Clarity

Clarity 

The rain stopped on Saturday morning. Saturday turned into the clearest, most beautiful day I have yet experienced in this country. The blues and greens were so vibrant. The mountains in the distance looked touchable. No dust. No smog. Dazzling. Like the four straight days of relentless rain were only a fading dream, driven away all the faster by the striking color of real life.

It is amazing to me how quickly I could forget about the misery of the storm in the beauty after the fact. As we drove down the mountain to our new house that we were thankfully able to move into given the abatement of rain, it was almost easy to overlook the evidence. But there it was, the signs that showed how insulated we were in our four strong walls and how different the previous few days were for so many other people.

It worries me how easy it is to forget as soon as the thing has passed. We pray and pray for the crisis and feel it so acutely, and then the sun comes out and it does, it fades like a dream and we forget that we should still be praying- in thanks for the sun, for healing from the wounds. If only the crystal clarity that I saw in the day-after would be afforded to our minds at the same time. I feel like mine is far too often stuffed dumb by bits of lint and bad music. What if we kept praying?

 I was once compared to Dori from “Finding Nemo”- I can only hope due to the elastic versatility of my face in pulling many humorous expressions much like my marine animated doppelganger. But also, what if my attention span is too much like hers? What if I am too quickly and easily distracted? I get up off my knees too readily, it’s uncomfortable and I start to squirm and think of how my feet are going to sleep and I’m bony and the ground is hard and….

I also wish I could speak whale….

 Case closed. For those of you that are less easily distracted, please kick me in the shins and let’s keep praying for Haiti and those that are hurting or homeless from the storm.

Hair

Today I enjoyed tagging along with my friend Cody and his family on a return trip to the beach. Man, I still love the countryside. It has more green things and animals and space and naked children. Fantastic. We made the drive in a turd of a van with no AC, so windows down. I loved it.

I have to brag a little about how I also achieved what I considered to be the perfect windswept surfer chick hair today. My lion’s mane usually tends in the direction of that type of thing when it tends towards anything, given it is not accustomed to taking orders of any kind and more often does what it wants. If you were wanting to know, the trick to the PWSCH (perfect windswept surfer chick hair) do is a combination of the hair product salt + chlorine + seaweed + street dust, and the stepwise styling techniques of soaking + sun frying (repeated 4-5x) + car window drying. The downside to the PWSCH do is that it smells like a combination of dead sea creatures and burning trash and it required half a gallon of conditioner and a miniature pick-ax to undo it. Ah, the price of beauty.

On another note, I would like to open pre-registration for the Winter Tan Competition. It is open to all of you people posting statuses about Pumpkin Spice Lattes and scarves and fall while I am enjoying the perpetual summer of my tropical paradise. In exchange for me getting to flaunt my brown skin when I get back to Texas, you get to laugh as I go into climate shock since I haven’t worn anything but shorts for the last 9 months.

Cheers! (My favorite Aussie/British-ism, learned from my new Aussie/British friend, Sam!)

Floods

Floods

This is day two of sitting on a comfy bed in a strong house and watching the wind and rain pound against the walls. It is the first time since being in this country that I have worn jeans and a sweatshirt, which is refreshing even though I am a good Texas girl that loves the heat. We discharged half of the pediatric unit at the hospital on Tuesday and there is a large group of volunteers in this week, so I know no one is the worse off for the fact that I am unable to make it down to work. So I can relax and enjoy the opportunity to read and watch movies and think and pray.

But I cannot ignore that there are hundreds of thousands in the few miles around me that sit shivering under tarps or tents or shanties in the mud, soaked through along with all of their few possessions, in fear of floods and mud and collapsing roofs and falling branches. It is for them that I keep asking God over and over to please, please calm the storm, end the rain, dry the waters. His voice has commanded storms before, I know it, so I am going to ask and ask again until He does.

At the end of last week I feel like God was showing me some ways in which I have become complacent, even in this place. I see how I have been content with less than everything God could accomplish through me. I wonder at how easily I can make it through the day, surrounded as I am by suffering, poverty, hunger, sickness and not pray, not speak the Gospel with my words or actions, not live with any sense of urgency or eternity. Blegh, disgusting! It is as if the enemy is in the background of our mind, playing a lullaby to slowly and subtly sway us into spiritual sleep. We can be on guard against outright attack and not even notice that he has already lured us into ineffectiveness for the kingdom. I can delight in the Lord’s graces and beauty in this land all I want, but if I am focused only on receiving then I am not bringing God’s kingdom here on earth; I am useless.

