Back to "Normal" Life

Family and Friends,

Day 173 of our Haiti Adventure!

The last few days have felt pretty normal, which is no small feat around here. I was just remarking to Sue yesterday how the things that shock you when you first visit a country like Haiti soon blend in to the background of everyday life and seem almost normal. It is amazing how humans can adjust to different surroundings and lifestyles and carry on with life in new ways. I don’t think we necessarily even know we are adjusting. It just sort of happens. No doubt God helps us in countless ways throughout the process.

Last week was pretty crazy with Easter break. The kids in the orphanage didn’t have school all week, but they did have church for seven nights in a row, three hours each night, including a worship extravaganza on Good Friday from 6-11AM and 6-10PM. Try that one, Americans! We didn’t attend all of that stuff because our Creole isn’t strong enough yet to really know what is going on. That was our excuse, anyway.

We enjoyed celebrating my (Cory) birthday the other day. Lynn wanted to make something special for me to eat, but we weren’t sure what that was going to be because I hadn’t been to the City to get any good groceries for quite awhile. God provided in a strange sort of way. Early in the morning Sue came back from the clinic and asked me to drive a patient to the hospital in the city. I’m sure this story is starting to sound familiar to those of you who regularly read this blog.

So I hopped in the car and headed over to the clinic. This time it was a forty-something woman who had wasted away to almost nothing. They weighed her in the clinic. Sixty pounds. Her brothers were with her, and they were a great help, because she couldn’t walk and could barely sit up. We drove her to Les Cayes and spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon trying to get her checked in there and seen by a doctor. They were guessing she had tuberculosis, but we are waiting until the official tests come back today to know for sure. Finally she did get checked in and one of her brothers stayed there to care for her.

All that down time at the General Hospital gave us some time to observe what goes on. Sometimes all you can do is laugh. For example, in the ER some guy was getting stitched up from a machete accident. Pretty typical case for that ER, I’m sure. Whenever he would cry out from the pain, people would come running from the parking lot to see what was happening. Curious, fully-grown adults would just crowd in there, shoving each other around for a better view in that small room, and make comments about all the blood. They even felt free to advise the technician on how to do his job, debating with each other the best approach to the problem…

“Better sew up that spot next…it’s bleeding pretty bad.”
"No, I think that will be fine…better try to attach that finger dangling there.”
“No, that finger isn’t going to make it…just focus on the hand.”

Something else that cracked me up was seeing how they take the X-rays and hang them out to dry on the parking signs outside. I said to Sue, “So much for patient confidentiality.” What topped it all on this day was watching another guy with blood all over his hands go back and forth from the ER to the pharmacy. They kept sending him to buy stitches, bandages, and other supplies for himself. Not having anyone to go for him like we sometimes do for patients we take there, he had to get up and buy it himself, dripping blood as he went.

Since we were in Les Cayes already, and had finished up at the hospital, I took the opportunity to head over to the little grocery store and help myself to some special treats for my birthday and for the family back home. I bought some real cheese and butter. Both cost about 3 times what they would in the US. I also splurged and bought hot dogs, pepperoni, and half a pound of hamburger. I went all out! We ate the hotdogs for my birthday meal, along with a cake made by Lynn. Nice.

That afternoon Lynn and I also had a chance to go over to Adrien’s house to check email. This was probably her third time online since we got here, and for the first time in almost six months she used an actual toilet. How luxurious. We had a nice hour there, and Sue watched the kids back at the ranch. After that the kids and I hunted for little crabs and played cards.

Teaching at school has gone well this week, and we have also been busy painting the new orphanage buildings. We are hoping the kids and staff will be able to move in there soon.  A big mission team is coming at the end of May, and our goal is to have the kids in the new orphanage and our family in the old house before the visitors get here. After that we will go back with most of the team to the airport and fly out on May 30th.

Gertrude, the director of the orphanage, is taking a much-needed week off to go visit family and friends in Port-au-Prince. I don’t know how those ladies do it. They are pretty amazing with those kids.

Lots of rain lately!  Mosquitoes are hatching at an alarming rate.  I guess we better get used to it.

May your adventure occassionally be normal!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

Haitian Easter Dinner

Family and Friends,

Day 169 of our Haiti Adventure!

The meal Gertrude cooked for us on Sunday was amazing.  That might have been one of the few times I have truly felt full here after eating.  Below is a picture of a plate with some of the items we had, followed by a description of exactly what each one is...

Item #1 (lower right)-  Beans and rice with a touch of black bean sauce
Item #2 (moving clockwise)-  Mashed veritab, or bread fruit, stuffed with cheese and hamburger
Item #3-  French fries
Item #4-  Tomatoes and onions with a piece of ham (actually spam)
Item #5-  Peas, corn, potatoes, and beat salad on lettuce
Item #6-  Fried beef with onion slices

There were a couple of other items I didn't take as well, including fried plantains and fried veritab, I believe.  It was quite a meal.  We won't soon forget it.  We hope yours was great, too.

Happy Adventuring!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers 

Easter Photos

Family and Friends,

Day 168 of our Haiti Adventure!

Please enjoy the following photos from Easter Sunday...



BACK ROW (L to R):  Rose, Kiki, Lepe, Francia, Darline, Lucy, Santia
FRONT ROW (L to R):  Kester, Elizabeth, Sue with Kenlove, Gertrude with Anderson, Lynn with Alexandra, Nesli, and Shinaider 




The kids with big smiles!




The kids being goofy!




Kenny and Alexandra, buddies

 Our new profile picture on this blog is from the Easter photo session as well.  We hope you all had a blessed Easter!

-the Grimm family

Neighborhood Characters: TATSI, ELOSE, and BABY

Family and Friends,

Happy Easter!
Day 167 of our Haiti Adventure!

This is a continuation of our series on neighborhood characters.  This time you can read about three more of our friends from the neighborhood.  Please pray for these individuals after you read this post.


Tatsi

There is a cute little 8-year-old who spends many of her days in our yard. Her name is Tatsi. She lives down the street in a home with a variety of characters including her aunts, an uncle, various elderly people who can’t care for themselves, and the head of the household, her grandmother. Her dad doesn’t live there, and I don’t know who her mom is. The kids in the orphanage tell us Tatsi gets beaten pretty badly at home, so we don’t mind when she escapes to come here and play with our kids.

