"It's a Broken Hallelujah"

Another novel: I just can't help it!

Sunday I got to go down to the USS Comfort ship to pick up a few of our patients. All I have to say is the US military base is a pretty incredible thing to see--all branches of the military, tents for miles, military planes taking off! A couple air force guys were so kind and kept asking us if we needed food or water or if they could give us anything. Just know, they are here to help and are doing a great job (regardless of what is being said in the media).

Later, Dr. Brad and the rest of us medical people headed into downtown Port by the palace to get a better feel for the devastation. THERE WILL NEVER BE ADEQUATE WORDS: power lines down, rubble still spilling into the street....we even had to duck a few times riding in the back of the truck as it just passed under downed electric wires. It feels and looks like a war zone. The center part of the palace is falling lower than when I saw it two weeks ago. It also was surreal seeing what is left of the national cathedral here. It made a bunch of us sick to our stomachs knowing the remains of people are still trapped in many of the building we are seeing. A different feel pervades the camp outside the palace too---slightly more subdued with more overtones of sadness than when we got in 3 weeks after the earthquake--for when we got here there was a more chaotic and desperate survival mode going on.

Again, you meet people eye to eye and you don't know how to react.

Sunday night the medical staff had worship at the missionary house that feeds us every night. It was such a remarkable feeling to be able to worship alongside people that I didn't even know existed a few weeks ago that now feel like family. ''And all will say, how great is our God"

The last 2 days of 12-15 hour shifts are becoming a blur. The Haitian people and the medical staff make every second of this worth while. I have to admit, I was quite drained Monday: the emotional toll of what I've been experiencing and saw in the city Sunday was overwhelming. BUT there are many amazing stories!!! Little Edison who just last week was sobbing his eyes out was literally doing back flips on his cot....broken femur and all. Three minutes later, he found gauze and purple wrap and has bandaged his own head!! Today..he was finally reunited with his family!!! His dad took him to the USS Comfort 3 weeks ago and had no idea where he was; after the staff here got him on the TV, his dad was found! We will miss him so dearly here but are so happy for his ending--and new beginning!

A few things I hope people know:
In an early blog I mentioned a man named Richard. He is a Haitian born man in his late 50s who now resides in Miami. On the way in from Santo Domingo I got to talk with him about how he has seen Haiti change since he was little. He mentioned something that I can't stop thinking about. He said he knows God didn't cause such destruction, but he wonders how bad things were getting here that this kind of change had to take place. Specifically, he was referring to the government here (which if you know anything about Haiti...it's horribly corrupt. EXAMPLE: We had 2 gunshot wound patients last week because the police shot into the crowd!). He said, "Every single government building from the palace to the smaller branch buildings have been completely destroyed. That is NOT a coincidence. Believe me, you do NOT want to know the kind of evil that took place in that palace.".......
He also said his solemn prayer is that Haiti is rebuilt in such a powerful way, (not by any one group or organization) NO ONE can deny that God did it. The power behind his hope still stays with me a few weeks later......I can't shake it.

That is what I hope you (whoever YOU are who is reading this) know about this country. . .

Yes, it is a fourth world nation. FOURTH world. Deemed one of the least developed, dead-end countries of illiterate, voodoo-ist heathens that only loot and beg to get by. Why would you dare to rebuild Port-au-Prince where it is!? Don't they know that there is going to be another 7.5+ quake that will happen!? "I've been to Africa and it doesn't even compare to the culture and violence here."..... The UN deemed the heart of Cite Soleil THE most dangerous place on Earth: you don't go in unless you want to be kidnapped and slowly tortured.

To those people, I say, you know nothing about Haiti. At all. Yes, there is heartbreak and sadness that no human being should ever know in their lives. There are things I have been told and am finding out that I don't think I can post here. There are not always happy endings and a silver lining.

BUT: There is a hope here that CANNOT be killed. But, the thing about hope is--it can rip your heart out. If you didn't care, then there would be no pain--but there also would be no hope. C.S. Lewis said, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
To hope is to go along for the ride--from the exhilarating highs to the devastating lows. To continue on through the lows takes courage and a strength not a lot of people possess. Hope is not a passive, emotion-driven entity; it's a conscious (and unconscious) peace and understanding that something will come through. . . .and please make no misunderstanding that true hope can ONLY be found in God and His power.

As I have found in the last few years and however many months, Hope keeps propelling you forward--often when you don't know why or even want it to. You can declare you've had enough, but it keeps rising up. Haiti will rise up...I have met too many remarkable people here to believe otherwise.

You can choose to believe the statistics. That's fine. But those statistics are wrong. NO statistic can tell you the miracles that are occurring here. There are smiles through the pain and people that have been rocked to their core again and again in this life, but they keep hoping.

A verse that has been my lifeline the last few months and my favorite verse is Proverbs 13:12--"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." Some of you know why this is so important to me, most of you do not. But this verse comes to mind here in this country. Hope is alive in Haiti. God is also very alive here.

Lespwa fe vive is a Haitian proverb. It means "By hope we live." The Haitian people are living each day by hope--often not knowing where it comes from. I hope you know Hope is from God. I pray that in whatever you're going through hope shines through the darkness and you have the strength and courage it takes to continue hoping.

The pain is imaginable here, but there is much Hope in Haiti..........


Much love <3,
Alisha