Contrasts

Coming into the US through Florida and then making our connections home brought many contrasts to my mind.

After the scene at the PAP airport (getting off the bus and having our Haitian helper who was on the top of the bus hand our luggage down with the hopes that it would go into our hands and not be snatched by someone, people pushing and shoving in lines to get through the gate, trying to stay together as a group, security members trying to keep order in all the chaos, chatting with other teams leaving the country and hearing of their experiences) we arrived at the Ft Lauderdale airport and were ushered through Immigrations, then Customs, collected our bags, passed through security THREE times (don't know quite why) and then entered the relative peace and quiet of the terminal where we got our boarding passes and then nine of us were able to be together for a last lunch together before we parted from the doctors from Spokane and went to our gates, two heading for Illinois and five of us still together to Charlotte where we parted company.

There were some contrasts that stood out vividly. I went in to use the restroom. It was clean. There was paper. It flushed. I waved my hands and got soap. I waved my hands again and a towel came out of a little box on the wall.

People were standing in lines at some of the restaurants in the terminal, but they didn't look gaunt and haunted. Not one person came up to us and begged a "dolla", not one rubbed their belly and said "hongry!". There were stores and kiosks everywhere with goods that are readily available - trinkets, really - nothing substantial that sustains life - and people were there browsing and buying such trivial things as a book or magazine or a trinket to take home. Well-dressed people in expensive clothing were everywhere, discussing their latest shopping trips and how it makes so much sense to spend more on everything they buy because it lasts longer. I was wondering how many times they actually will wear what they purchased before discarding it and purchase something else.

And through all of this, I am thinking of the Haitian people that we became so attached to in our five short days at the hospital and how they will fare.

About the man in 4A (can't remember all of their names, but I won't forget their faces) who was discharged and ready to go, but needed a pair of shoes to be able to hike down the mountain - with a femur fracture, mostly healed.

About little Jodelynn, who lost her parents and siblings in the quake and had been carried by an uncle and grandmother from the hospital grounds and back to whatever her new life will be - in a hip spica cast, with an above-the-knee amputation on the right and a broken hip on the left. About Bethlie Paul and Naika, two little girls who after numerous surgeries and treatments will most likely still lose their legs. About resilient little Kervin and his engaging smile. About Harold, who winced and trembled as he removed his dressing each day so that I could clean his wounds and apply a new one, and then grinned at me and thanked me profusely.

About the resilient teen-age boys who are so bound together by their eight week long experience in the hospital that we wonder how they will adapt when they eventually leave and go their separate ways.

About the extended families who are beside the bedside of their loved ones 24/7, sleeping on the floor with no pillow, possibly just a sheet, and go back behind the hospital twice a day to cook some food for themselves and their loved ones over a crude charcoal fire, do all the bedside care - batheing and dressing their family members and emptying their slop pots - all with smiles on their faces and a song on their lips - praising God for preserving their lives, despite the losses they have suffered.

About the patients who we cared for who never smiled, but are going through some inner trauma that we will never understand, and who have not found a way to express their grief to anyone. About some of the patients who have no one beside their beds because their loved ones have been lost. About the patients who have physical wounds that are slowly healing, but emotional wounds that may never heal.

About the crude conditions that the nurses of the hospital are trying hard to work with - no running water, dim lighting (we at least had head lamps), limited supplies (a man with a blood sugar over 500 without the right insulin to give him), patients with cardiac conditions with no medications to help them. Open buckets or basins being used as sharps containers, which then get emptied into the regular trash and dumped in a big pile out behind the hospital. Mice scurrying across the floor right next to where children are sleeping. Charts with notations and orders written by english-speaking doctors and nurses that they can't decipher and therefore are not following through with.

And here we are back at home. And I wonder how long it will be before their faces leave my mind and I get caught up in daily life. I promised so many of them that I will never forget them and that I will pray for them every day. And I will - at least for a while - until my busy life pushes the memories into the background. But God does not forget any one of them. He hears their cries of anguish and their songs of praise. He knows what their futures will be. He sees all of the tent cities that have sprung up, thousands living out in the elements with only a layer of tarp or a sheet or a canvas tent, lining up by the hundreds, solid walls of people standing in lines to get what? a cup of rice or a small loaf of bread? And we passed through them on our air-conditioned bus and left them behind and came to our beautiful homes with our healthy bodies, weary physically, but inspired spiritually. We commit the Haitian people to God, praying for them and hoping that the memory of what we have experienced will linger long.