Canadian Teams and risky situations

Wow what a busy month. I seem to say that a lot....It is true! It always seems to be a busy month but this month took the cake! We have had the fantastic Canadian teams here with us for the past month. 2 teams in 4 weeks. They had both a medical side and a construction side to their team which makes Laurens and I both crazy busy. 

Let us tell you about it. 

Laurens was busy with his construction team and many projects. They completed a big water project on the mission that will allow us to collect rain water and decrease our costs on the water we have to truck in. It is fantastic! He directed the team in the construction of 3 new homes in the villages for people who had their houses destroyed by the hurricanes this year. Here you see one of the people's homes that had been washed out and what the houses look like when they are completed. They also worked on many other construction projects around the mission throughout their time here.

When you did get a glimpse of Laurens it was when he was driving here or 

there in his truck getting this, or that, or the other thing in order to keep the teams projects flowing. He did a great job! 

I was very busy with my medical teams that were here. I got to work with 2 fantastic medical teams over this past month. The 2 teams

were very different but just the way God wanted to put them together. All the planning I have put into mobile clinics took action and went fantastic! We visited 8 different locations in 9 clinics around Haiti. We saw and helped over 1200 patients.

We had so many stories that came out of this. We saw severe malnutrition that breaks your heart. We saw a 6 year old the size of my

healthy Bridgely who was too small, weak and malnourished to lift his head and was near death. We saw neurological conditions that we could not do anything about.  We saw many close to their last breath. We saw the blind. We saw the lame. We saw the widows and the orphans. We saw the homeless and those who's minds have been broken. We saw wounds down to the bone and we saw the wounded of spirit. We shared the love of Christ and touched the broken in body and spirit.

Mobile clinics are one part of my job that I will never forget. 

Let me tell you of two stories that showed us God's hand was clear and evident this month. 

The first is with Laurens. He was driving along minding his own business when out of the blue a motorcycle hit his truck. No one was hurt. Now this in itself is nothing abnormal. The driving here is CRAZY! The part that was not so great was that the driver of the motorcycle seeing "white" skin and the dollars that might be behind that, decided to make a scene yelling that Laurens should pay him. In about 2 .5 seconds (ok maybe not that fast) he had about 100 people around yelling (him being the only Canadian around). Thankfully, he was hit right in front of a police station and he had already put in a call to our Haitian mission director (who has a lot of influence in the area). The police came over and shortly after our director showed up and brought Laurens into the station. He really felt God's hand of protection through this. The funny part of this whole story was that our director ended up standing in front of over 100 people yelling out a lecture on driving, driving without insurance (the motorcyclist) and how this was in no way Laurens' fault. The police stood by his side just nodding in agreement. Laurens thought he might try that one day when he is back on the job as police in Canada, just yelling out a lecture on the side of the highway about the stupidity of drivers. :) Laurens now gets called Gwo neg (big guy) in that town when he works there.:)

The second was with myself. We were taking the teams to mobile clinics in the mountains and making sure that most of my team was safe I took a seat in the back of the pick up truck along with one other adventurous Canadian team member and some of my Haitian team. On the way back I was feeling a little car sick and so I switched places with Marg the other Canadian girl. A little while later we were out of the mountains and heading home on the last stretch where the road is better and you are able to go a bit faster. On the roof rack was my 50 lb portable chiropractic table. Shortly the wind picked up and I got a little chilly (yes I know it's Haiti but I was still chilly). I bent forward to try to block the wind just as a gust of wind threw my 50 lb table off the roof and straight at the spot my head was a second ago! My friend Marg who blew a muscle punching the table out of the way so it would not kill me half screamed and half laughed and hugged me after the table hit the road. The amazing part of this was not only did God move Marg out of the way (who most certainly would not have been crouching down from cold) and make me cold enough to crouch out of the way, but my table did not even break when it hit the pavement full speed!! The best part was our Haitian driver and others in the back with me said, "Dr. Cheryl are you OK????" When I said it did not hit me and only blew my bandanna off, my driver said with full conviction and awe, "I know it did not hit you because God is protecting you. You are working for Jesus and that is why!!" I thought if my near death experience caused him to have more faith then it was all worth it! :)

The kids have been great and our Haitian cook now talks to Teagan in Creole once in a while and Teagan answers in English the correct answer. (she knows more Creole than she lets on!) Here is Grayden practicing his "tricks" on our porch.

 Thanks for your support and prayers, we love you all.