Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
Matthew 13: 31-32

At one point in time, Haiti was commonly known as the Pearl of the Antilles.

The beauty of the pearl is birthed out of pain, as a result of something hurtful that slips in-between the oyster’s protective shell into it’s most tender part. Each beautiful translucent, iridescent layer of the narcre of the pearl covering the source of the pain.

In less than 40 seconds in January 2010, approximately 300,000 lives were lost, and many hearts were broken in that catastrophic 7.0 earthquake.

Each day, our prayers include asking the Lord Christ Jesus to lead those who are hurting the most to our medical clinics.

We know that in each of the faces of the 255 people who we met with in the medical clinic today that there are stories of great pain and heartache hidden deep within their hearts.

In addition to the medications, shots and creams that were given, the Nurses, Doctor and Pharmacy team pray with as many of the men, women and children as possible. We see a woman with anemia that has been bleeding continuously daily for over two months, and a woman whose foot was badly crushed in the earthquake, whose wound was so deep that it looked the injury stopped short of severing her foot.

Today, after her assessment of a patient was complete, one of the Nurses prayed with a woman for her illness. The woman held her prescription for medications, ready for the pharmacy team. When they finished praying together, the woman said to the Nurse, “Would you continue to pray for me after I leave….I lost my all five of my children in the earthquake.”

At times during the day we face a battle looking out over the crowds lined up outside of the tent. Although we’ve brought mountains of vitamins, medicines, antifungal and antibacterial creams, gallons of cough syrup, and other medications we have begun to understand how big the heartache is that is buried so deep in the people coming in to the tents each day to see the team.

What we have brought with us in our medical kits seems so little at times compared to the vast expanse of the tent cities and what they represent. Like a drop in a huge bucket. What is a pill and a cup of water to swallow it down in the face of all of this?

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’
Matthew 25: 37 – 40

Deye mon gen mon, or in English, behind the mountains there are mountains….

May be you have heard this saying above. We cannot be sure of it’s original origin here in the beautiful country of Haiti, filled as it is with mountains and hills but you begin to appreciate it more as you imagine the challenge to climb up the steep mountain slopes to reach the top only to find that there is another mountain behind it that you will have to climb next, as you see with your own eyes the level of basic needs that are unfulfilled here in the tent cities and around Port au Prince.

We return to tent city La Bou, which lives up to it’s name of Mud Camp for the morning, and then to a new camp near that is just around the corner from where are hosts Andre and Sylvie live.

Thousands of people live in these camps. There is no clean running water available in their camp, or basic sanitation, so many come to the clinics seeking help. The line winds around the doorway. People are anxious to be seen. Medications today began to run low already on day three because we’ve filled so many prescriptions since opening up our first medical clinic on Sunday.

We trek out to the industrial strength pharmacy 4C located in Port au Prince to use the money we did not have to pay in additional baggage fees to purchase more Mebendazole, Calma Toux, Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, Contracid, Antifungals, Children’s Vitamins, and Probiotics.

The needs are not just limited to those in the tent cities. Driving to the pharmacy, we see groups of children whose parents passed away living out on the streets, who often gather around cars that park and wipe them with cloths to try to earn money. We see men breaking down rocks for gravel to sell. We see women carrying huge containers on their heads filled with heavy loads trying to make ends meet by selling cold water .

As we drive Andre shares with me that he and his wife Sylvie focus on seeing what they can do, not what they cannot do during the last two + years of living in Haiti. This year, they were able to open an orphanage to provide a home for children who have AIDs. The two girls smile when we visit them, and the third child, Jean Eddy who once was a tiny malnourished baby on the brink of death with illness, is now thriving and eating like a champion and is over two years old.

We drive back to the house and replenish our medical supplies, packaging up piles and piles of pills after lunch, and see a total of 182 patients between the two different tent cities throughout a long, hot day.

When climbing the mountains, we remind ourselves that it always begins with taking that that first step.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Romans 13:12

I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. John 9:4

Men anpil, chay pa lou: many hands make the load lighter.

We rise this morning at 4 a.m., earlier than the rooster who crows to greet a new day to join our hosts Andre, Sylvie and Angel in worship at a local Haitian church in Delmas. Why such an early morning? It takes a bit more time for the five women and two men on our team to take showers using a bucket of water and a cup to bathe. It takes a bit more time to drive through streets that look like the surface of the moon, with huge crators and jagged rocks, possibly enough to break down the axel of most cars driven in NYC. It takes a bit more time to drive through the traffic of the city that still does not have stop lights in certain areas to help manage the flow of traffic. Patience is a muscle that gets a tremendous workout here in the city of Port au Prince.

The local Pastor continues helping to reach out to the communities here in Port au Prince who have suffered great losses. In the midst of this, we hear Merci anpil Senye Dieu sung and prayed with such heart – Thank you so much Lord God. The visiting Pastor reads from Psalms 73 – But it is good for me to draw near to God; I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all your works.

Hands are raised to honor the Lord and His love and tenderness, and it reminds us of the Haitian proverb above as we begin our first medical outreach in the tent city of La Bou, which translates into Mud City in English.