I am seeing a lot of ways that I haven’t been actively conditioning myself as a warrior- in prayer, in proclaiming the Gospel. It is not enough for me to serve my patient’s physical needs or be a joyful and uplifting presence among the hurting. Those things aren’t bad, but they are not enough.

Speaking of enough, you know that movie “Enough”? Where J-Lo gets driven to her breaking point by her abusive ex and gets all ninja and kills him so he can’t hurt her or their daughter anymore? Great movie. That’s kind of how I feel about my spiritual state. Jesus is in this temple turning over tables. Enough is enough! Get behind me Satan! I’m sick of being lured so easily into spiritual sleep! We are at war! What will it take to live in the power of the Spirit? That’s what I want!

Whew, sorry. My mind is such a mess. In addition to these realizations, I have been reading Radical by David Platt and trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my life after this initial stint in Haiti. I feel torn open, like all these thoughts are too big for my little mind. Like the floods that are happening outside all around, the Spirit is flooding my heart. Pouring all these things into me at once, I can hardly sort them out or catch my breath.

So I think I’m just going to let go. I’m going to be swept away. Because this flood is overwhelming and it is wild and good and it is taking me closer to the heart of God and radically transforming my life into one that is never content with enough or lured into sleep but is effective for the kingdom of God and the Gospel in this world. I am a warrior, and wherever my next battlefield will be, or where it is currently, I must be on the offensive. No sleepy-headed, lackadaisical guard duty for this girl.

Your love is deep, Your love is wide

And it covers us

Your love is fierce, Your love is strong

It's furious

Your love is sweet, Your love is wild

And it's waking hearts to life!!

(Jeremy Riddle, Furious)

Home

Light bulbs 

It is so easy to take for granted the things that are always there. One of the great things about being in Haiti is that you can hardly take anything for granted, nothing is consistent enough. Not water, or electricity, or supplies. We almost had a party in the Peds unit this week when we got a special delivery of blue UV light bulbs to treat our jaundice babies. For quite some time we have had 3 semi-functioning bili lights out of the 12 bulbs that are needed for our three units. I almost danced a jig this weekend when my friends shared their chocolate candy with me. I feel such immense relief every evening that I get to take a hot shower, since there have been many times that I have been super nasty and we haven’t had water or electricity to take one. I was so excited when I started an IV on a tiny baby this week. Hopefully that will one day be a simple thing for me and even then I want to be glad each time that I have the ability to do it.

Furthermore, it’s hard to take for granted things that people around you don’t have. I have never in my life worried about having enough to eat. But when I hold a malnourished baby or talk to a parent who is thrilled with a single meal in a day, how can I not be thankful? I guess this means I am always going to be a cheap date. It’s refreshing to be easy to please; your heart is always joyful.

As I get nearer to heading stateside I find that I’m fearful. Here my heart is so content, so thankful. Life seems simple and beautiful and such a gift. I never want to lose this. I always want to get excited over the little things like light bulbs and hot showers. I want to be content with hardly anything. I want to sit and watch the stars or the sunrise or sunset and feel as rich as royalty. As I walk back into America’s holiday season consumerism I want to be a fortress, my heart immovable. This is my prayer.

Home

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid.” -Frederick Buechner

In orientation classes this week we practiced code situations, when the patient needs CPR and respiratory support. It turns out that was great timing. Thursday afternoon we received a six-month old from another clinic that was in respiratory failure and needed to be intubated. Nothing like walking out of class and seeing the procedure and giving the meds you just talked about- getting the supplies, sedatives, paralytics, problems getting the tube in, bagging the patient in between attempts, taping the tube, setting up the ventilator. Knowledge in action.

On Friday I walked on the unit and took up my post for the next few hours. That same girl was not getting enough respiratory support from the ventilator and so I spent two and a half hours bagging her with an ambu bag while half a dozen people tried every different setting on the vent to get it to support her oxygenation. I would have to switch hands every so often when my hand was getting tired. My friends and I joked about how muscular my thumbs were going to be and I told them how I was going to dominate them at thumb war after that workout. Despite our joking we knew that she was not in good shape. When there weren’t people buzzing around us I would stroke her head with my free hand. She was so beautiful. Please God, this girl needs your help. 

