Circus Joy

All of my kiddos are special and important, but there are a handful of them that are tattooed on my heart. They have changed me in a way that makes me know my life is more beautiful forever because they are in it. They are the faces I see when I think about what the Kingdom of God is. I would do anything for these kids and they make me realize I can do so little. Most of them have endured unspeakable evil and still have a smile that could light up an entire town.

Last Sunday we were beyond blessed to be gifted with tickets for a few of our patients, all of them those really special, heart-tattoo kind of people, to an outdoor circus here in Port-au-Prince. It sounded like quite an ordeal to take three patients from the spinal cord injury unit and two from pediatrics anywhere, given the combination of their physical states and our available transportation. Challenge accepted.

It took us about thirty minutes to load up. Three half-paralyzed young adults in an X-terra, wound vacs and wheelchairs and all. The circus brought out the creativity in all of us. The three of them have been at the hospital for months without leaving. By golly, we were gonna make this happen.

The rest of us piled into the land-cruiser. Our amazing drivers gingerly guided us around potholes and through the city. We finally arrived, late, and got unloaded, got wheelchairs through the gravel, and were shown to the front row.

If you’ve ever been to a circus, hopefully it was a joyful and exciting experience. If you’ve ever known beautiful and resilient kids who have endured trauma and illness, I’m sure you have been crazy blessed by them. Can I describe to you what the combination is like? I’ll do my best.

This beautiful teenage girl was paralyzed by a gunshot wound to the neck. She was my patient in the pediatric unit for over a month when I first got here and I was privileged to care for her, encouraging her to be strong as she was fighting infections and enduring care for the massive wounds she’d developed. We transferred her to the Spinal Cord Injury unit about a month ago and now I get to just visit her and be her friend, which is the greatest gift of all. She’s getting so much stronger. She smiles often and jokes with her friends on the unit. They tease me about my Kreyol and she speaks slowly and clearly to help me understand. She is one of my most favorite humans ever.

These two young men are in the Spinal Cord Unit, both paralyzed waist down as well. They have been through horrifying trauma, followed by emotional abuse and neglect from others as a result of their physical injuries, yet still have the biggest beaming smiles I’ve ever seen.

This teenage boy has taught me more about God’s faithfulness than maybe anyone else ever. I plan to share much more about his story another day, but for now just know that his life is a complete miracle. I saw him stand on death’s doorstep over and over again, but never give up- not even when we were doing CPR to keep his heart going twice in one week. Even when he was intubated and on a breathing machine he still managed to give me snarky teenager attitude. Just thinking about this boy gives me joy, let alone getting to go with him on a super fun outing for the first time in two months.

 This sweet kiddo is another miracle. He has a crazy wonky congenital heart defect that usually kids usually don’t survive past infancy without cardiac surgery. It is amazing and beautiful that he is alive and he is just the sweetest ever. He was so enraptured by the circus I could have watched his face the entire time.

So all ten of our entourage made our fashionably late entrance and formed our own front row during the sword swallower’s act. Then this happened…

Which I can totally do, can't you? 

Then a little of this…

Then the magician and his lovely assistant "cut an unsuspecting child in half"! I held my breath...

Can you feel the suspense?! 

Then the clowns, who also double as the super buff male acrobat duo did a fantastic routine to the Lion King instrumental soundtrack, made complete by the ominous rain clouds in the background. 

Not sure why you would want to, but they can

Who's the clown now, huh? 

So then the outdoor circus was interrupted when the ominous rain clouds became an actual downpour. We somehow got our entire crew under a tent, via a combination of wheelchair wheelies and piggy-back rides, to wait it out and had a dance party to the music of the impromptu rain parade. 

But the show must go on! And eventually it did just that...

And one of our friends even made it into the show! 

Then this happened. Yes it really did, in all its tight-panted, bedazzled-vested glory. This is the part where I actually almost peed myself from laughing so hard. 

We came up with a lot of names for this act, most of which aren't appropriate to share here. 

Boom, Baby!! That JUST happened! You're welcome. 

This is real life.

 

Peed. Myself. Laughing. 

Then the grand finale fire show. Definitely the way to go out with a bang. And fireworks, which I don't think any of the kids had seen before. Just amazing. 

Best. Night. Ever. 

