Just to give you an idea of the change in our surroudings before and after the hurricane, following is a picture of our friends, the Christensons, on the day that they arrived to wait out Hurricane Matthew with us . . .
and a “remake” of that picture a few weeks after the hurricane . . .
and by the time the second picture was taken, there had already been a lot of regrowth of leaves on the trees.
Wow, we have gotten way behind in our communication with you, again. Life continues to be busy for us, but God is good through the busy times of life. We have a few things to follow up with since it has been so long. Over a month ago, we asked you to pray for three specific prayer concerns and it is high time that we update you on those answers to prayer . . .
We asked for prayer for an RMI staff member, Vonel, who broke his arm in a motorcycle accident. Vonel was at the hospital for about two weeks until he was able to see American doctors who determined that he did not need surgery, but monitored him for a few days before sending him home with his arm set. Vonel continued to have some swelling in his arm this past week which caused some concern so please continue to pray for complete healing for him. Also, last week, Vonel’s family had another difficult circumstance to face as his father who has been in failing health passed on to his heavenly home. His funeral service was yesterday morning, so I am sure that Vonel’s family would appreciate continued prayers in this time of trial for them.
We also asked you to pray for our team members, Joel and Laura Sutton who traveled back to Pennsylvania to spend some time with Laura’s mother who was hospitalized after a couple of heart events. Before Joel and Laura returned a week later, they had helped to move her mother into an assisted living facility to better serve her needs and although her health is not what we would consider good, they are comfortable with where she is for this stage in her life. They would appreciate continued prayers for Laura’s mom and the rest of her family as they care for her, as well as Joel and Laura as they are so far away at this trying time for her mother.
Lastly, we wanted to thank you for your continued prayers for Mikencia, who is celebrating her 8th birthday today. She continues to be in the hospital, but this week we have seen some great accomplishments in her healing and recovery. Friday afternoon we saw Mikencia’s smile for the very first time in over five weeks. What a welcome sight for us. She also showed us how she can extend her legs most of the way without any tears. We left the hospital that day with hearts full of gratitude to the Lord for His healing power in her life. She still has a long road ahead of her, but seeing those little obstacles overcome provides great thanksgiving in each of our hearts. This afternoon, we were able to spend a little time with her when we visited and her smiles came much more easily and she seems to be more ready for some play than we have seen in a long time.
The list of praises that we share here could be extremely long, but I want to add just one more of the many that could be added here . . . a couple of weeks ago, one of RMI's Partnership Facilitators, Anderson, was also in a motorcycle accident as he was traveling out to visit one of our sister churches. He came back to the office with a slight limp, some skin scrapes, and some holes in his clothes, but no major injuries. We are so thankful for God’s protection for him; Anderson shared a day or two later at devotions, that a week or so before his accident, there was another motorcycle accident at the same spot and a woman was killed. He felt even more blessed that his accident wasn’t worse.
So, although life here continues to be more challenging after the hurricane . . . it is clear that God still provides and he still protects, even during the difficult times.
See this precious little face . . . this is Mikencia, taken just a few weeks ago in her school uniform, after arriving at our house from school. We haven’t seen this precious little smile much over the past week and a half. If you have been following our blog posts, you know that Mikencia has second degree burns over her abdomenal area, upper left arm, pelvic area, and upper legs after an accident with a kerosene lamp.
Everyday, Lee and I have been going to the hospital to visit Mikencia and her mother, Emilye who works for us as our housekeeper, so that we can take them some food and see Mikensia’s progress.
No trip to the hospital is pleasant, no matter where you are, but the hospital here is nothing like we experience in the states…it is a large concrete structure and when you enter the ward where patients stay, this is what you see…the nurse’s station is right inside the door, on both sides of that, there are long wings separated into four wards (I guess that is what you would call it) and in each of those wards there are probably about twenty beds lined up on boths sides. There is no privacy. The beds sit three to four feet apart with a small night stand between each. It has the familiar smell of any hospital, but there are no clean white walls or colorful wallpaper, just concrete with windows on the outer walls that open right up to the outside…no screens.