It used to be Tatsi would come to the orphanage compound to steal stuff. She has behaved herself during the time we have lived here, however, so we don’t worry too much about that anymore. She plays nicely with Elizabeth and Alexandra, and actually she is bigger and stronger than Kester, so she makes a good playmate for all three. They invented a funny game where our three kids have to chase her around the yard and capture her. Then after awhile they set her free and catch her again. I’m not sure what Harriet Tubman would have thought about this game, but they’re just kids having fun.

What makes Tatsi cute is the simple way she picks up English words and phrases and uses them with us and the kids. It is amazing how kids can do that without even really understanding what they are doing. Tatsi uses her new skills to ask for water, snacks, and other things, but at least she is learning a new language and having fun. The playful smile on her clown-like face always keeps us laughing.


Elose

There is a woman in the village whom I always call “cheri”, which means “Darling” in French and Creole. I do this to crack her up, because clearly she has had a hard life and needs a good laugh when she can get it. Elose is probably 45 or 50, but it is hard to tell due to her lifestyle. She is a severe alcoholic who doesn’t seem to care too much for actual food anymore. I’ve been told she has been to some kind of rehab before, and has almost died at least once, yet she can’t or won’t shake this lifestyle.

So Elose spends her days roaming the streets of Ti-Rivier. She walks around and talks to people in a crazy sort of way, and I can only assume she is bumming drinks off of others as she goes. She always asks me for rice. I explain to her each time that the boxes of rice are for the children in the schools. She just laughs and keeps asking.

One thing I love about Elose is that she is determined to teach me Creole. In fact, she is pretty sure I am fluent and my problem is that I’m just not hearing what she is saying. So she will repeat whatever it is she is trying to get across over and over, each time speaking slower and with more enunciation. When she is doing this some onlooker might try to explain to her that I don’t understand. This makes her angry. She snaps at them, “He speaks creole! He understands me!” I just laugh and eventually excuse myself from the conversation and keep moving to wherever I’m headed. I say, “Goodbye, Cheri!” Then I say a little prayer for poor Elose and all the others stuck in that kind of life.


Baby

Most people who have come on short-term trips with Mission Haiti would probably remember Baby. His actual name is Ronal, but he is called “Baby” because that is the only word he ever says. He just says, “B-baby, bay, bay, b-baby” over and over, in kind of a high, falsetto-type voice. He is very expressive. Ronal is deaf, but he tries to communicate in other ways, especially hand gestures and the baby-talk.

If you watch and listen closely, you can understand Baby. Most of the time he is just describing the work he did that day, including all of the regular farm work and gardening. So one time I was at a hang-out spot with other Haitians and Baby. Baby started telling his story, and someone else there said, “He just talks jiberish. It doesn’t mean anything.” I quickly replied, “No, actually this is English he is speaking.” Then I proceeded to translate it into Creole for them:

Baby:    B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory:     I climbed high on the mountain to work.
Baby:    B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory:    The work was very hard, and the sun was hot.
Baby:    B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory:    I did a lot of thinking about the meaning of life.
Baby:    B-bay, b-baby, b-bay, b-baby
Cory:    I figured out the meaning of life…to work hard and be happy.

We went on like that for a little while and the others were hooting and hollering. Baby laughed, too. I think he knows that we can’t understand his words, yet he appreciates the opportunity to be heard. He truly is a hard worker and obviously knows what he is doing on the farm and in the garden. Sometimes I wonder what his life might have been like in the US, if he could have utilized sign language and other tools for the deaf, but his life here is good, too. I also wonder what he knows and understands about God and Jesus. That would be quite a challenge to find out. Maybe someday a specialist in this area will come down here and work with him.

 
Have a wonderful week!  May it be an adventure!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

PRAYER REQUEST: Cholera in Ti-Rivier

Family and Friends,

This morning we got the call from Robinson that he had been dismissed from the Cholera Clinic and was ready to return home. What a relief. Patchouko and I got in the car and headed out. As we drove down the main street in Ti-Rivier we saw Robinson’s aunt who lives in the same home as Robinson. We stopped to let her know that he would be back soon. She told us, “Sergo (Robinson’s uncle) doesn’t feel good. Would you stop to see him?”

We cautiously entered the house and within seconds knew that Sergo had cholera as well. He was in denial, however. He wanted to stay in bed to see if he would get better. But we knew we had to get him to the hospital. With a little bit of questioning he admitted he had diarrhea, headache, stomachache, and we could plainly see the signature sign of Cholera, the sunken cheeks. Sergo is known to be a proud and bull-headed man, and we finally had to play the children card. We said, “Do you really want to stay here and risk getting your kids sick?” That convinced him.

We drove to Les Cayes and stopped at the main gate of General Hospital. We entered the ER and talked to a young doctor there who immediately sent him on to the Cholera unit, which now has a separate entrance at another gate. It was an easy diagnosis, just like we thought. Sergo reluctantly agreed to get checked in. Then we helped Robinson prepare to go home. Robinson’s mom, who is Sergo’s sister, was also there. I could tell she was very sad to see her brother get Cholera, too, especially since he had been helping Robinson while he was at the clinic. Maybe that is how he got it. Who knows.

We headed home and had a brief meeting with Adrien and Sue, who are the main two health professionals at the clinic. We all agreed to approach Robinson’s family with a request to be quarantined for a couple of weeks. They agreed, which was encouraging, and in fact they had already been contacted by an organization something like a Government Health Administration. Robinson’s cousin, who also lives in the same household, was the first to get Cholera, so this was now the third case there. Thankfully, all three people were strong, adult men. So if we can keep the bug within that household, we might be able to protect the whole village from getting it and passing it around, especially to the sick, the elderly, and the children.

Please pray for this whole situation. At this point we don’t know if this is chapter one or the whole story. Let’s pray for the latter. However, we are prepared to do everything we can to help the people here get through this difficult time. Please pray for protection, for good health, for wisdom, and for God to be known and glorified at all times and in every situation.

God Be With Us All!
-The Grimms

Mangos, Mangos Everywhere!

Family and Friends,

Day 162 of our Haiti Adventure!