Her lungs sounded like they were underwater. She was developing signs of shock. We alternated between giving her diuretics to try and get fluid out of her lungs and giving her fluid to try and maintain her perfusion. The ventilator didn’t work as well as my bagging because the fluid made so much resistance in her lungs and I had to use a lot of pressure to push air in. We had to start her on dopamine to support her circulation. We needed to start another IV and no one could get one in. I felt like my eyes were glued to the monitor willing the little waveforms and numbers to stay high enough: enough oxygen, enough blood pressure, enough heartbeats in a minute. After bagging her for almost three hours we finally got the settings on the ventilator to replicate the motion of my tired hands and I got to go have a break and get some breakfast.

It wasn’t long after I came back to the unit before her body gave up the fight. For about thirty minutes we fought for her. We pushed meds in her veins, pumped her heart, bagged her lungs, and willed her body not to give up, willed it to keep on living. I was mostly on medication duty- drawing up doses of epi, bicarb, calcium gluconate. But I took my turn at chest compressions and it was my very own hands that had to stop pumping her heart when we decided to let her go.

When we finished pulling off monitor leads and tape, taking out tubes, washing off blood and fluids, changing her and wrapping her up she was the prettiest, most peaceful little girl. I didn’t cry for her. She is home. And God is still good. He is always good, even in the hard things that I don’t understand. Especially in the hard things.

I recently re-read the Chronicles of Narnia. The final book, The Last Battle makes me long for heaven like nothing else. That is our home. Glory be to God that He made a way for us to get there.

“It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried: ‘I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it til now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!’” (C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle)

We had another little boy, about a year old, at the hospital on Friday that was abandoned by his parents. That afternoon we didn’t have a bed for him, so I just held him and we snuggled while he fell asleep on my chest. I thought about how God was holding that little girl who died. I thought about how precious that little orphan was to him. Snuggling that sweet boy blessed my soul. It was one of those moments when this world feels a little like my real home. He is so dear to our Father’s heart. What a privilege that I got to love on him. I love my job. The hard things are hard. The beautiful things are so beautiful. God is at the center of both.

Escape

Yesterday my friend Cody took me to the new Rebo coffee shop. Uhh-mazing. What a freaky experience, in stepping into that swanky, air-conditioned building we stepped right out of Haiti. Seriously, I was transported back to Italy, thinking of sipping cappuccinos in Castiglion Fiorentino. It was far too fancy to remind me of the coffee shops that I practically lived in throughout my time at A&M. It was a perfect little escape. Weird to step back out and find myself in the noise and dirt and crowds of hungry people. I love a good coffee shop. And I love Haiti, too. Thanks, Rebo.

Pray 
For every second of my time here. For boldness in speaking of the Lord to the people I work with and care for, to pray for them. For remembering whose I am in all of my interactions. For what comes next.

Morning and Evening

Hands

It is such a privilege. Being here. Working alongside such incredible people. Seeing the things I see. And holding these babies. This week was so blessed. We are continuing to do orientation classes and the rest of the time I am helping out on the unit. My hands got to hold a lot of special babies this week. They helped out in the NICU and lifted babies to be weighed on the gram scale (one was only 960 grams/2lbs). My hands fed teensie babies from bottles almost as big as they are.

My hands hugged on a two year old with hydrocephalus who was left by her overwhelmed mother and waits to be placed in an orphanage. She is non-verbal, can’t sit or walk, and has to be carefully fed so she won’t choke or aspirate. Caring for her would be a huge task for someone with resources and time and support, things her mother undoubtedly didn’t have.

 My hands stroked the head of my little friend- the boy I cared for several weeks ago with the seizures, brain lesion, intubation stuff. He and his mom went home this week. They need a lot of prayer. He has major irreversible brain damage and will require total care for the rest of his life, as well as many more months of an intimidating TB medication regimen.

My hands carried a malnourished, HIV positive little wisp of a one-year-old to the X-ray machine and back.

