1st Day

How do I begin. With what words can I explain what I have witness. I will start my story when I stepped out of the airport and was greeted with hugs from people I had never met. I saw a boy, my brother, with a deformed head, and with a leg as skinny as a post and the other swelled with what I presumed to be infected with Lymphatic Filarisis. He asked me for some money and my hat, and I was forced to refuse him, for I told him I would give it to him when I left. (I don't think I could have felt worse in my life for I wish I could give him every hat I had) I struggled to make it to the car where I hoped in the back and we drove away. Kids waved as we left, giving me high fives as we departed.

As we drove through the muddy streets people stared at me and in their eyes was a pain I cannot explain. An exhaustion reserved for a person laboring for what seemed an eternity. I saw people barley clothed, my brothers and sisters with nothing but the clothes on their backs (or lack of). I saw someone digging through trash trying just to find something of value.

When I arrived at the house I was greeted by an array of SOL employees. I cannot remember their names, but even with a language barrier these people offered me genuine love. With hugs and jokes, many of which I did not understand, there amazing smiles allowed me to grasp the love they were giving to me and I can only hope they felt from me.

Sasha and Sarah are such great people. They display all the fruits of the spirit in their kindness, love, pacients, understanding, and generosity they show towards others. I am truly blessed to spend time with both of them.

The most powerful part of my day was when I met two Haitian street boys. The 1st was a boy who had cuts over his feet, back and just above the eye. I initially knew the cut above the eye needed stitches, yet the other wounds I could treat with basic supplies. I use some hydrogen peroxide to clean the cuts and bandaged them up. The cut above the eye was very deep and the boy began to cry as he began to fear we weren’t going to be able to fix it. I calmed him down and rubbed his back until he began to raise his head. We listened to my ipod which he enjoyed until the car came back so we could get him to the hospital. Just as the car arrived another boy came to Sasha and showed her his lip. I asked him to show me and it was deeply cut and was severely infected with bacteria (to the point it looked like there was maggots) so he needed treatment as well.

The guys and I jumped in the back of the truck and we took both of the boys to the hospital. When we arrived at the hospital Sasha went up to the front and was able to get the boys seen by a doctor. I was not ready for what was to come next.

As we began to walk the halls I began to see what I thought was the hospital of a war zone. People were lying down with every type of ailment. Old ladies were lying, coughing, exhausted by their sickness. Men were sprawled out with broken bones and deep gashes. The most severely wounded man was the man who had an old rope tied around his waist and 5 deep gashes in the top of his head. Blood was spilling onto the ground as the doctor tried his best to stitch up the man’s wounds. As I directed the two boys past with somber faces, we entered a room that was just as depressing. About 5 beds were occupied by gravely sick people all with IV’s in their bodies. They lay their lifeless as the doctors tried their best to attend to everyone. The boys were told that they would have to wait so I accompanied the boys to a room with only a few other sick people. We sat and I taught them to write the alphabet and we laughed as they tried to communicate with me by Creole. After a considerable amount of time had transpired, Sasha was able to get the doctors to look at the boys and I accompanied them to the room. There we found a mother and her 3 children on a table. The mother had an IV in her and was shirtless and obviously very sick. Her 3 children were about 4, 6, and 8 and comforted her with stone cold faces as the mother was throwing up blood into a trash can next to her. I tried to make funny faces at the kids who were able to crack a smile (at least for a second). The woman was eventually taken out and a nurse came in and started to stitch up the one boys eye. She had to give him a shot which the boy took as if it were nothing. She finished with the boy and then left. Then, a doctor arrived to treat the other boy with an infected lip. The doctor took the boy’s fat upper and bottom lip and began sticking it with a needle to numb the pain and as he did it tears began to stream down the boys face, yet he refused to flinch. The doctor then used a razor blade to cut out the boys bacteria out and then sanitized the wound. He then had to stitch up the boys lip. I’ve never seen a boy be so braze in my life. We paid for the boys medicine and drove them back to our house. I brought them something down to eat which Sasha had prepared and I gave them their medicines and put a cream on the boys lip. It was pouring outside so I gave each of the boys an extra one of my shirts and sent them into the pouring night. I was so sorry to see them go. They were so helpless I wish I could have cared for them longer. Yet they are just 2 in a huge system of poverty and it is what drives me to want to become a doctor.

I am having the best experience of my life and I would not change this for anything in the world. I thank God for the opportunity to serve these people and I hope I can love them like Jesus loved us.