So many hands within the body of Christ Jesus are involved here in the work of rebuilding lives and homes in Haiti. In our little world here in Delmas at Andre & Sylvie’s home in Port au Prince, there are the hands of the beautiful women who cooked the meals that fuel our day. There are the hands of the youth and men here who help us each morning to load our heavy laden medical bins into the back of the truck. There are the hands of Andre, Sylvie, Angel and Louise that drive the truck down the rocky, bumpy and hilly roads to the tent camp cities and organize everything from A to Z so that teams can head out into the tent cities. There are the hands of the men and women who provide translation from Creole to English, and English to Creole. There are the hands of the Nurses and the Doctor who take blood pressure, administer injections, and write the scripts for medicines. There are the hands of the Pharmacy team that fill the orders for thousands and thousands of pills, liquids and creams each morning and afternoon as hundreds of people are cared for each day in the tent cities at our mobile medical clinics. There are the hands of the beautiful women and men who come seeking help in the tents each day, holding babies in their arms and holding slips with numbers as they wait on long lines under the hot sun to be seen by the team. The hands of the local Pastors and leaders who are usually the point of contact in each of the tent cities and organize the time, date and location for our medical outreaches in the tent camps.

And finally the hands of the children, who are always first to run out of the tents smiling, and those tiny fingers that intertwine with our own as they hold our hands and help us carry our supplies into the tent cities, and wave good bye to us as we leave at night.

The October On-Call team of one Doctor, four Nurses and two non-medical people departed early on Saturday morning. Under the cover of darkness, we piled into a van with over 10 bins filled to overflowing with over 51,000 vitamins and medicines for our week long medical outreaches in the tent cities of Port au Prince. We also had one team member from Times Square Church join us for the journey back to Haiti to continue work organizing the logistics for the upcoming Times Square Church and Nouvelle Vie outreach in November being held at Stade Sylvio Cator from November 3-6.

An unspoken prayer in each of our hearts was answered even before we left New York City. God`s favour was upon the team as the extra baggage fees were waived for almost all of the medical supply bins. Apparently this is an extremely rare occurrence as the women working at the ticket counter had said that in all the many years she worked for the airline that she had never seen that occur for anyone, including employees. We were thanking the Lord for His favour, as the need right now in Haiti is still so great, even though it has been over a year and half since the devastating earthquake. Over 1.3 million people are still living in tent camps, with little or no access to clean water, electricity or basic sanitation needs. So every dollar available counts in ways you cannot readily appreciate until you see the crowds of men, women and children who begin lining early every morning for medical care – and instead of being spent on baggage fees, we will instead be able to be spend the money on more medications and vitamins.

One of our team members – a nurse from NYC, is Haitian. She has returned to Haiti on this trip for the first time in 10 years. She mentioned that despite everything she had heard about the state of the city after the earthquake, seeing it with her own eyes the reality of it was overwhelming as the descriptions could not capture the level of devastation to the city she once knew and loves.

For another team member, this is his first time traveling outside of the U.S. – this afternoon, Haiti custom`s marked his first passport stamp. And yet another team member, a Doctor who lives in NYC, is returning to Haiti for the fifth time. Now here in Delmas in the home of our hosts Andre, Sylvie and their daughter Angele, with all of our medical bins smoothly through customs, we all thank God for the honor and privilege to come to Haiti and serve the Lord. It is humbling, and it takes your breath away when you drive through the streets and see the hardship of the tent cities filled with the people.

You might ask, does God hear the cry of the people of Haiti. Our eye witness is that He has continued to lead people from all over the world to help, month after month. From Times Square Church alone there have been teams arriving almost monthly for the last year. Upon arriving here at Andre & Sylvie`s home in Delmas 75, we are joined in by two men from Texas. A construction team from World Challenge has been building homes in Port au Prince for a week. 15 homes were completed! These two men extended their stay in Haiti to continue constructing needed homes for an extra two weeks. Not having known each other before this journey began, we find it`s like a family reunion, with laughs and smiles shared easily as we praise the Lord for His faithfulness. We could not help but wonder, is this the sound of being joined together in one accord within the body of Christ – holding a hammer in one hand and medicine in the other: praising The Master builder, and The Healer.

As I am writing this at 12:30am, I am about to fall over in my chair. We saw over 300 people at the final medical outreach today.  Ushered into a small 5 room school house, this team poured out what they thought were their last drops of energy.  Well, as of this writing most of them are still doing inventories of medication and other tasks before their departure tomorrow, so I am not alone. (Yes, my pillow is beckoning.)

I am always humbled when I come across people who desire the heart of God to be their own. I`m not talking about the missionary in prayer for 4 hours a day, with a heavy-hand, clobbering a person with the gospel; I am talking about hearts that simply seek to surrender to a loving God and share it in whatever form they can.  That is what this team and their hosts are; a simple and profound manifestation of God`s love.

Last night I felt like I was entering a holy place when I joined them in prayer. I thought to myself, “These are hearts that have prayed for months to be poured out and I only came into their gathering now.”  These are 12 people who said a simple “yes”…which would impact the lives of over eleven-hundred people this week in Haiti.

Today I saw, first hand, what they have done all week. I also saw there is such an immense need here in Haiti.  But I also realized that all it takes is a simple “yes”.  This was the first medical outreach I have ever been on.  I was the runner charged with keeping the patients consistently flowing from intake/triage to the doctors. 

Today a woman sat with a heavy heart on the wooden bench in front of me. She had been waiting for hours in the hot sun just to see a doctor for what would be perhaps 3 – 5 minutes.  She knew she had a need and she came to this small five room school house just to be in the presence of someone who might be able to provide relief for her pain.  When I called her in my pathetic high school French “Est-ce-que vous etes pretes?” meaning “Are you ready?”, she looked up said “YES!” as if she`d won the lottery. She knew the gift she was receiving, and rejoiced with such appreciation. And I was just the messenger. I guess we are both patients and messengers.

These twelve people were here for one week, just letting God use them; they just said “yes”.  So, thank you August 2011 Haiti team.  You have been used to bring a miracle to my life and I know that there are so many others that received God`s love, hope and not just a little joy here in Haiti.  ”He said to them, Go”, Mark 16:15… and they did.

And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.  John 21:25