He is home in Oregon yet still touched by his trip to Haiti wanting to know as many details as I could give him.
I returned his call from a week ago, he was sitting on a boat, fishing with his buddies.
Enjoy!
Since I’ve been back, I have had to do a lot of processing of what happened to me, and how the pieces of the puzzle fit together, as I was literally thrown into service when I walked through the field hospital door. Right up until I caught the plane home the needs were nonstop. These were the longest seven days of my life, and the shortest seven days of my life. They were the most impacting, the most defining and rewarding days of my life - not only from a medical point of view, but also from a humanitarian point of view.
In the face of this catastrophic event I was blessed to be able to work with other practitioners from all over the United States. They had hearts and dedication like I have never seen for the simple love of others. Our bond is incredible. We will all be friends forever.
I witnessed the hand of God guiding us in all that we saw, experienced, and did. He prepared each of us to go and He got us there together – miraculously. It was clearly Him working in us and through each of us. In Him we were able to endure the magnitude of devastation that happened to these people on January 12. That devastation is beyond description and comprehension. I know that others with whom I served agree with me that coming home was very, very hard to do. Regretting deeply having to leave so much undone is inexpressible, not knowing the end result of our work on the people.
All those trips out into the rubble of the slum areas, every touch we made, in most cases was the only touch of help that these people would have. Every wound was infected. I saw every type of known orthopedic injury known lying out in the street, or brought to us with help, even in wheelbarrows. Again, beyond scripting. It was and is hard to realize that thousands and thousands more were still suffering from all the crush injuries associated with the earthquake. In the field hospital with minimal supplies and no tools, it was Civil War medicine requiring a lot of improvisation. Believe me when I say that I used all 44 years of my ortho training there.
It has been well recognized that even at this level of care, we were saving lives. It was a very humbling experience. The Heartline website tells me that they are still finding these people with major, major injuries - again, a demonstration of the level of this disaster. Think about this: in under a minute, over 250,000 people were injured or crushed to death. Those numbers continue to rise. It was hard for us to wrap our brains around, even seeing it.
Very soon I realized that we saw and treated the outside of people, the physical injuries, but the inside of them, and the scope of their losses then or in their futures, I could not begin to understand or treat. At some point I will return to Heartline’s ongoing ministry there to do what I can.
I did and do realize that it was through the prayer support of my family, my church family, and my friends that I was able to be there for the people of Haiti in a time of catastrophic chaos, and human pain and suffering – and all that continues there.
It is disheartening, appalling for me to see that this human event has fallen off the media radar.
Through your prayers, donations, or supplies people were and are helped. Our results were in positive medical outcomes, and literally saving lives. But all of it means something more when you realize that they had nothing to start with, not even hope. Because I now have a greater understanding of the power of prayer, my request is that above everything else, you pray for the people of Haiti.
With love,
Cliff ~ and Adrienne
“But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Cor. 13:13
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