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Hello
dear ones, There are no photos in this letter. I apologize, but my card reader for the
camera accidentally got packed in my suitcase and shipped ahead of me to the
airport.
Today has been a day of wrapping up our work. There have been many little jobs that have
been done, and some that have seemed little but were a large part of the
heart. Last night was one of those. Normally, the patients left behind after
the surgical team leaves are very sick patients. One young man we have was in a scooter
accident. He is very clear and articulate that God has spared his life. He was very sick after the accident. The doctors in Port au Prince, near where
he lives, had to put a rod in his leg, in the femur. The problem was, they didn’t put it in
right, and it was sticking out of the bone part way up. He was sent home that way, and the leg has
only gotten worse. He came to us to
have the rod put back in correctly.
Dr. Del took the rod out, and put a new one in, inside the bone this
time, where it was supposed to be. But
a couple of days after the surgery, the patient developed a fever. We took the dressings off and found that
the leg had shifted, and was swollen.
So, we sent him off to the nearest x-ray machine, in La Pointe.
(We are praying that the c-arm gets here safely. It will print a digital type image. We are praying for it, and hope you will
too, because the last three x-ray machines we sent in broke in transit. The Haitian truckers just do not understand
how to move them, and one was dropped, another the batteries were broken and
the casing ruined,…
please pray about the c-arm.
Digital imaging is better, here, anyway. I have been quite concerned about polluting
the ground water here with the chemicals a normal x-ray machine would
use. There are no chemical recycling
programs here, at all. The c-arm will
be an answer to many kinds of prayer!)
When our patient got back from LaPointe, he
fainted. The x-ray showed that his leg
has developed a hairline fracture all the way up, from the hole that the rod
poked through it. It has been
bleeding, and we do not have enough people here to give him a blood
transfusion. His haemoglobin is only
at 5. You would not believe it to look
at him, though. I went down and put my
hand on his arm under the covers to pray.
He immediately grabbed my hand and put it on his head. I prayed on the basis of Matthew 16 and
18:18-19, that whatever we bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever we
loose on earth is loosed in heaven. I prayed a simple prayer loosing from off
him, all fever and bleeding, binding his body to the perfect plan that God
has for it, and the words in Isaiah, that by Jesus’ stripes we are
healed. His fever of 102.9 began to
go down immediately. Another one of our patients is a 13 year
old boy, diagnosed with end stage cancer.
He is a brave boy. I have
talked to him about healing. He came
to have his one leg amputated below the knee, to make his life more
comfortable. The leg was rotting,
being eaten by the cancer. I prayed
with him before his surgery, and heard him accept Jesus as Lord of his
life. He also prayed for his mother.
She has been sitting with him day and night while he is here. I have prayed with him long and often
making sure that he knows of our home in heaven with Jesus. (I have meditated long on John 15:12-14,
where Jesus says that if we ask anything in His name He will do it, and that
greater works than He did, will we do, because He went to the Father. I have asked Him to heal that boy of the
cancer attacking his young body. While
there is life, I will continue to pray it.)
As well, is an elderly man who came in with a gangrenous scrotum. He needed
skin grafts. But the skin graft does
not look as good as Jessica would like, and the site on his leg where the
graft was taken gets a lot of prayer, too. Then there is our wonderful little girl,
who is ten years old. She had surgery,
because the bones in her leg were so infected they were weeping out her
skin. It is called osteomylitis. She is here, continuing to get pain
medicine and IV antibiotics. One of
the nurses was able to bring some IV Cipro with
her, in a cooler in her luggage. It
has been saving this child’s life, as well as the lives of the other
patients. Please do not get discouraged reading
about these patients. I have written
to you quite candidly about their challenges.
Each of them has accepted Jesus as the Lord of their lives. They are fighting these battles out with
His help. In the natural, it would all seem
very hopeless and we would despair to continue on. But we are cheering them on in their walk
of faith, helping to bring what comfort and medicine we can to their
afflicted bodies, but rejoicing with them in the great victory they have over
this world. And each one knows he is
very, very loved. Medicine alone in
this place would not be enough to save their lives. Only an atmosphere of love and faith can
give them a fighting chance. First
John says that ‘This is the victory which overcomes the world, even our
faith.’ Amen and amen. Last night, I felt there must be
something more I could do to encourage them.
So, I prayed, and kept remembering the Gaither blue grass video I had
in my computer bag. So, I got Grant,
who fixed up the projector and the sound for us, and after evening worship
with the patients, we watched a Gaither blue grass video. I was nervous about it, even though I
thought in the Holy Spirit this is what I was supposed to do. But it didn’t make sense. The songs are in English, the subtitles are
only in English, and Haitians have not learned a great many blue grass hymns. Grant said that he had the Jesus Video in
Creole, so I said that would be better.