We are smack dab in the middle of mango season right now, which is like Christmas in Haiti. This is the time of year when everyone can finally get enough to eat, and it has a kind of calming effect on everyone. People eat mangos here kind of like we eat sweet corn back home. That is, we just pile a plate full of them and eat them as a meal in and of themselves. You also find yourself smiling and joking as you eat them, and your hands and face get ridiculously dirty.

There are big mangos and small ones, and each morning after the rain and wind they can be found all over the village on the ground. There is a huge mango tree in our yard that yields about a hundred every day.  One day there were over 400!  Early in the season the children could be seen throwing rocks into the trees to try to knock a few down and get started early on the snacking. Now they don’t have to do that anymore because the fruit is so plentiful. Sue is really glad, because she had to give stitches to quite a few kids who were hit by rocks thrown in this way.

Mangos are also used for feeding livestock. I watched a lamb eat one the other day. It was amazing to see how carefully the animal peeled it and ate out the inside. Please enjoy the following poem I wrote today about mangos in Haiti.


“Mangos, Mangos Everywhere”

Mangos, mangos everywhere
On the ground, in the air
They float to Earth from Heav’n above
Bursting forth with flavored love

The time for throwing rocks has gone
Each morning now they’re on the lawn
The wind and rain made them descend
To be eaten, it’s their rightful end

Green and red and yellow too
They’re hard as rocks, they’re soft as goo
Take your bucket, fill it up
Tonight on sweetness you will sup’

Now don’t hold back, attack
On this fruity manna snack
Find out how many you can eat
Until they cease to be a treat

Peal them, slice them, you’re the boss
But don’t forget to bring your floss
Eat some later, eat some now
Take some home to feed your cow

The heat of summer soon will come
And then the gobbling will be done
But now we munch without a care
Mangos, mangos everywhere

 
May Your Adventure be SWEET Today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

Three Unforgetable Adventures in One Day

Family and Friends,

Day 161 of our Haiti Adventure!

The day before yesterday we face three trials that could have led to some major problems, but with God’s help we are overcoming them and are optimistic for positive outcomes in each situation. Instead of calling them trials, we like to call them adventures.

Adventure #1

Early in the morning Lynn rose to use the bathroom. Actually it was more like the middle of the night. She has a little toilet-contraption in the house crafted by Pastor Rick Van Ravenswaay of New Life Reformed in Sioux Center, Ia. Basically it is a little platform supported by four strong legs with a hole cut in the middle and a regular toilet seat attached to the top. It folds up nicely and can be stored in a suitcase. Under the hole he devised a way for a large plastic tupperware bowl to slide into a slot and receive donations. There is a lid that fits on the bowl after it is used.

After Lynn was finished I groggily got out of bed, took the bowl, and headed for the outhouse to dump the contents. I wasn’t completely awake. The next thing I remember is the bowl slipping out of my hands above the hole and falling down into the 12-foot pit. It all happened so fast, and yet it was like I was watching the bowl fall in slow motion. I stood there in disbelief. The bowl is big enough that it seemed like you would have to try on purpose to push it down the hole, yet somehow it had found a way to jump out of my hand and dive down there.

The indoor toilet would be pretty difficult to use without the bowl, and to find another perfectly sized replacement in Haiti would be nearly impossible. My mind flashed back to our first week here when I had to cart Lynn across the rocky yard in the rain to the outhouse each time she had to go. That wasn’t a fond memory, so I tried to clear my mind enough to think of a plan for rescuing the bowl without getting ridiculously dirty. One nice thing at this point was that no one else was awake, so I didn’t have to share the embarrassing situation with anyone but myself and God.

I finally came up with a plan. I went over to the wood pile and selected a couple of nine or ten foot boards. Holding them together I figured out which ends of the boards would fit together best to make some sort of a grabber at the end. As long as I held the boards together tightly, they put quite a bit of pressure against each other at the end. This was one time when I was thankful for warped lumber instead of perfectly straight.

I was barely able to get the boards through the door of the outhouse and down the hole. The angle almost prohibited me from using those long boards. Everything was pitch black besides the headlight on my head, so it was hard to see the bowl in the bottom. Luckily it didn’t land with the opening facing down. It just fell sideways and stuck that way, exposing the other edge to my grabber. The boards just barely reached. My arms were reaching way down the hole, and I politely asked the hoard of cockroaches not to crawl all over my neck and face as I worked. They complied.

After a few tries I thought I had a nice hold on the bowl and slowly started lifting it out. I was successful on the first attempt! After thanking God I gingerly carried the nasty bowl over to the water pump to try to clean it up. The smell was indescribable. I pumped a lot of water and splashed the bowl repeatedly until the big chunks were off. After that I submerged it in a bigger wash basin with a rock, dumped a nice amount of Clorox on, and filled the basin with water for the remainder of the night.

Adventure #1 completed!

Adventure #2

Sue was planning on doing a mobile clinic at the Mountain School that morning. All the people up there had been invited and she had several bags of medical supplies ready to go. We decided to try something new to make the hike more manageable. There is a dirt mountain road that leads most of the way to the school, and earlier this year it had been widened and leveled quite a bit. We figured the time had come to see how well the Isuzu Trooper would handle on it. We took off earlier in the morning with Sue, Antoine, Robinson, Francia (the oldest girl from the orphanage), and myself.

There were a few clouds in the sky, but they didn’t look too bad. We remarked how you probably wouldn’t want to be in the mountains with a car when it rained, but we never seriously considered turning back. The driving went very well. After I dropped the team off I decided I better head back down in case the weather turned bad. They would be able to hike down with the supplies much easier than up, and of course by that time much of the medicine would have been distributed. They headed up the walking trail towards the Mountain school, and I headed back down the dirt road we had ascended.

Of course it wasn’t too long until the winds picked up, the sky turned dark, and the first few sprinkles started to come. From the time when the first sprinkles came to when there was a complete downpour and I was spinning my wheels in the mud was somewhere between three and five minutes. It was insane! I almost made it back to the main road where it would have been fine driving in the rain, but I got stuck just before descending the final hill.

