Dear Friends and Family,
Thank you for your generous support of my Haiti Medical Mission trip with Northshore Baptist Church- Empact Northwest. I’ve been back a several weeks now and have reacclimatized to living in America.
I am glad to be home but also very eager to share with you about my trip. Some of you may have been following through Jean’s post on Facebook or my Twitter. I hope through this letter, I’d be able to fill in some of the gaps and give you a fuller picture of my time in Haiti.
Upon our arrival at Port-au-Prince, we were overwhelmed by crowds of people, the different languages, the poverty, the heat and humidity. It was definitely a change from the cloudy and rainy weather of the Pacific Northwest. It was clear we were far from home.
Our hosts were crew of young Haitian working with Empact Haiti. Empact Haiti is an organization developed to help these young people train to be paramedics. In addition to their training, they also double as translators for foreign medical relief teams and offer accommodations and transportation. They were friendly and welcoming. They helped us adjust to our basic accommodations: a cot, mosquito net and bear concrete floors. We had no AC, no running water and a few hours of generator power. I personally struggled to sleep in the REI “green mosquito repellent sac” in the heat and humidity. It was sheer torture and I even thought this trip was definitely a mistake. But the Lord reminded me that He can calm the storm when I did my morning devotion in Luke 8:22-25 the next day.
After getting settled in the Empact House, we took a 3-hour trip to Dessalines, the former capital of Haiti, to visit a lady named Dixie. She is an American from a nearby (to Seattle) town who has been doing work in that region for many years with a local Haitian church. We wanted to see her ministry and also encourage her. We brought donated beanie babies which the children of the local Haitian church absolutely loved and I blew up a beach ball for the kids to play with. Our next day, we worked at Boujeux Parc, an amusement park converted to a free medical clinic after the January 2010 earthquake. It is run mostly by volunteer staff and donated medicines. It was interesting to see their pharmacy stocked with medicines in various languages and forms (for example, they had injectable ibuprophen). We worked side by side with Haitian physicians and saw approximately 70 patients in half a day. It was a good experience to see how things were run before we ran our own mobile medical clinics.
It was election season and a politically tense time to be in Haiti. UN’s tanks and trucks were everywhere trying to maintain a level of order with their presence. The election results were to be released on the Monday we were there. The results could have had a significant impact on the rest of our plans to conduct mobile clinics for riots could occur if the people did not get their way. Thankfully there was rejoicing and peace throughout as the people’s choice was elected. Praise God!
Our first mobile clinic was at Croix de Bouquets in a Haitian church. Wood benches were converted into pharmacy shelves, we saw patients in the sanctuary and many came respectfully in their Sunday’s best. We saw all sorts of conditions from indigestion to severe pneumonia with dehydration. The medicines we brought through donations from regional hospitals and your individual generous donations proved extremely helpful and useful in caring for many patients. Our team of six nurses and one doctor worked hard and diligently through the day seeing 150+ patients that day. That day, the most significant case I saw was one that was initially seen by one of my team members. He had nausea, vomiting and high fever 103F. He was short of breath, coughing and reported coughing up blood. We were able to give him IV fluids, antibiotic injection, oral antibiotics and nausea medications. We suspected it was TB. Being so limited with what we had, it was a challenge. However, the best part was we were able to invite the church’s pastor pray for him. We heard he accepted Christ and professed faith. After some time, he said he felt better but we all know he would need further care. It was good to be the hands and feet of Jesus that day. Please pray for this gentleman as you think of this letter.
The next day, our team split up doing work in Bernard Mevs Hospital and going to visit a church’s orphanage to explore future ministry plans. I went with the group who visited the orphanage. Seeing the little children reminded me on my kids and made me homesick. The children were eager to see us for they longed for human touch.
Our second mobile clinic was with a church in Santo, a rural community. On our trip there, we passed tent cities and saw the squalor of how people lived. It was overwhelming to see how meager their living conditions were and how urgently their needed help. We conducted our clinic in a single-room tent in heat of the day. It was the most crowded tent we ever did clinic in. We saw various conditions from upper respiratory infections to severe wound infections. There were several children with ear infections. One patient had an infected toe and toenail. I was able to help him with an antibiotic injection, oral antibiotics and removal of his toenail in the back seat of a truck (there really was no room in the overcrowded tent we called clinic). Our team saw 150+ patients that day. It was such a blessing to be a blessing to the Haitians.
Our last clinic was in Belot, a mountain community around Port-au-Prince. This trip was not without complications. The drive there was a long one during which one of our vehicles (the pastor’s truck) broke down on our way there. This meant we all squeezed together with our translators and suitcases of medicines into one mid-size SUV. Talk about a tight fit! We work with a lady named Ann, who has been doing ministry in Haiti for 20+ years. The locals were so excited to see us. We conducted our clinic in a bigger tent this time. Ann was extremely strict about the patients having their medical records ready for us to review. It was welcoming to have some order in gathering medical history. We saw 120+ patients but had to end early because of the trip down the mountain could be dangerous in the dark. We saw many children with respiratory infections, many adults with really high blood pressure and many skin infections. One patient came into the tent with a hypertensive emergency. These types of emergencies are usually managed in the Emergency Room back here in the US, but this is rarely the case in rural Haiti where the hospital is too far away and the cost is typically prohibitive. And to further complicate things in our situation, the pastor’s truck just broke down! She immediately became a priority and also a major concern. It was our last clinic day and we had also been running low or running out of medicines. This raised the stress level of the situation greatly. We did our best with the limited medications and IV fluids and strongly advised her to go to the hospital. We also had the pastor pray for the patient and gave him some money to help defray the medical costs at the hospital. God carried us through this crisis.
As you can see, through this trip, I was personally and professionally stretched. I had never been away from my family for that many days, and never had to live in such bare conditions. Professionally, our church’s missions pastor (who is a registered nurse and a member of our team) said it best… “When you are without technology and fancy tests to help you make the call… This is when medicine truly becomes and art”. God guided each one of us through our time with our patients and we pray that he will continue to work in the hearts of those we encountered. Throughout the trip, I was constantly reminded that the Lord is sovereign over all things, Rom 8:28-39. His hand was protecting us throughout our trip. It was such a blessing to be Jesus to the people of Haiti. The people of Haiti are beautiful people. Many of the people we met are eager to rebuild, to improve their lives and help one another out of their current situation. Please pray for the Haitians we served, their newly elected leader, and for the rebuilding of their country. This trip has confirmed in me the call to be committed to going regularly on short-term mission trips during this season of life. Thanks you for all your support and prayers.
Trusting Him,
Chiyang Wu
He is Risen and He is Lord
