(Editor’s note: Norman Jameson is visiting Haiti Aug. 22-29 to report on the work of North Carolina Baptist groups working in the aftermath of that nation’s devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. This is the second of several daily impressions from his week there. The first is available here.)
By Norman Jameson
From the constant chorus of, “Hey you! Give me!” sung by every child who came to the clinics or construction sites in our first day ministering in Haiti to the angry shout by a woman of “Allez! Allez!” (Go! Go!) as we drove away, our first long day ministering in Haiti was a steady stream of adventure.
It continued as we drove to the compound when we stopped with two doctors on board our rented tap tap (truck/bus) to care for a victim of a motorcycle accident. He was carried to a closed hospital near the compound where we are staying, and laid on a bench outside where Wilmington, N.C., doctors Mark Austin and Pam Taylor patched him up.
We traveled this morning to Cité Soleil, which we were told is the most dangerous place in Haiti. The caution put us on alert, but we were most impressed by the utter desolation. For two miles on rutted, gutted roads we saw barely two buildings that were complete. Everything was tents, three-sided shelters, simple tarps held aloft by limbs and dust.
Our medical clinic site was set up beneath a large white tent where Eglise Chretieene Menelasse (Christian Church of Menelasse) met. One hundred people waited as we arrived, near the front of the tent with pew benches set up for 750 worshipers. To one side an international crew with Haitian workers dug a footing to build a perimeter wall around the church property.
Doctors, nurses and interpreters set up shop within an hour of arriving, following prayer, song and a lecture on prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Austin, a maxillofacial surgeon, worked in an adjacent storage building. So workers, walking in and out of the storage building hauling 94-lb. bags of cement, passed the surgery theater.
It’s medicine on the mission field.
Boys played soccer barefoot on the empty field beside us, across from a stream of stagnant green water. I ventured out there to shoot some pictures of the area and immediately drew a crowd of boys who wanted both to practice their English and to wrest from me anything I had, be it water, food, money, a phone or even my handkerchief.
One boy, John, is a Christian, as is his family. He was delighted to talk conversationally in a language he admires. He would like to go to school, but “it is impossibility” given the fact his family is poor, he said. When we parted later in the day after crossing paths several times, he said he prayed God’s blessings on me for safe travel.
Everyone wanted my e-mail address, although they had no computers.
Many had phones, however — another irony in an area where food is uncertain, shelter primitive, transportation rare and jobs rarer still. But it is important to communicate with friends and family who may be on the other side of the country, said pastor and interpreter-for-the-day Gardemont Lundy, who let it be known to every team member that he, too, is in need. He lost his house in the Jan. 12 earthquake, but, “thanks to God,” his wife and four children are safe.
After photographing the activity at the medical clinic and visiting with many young people who were hanging around or trying to see a doctor, I noticed surgeon Austin’s flashlight holder had disappeared, so I picked up the flashlight and played spotter for several hours, illuminating the mouths of Haitians grateful to have a doctor visit their remote location to relieve their pain in Jesus’ name.
Jimmy Suggs, who is leading this week’s team from Scotts Hill Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C., said during the devotional time tonight that lots of organizations do good work in disaster situations. “But if those who proclaim Christ are not at the forefront of the effort, we’re not doing what we should be doing in Christ.”
Through their leadership, North Carolina Baptist Men is enabling North Carolina Baptists to be among those believers who are at the forefront of the effort.
Tomorrow I’m going with the construction team to see the difference they are making in the lives of people in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.