My hands measured vital signs, changed diapers, carried medications, lab samples, prescriptions, papers, equipment, mixed bottles of formula, smeared hand sanitizer and hand sanitizer and hand sanitizer, and wiped sweat from the forehead of the blessed and busy person they belong to. One night I stayed at the hospital and my hands got to hold an ice-cold coke at the UN while I ate and swapped stories with an awesome group of volunteers from all over the country- about people dying and living, about gunshot wounds and massive tumors and bizarre maladies and all the crazy stuff we won’t see anywhere else.

These busy hands are so blessed. So are the eyes that get to see such beauty and hardship, evidence of the power of the human spirit and the unfailing goodness of God. So is the heart that is touched by each of these beautiful souls and overflowing with the love of the Father. So is the mind that is challenged and grown each day and filled with memories to cherish. This girl is blessed. So very blessed.

Morning and Evening

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your lovingkindness in the morning, and your faithfulness every night.” Psalm 92:1-2

Wednesday morning I stepped onto the unit and was met with the somber tone that accompanies a loss; a beautiful motionless child, tears shed, broken parents. It’s tempting to let it cast gloom over the day, but there are still a dozen beds with kids fighting for life that need all of you. Each morning there is a time of prayer and singing over by the outpatient clinic and I always enjoy listening, but it seemed especially sweet that morning. I recognized the tune of “In the Sweet By and By” as it was sung in Kreyol.

There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar;

For the Father waits over the way

To prepare us a dwelling place there.

In the sweet by and by,

We shall meet on that beautiful shore;

In the sweet by and by,

We shall meet on that beautiful shore.

We shall sing on that beautiful shore

The melodious songs of the blessed;

And our spirits shall sorrow no more,

Not a sigh for the blessing of rest.

To our bountiful Father above,

We will offer our tribute of praise

For the glorious gift of His love

And the blessings that hallow our days.

(Bennet, 1868)

After a long day of class, sorting through boxes in the warehouse, and helping admit a new patient on the unit I enjoyed relaxing with the other volunteers at the restaurant on the UN base. When we got back to the hospital around 10, I decided to poke around and see what was going on instead of heading straight to bed. That decision led to the sacrifice of all but three hours of my sleep that night, but it was totally worth it. A mom had come into the ER in active labor, which meant that we were having a baby despite not being a maternity hospital. I spent the next few hours in a tiny back room that is smaller than many people’s closets, holding mama’s hand, rubbing her back, talking with the other nurse, doctor, and EMT, listening to hip hop and R&B playing from an iphone, and waiting waiting waiting for the baby. Our little party of night owls was rewarded by getting to welcome a strong, healthy, beautiful baby girl into the world around 2:00 am. Even having helped with births before, it was beautiful and exciting and miraculous. And even more so in this place where it ends in tragedy instead of celebration far too often.

Praise be to our great God- in the morning, in the evening, in grief or gladness. He is the author of life and it is beautiful. How glorious that this life is but the introduction and title page of our true lives. The joy of a baby’s birth is only a glimpse of the joy that will be ours when we come into His eternal kingdom. The pain of loss is but temporary. He is the King of it all. Glory be to God!


Pray- I am heading back to the states on November 12. I don’t know what comes next, whether a job there or coming back here. I LOVE Haiti. I have awesome people here. I have awesome people there. There are sick people everywhere. More than anything I want God’s will for my life. He is the author of my story. Please pray that I would take each step as it unfolds before me, that I would follow where He leads with a willing heart. He has been faithful since before time began.

High Places

The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places. Habakkuk 3:19

More beautiful pictures and Donald Miller for you!

“It strikes me as I think about it, how beautiful we find massive structures, either man-made or organic. I wonder if we find them amazing because they make us feel small and insignificant, because they humble us. And I remember feeling that way back in Colorado, that I was not the center of the cosmos, that there were greater things, larger things, massive structures forged in the muscle of earth and time, pressing up into the heavens as if to say the story is not about you, but for you, as if to remind us we are not gods.” -Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

“These mountains, which have seen untold sunrises, long to thunder praise but stand reverent, silent so that man’s weak praise should be given God’s attention.” -Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

“And had these mountains the ability to reason, perhaps they would contemplate the beauty of humanity, and praise God for the miracle that each of us is, pondering the majesty of God and the wonder of man in one bewildering context.
Their brows are rumpled even now, and their arms are stretched toward heaven.” -Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts

Good Medicine

Give and Receive

This week at the hospital was fairly laid back. With the new month started a few new things around the unit. The leadership personnel for the unit are working hard to make things run more smoothly and enable the highest standards of care we can provide. One thing that started this week was official rounds at 1400 each day. The morning doc, afternoon doc, any volunteer docs, nurses, and translator migrate through the unit going over each patient’s status and plan of care. It takes a while some days, but it enables everyone to be fully informed and I am learning a lot from it. This week we had diagnoses like kernicterus, sickle cell, severe malnutrition, congenital syphilis, and spina bifida.