What a beautiful celebration of life! The joy and laughter and smiles, oh man. I will never forget that night as long as I live. 

When we got back to the hospital and went to see our friends get settled back into the unit, I poked my head into the NICU and saw the look on the nurse's face. A short while later our evening ended with us holding a premature baby while she died. And you know, I wouldn't separate that part of the night from the rest. Because you have to take it all together. The joy and pain, grief and rejoicing. It's the realest, truest life I've ever experienced. And such beauty lies in the contrast, knowing that it is all God's, both sides a perfect illustration of his faithfulness and love towards us. He is the King of life and death; the author of big and small miracles, like boys who live and a night of circus joy. 

Sorrow and Suffering

"Jesus walked into the little girl's bedroom. And there, lying in the corner, in the shadows, was the still little figure. Jesus sat on the bed and took her pale hand.”

"Honey," he said, "it's time to get up." And he reached down into death and gently brought the little girl back to life.

 The little girl woke up, rubbed her eyes as if she'd just had a good night's sleep, and leapt out of bed...

Jesus was making the sad things come untrue. He was mending God's broken world." (Jesus Storybook Bible)

It has been a number of years since I told Jesus I would follow Him anywhere. Every day I learn more of Him and there will always be more of Him to learn. I could never have imagined all of the places he would take me over the last few years, the things He would lead me through. One thing I know, there is nothing else for me. There is no Kristen without Jesus.

Before a couple years ago, being a nurse was not even on my radar. I had this proud and selfish plan to become a rich, prestigious equine vet and have a big ranch and lots of horses. I’m thankful that God took that plan and replaced it with a love for people and serving them, doing the hard, dirty, undesirable tasks to care for them in their sickness that is nursing. I have learned more of Him through this journey of becoming a nurse than through anything else.

Long is the story that led me to Haiti, to this hospital, taking care of kids in tremendous sickness. It is nothing I could have dreamed up for myself. And I certainly would never have planned the part of the story that involved watching a dozen beautiful kids die over the last four weeks. A couple of them have been on palliative care, broken bodies with brains too injured from hydrocephalus to repair. We have loved and snuggled them until they were gone.

More often we have been fighting death to the last minute- in a code, with CPR, respiratory support, pushing meds, and willing the little bodies to keep going. When we have done all we can there comes a moment when we have to stop, and let go. That moment feels something like going 90-miles an hour and pulling the E-brake, I think.

I have been often amazed at the amount of peace God has poured over me in these moments. As we pull out IVs and wipe away blood and wrap the child in a clean sheet, as we silence monitors and parents start wailing, somehow there is peace. Because I know the Jesus that I serve. And He is there.

“May the Eternal’s answer find you, come to rescue you, when you desperately cling to the end of your rope. May the name of the True God of Jacob be your shelter. May He extend hope and help to you from His holy sanctuary and support you from His sacred city of Zion. May He remember all that you have offered Him; may your burnt sacrifices serve as a prelude to His mercy.” Psalm 20:1-3

Last weekend was different. On Friday morning, three of our kids on the unit coded before noon, meaning they required emergency respiratory support and CPR. Two of them we managed to stabilize. The third one died. It was an avalanche, it just kept coming. Saturday morning, one of the babies that coded the day before coded again and we lost him.

This time I wasn’t peaceful. That boy was so strong and healthy only days before. I wanted him back. I was frustrated with God. And I was frustrated that my boy, a teenager who has been my patient for five weeks, had coded again and was doing so poorly. I have been praying, begging God for this kid, he is wrapped up in my heart a hundred times over. Heal, Jesus, heal him, like you do in the Bible, like you have done in my heart so many times, like I know you can. Why is he getting worse and not better after all he has been through? These kids are so sick. Where are you??

 Fear, sadness, frustration, brokenness- it washed over like a storm. And like so many times before, Jesus called out and calmed the storm. He was there all along. He was holding us all in His hand.  