Looking back, though, if I had crested that hill and tried to drive down in the near mud-slide conditions that were occurring, things might have turned bad for me. Driving down the previous hill, which wasn’t as steep as that final hill, already felt a lot like driving on ice back home. God allowed me to be spared the opportunity to drive down that final steep, muddy hill in the rain. I finally made the decision to leave the vehicle and walk home. I figured it was going to be several hours or even a day or two until I could safely drive. I said a prayer for the safety of the Trooper from vandals and walked down the mountain in the rain.

The people who had watched us drive up the mountain were now sitting on their porches laughing at me as I walked by in the rain. I kept wondering what they were thinking. Probably something like this: “How do those Americans get so rich anyway? Look at that one there in the rain. He doesn’t look like he’s got too much going on between the ears. He just drove a car into the mountain when anyone could see it was going to rain. Now he’s walking home completely soaked and will probably give himself a cold. I just don’t understand those people.”

Adventure #2 still in progress…

Adventure #3

Around noon Robinson came walking briskly into the orphanage compound. If you’ve never been down here, Robinson is one of the core members of the youth group and a great help to Mission Haiti in many ways. He was sweating profusely and looked a little panic-stricken. I was afraid something had happened with Sue or at the clinic, and I asked him if everything was okay. He didn’t say much but instead went into the eating area, collapsed, and put his head down on his arms on the table.

After a minute or two I went back to check on him. The rest of the medical team wasn’t back yet, so he must have really hustled down the trail to arrive so far ahead. I asked him again if he was okay. This time when he looked up I could tell something was wrong. He wasn’t speaking very clearly, and his face looked about ten years older. His skin was pulled back and his cheeks were sunken. I quickly got him more water and coaxed him to drink it. Complaining of a stomache ache, he wasn’t interested in eating any food.

Finally Sue arrived back at the compound. Everyone was covered in mud, sweating profusely, and exhausted. Sue went over and took a look at Robinson and decided we better send him to the hospital in Les Cayes. He had fever as well, and she thought maybe he had appendicitis or bowel obstruction. We made the necessary plans to get going. There was also a man from the clinic carrying his little baby girl who needed an x-ray on her head, so we needed to get them to the hospital, too.

Of course the car was still in the mountains, so we decided to look for a tap-tap. We didn’t have any luck getting that together, because they don’t run much on rainy days, and when they finally do get going they are jammed full of people. At last we decided to send our motorcycle and another one from the neighborhood. I wasn’t too excited about the idea, to be honest, because driving in wet conditions is difficult on these muddy roads, and I didn’t want to compound the situation we were already in with a crash or some other problem. However, we decided it was the best solution.

There didn’t turn out to be room for me to go, so I sent Antoine and Patchouko in charge of the whole thing, and they loaded up a very sick Robinson, who was now vomiting. Antoine was holding Robinson in place behind Patchouko, who was driving, and the little family mentioned earlier got on behind the other motorcycle driver. They headed up the road and I said a quick prayer for their safety.

A little later I called Pam and filled her in on everything that was going on, and she promised to pray and send out a prayer request to the Mission Haiti supporters. After that I headed out on foot for English class, which is about a brisk forty-minute walk. I kept praying about everything that was going on. Just as I reached the English school I received a call from Antoine saying that Robinson had cholera. It all made sense to me at that moment, and I couldn’t believe I didn’t reach that conclusion on my own. He had looked just like all of those people I saw before at the cholera camp. It now made sense.

Antoine told me that the little girl who needed the x-ray was fine, Robinson would be left in the hospital, and everyone else was on the way home. I felt relieved about this outcome, because Robinson will get relatively good care at the cholera camp. I texted the update to Pam. After that I pulled aside Chelo, our friend and director of the English school, and asked him to cover my class for the day. I felt I needed to head home in case I was needed later for something. I felt too distracted to do a good job at teaching at that point. Then I headed back home.

Adventure #3 completed…

It hadn’t rained for several hours at this point, and we decided the time had come to try to rescue the Trooper from the mountain. Patchouko kept listing all of the items that could be stolen off of the car…radio, battery, tires, gas, etc… I said, “Patchouko, it almost sounds like you might have been the one doing the stealing in some former life.” He laughed. Patchouko and I headed out together on the motorcycle.

Amazingly the big hill which had become a river earlier that morning was now nearly dry. The car was still in one piece, and I drove down the rest of the way with ease. Remarkably, another storm came up at that moment and completely soaked Patchouko on the motorcycle as he followed me home. Good thing we got the car when we did!

Adventure #2 completed…

That night at youth group we did a lot of reflecting on the day. Not too many showed up because of the rain, but the small group of us decided to go over to Robinson’s house and pray with his family. We were happy to discover that his mother had gone on to Cayes to spend the night with him in the hospital. We sat down and talked with his little brothers and some aunts and cousins. We encouraged them and we prayed together. Plans were made to go check on Robinson and his mother the next day and bring them necessary supplies.

FROM MY JOURNAL THE NEXT DAY: We did go see Robinson at the Cholera Clinic in Les Cayes this morning, and he was looking and feeling much better. They have him on an IV and he is gradually working the sickness out of his system. I can also happily report that the Cholera clinic is looking much improved these days. The vast majority of people in there were sitting up and talking with others. It was much cleaner, better supplied, and well-staffed. I was impressed.

Well, there you have it, three unforgettable adventures in one day. As memorable as it was we are hoping the rest of this week will be more boring and forgetable! You never know in Haiti, though. The next adventure could be right around the corner.

 
Enjoy Your Adventure(s) Today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

Optimism and Forward Progress



The kids enjoying the beach at Port Salut on Elizabeth's Birthday


Family and Friends,

Day 158 of our Haiti Adventure!

We got our first speed bump in the little village of Ti-Rivier recently. I don’t mean that in any figurative sense. We literally got a speed bump on the road that leads through town. The word for speedbump in Creole translates literally to “sleeping policeman.” People have a great sense of humor here. Of course getting a speep bump means we have arrived. We’re sitting at the big-boy table now! I joked with Adrien that at this rate of progress we could have a stop sign in less than twenty years and a stoplight in fifty. We can only dare to dream.

