“…I was sick and you looked after me…”
I have already shared with you how amazing our very first experience in Haiti was, participating in a joyful worship service with the community. What I haven’t yet told you is that after the church service we all trekked out to a tiny hut near the grounds of Grace So Amazing Ministries to visit Rosemary. Rosemary had been very, very sick in the weeks prior to our arrival and had finally been diagnosed with HIV.
Kellie entered her tiny hut first and asked for permission to bring us in. She gladly agreed and we all crowded into the space that was smaller than many American bathrooms. Kellie questioned her…how was she feeling? Had she taken her meds? Was she eating even if she didn’t feel like it? What could we do for her? It was decided that ingredients for chicken soup would be purchased at the market and delivered to her son to prepare for her. Her supply of clean water was checked, and it was confirmed that she had enough meds to continue the healing process. During their conversation I couldn’t help but notice how small Rosemary was…lying on a thin mattress on the dirt floor. A light sheet covered her, but still, we could see the bones protruding beneath the material. We squeezed tighter together to make room for the three Pastors of the church to stand beside her bed and they prayed bold and confident prayers over Rosemary. Then they led several Haitian hymns, that her heart might praise her beloved Savior. Some days before, she had told Kellie that although some of her friends had deserted her when they heard her diagnosis, Jesus would always be with her. He would never leave her. Rosemary knows her Redeemer. We asked if Rosemary would like to be moved outside where she could sit in the sunshine and she said yes, so the men lifted her from her bed and placed her in a wicker chair under a shade tree.
In the days that followed we checked on Rosemary periodically.
We also checked on Jack, a man who had been dragged by his cow and had suffered a 12 inch gash on his thigh. Our young team mates, Addie and Mary Elizabeth, crouched next to Kellie and learned how to clean the healing flesh and how to dress the wound. It would be the first of many examples of torn flesh that they would care for during our stay. We would check on a young man with sickle cell anemia, and witness an aging, paralyzed man being led to Christ as we visited him while he lay on his mat on the dirt floor. Health care is sometimes difficult to obtain in rural Haiti and people often just do the best they can on their own. We had the opportunity to see the local clinic after meeting Estella, a 73 year old woman with a cancerous growth on her foot and a lump on her inner thigh. We transported her and her family to the hospital because they had no way to get her there. Again, the clinic is doing the best they can with what they have, but seeing the conditions there and comparing them with what we have so readily available here in the U.S. made me ashamed. We are so blessed, yet so demanding of what we consider our “rights.” And all the while a people just miles off of our American shore suffer alone and in silence.
On the last day before we headed home we visited the hospital in a nearby town. I was looking forward to visiting the children’s ward on this visit and also the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit). You see, I have twin two-year-old granddaughters that were born prematurely. Eva, the larger one, was just 1 pound, 12 ounces at birth, and Abigail, the smaller of the two, was just 1 pound, four ounces. My tiny grandbabies survived and are thriving largely because of the wonderful care they received in the NICU for the first three months of their lives. I witnessed the cutting-edge machines with all of the bells and whistles that every day give preemies a real shot at growing up and having a normal and healthy childhood. The babies we visited in Haiti’s NICU have a real chance for survival, but they didn’t have the same access to the latest and best that medicine has to offer that Eva and Abigail did. I longed for this NICU to look the same as the one I had visited so often to rock my grandchildren to sleep, even while they were hooked up to oxygen and monitors through a tangle of color-coded wires. While the alarms going off were frightening at first, I was grateful that they alerted the attentive staff to the emergency needs of each precious little life in the room. I pray that progress will continue to be made in Haiti, and that health care will get better and better for our neighbors in need.
Before our team arrived in Haiti, a very sick little girl, Elundy, was in need of heart surgery. The GSA team was able to make arrangements for her to be transported to the Dominican Republic for the necessary procedure. Even now she is recuperating at the GSA compound where she can be monitored in a clean and safe environment.
Jesus calls us to look after the sick, and this is what the staff of Grace So Amazing tries to do with what they have. They don’t have much, but what they do have, they share with their neighbors. First aid and medical supplies are needed and there is a vision of providing a health clinic on the site. We pray that the vision will become a reality. But the most important thing that the GSA team offers is the prayers over the sick. We believe that Jesus has the power to heal, and the team never failed to ask if we could pray for the person that was being tended.
Please consider supporting the efforts of Grace So Amazing in what ever way you are led. Financial help for medical supplies is needed, and prayer support is even more important. If you’d like to donate towards that need or you would like to join the Grace So Amazing Prayer Team, please do visit the website here.
Part 6 of our story tomorrow…
Seeds to Sow 
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