“As for those who grieve over Zion, God has sent me to give them a beautiful crown in exchange for ashes, to anoint them with gladness instead of sorrow, to wrap them in victory, joy, and praise instead of depression and sadness. People will call them magnificent, like great towering trees standing for what is right. They stand to the glory of the Eternal who planted them.” Isaiah 61:3

One of my dear friends introduced me to a book that has been an illustration for my life in so many ways, Hinds Feet on High Places, an allegory describing a young woman’s journey with the Shepherd to the High Places of Love. Along the journey Jesus chooses companions to help her on the way, Sorrow and Suffering. She doesn’t understand the choice and is fearful at first, but they are the strong helpers that get her through the hardest places and are ultimately transformed into Joy and Peace. I never thought I would be walking hand in hand with sorrow and suffering on a daily basis, but here I am. And it is difficult and full of pain, but blessed.

“There is absolutely no experience, however terrible, or heartbreaking, or unjust, or cruel, or evil, which you can meet in the course of your earthly life, that can harm you if you will but let me teach you how to accept it with joy; and to react to it triumphantly as I did myself, with love and forgiveness and with willingness to bear the results of wrong done by others. Every trial, every test, every difficulty and seemingly wrong experience through which you may have to pass, is only another opportunity granted to you of conquering an evil thing and bringing out of it something to the lasting praise and glory of God.

“You sons and daughters of Adam, in all your suffering and sorrow, are the most privileged of all beings, for you are to be perfected through suffering and to become the sons and daughters of God with his power to overcome evil with good.“ (Hannah Hurnard)

On a daily basis I discover more questions without answers; hard, ugly things I will never understand in this life, the fruit of a broken world. However, I am reminded over and again of the things that I do know to be true. Of God’s great and everlasting goodness and love towards us, I have no doubt. Because even when I’m broken and crying and banging my fists on His chest, there is nothing and no one else that is Love. And Love always wins. It is winning even now, in the moments when the last breath is gone and the mama is crying and it appears that Death is winning. That is the lie. Love is the Victory. He is making the sad things come untrue. So what else is there but to continue to love? I know of nothing.

I’m thankful to have stepped away for a few days, a chance to grieve. I’m thankful for an afternoon in the mountains. I’m thankful for beautiful, joyful living children that remind me what the Kingdom of God is about. I’m thankful for the reminders of people I love, pointing me to the cross and telling me that Jesus knows everything about the pain that I feel. I’m thankful for His very own words, reminding me to keep asking, seeking, knocking, never giving up. Every time this heart is crushed down and broken with pain, somehow He fills it full to bursting with joy again. That is just His way.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.

 “Love others well, and don’t hide behind a mask; love authentically. Despise evil; pursue what is good as if your life depends on it. Live in true devotion to one another, loving each other as brothers and sisters. Be first to honor others by putting them first. Do not slack in your faithfulness and hard work. Let your spirit be on fire, bubbling up and boiling over, as you serve the Lord. Do not forget to rejoice, for hope is always just around the corner. Hold up through the hard times that are coming, and devote yourselves to prayer. Share what you have with the saints, so they lack nothing; take every opportunity to open your life and home to others.” Romans 12: 9-13

Weary

Weary

“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. “ Galatians 6:9-10

The excitement and adrenaline of being here and remembering how to be a nurse lasted for most of the first two weeks. I was cruising along, surrounded by really cool and encouraging people who gave me energy. I was renewing relationships from before and having fun making friends with the weekly volunteers. My patient load was pretty reasonable and the moments of feeling overwhelmed were few and far between, outweighed by the small victories of mostly knowing what I was doing and being built up in confidence.

The beginning of week three was a different story. A pediatric surgeon was here and we were over-capacity with patients and it was a light volunteer week. I recognized that I had been drawing confidence from the strong nurses and doctors I had worked with in previous weeks and I acutely felt the lack of that. I was tired, overwhelmed, and irritable. I caught myself cussing at temperamental IV pumps. Mostly I felt a total lack of grace in myself towards others. I was irritated by the people I was working with and short-tempered towards patient’s parents asking for this or that. “Can’t they see how busy I am?” My patience was in short supply.

Tuesday night of week 3 was the breakdown. The weight of what I was being asked to do seemed so heavy. But what really laid me flat was the total lack of grace and patience I had towards others for the previous few days. I had grown weary of doing good and looked at it as a burden, feeling harshly towards others for not adequately appreciating me for bearing it. Pride is such a cunning and despicable enemy, creeping in to spoil beautiful things. But my God is merciful and gentle, reminding me in the dark on the roof of all the grace He has for me in infinite supply, how He is redeeming every part of me; and even though that work is far from done, He will never give up on me.

"Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness." Lamentations 3:22-23

Truly each day is new here. No two days are ever the same. And the hope in me makes me feel that every day is a fresh opportunity to get it right. I am so grateful for the patience that others have shown me. For the moms and dads and nurses and kids who allow me to try again to serve them well, even after I’ve been cross or unkind. And these kids teach me so much about forgiveness, because even after I poke them with needles and make them take their medicine they still allow me to be their friend; they smile and play with me. I am learning so much from them about bearing patiently with others, as they do so with me.

“Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible—terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved.” Hannah Hurnard

Since that evening on the roof, the past two weeks have been far more difficult physically and emotionally. I have had more patients, sicker kids, worked longer hours, and seen more suffering. It’s kind of comical, in fact, that every time I think to myself, “that was probably the hardest/busiest/most tiring day ever,” then the next day is sure to be even more so. But God is relentless in His pursuit of the person He is shaping me into. I see that in all of these things He is flooding me with opportunities to be the person of grace and peace He desires me to be, and because of His great mercy He allows me to try again and again, though I often fail.

“The Eternal will finish what He started in me. Your faithful love, O Eternal One, lasts forever; do not give up on what your hands have made.” Psalm 138:8

Made New

As the Lord is teaching me about redemption, the process that it is in my own life, He is illustrating it for me in so many beautiful and encouraging ways. In the middle of being a total stressball two weeks ago, I got the most delightful gift as a reminder that God is making all things new.

When I was here in the fall, the last few weeks of my stay we had a patient who I worked with a lot. I wrote about her here, she is the girl whose bowel ruptured and had to have an ileostomy. When I left, she was still so sick, afraid, and in pain. I often wondered about how she was. When the pediatric surgeon was here one of the scheduled surgeries was none other than a bowel reanastomosis (putting the intestine back together) for that same sweet girl.

When I saw her I could hardly believe my eyes. She was so strong and healthy and happy. She had grown so much and seemed totally at ease in her own skin, ileostomy and all. I was beyond delighted to see her and hug her again. Her mother, who used to run from the room at the sight of the ileostomy, was helping other moms on the unit learn how to care for their babies who had new colostomies themselves. The surgery went well, put the girl’s body back in order, made it whole and right again as it should be. But it is evident that God has made her new again in so many other ways as well. It was a great privilege to see such an evident display of God’s healing. His love is strong. 

Swinging

(From May 19)

So here I am back in Haiti. It is finally sinking in that I’m actually here. Now that all my clothes are soaked in sweat and I have a few mosquito bites, I think I’m starting to believe it. It has been interesting to see what has changed in the last six months and what is exactly the same. One huge improvement was the new airport building that I was received by. Last time I came the arrivals wing was essentially just a warehouse, since they had to rebuild the main building after the earthquake. Now it looks like a real airport, with luggage turnstiles, bathrooms, and a few shops even. More roads are paved and they have even painted lines on some of them. Everyone still drives wherever they want, mind you, but it looks nice.

Back at the hospital it was wonderful to be greeted by many of the same sweet friends. There are some exciting new things here, like the solar power panels that are covering a couple of the rooftops and the new isolettes in the NICU. I didn’t have long to stand and wonder at things, however, since I worked the night shift a few hours after I got back to the hospital.

I think the phrase “back in the swing of things” pretty accurately describes this week. I felt like I was oscillating constantly: between harried nerves and calm confidence, laughter and tears, adrenaline and exhaustion. I am finding my flow again, remembering how to manage time and patients, and getting re-conditioned for twelve hour shifts of running and doing. It’s a good thing I like rollercoasters, because that is exactly what nursing is like. I’m strapped in, hands high, screaming my head off. One minute it’s an IV that needs replaced while babies are crying and monitors are alarming, then it’s hours of relaxing and organizing, then it’s a new patient with fever and seizures and I’m off to the races. It is horrific traumas and small steps of improvement. Some moments I am swinging with ease, in others I feel totally off balance, but if you just keep going things will always come back around and your feet will feel on solid ground again.

Each evening I like to sit on the roof and think about the day, soaking in the brilliant beauty of sky and mountains. And somehow, no matter how calm or crazy the day was, I am always so thankful. This is the hardest, best thing I have ever done and I am so blessed to be back here. I can’t wait to see what the swing will bring tomorrow.