All joking aside, there does seem to be a small sense of optimism about the future in Haiti, now. People are allowing themselves to dream about a positive future. Of course we are optimistic at Mission Haiti about everything God is helping us plan from the bigger and better orphanage compound (which is nearly finished), the Bible School which will open in the fall of 2012, the expanding medical services we are offering, the ongoing efforts to improve local schools, and many other projects to improve this community and draw people closer to Christ.

But we are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. Yes, we are making a difference in the lives of some people, but the prevailing viewpoint in the recent past seemed to be that Haiti as a whole was on a trajectory of gradual decline leading to an inevitable political and financial meltdown at some point leading to abject poverty for all. In Tracy Kidder’s book about Paul Farmer, “Mountains Beyond Mountains”, he refers to this notion that Haiti is headed for even harder times, and even if we are just here to help the people as they travel in that direction, so be it. In other words, our work could be seen as similar to that of a nurse or teacher or cook doing his/her work on the Titanic as it takes on water, never giving up until the bitter end.

I don’t know if it is the recent election of a president the regular people believe in, with all of the accompanying promises, or other factors, but people are excited about the future. Something seems tohave changed. There have been other small signs of progress as well. For example, the electric company, with the help and backing of a large Canadian organization, has been installing new poles and lines for both better electricity and internect access. Both of these will change life quite a bit for us and the rest of the community. It is fun to watch them work. There is a tall lumberjack-type guy working with them. He is Canadian. I’m assuming he speaks French fluently.

More and more people have been going to internet cafes in the city. They are gaining access to computers and trying to learn how to use them. Why couldn’t computers and other technologies be a part of Haiti’s future opportunities for education, manufacturing, and jobs in general? This is part of the reason Japan was able to morph from their poverty-stricken ancient culture into a modern country after World War II. We have many ideas about how computers could be utilized locally to prepare students for the future. There are also computer degrees popping up at some of the universities here. Now we just need the computers to get started! I’ll post about some ideas for that soon.

Cell phones and televisions have been taking over here in recent years, just like back home. That is one of the things that surprises you when you first come to visit. You walk up to a home in that mountains that is falling down around the family, everyone you see is extremely thin, the crops look weak, and then you hear a cell phone ring from somewhere in the house. It doesn't add up, but it is the new reality. In one sense we aren’t too excited about these pleasantly naïve people being exposed to the worldliness of television and other technologies. On the positive side, though, some of those images and ideas can inspire them to see what is out there in the world and imagine how some of those things could make their lives and the lives of their family and friends better.

We caught wind of a big billboard in Port-au-Prince which reads, “Jesus will return on May 21st.” As we know from Scripture, no one knows the date or the time of His return except God the Father, so of course that isn’t true. However, the billboard illlustrates, albeit in a warped way, the sense of the people that things are changing rapidly and these days we are living in are of eternal consequence. Hopefully people won’t get swept away in doomsday preaching and cults and stuff like that. Instead we pray that God will use this sense of progress and optimism to touch hearts and minds, drawing all of us closer to him, and inspiring us to think big about the future of everyone here.



May Your Adventure be marked by a Holy Optimism Today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

Dealing with Requests

Elizabeth enjoying her pizza and E-shaped brownie on her birthday

Family and Friends,

Day 156 of our Haiti Adventure!

One of the biggest challenges when you work in an extremely poor country is to deal with all the requests you receive. People come to you, hat in hand, and ask for everything you can imagine. The most common requests are for shoes, food, and money. Occassionally people ask for Bibles. It puts you a little bit on the defensive, especially when you meet new people, because most of the time they are sizing you up and trying to determine whether they can get something from you or not. You have to be patient and understanding, though, because so many people here are legitimately living in poverty. The best thing is to take each case individually, pray about it, and try to make the best decision you can based on your resources, your relationship with the person, and how you feel the Spirit is leading you.


Below is a good example of what I am talking about. The following text is a letter I received a few days ago from perfect strangers. It was translated by Antoine:

Today is a big day for me to address you. The days of circumstance (are here). The problem is the house of mine has needs before I can get married. Can you give me a chance of the occasion of my marriage? I want to get married. Can you help me make it happen? Thank you very much ahead of time. We are Genez Pierre and Mr. Ranal Louis. Please do it for me. Thank you. I don’t have anybody to help but the Lord Jesus Christ.


This situation deserves some explanation. I’ve touched on this issue before in this blog, but people here put some pretty lofty requirements on themselves before they get married. Some of the pressure comes from the church, and some from the general cultural expectations. People think they need to have the house in order, a certain list of physical possessions, the money for a big wedding and reception, and sometimes other things as well in order to get married. If they can’t get all of that together they just live together and have children like a normal married couple, but aren’t technically married. This compromise forces them to function like second class citizens in the church, if they attend.

This issue came to the forefront in the recent Promise Keepers program put on by one of the teams during their visit here. Everything in that curriculum starts from the premise that you are to get married, make promises to each other (vows), and with the help of God and supportive friends keep those promises over the years. However, how do you adapt those teachings to a culture where so many people aren’t getting married, and part of the problem is that they don’t consider themselves worthy in the eyes of the church and others to tie the knot?

So this particular request letter comes from a couple who are trying to nagivate all of those marital issues. Chances are they are already living together, and might even have kids, so basically if I helped them “get married” I would just be buying them some stuff for the house so they could feel better about themselves. I think in this case Patchouko and I will try to sit down with them and talk about what marriage should be all about. Both Patchouko and I had virtually nothing when we married our wives, and so far God has provided, so that might give them some comfort. We’ll see. 

The point I am making in this post, however, is that people approach us constantly with requests, and it takes a lot of energy to deal with it all. There are plenty of stories of missionary families who have left the mission field over this issue, because it can become overwhelming. We have a couple of advantages, though. First of all, Mike and Pam have done a lot of work here through the years and laid a groundwork of how to deal with all of this and process the requests.

My seminary training also gave  me a chance to learn about relief and development and other key issues relating to making decisions about when and when not to give material things to people in need. That was a good foundation to start from even before we headed out to the field. Basically it boils down to disciplining yourself to only giving things or money to people when you know for sure they are going to die or suffer greatly without it, and working with all other situations through education, networking, short-term loans, encouragment, etc… That is probably too simple of an explanation of our strategy, but you get the idea.

