Our walking miracle

God thank you for his life. Thank you for the man he is. Thank you for your protection. Thank you that he has more work to do for you in this life.

These are my selfish prayers because I know that if my husband Laurens were to die, he would be rejoicing in heaven with God. However, selfish they may be, we are glad he is here with us.

Less than 2 weeks ago, Laurens was driving along the road with 6 Haitian employees in our pick up truck, the next minute, he was head on with a 3000 gallon Mac truck. It hit them dead on. Here are the photos. No one was wearing seat-belts. There should have been deaths.

Grant and I got the call that there was an accident not far from the mission and Laurens was on the scene. We jumped into gear to go and help not thinking that Laurens was in the accident. As I was about to jump on my ATV to zoom down to the clinic, I got the call from Laurens. He said, "come quick and to make sure our Haitian director does not waste any time getting there". The tone of his voice told me something was very wrong. I asked if he was Ok and he said with a sigh, "yeah, but I need you guys here fast". Now you have to understand my husband. Always the cop, always in control of himself and the situation, so to hear the panic in his voice (however slight) my heart leaped with fear.

When we arrived on the scene I still did not know Laurens was in the accident until we pulled up and I saw my truck. My brain did some crazy flip flop of realization that Laurens was in this accident and then I saw him. Covered in blood (and I mean covered), cuts all over his head and hands, blood all over his pants, he was walking around pouring water on people's cuts and trying to calm them down.

After the Mac truck hit them head on, Laurens body flung forward splitting his head on the windshield and breaking his ribs on the steering wheel. His hands, that held so tightly to the steering wheel were sliced in countless places. When he got his bearings, he removed himself from the vehicle and proceeded to remove all the other victims from the car. He had them lying down and "semi- triaged" by the time we got there.

Seeing that Laurens was walking and talking and seemed to be oriented, I proceeded to tend to the other patients and the crowd. Grant arrived and we got everyone headed off to the hospital. There were many cuts, a broken femur, eye injuries and concussions. But no internal injuries and no deaths.

Then I turned to Laurens. Seeing him standing there covered in blood made me want to cry, but being in "doctor" mode I asked him, "are you sure you are OK?" He looked at me and said," No, I think I broke my ribs". Concerned about internal injuries, we rushed to the hospital where we confirmed the broken ribs and we stitched him all up.

When I look back on this event and I look at the car, I can't help but be in awe. Someone should have died. You don't come head to head with a 3000 gallon Mac truck without seat belts and survive. But everyone did. God has a plan for each and everyone of those survivors and we have already seen the effects. Many of our Haitian staff now have a strengthened faith in God for what He did that day. Many are in awe that an accident that they would usually be morning someone's death in, had only survivors. Many are in awe that Laurens would care enough about others to help them when he was hurting so bad. Many are praising God.

For those of you who prayed for Laurens and the others after the accident thank you. We couldn't have done it without you.

Free Spirits

I love this picture. It produces in me a lot of feelings.

It is a beautiful picture of the free spirit feeling that our son Bridgely has. It is a beautiful picture of the mountains that stand behind our house. It is a beautiful symbol of the joining of our two cultures. It shows the awesome majesty of God. It brings a smile to my heart.

I pray that you too, will get to stop and breathe in the vastness of God's creation from time to time.

I love this picture too.

It is a beautiful picture of who these girls have become. The smile on their faces and the way their faces have filled out. These two never stop talking, they never stop bouncing, they have a zest for life.

As we put them to bed tonight. We told them how much Jesus loves them. We told them He loves them so much that He always had this plan for them to join our family. Even though I am exhausted and fall into bed at night wondering if I will ever again get an afternoon nap, I am thankful that God loved them this much and I am thankful that we listened when He spoke.

Imagine

Imagine being 72. Imagine fracturing the neck of your femur in a car accident at that age. The hip joint (at the top of your femur) is a ball-in-socket joint. Imagine the ball is still in the socket and the rest of your leg is sitting up above the socket and somewhat out to the side. In Canada, if this were to happen to you, you would be air lifted to a trauma centre due to the high risk of bleeding from the femoral artery presenting imminent death. Now, imagine after your accident, you simply return home.....because you do not have any money to go to a hospital. You lie at home for weeks until you can endure the pain enough to start using the crutches that someone was kind enough to get for you. Now imagine 7 months later with your femur still detached from the head, still in pain, you are sent by kind missionaries to the "bone doctor" from Canada to see if she can find out what is wrong with your leg.

This is the story of Louis Lexius. He is a walking miracle.

God sent him missionaries from one mission to feed him and refer him to our clinic. God sent him myself who has the connections to find him the location to provide him with free surgery. And God sent him the surgeon at another mission who is willing to take on his case. Due to the body of Christ working together, this man will be getting the very difficult surgery he needs on October 4th. It is a beautiful symbiotic relationship that God has provided for this Christian man. Why did he have to go through this? That I do not know, but I do know that through this experience, Louis knows that God has provided, he knows that God is working through relationships. He knows that God is good.

Imagine you are 83 years old. Imagine you are tending your goats and cows. Imagine your mind is not what it used to be and you get lost and find yourself in unfamiliar territory. As you are looking around, you slip and fall at the edge of the ravine. You fall hard. Bouncing off boulders and rocks hitting your head first. As you tumble, the rocks pummel your head and knees. You feel your head splitting open over and over again and then you black out. After some time you awaken to find yourself lying in the ravine and you can't get up. You stare up to the sky wondering what you are going to do next. You are too weak to yell for help. You are thirsty and hungry. Still no one comes. You wait and darkness falls, then light of day, then darkness again, then light...for 3 days you lie in the ravine with no food or water and open wounds all over your body. You ache all over and you have a prickling sensation in your scalp. Finally, your family finds you and takes you to the good clinic a few villages over. When you get there, God has sent you missionary doctors to care for your gapping wounds, rehydrate your body and to remove the countless maggots that have infested your wounds (maggots that consequently saved you from infection) and you wonder if maybe there is a good God after all.

This is the story of Jean Claude. He also, is a walking miracle. He should have died, but God gave him another chance.

As he gets his wounds cleaned daily at our clinic he shows off the little English that he knows, he jokes and laughs. We are flabbergasted that he is in such good spirits after what he has been through. We tell him that God saved him and that we believe He has plans for him in this life yet. He says, "Well I know God but I have not accepted Jesus.....although this is the 4th time I should have died. Maybe I should think more about that."

I am humbled by the strength in these people. I am humbled by their determination and I am humbled that God would use me as an avenue for them to see His light.

One of those days

Today was one of those days. We worked hard in the sweltering heat. Laurens made it through customs inspections and a million little jobs. I had successful meetings to prepare for our new initiative at the clinic. Then we almost got lunch in. I got called to the office to help with last minute crises for the 8am tomorrow ministry of health license renewal of our hospital, and found myself tracing blueprints and writing last minute job descriptions. Lunch came, just not when it was supposed to. Later, we both rushed home (up the rocky hill on my ATV) with 1/2 hour to spare before hosting home church........Only to find the toilet overflowed all though the house, which would not be so bad to clean up except the water had run out in the cistern. With a trickle from the tap, we filled the bucket and cleaned up floor. Sweating like crazy and not wanting to stink out the rest of our home church gatherers, I squatted Haitian style to shower under the tiny stream of water that emerged from my tap. The shower never felt so good.

Things were good for too long.....we should have expected a day like this :)