But Grant could not find the Jesus Video. So there I was, with no options but the
Gaither blue grass songs, that the Holy Spirit
seemed to be leading. I explained to the patients that this
was ‘back porch’ music. The kind we
used to sing on our porches at night.
They loved it! Melissa got a
little nervous, because the young man with the hairline fracture and
haemorrhaging in his leg bone was bouncing all over the bed in time to the
music! The little boy with the
amputation was jumping up and moving all around. The little girl was singing the melodies to
the choruses by about the second verse of many of the songs. I had the interpreter share the words to
the songs, or at least the themes with the patients… like “Are you afraid to die? Have you come to Jesus or are you too much
a sinner to cry?” Or, “Lord send your angels to watch over me. I’m so afraid of the dark.” None of them had ever heard Rock of Ages,
but there were rumblings of ‘Amen, and Amen’ to
Vestal Goodman singing “Let the water and the Blood, from thy riven side which flowed, be for me the double cure…” There was one song, sung acapella by a quartet of men, “The lame will walk, the
blind will see. The dumb will talk to
me. There ‘ll
be no coffin building there,” talking about heaven. That is when our young amputee got moving
around. I thought he was so excited he
was going to jump out of bed. It was
an amazingly beautiful time of worship and faith building. We all set our hearts on things above, and
forgot, for a little while, the things of earth. It was a very blessed and holy time. It didn’t seem to worry any of them in the
least that so many of the songs talked about Heaven or the Blood of
Jesus. I know in Canada, this is not
always considered the best, most uplifting way to talk to patients. Here in Haiti, no one told them that. The blessed, precious, Holy Spirit knew just
what they needed. Melissa and Maureen will stay behind
when we leave tomorrow, to look after them.
The last few nights, Geoff has been the night duty nurse, allowing
Jessica to sleep in the next room, and awakening her only when people are in
crisis. Since the worship and singing
last night during the video, there has been evidence of the patients all
being physically much stronger, and emotionally less worried. It looks as though the boy with the
amputation will be discharged, and the little girl with the infection in her
bones, may also go home. We were able
to find enough Cipro tablets that she will not need
to stay here for IV Cipro, now that she is so much
improved. God is so very good! If anyone knows of faith filled music with
French subtitles, please, let me know how and where to obtain them! These are valuable things. If just shouting the lyrics out had that
kind of impact last night, what would it be if they could sound out most of
the words for themselves?! Another thing which I should tell you
about before I run off to do some last minute errands: St. Louis du nord
has been in the middle of a viral epidemic.
We do not have a name for it.
We only know that it is a virus.
Many of the missionaries have suffered it. One, who permitted me to pray for him and
responded in faith, said that when I commanded the virus and all disease
germs to leave his body, he felt them all be ‘yanked out his toes’. He was desperate to be healed, and could
not stand up well for days. That same
day, he and another nurse I prayed for were working full time in the
operating suite. This virus has been terrible. It has caused extremely high fevers and
terrible muscle soreness. The children
have been literally throwing their bodies in the bed trying to make them
quite hurting. One of the missionaries
who has had the virus says that this morning, she
woke up, afraid to open her eyes or move, in case she felt as horrible as she
did yesterday. The children’s throats
have been sore, and they have been coughing enough to make themselves throw
up. Tending all these very sick children,
hundreds of them, has kept Melissa and the Haitian doctors and nurses
extremely busy. Melissa caught up with
me this morning to thank me that yet again, the Canadian container with all
the children’s Tylenol and motrin arrived just in
time to deal with this viral epidemic.
My thanks go out to Health Partners International Canada who so
graciously send so very much medicine to put in our
containers for this work. Without
running water, when a child comes in with a temperature of 104 degrees, we
just stick them in a bucket of rainwater, if we have it, until the fever
comes down. It helps to have the
Tylenol and Motrin for them to take home.
God is so very, very good. Also, I have spent much time with
mothers, teaching them to lay hands on their children, and expecting them to
get better. Mark 16 is easiest for
them to remember. The story of Peter’s
mother with the fever that Jesus healed is another. Thank you all so very much for
praying! Every day here, lives hang in
the balance. We give the dear people
who come to us for help loving care, treat their diseases with medicine, and
bandage their wounds. But most of all,
we love them, lay hands on them in prayer, and teach them about a loving
Saviour who gave His life that they might live. And songs about being a pilgrim here really
help, too. J In
His great love, Tina October 19,
2009 |