When we take a step back and look at the situation, we have to be thankful as well and not consider these requests a burden.  First of all, we have been generously blessed by God with everything we need and more, and Jesus made clear that we are to make our abundance available to others who are needy.  What a privilege to be able to do that for people who truly need it!  Also, having people come to us puts us in a position to speak into their lives.  They respect us for the wrong reasons, but still they are listening.  
 
May God give us grace to handle these situations with patience and wisdom.
 
Be Bold in Your Adventure Today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers 

The Soccer Match

Dad and kids making a home visit

Family and Friends,

Day 155 of our Haiti Adventure!

Patchouko, Kester, and I went to a high school soccer match in St. John, a neighboring town which is sort of the county seat, on Sunday afternoon. We took the motorcycle there, and everyone turned and gawked at us as we parked (not because the motorcycle is anything out of the ordinary, but because we are white), paid for our tickets, and entered the stadium.  We had a lot of fun, and it was a good opportunity to get out and meet people in the community. Many people from Ti-Rivier were there, and they were happy to see us at the match.

First of all I have to describe the field. You have to understand that it is almost impossible to find a soccer-field-sized piece of flat ground anywhere in this country. Most of the land is made up of rolling hills and small mountains with the exception of the large plains near Les Cayes. This field was on a fairly flat piece of ground, though, and it looked pretty close to regulation size to me. In some places trees branched out above the playing surface, and there was very little grass on the whole thing. Dust was kicked up wherever the players went.

Someone had chalked out the boundaries to the field before the match began, but soon the edge of the crowd became the out-of-bounds line. There were no bleachers or anything like that, so people lined the entire field to watch the action, and they continued to creep farther and farther over the line. Someone came up with a funny solution to the problem, though. A somewhat crazy-looking guy began walking around the perimeter of the field with a branch, and he would beat the legs of the people who were over the line, both young and old, men, women, and child. It was pretty funny to watch, and effective.

The players were very skilled and extremely athletic. You wouldn’t believe how high they leap for headers and how powerfully their feet can kick in the air. I couldn’t help thinking how hard they must work for this as they grow up here, and how intensely they love to be out there in the middle of the action in front of the big crowd. As one player crumpled after a collision, I thought about how if you blow out a knee on one of these teams, you are probably done for good. No one’s going to pay for your reconstructive surgery and physical rehab. Yet they play with a reckless abandon that is admirable.

The children were the most amazed to see us there. They aren’t afraid to just come up and stare at you from a few feet away. People were especially delighted to see Kester and me together, and they whispered about how much we looked alike. They carefully observed everything we did from watching the game to drinking water to eating a little snack. It was sort of like we were aliens from Mars.

We left before the match was over in order to beat the crowd and get home before dark. Neither team had yet scored when we left. The visiting red team was clearly better, but the home crowd was cheering for the white jerseys, crescendoing to an eruption of cheering whenever their boys barely managed to fend off a scoring attempt. It was a David and Goliath scenario, kind of like Haiti against the world.

Like any high school sports event, it was as much of a social occasion as it was an athletic competition. It was somewhere for people to go and be seen and hang out with friends. But there was a passion there as well. People love this game here, and it was fun to attend and be part of the crowd.

We traveled home on the motorcycle and enjoyed the unbelievable view of the ocean as you come over the mountains at sunset. We arrived home safely and enjoyed some popcorn with the girls. Both girls are looking forward to their chance to ride on the new motorcycle and go somewhere special with Daddy. They’ll get their chance soon enough.

 
God Bless!
-The Grimms

Mission Haiti Neighborhood Characters: PETERSON



Craig (Mike and Pam's son) and Antoine at the wedding
(see post, Mission Haiti Neighborhood Characters: ANTOINE)

 Family and Friends,

Please enjoy the latest installment of the Mission Haiti Neighborhood Characters series.  This time it is about a twelve-year-old who hangs around quite a bit, Peter.  We'll try to post a photo of him soon.  Enjoy!

PETERSON

I used to call Peterson “the 11th orphan”, because for a long time we had ten kids in the orphanage, but Peterson always spent most of the day here as well and pretty much lived here. Then we got an actual 11th person, John, so I didn’t call Peterson that anymore. But now John has left, so I’m back to calling Peterson “the 11th orphan” again.

Peterson, or Peter as most people call him, reminds me of how you might imagine some boy who works on a Pirate ship running errands and making announcements for the captain. He is twelve years old, and his voice is very, very loud. He is also very adept at climbing. I’m sure he could shimmy up any ship’s mast in ten seconds flat as he regularly climbs any and every tree around this neighborhood. From there the crew of several hundred would have no trouble hearing the orders of the pirate captain as Peterson calls them out. He also has a knack for learning every little skill and word and game, and no doubt he is destined for great things, just as that boy on the Pirate ship is destined to be Captain himself one day.

Kester and Peter are pretty much best friends now, though they get on each others’ nerves as both of them are overly competitive. Sometimes Peter just gets frustrated because Kester is only 7, I think. But they spend countless hours playing games, kicking around the soccerball and other balls, messing around in the yard, etc… Peter is learning English really fast and has a good chance to truly be fluent some day as do the other kids in the orphanage.

Sometimes I wonder if Peter’s mom is at home wondering where he is at any given moment in the day. One day I asked him about that. I said, “Peter, doesn’t your mom ever wonder what you are doing all day?” He said, “No. She just knows that if I go home she has to feed me. I just know that if I go home I have to do chores, especially hauling water, so it is just better to stay here most of the time”, or something along those lines. Once of twice a week he hands Lynn a piece of bread he managed to buy down on the street. It is understood that we will hand it back to him with peanut butter and jelly. He needs a little skin on his bones!

When Jeri Kraai of Rock Valley, Ia. came down here recently, she taught a group of people to sew diapers for the babies in the community. It wasn’t the women or the men who learned the fastest. It was Peter! After that we had him make a little rug to use as a pad for our bench out on the porch. He could probably make a lot of other things, too. He is a little entrepreneur in the making. He sold us part of his pig at Christmas time and countless supplies of bananas and peanuts.


May Your Adventure be filled with Characters!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

A Little of This and That



The kids at Antoine's wedding


Family and Friends,

Day 153 of our Haiti Adventure!

