in and he's problem solving. We put the girls in the bath last night and should've let the water run after fixing the pump because a whole lot of yuck comes out with the water. The girls get out looking like someone threw up on them and have to take another bath. Problem solved though and another prayer answered with hot and pressurized water.

Water isn't the only thing leaking out this week .... Charles woke up in the dark hours smelling diesel. The generator is right beside our house. Fumes wafted in and it got stronger. Big gas leak. His comment over fried eggs was, "glad that didn't leave us all in a cloud of smoke last night." Me too. Glad we didn't. We lost a lot of diesel. Money seeping out of those lines with the gas. And the farmer also mentions with all of our windows barred, there would be no way out in the back of the house. Another thought to ponder. Not exactly up to code. No smoke detector or CO2. More shifting thoughts from leaking lines to gratitude.

More faces on Monday afternoon fill the church. The Gulfport ladies show up at 4. We wait for the others. More than 20 weather skinned ladies come through the door. A half smile from some but I know they came on their own accord. We recite the Fruit of the Spirit and talk over the idea of doing Sunday School and the ladies tell me they need training. They aren't equipped. I think through their culture and how they need something formal to tell them they can teach their children God's Word. I agree to do some researching. The children are eager to learn.

As the week goes on, the eggs pile up. Makil walks in with another basket full. The 200 chickens are laying about 160 eggs each day and we can't keep up. The farmer eagerly tries to keep plugging away at finding ladies to sell the eggs and training up families to take care of the coops. It's a slow and steady project not ready for lift off. In the mean time we feed mouths with them. Several mornings of the week two cross-fitters are at our cobalt counter eating the farm fresh eggs before a day of construction. At the rural clinic each patient is given 3 eggs. It's like oval-shaped gold for them. No eggs are wasted. Mouths fed. Souls full.

Thursday morning we hiked from Thoman with the group. The next Hope Center will be in Thoman. An hour into the mountain and farther from the city. A community of the most poor I've witnessed with my eyes. Pastor Mathurin comes out to greet us and those who dug for water in a new well found it! Water for a community after decades of waiting. An answer to many prayers with the clear stuff springing up just a few steps from the road.

Lilly dressed in sunscreen and a pair of running shorts that make her legs thinner than toothpicks. She is hike ready. Ava stays behind with an agenda for the day with Mrs. Judy. The two of them are hand locked when the bus pulls off. The hike was full of twists and turns. Conversations with new friends and a view that was much less barren than the one we see on the ground in Ganthier. It was breath taking. Wesley, Mathurin's son, led the way. We stopped at the water source to find so many other locals at the top. The people along the way fled their shanty shacks to see the group of blancs. I listened as one team member disclosed the heartbreak of a husband leaving and another spoke about the evenings he spends with his wife and daughter on Navarre Beach. Our backpacks full of water and granola bars, cameras and sunglasses. I should have packed a long sleeved shirt. First time I had that thought in Haiti. We sit down at dinner all jelly-legged and hear about a funeral going on in the village of a six year old child who died during the week. One who attended Bible study on Monday. Tears well up with the salty stuff in eyes across the family and the thought of death is real and hard. So close to here. I thought about the day before in VBS when a hundred kids stand and in all silliness sing with Alex, "biwo biwo, biwo biwo biwo biwo, mete Jezi biwo" ... higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, higher, put Jesus higher. The motions that point up go with their voices and I think will they listen to themselves. Do I hear them? Higher .. Higher ... Higher. The thoughts of Jesus being higher lingered in my heart. And I try to imagine the child singing the words before he met death and it made me really consider the whole idea.

Alex has this amazing talent. He is quiet, introverted, soft spoken, witty and he doesn't let you see it all at once. But the children file in the room and Alex' personality comes out like his smile. Unstoppable. He opens up to the little lives that he sees as his own childhood and his hips move and his microphone turns up and he and Franz start the magic. The children go wild over the two of them. Franz has a heart of gold and wants to share every bit. They unlock the Word in song and catchy chorus and the children remember. They shout about Moses in the burning bush and Jesus' love for them. The little bitties come to the microphone and they sing their little bitty version into the microphone and it fills the room and hands clap. It's their own little talent show. Franz and Alex overflow with pride for their little friends who get praise from peers and are singing for the Lord. He is made for this. God is glorified as he teaches them one word at a time. They are singing the words all the way home to their often lost parents holding some craft with a string and a sucker fisted.

Friday we said goodbye to the Gulfport team. I really enjoyed the women on that team. We bonded over sorting clothes, Bible studies, Thoman, and the ins and outs of our lives. They blessed me with an amazing set of shelves for all of our craft materials and a few sets of shelves they made for Tony to reorganize the clinic space. We spent a last hour prayer walking the grounds. Praying for the ministries that happen here. The hundreds of patients who come through the door of the clinic. The mamas giving birth. The VBS' in the church. The children in the orphanage who learn survival without parents. The village people being helped along the way through a meal or message. One team member hands me three rocks. One white. One black. One mixed. She said this is you, them and all of you together. Jilien asked me if about throwing the rocks away and I say maybe not yet. I'm still thinking about all of us together in that mixed rock.

Saturday we rode in early with the team to the airport. Then went for a cup of coffee at Visa Lodge. It was so nice to sit outside between teams and enjoy a cup of coffee and a view. I felt relieved and enjoyed being outside the walls. Then we met up with some friends. Dawn and I sit across from each other at the table and talk about hurts and victories. We discuss heart aches in ministry. The overwhelming need. Our own needs and the ones unmet. Our kids and their laughter despite the ups and downs. Community and the lack of it. My girls play with her girls. Some normalcy among us. We end the Saturday by meeting in the Port Au Prince Delimart grocery store. A crowded, smelly grocery store by the airport. I wonder if my wallet and phone are safe under my arm and if the girls and I are going to make it safely through the store and out to the parking lot. I don't do much grocery shopping so it's new for me to be there with money and the girls. We leave with a few items and get the girls in the already packed truck. Mathurin is driving and the last team has arrived at the airport. There's one seat for all three of us. Lilly in lap and Ava spread out over us all, eyes closed and sound asleep for the ride back to Hope Center.