Normally, when we walk in, Mikencia is lying on her bed with nothing but the gauze on her burns and a mosquito net over her bed. However, today was different. Today, the mosquito net was pulled back, there was no gauze on Mikencia’s burns, and Emilye was bent over her daughter applying the medication to her burns with a small applicator. Mikencia’s body shook from head to toe with the pain. Everytime that Emilye would pause in applying the cream, Mikencia would take a breath and start to cry. When she was calmed down, Emilye would go back to work again. The burns on Mikencia’s tummy reminded me of a roasted chicken which had been in the oven a little too long. Emilye stopped several times to make conversation with us; the woman in the bed next to her even told her to stop and visit with us, but we urged her to finish her difficult task; that we would wait for her to finish. When they were finished, we helped to put the mosquito net back in place and briefly visited with Emilye and Mikencia before leaving them so that they could eat and rest. Mikencia was exhausted.
We both left the hospital with tears in our eyes. Somedays there just are no words for the hardships that are experienced here. Please continue to pray for Mikencia and Emilye and the rest of their family. They are longing for complete healing and the ability to be home with their family. Almost everyday, Emilye and I look at each other and one of us says, “Bondye konnen” (God knows). It is the one thing that this precious family has to hold on to in this difficult time in their lives. God does know!!! I have no doubt that God has great things in store for this precious little girl who has the strength to endure so much at the age of seven years.
I’m sorry to be keeping you in suspense... it has been a busy week of preparations for our first team following the hurricane and internet was out most of the week, again, which makes it extremely hard to make any blog posts. Since I have a little bit of time before the team arrives at our house for lunch today, I will see if I can get some pictures posted for you:)
The following pictures were our first peek at the damages after the winds and rain started to die down:
As we opened the back door for the first time, we realized that the back wall between us and our neighbors had fallen into our backyard.
When we scanned the other side of the backyard, we saw that most of the trees in the backyard were down. The breadfruit tree that our cook had prayed that God would save was still standing... kind of. It now has a sharp slant to it. We don’t yet know if it will survive or not.
From the back corner of the house, we could see more trees were down and many of the shrubs were also mangled from the winds and rain.
The other side of the house looked even worse.
Then, there was the view from the front of the house once it was safe to venture outside.
The Christensen’s, who had weathered the storm with us were anxious to venture up to their house since one of their Haitian friends texted that he had been to the house and said that part of their roof was gone, so several from our two families ventured in that direction after we took a brief look across the wall. Here is what we saw...
This is the street on the other side of our wall, which leads to the other hill on the mission center. We could never see the area that looks like a lake to the left of the picture. That is how many trees went down.
This is the view as we turned in the opposite direction (toward the city of Cayes). Again, all of the water that you see there is usually not there and we could never see that land or the buildings because of the trees and other vegetation that had been there. Our neighborhood had changed completely in just a few hours.
The walk to Christensen’s house was not an easy one. The road was blocked with fallen trees and brush.
We felt like we had been on an obstacle course till we got over and under all of the downed trees, wires, and other objects in the way.
The first look at their home was not what any of us had hoped for... much of their roof was gone, along with almost all of the roof of the adjoining house where the Ferris’ had lived before returning to the states this summer. Needless to say, Heather and her family were glad that they had chosen to weather the storm somewhere else. Several other missionary homes sustained significant damage as well. The first few weeks, the missionary community pulled our resources together and worked on getting each family into safe housing for the days ahead.
Now, a month later, we still have a couple of families that are not back in their homes, but some of the roofs have been repaired and teams have come in to help with some of the recovery efforts. All the houses have electric again and all but one have water back in working order. The Christensen’s are the only ones that have not had their roof repaired yet, as they have been able to temporarily move into another house until those repairs can be completed.
Thank you for your continued prayers as we have been able to start reaching out into the communities around us to help with further clean-up.
Lastly, I want to update you on some prayer requests that we sent out last week. Please continue to pray for Vonel, our RMI mechanic. He continues to be in the hospital, following his motorcycle accident last week. The doctors here have decided to wait until some American orthopedic surgeons come in this week to look at his case to determine how to treat him. Vonel is not a man to sit when there is much to do, so please pray for patience and rest for him.
Mikencia, our housekeeper’s daughter, is also still in the hospital. She has had an infection this week and we had some trouble getting her the medications that she needed, but we were able to find them and yesterday was the closest that we have been to seeing her precious little smile.
Lastly, Joel and Laura plan to head back to Haiti early this week after spending almost a week with Laura’s family while her mother was in the hospital. Her mother is now settling into an assisted living home and seems to be doing well, in spite of all that she has been through.
No words can begin to express our gratitude to each of you for your prayers and concern, not only for our immediate family, but also for our extended family here in Haiti.