To Make Us Small

In March I went to the Grand Canyon for the first time. Seeing the Grand Canyon is kind of like standing before God. We call it mind-blowing, because it makes us realize just how little of existence we can actually see and understand. It reminds us that we are small. That’s one of the things I love about nature, and God- that feeling of smallness.

God has been doing some amazing things lately, things that make me feel like I’m standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon. I can’t even claim to have mustard seed-sized faith, but He is so faithful that my mind is blown again and again.

I have wanted to go back to Haiti for a while and for various reasons felt unable to move forward. Sometimes God speaks in an instant, but sometimes He speaks over weeks and weeks of experiences and conversations with people. Through the latter I felt like He was moving me towards Haiti over the last few months and was really trying to believe Him for that. My small group prayed with me a month ago that God would make a way for me to go back to Haiti. I listened, and then kept worrying about money and things…

A few days later, in the course of a conversation, a man I had just met was offering to sponsor my trip back to Haiti through his internet marketing company and asking me to blog about my experiences for them! God spoke then in an instant, of His faithfulness to His promise, of His love for me, of His plan and story unfolding.

So here I am, standing on the edge of His Greatness- mind-blown, feeling delighted by my smallness, steamrolled by his faithfulness once again. In Ephesians Paul describes God as “Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.” This experience has reminded me so acutely how true that is. No matter how my faith grows, I know that I will be joyfully surprised by Him for endless eternity.  

This time next week I will be back in Port-au-Prince. I know that I will struggle and cry and feel crushed by the brokenness. I will fail and fall short. I will get tired and cranky. But I also know that I will look on my Grand Canyon God as He does many marvelous works and I will stand in awesome wonder as He makes me small.

Pray

I leave on Saturday, May 11 and I am planning to be there for three months. I will be primarily staying at the hospital, which will be exciting and exhausting. Please pray for final preparations and details to come together this next week and for safe travels. Thanks!! 

Waiting... and other profanity

I like plans. I like having a plan. A good plan, that sounds clean and well-thought-out and impressive. I like being able to tell people that I have a plan and it’s a good one. In fact, I am totally freaked out and unhinged by the lack of a plan, especially when it is in fact my life that is plan-less.

 There is also apparently this phenomenon where, when you live in community with other humans with whom you converse and who know you or are marginally acquainted with you, they ask you questions and want to know things like, “what are you up to now?” (translation: What’s the plan?). That is all well and good when you are a well-composed human with one of those good plans to tell people about.

I, on the other hand, am neither well-composed, nor plan-having, or perhaps even truly human-feeling these days. Since my return to the US almost five months ago I have been flailing about and almost drowning in this disorienting, directionless ocean I call Waiting.

For me, Waiting has mostly looked like some conglomeration of activities including, but not limited to: living with my parents and working at the family cigar shop, going to College Station to see horse and people every other weekend, sitting up late at night and googling hospitals then wondering whether I should apply to them then freaking out and not being able to fall asleep for a long time, thinking about Haiti a lot, traveling with my best friend in Memphis and having an epic road trip adventure to the Grand Canyon, moping about in self-loathing over the fact that I am “that loser college grad living with the parents and not having a plan,” routinely thinking each month that maybe this time next month I’ll be back in Haiti.

But even more than all that, I think Waiting has been an exercise in resisting the Lord’s attempts to still me, quiet me, teach me, refine me. Because when I give in, He shows me how beautiful Waiting can be. He is trying to show me that I don’t need a plan, I need Him and if Waiting is where He wants me, then it is the Holiest place I can be; that there is living and loving and serving to be done right here in the Waiting and it doesn’t require a plan or career or mission.

He is trying to show me I can walk on these waters if I will only keep my eyes on Him, but the waves are high and scary and I can’t see the shore that is coming next and people are asking me “what’s the plan” and… that’s why I am choking on saltwater instead of walking hand in hand with Him. I have been living in fear of people instead of fear of the Lord. So instead of Waiting being the sanctuary He intended, I spit it out like a bad word and try over and over to compose one of those impressive-sounding plans.

Forgive me, Lord. You are the Author.

“He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree.” –Donald Miller