Morgan's blog

Today was honestly the hardest day of the trip and probably the hardest day out of any of the other missions trips that I have been on. We visited the general hospital in Port-au-Prince. I thought that it would be a normal hospital visit. I was very wrong in my assumption. When we walked through the main hallway to get into the hospital, I felt that I was walking into a horror movie. The hall was dark with a green glow radiating off of it due to the ceiling. There was trash everywhere. Bugs were prevalent and there was 1 man walking very slowly towards us. It was extremely depressing. We walked into a room where there were a few people who had some bone fractures and we were able to speak with them, get their stories and pray with them. One boy had his leg amputated at the hip. He showed no emotion the entire time we talked to his caregiver. He looked depressed and hopeless. We also talked to another woman who was there with her grandson. He had been kidnapped 3 months prior to his accident. He tried to escape and hopped onto a taptap or a truck and was then pushed off because they found out that he could not pay. He had burns everywhere and his left leg was broken at the ankle and in the mid thigh.
After we were done in the orthopedic ward, we made our way to pediatrics. Again, very sad. There were four babies. Three of them were under six months. Two of them looked like they were premature and they were not doing very well. One of the two looked maybe a month old at the very most. It was so hard to tell age because they were so small either because they were premature or because they were so malnourished. The third child under six months appeared healthy at first glance, but had a breathing issue. The fourth child in the room was an eighteen month old girl who appeared to have brain damage and possibly seizures almost constantly. I just wanted to pick her up and love on her but I thought it was best not to because I did not know he ins and outs of her condition. The best that we could do was just surround her, love her, touch her hair and pray that God put His healing hand on this beautiful girl. The mother of the baby who had the breathing issue came to me and just handed her baby to me. She explained to Crystal that she could see that I loved babies and looked like I should be holding one. I’m going to tell you that God knows exactly what we need at every moment of every day, and I needed to look down at a beautiful child in my arms and just rock, coo and love him. Some of the parents around their children approached us asking help to buy their babies medication because, in Haiti, the care is free but the medication and tests must be bought by family before they are applied. Once we got out of the room, Crystal said that we would be taking care of two of the children’s medication. One of the children, the girl with the seizures, would be receiving medication to help control them. It was so heartwarming to know that we were an instrument used by God to perform His work at the hospital.
After we left the hospital, we went to spend  some time with the orphans. It was hard to transition into such a depressing atmosphere where you are so weighed down by the sight of disease, blood and hopelessness to seeing beautiful girls surrounding you, asking to braid your hair or to take your phone and camera to take some pictures. We did it and I think we did the best that we could have done with our mental state. An hour before we left, I taught a lesson taken from Matthew 19:14. It talked about how Jesus said “let the little children come to me” and how Jesus loves how open, curious and innocent children are and how he wants us, His children, to come to Him willingly because he loves the whole world, red and yellow, black and white. We also gave them a coloring sheet and a necklace with the colors from the “Jesus loves the Little Children” song. They seemed to enjoy it and were so contented coloring and sharing crayons trying to get each part of their page just right. It was so refreshing to see their energy.
In the evening we had a blast at movie night. James was a bit afraid that no one would come, so he sent out a man with a megaphone to bring people to the center to watch Johnny English. It totally worked! We told the community that the movie would start at 6 expecting them to show up at 7 because they all run on Haitian time. We were so surprised when we had about 15 people at 6:10. We started the movie at 6:15. None of us understood the movie because we showed it in French, but it was so much fun listening to all of them laugh and have a good time. I also got to hold James’ son, Nathan, which was also a huge blessing because it finally calmed me down after such a heart wrenching day.  At the end of the night, we counted 36 people that came to the movie. At the very end, Anthony got up and told some of his amazing testimony and then sort of became an evangelist through James. To be honest, they could be the best evangelistic team ever. Their energy was electric.
Though we all went through emotional ups and downs, we made it through to the end of the day, and we can’t wait to get back out into the community tomorrow to continue whatever God has planned for us. Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we go through the rest of our week.