Another thing that started this week was new nurse orientation for the peds unit. They are hiring four new Haitian staff nurses and I was invited to take part in their orientation classes. We are meeting a few times a week in the morning to go over all sorts of things, from documentation to pediatric-specific considerations for all organ systems and so forth. We had a good time this week and I’m enjoying having a built-in Kreyol lesson, as the class is given by an American nurse and translated for the Haitian nurses.

When I was first considering coming to Haiti as a new nurse I was plagued with mixed feelings about whether I would be useful at all. In nursing school you have so much support around you, which is totally necessary as you learn, but kind of insulates you from knowing what you are capable of. Being here and finding myself stepping up to the challenges, I have realized that I can do much more than I thought, even though I still have so much to learn. It struck me this week as I participated in orientation, as well as rounding with the docs and other nurses- we all have something to offer, all of us, and we all have something to receive. In this realization I find that confidence and humility can co-exist harmoniously. I find it reminds me of the value of each person I interact with- I have so much to receive from them- as well as my own value- I have so much to give. No matter how new or experienced you are in your field, in your relationship with God, in life- I hope you never stop giving and never stop receiving.

Letting Go

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 

Despite how often we are reminded that we are not in control, it is a hard place to come to the end of our limited abilities and knowledge and say, “there’s nothing we can do.” It’s hard to feel powerless, hard to not be able to fix things. We had a baby come to us this week with a congenital heart defect that we did not have the ability to operate on. We only had him for a few hours and had to just watch him slip away.

Another family left us on Friday to return home with their little girl. She has hydrocephalus and despite sitting with her in multiple hospitals for three months, her brain is so damaged that further treatment will not improve her condition. In the past three weeks I have cared for her several times and watched her parents loving and kissing on her. I cannot fathom her parent’s pain of accepting that nothing more can be done and going home to enjoy what time is left with her.

How do we let go? How do we accept these hard things? Without the Lord it certainly cannot be possible. Sometimes I feel like I need Him to pry open each finger for me. Sometimes I need him to move my lips and pump my lungs to form the words “Blessed be your name.” I need Him to open my heart and put acceptance into it with His own hand.

sunrise on the roof

Transparent 

“A joyful heart is good medicine…” Proverbs 17:22

I’m a flowery kind of person, I tend to be rather emotional and I am usually completely incapable of hiding my emotions. At times I’ve wished I could be more stoic, not wear my heart on my sleeve all the time, and totally despised my inability to appear more controlled. It’s kind of disgusting how many times I’ve ugly-cried in public (and special thanks to all of you dear friends that have been on the opposite side of the table while this happened and still love me). God is changing and maturing a lot of things about me here. My heart is growing. And now I find I’m thankful for this transparent heart, because it is full of joy. Even on the dying-babies days it has peace and joy. It’s content, thankful. I’m glad now for the ease with which I share my spirit, as it becomes one worth sharing- more God and less me.

 I had a very encouraging conversation with a co-worker this week, and was told that I am known by others as a kind and happy person, that I handle things so well and I’m always smiling. Let’s be clear- I am as human as anyone and I know that I fail more often than not (people definitely see that, too). I can be so disgusted by my selfish reactions sometimes. But I want to give God praise for the incredible work He has done that I should be thus described. It brings tears to my eyes to remember the stone-hearted, selfish person that I’ve been and to see how God is making me new, step by step. That I should have this joyful heart, that I should be a blessing to others, is such a gift. Behold, He makes all things new. If our God can make me a lamp worthy of putting on a stand, He can do all things.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matt 5:16

Pray

-Pray for hurting people who are letting go of their precious babes. 

-Pray that I would continue to be a light and blessing to others, even when I am tired or stressed. 

-Pray for direction- that I would know what the Lord has for me after my time here.