Sorry we have been out-of-touch for so long, but hopefully in the next few days we will be able to share several new blog posts with you.  Thanks as always for your prayers.  We are doing well!  Below is a few thoughts from Cory's journal a few days ago.  Enjoy!

There is excitement around the orphanage compound, because a couple of days ago Patchouko returned from Port-au-Prince with a new motorcycle. He and I went in on it together and will share it for now. It is a Chinese-made motorcycle, which are plentiful here. We’ll see how long it lasts. They do have Hondas here for quite a bit more money, and everyone knows they are the best kind around, but almost no one can actually afford them, including us!

The kids had a good time this morning chasing Tatsi around the yard. She is a funny little 8-year-old girl from down the road. She had lunch with us as well. All of them are excited about the tea party going on later this afternoon. They will all gather in the clubhouse and share whatever snacks they can assemble. They are talking about making some sort of fruit juice that requires powdered milk, extra sugar, and some other strange ingredients. I’m sure they will have fun and make a nice, big mess.

It is starting to get really hot during the days, and it only cools off to about 80 degrees at night now. Thankfully, we have a wall fan we can plug into a battery system which is charged during the day by a solar panel on the roof. That is going to really be nice as we get into the truly hot days of May. We are anticipating the rainy season as well, so the tag-team of muggy and hot will team up to try to defeat us soon. We will prevail!

Hard to believe it is only about 8 weeks until we return to the US. We are getting close to the 5-month mark of living here. Looking back we absolutely believe it was the right decision to come when we did. God was totally at work in that decision, guiding us. We are looking forward to the chance to go back, visit family and speak in churches, and come back refreshed for another year in Haiti. It will be hard to leave everyone here for a few months, but we pray God will use this summer to strengthen our love for these people even more.

Soon we will move into the old orphanage building and begin to mold it into a home for our family. The first task will be to make it more wheelchair accessible. The building is comprised of a large, central meeting room which serves as kitchen and dining room, and four bedrooms off of that middle room. Unfortunately, all four bedrooms are either up or down a couple of steps. The plan is to fill in the two lower rooms with sand and cement and make them level with the central room. For now the upper rooms will remain inaccessible to Lynn unless I am there to move her on the stairs or she crawls through the door. It won’t be ideal, but it will be a considerable increase in living space and a lot more privacy than staying in the Mission House, especially when teams come to visit.

After that project is done the big push before next fall will be to get better electricity, internet access, and if we really dream big, a flush toilet for Lynn to use! That would help her a lot, and it would allow me to be gone longer during the day. Mike Plasier is working with us to talk through what that would take, and Pam’s dad might be able to do a lot of the work this summer when he comes to work here.

Last night we were sitting near the orphanage, watching a movie on a tiny, portable DVD player with the other kids. Up sauntered a full-grown Tarantula to say, “Hello.” Everyone jumped out of their seats. There was a pause in the action as the tarantula stopped and everyone looked at each other to see what would happen next. At this point Alexandra’s little voice broke the silence. “I’m going back to my house now,” she said as she turned and ran away. It was really funny. Then I took a big rock and sent the Tarantula to spider heaven. We also had a scorpion in the house the other day. That was a first, and hopefully a last!


Enjoy Your Adventure with God this week!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers

A Perplexing Case Study

Family and Friends,

Day 145 of our Haiti Adventure!

We are all doing very well down here in Haiti.  Today we will have a few English classes, youth group, and leadership training.  Tomorrow we will enjoy church, Men's Promise Keepers group, and hopefully a quiet and relaxing evening.  Should be a great weekend of ministry!  Check out the case study below and please feel free to write a comment as a response...

*THIS POST MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN*

Back in my seminary years we students used to spend time talking through various scenarios that tend to pop up in ministry and trying to decide how we would handle them if confronted with a similar situation. We called these “case studies.” Oftentimes it was very difficult to know what action would be best to take. Two days ago we were thrown into a very challenging, real-life situation and had to make some quick decisions. I won’t tell you what we decided to do, or how it all ended, but will instead present the story to you and let you think about what you yourself would have done.


CASE STUDY

After returning from the market I saw Gertrude (director of the orphanage) sitting under the meeting tent with a young teenage girl. I could tell they were talking about something serious. A little while later Gertrude asked to talk to me and explained what was going on.

The girl came to the orphanage because she was scared of her step-father. She is fourteen years old and a classmate with some of our orphanage girls, and she told us she either wanted to be accepted in the orphanage or she was going to run away to her real father in Port-au-Prince. She explained that while the mom was gone to the mother class at the clinic the other day, the step-father told her that he wanted to have sex with her. She was afraid to tell this to her mom, and the step-father had warned her that if she did so, he would kill her.

Gertrude and I talked the situation over a little bit and agreed that we wouldn’t send the girl back home right away. Instead, we would try to find some way to talk with the mom and let her know what was going on. Our hope was that the mom would protect her daughter and not let her run away to Port-au-Prince, but also not let her get into a bad situation with the step father. Our plan was for myself and Patchouko or Antoine to go to the house, sit down with the parents, and confront the situation.

However, later in the day when I came back from some other appointment, I discovered that the girl was gone. Gertrude explained that she had decided to go home. Darline (a neighborhood girl who works here) walked with her and was supposed to talk to the mom, but when they got close to the house the girl told Darline she didn’t want to go through with it. So Darline came back to the orphanage.

At this point we had to make some decisions. I kept thinking about how the girl might be in danger, and I didn’t feel good about letting her go back to that situation without some kind of confrontation. She had reached out to us for help, and even if she was losing her courage now as she thought about everything, we should still take what she said seriously and follow up on it right away. So Gertrude, Antoine, and I headed up the thirty minute hike to their house.

When we got there the girl ran off into the woods, because she must have known what we were going to do. After a little while they were able to coax her back down to the house, and we all sat down to talk, including her mother, step-father, and an aunt. I explained, with Antoine translating, that their daughter had come to our house asking for help, and we wanted to talk with the family about what she said to us because we were concerned. Then I asked the girl if she would repeat what she had said so that her parents could hear it.

