December 18 - Clinic Day

Today half of us had the opportunity to run a medical clinic for some of the people here in Carrefour. We had a triage set up, stations with nurses and nursing students to take chief complaints and perform assessments, a prayer station for all the patients to be prayed over, 2 doctors (Dr. Carl and Dr. Wilbert), and Rob the pharmacist in the group that all the patients had the chance to see. God really blessed us with having the clinic at Dr. Carl's house. He had two rooms to see the Doctors and pharmacist. He also had a very shaded area out back where all the patients went first. The weather was very very nice for this long day. It was incredible the amount of people that came to the clinic. We started at 8 AM and we were told that people started to line up at 7 AM. We worked straight through until a little past 2 PM. In that 6 hours of seeing patients we saw about 200 people. Many people came with the whole family so that everyone could be seen. The Haitians that came were so very patient with all of us. They all had to wait a couple hours before they were seen and they were also so patient with having everything translated.

After we were done seeing patients for the day, Dr. Carl's wife came out with a basket full of sandwiches, bottles of coke and 7-up, and even ice!! It was so very kind of them to purchase and prepare this food for us. Its amazing to see how selfless these people are even when they don't have much to give. Before I left for Haiti I thought that I was going to be able to bless these people, however in return they are blessing me and the rest of the team more than I could have ever imagined. We are learning to become more appreciative of what God has blessed us with and we are learning to become less focused on ourselves and more attentive to everyone else's needs.

We also went to an orphanage that is right down the street from our house. The nursing students, with the help of a translator, taught the kids about the importance of hygiene. We talked to them about hand washing, brushing their teeth, and bathing. All the kids were so well behaved and attentive to our teaching. At the end we were able to hand out small hygiene bags that had a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, wash cloth, and lotion in them to all of the 70+ kids there. One thing that was brought to my attention earlier this week was that an orphan in the states is different than an orphan in Haiti. Many times these kids do have parents. Their parents choose to send them to an orphanage because they well be fed, clothed, and educated, and their parents just don't have the financial means to provide all of those things. Many times the orphans are able to go home on the weekend to visit their family which is really nice.

I feel that every day I am here God teaches me something new! I can't wait to see what the rest of the week has in store for us all :)

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support! :)

-Angie