She wouldn’t say anything but just sat there in silence. Finally I asked Gertrude to tell the parents what the girl had said about her step-father. Gertrude spoke for a long time, and I couldn’t follow everything she said, but I could tell the parents were getting pretty worked up. The dad then launched into a long explanation about how his step-daughter was sneaking around with boys after school, and he was having to beat her a lot, and how she was now trying to accuse him of things. The girl continued to sit there blank faced and quiet. The dad said something about how he didn’t want the daughter to live there anymore, but the mom countered with, “If she goes, I go” or something like that.

After a little bit of going back and forth, most of which I wasn’t following, Antoine pulled me aside and explained that Gertrude hadn’t divulged the information about the girl’s accusation of attempted sexual abuse, but had only alluded to the girl being afraid of her step-father because of the beatings. Gertrude was reluctant to put the more serious allegation out there on the table, because she figured the girl was already headed for the beating of her life and that would only make it worse for her. So Antoine and I talked a little more and then went back to the gathering of people and said….

So what would you do in this situation?


May Your Adventure be filled with perplexing choices today as you carry each others' burdens, all for the glory of God!

-The Grimm Family Adventurers

Update on Esperansia, the girl who was attacked

Since the day of the tragic events involving Esperansia we have gained more information about the whole incident. For one thing she was able to receive surgery on both her hand and her head the very next day in Port-au-Prince, so that was fortunate. Both Kiki and Patchouko have had a chance to visit with her. Patchouko showed us some pictures. From what we hear she is beginning to gradually get better physically each hour. The emotional recovery will undoubtedly continue long past the time the final bandage is removed.

Some of us went over to her family’s house yesterday to encourage them and pray together. They seemed pretty wiped out by the whole thing. We walked over and saw where the attack took place, and there was blood on the ground. Seeing that scene somehow made the whole thing more real. It was a little bit creepy.

We also learned the identity of the attacker, and he is a young man who was sort of a fringe member of the youth group. That was very sad to hear. I’m sure it must have been difficult for Pam, because she has known many of these people for the past fifteen years or so. That means this young man and young woman were little kids when she started coming here. To watch them grow up and get into this kind of trouble would be hard. That day will come for us, too, if we stay here long enough. And how can you ever see anything like this coming? As Antoine said, “Nothing surprises me anymore. Anyone can snap at any time. How can you protect your family from something like that?” I said, “I guess you just pray, trust God, and keep your eyes and ears open at all times.”

We will continue to keep tabs on the whole situation and post another update at some point, probably after Esperansia comes home to be with her family. We should also pray for her attacker, wherever he might be at this time, to be found by the police instead of the mob, serve his time in prison, and somehow be changed by God and given a chance at forgiveness and a new life sometime in the distant future. Without God murder is in all of our hearts. By His grace may He have mercy on us all and change us through the washing of Christ’s blood. That is truly our only hope.

Keep Praying and Trusting God!
-The Grimms

Elizabeth's Unforgetable Birthday

Family and Friends,

Day 144 of our Haiti Adventure!

It is going to be difficult to limit this story to a post or two. While we were in the midst of this day (March 30) there was a couple of points where I said to myself, “How in the world am I going to summarize this for the blog?” You really couldn’t even make up the things that happened on Elizabeth’s birthday. Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. It was a real adventure, and God was at work in the midst of it all.

The day got off to a discouraging start in some ways. We were getting ready to go to Port Salut, a nearby small city with a great beach, but the kids were absolutely trying our patience. They were whining, fighting, and crying at every little thing. When they had an extended argument about where to sit in the car, I nearly called off the whole trip. We finally got situated and headed down the road. We were accompanied by Chelo, our good friend and able translator.

The drive to Port Salut was absolutely beautiful. The road is paved and nice, and it winds gradually up and through the mountains, revealing a majestic view of the western side of Haiti. It is the kind of drive you imagine taking with a nice little sportscar convertible. The beach we went to actually faces towards Jamaica and Cuba. Lynn & Alexandra got a little car sick, but we had a good time traveling to Port Salut.

We were looking for a resort/restaurant called Dan’s Creek which was said to be run by some Haitians who spent a couple of decades in the US. Apparently they serve burgers and other American food, which really sounds good these days! They also have a pool and secluded, private beach. We found the place and Chelo and I went inside to check it out.

We were warned by the missionaries who told us about this place that it was a little spendy, but I wasn’t prepared for what the lady at the desk was going to say. I asked her about having lunch and swimming in the pool. She told me it would cost $10 for each adult and $5 for each kid to go to the pool for a total of $45. These prices are in American, not Haitian currency. I’m thinking to myself about how last summer I paid $25 in Sioux Falls for a summer-long pass for the whole family for all five of the pools in town which come with slides, kiddie-pools, etc...

Then we asked about the food. She described a little bit of what they had and assured us that if we spent over $100 she would waive the fee for swimming in the pool. Ouch! We went back to the car to talk it over with Lynn. We decided we would wait to have our burgers until this summer when we return to the US. After all, the beautiful beach we just passed by is free! I drove out of the parking lot wondering who exactly their clientele would include. I mean, how many Americans, much less Haitians, plan on spending over $100 for lunch? Strange, really.

So we went back to the beautiful beach and had a good time. There is a restaurant down there, but after looking at their menu, we decided the food they were offering sounded a lot like the food we were trying to get away from back home! So we just ordered some cokes and sprites and enjoyed some chips and granola snacks we had brought with us. Skipping lunch turned out to be a good decision for a couple of reasons. Several of us had stomachaches on the way home which the food would have only made worse, and I didn’t know it yet but I was going to need the money in my bag for the second half of the day.

We headed back home across the mountains and looked forward to spending a quiet day of baking brownies and a pizza for Elizabeth’s supper and enjoying her new computer game, “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego,” which she got as a present. However, we weren’t sitting there long before Antoine came in the yard and said to Sue, “You’ve got a patient down at the clinic, and it looks bad.”

Sue went down to the clinic to check out what was going on. Normally the clinic closes at 1PM, and it was a little bit later than that at this point, so we figured it must be some sort of emergency. After a few minutes Antoine came back and told me we needed to drive the girl to Les Cayes to the hospital emergency room. Time to put the ambulance driver hat back on. I grabbed the bag I had taken with us to the beach, because I knew it still had my ID and some money, and jumped in the car.

I drove to the clinic and found a huge crowd of people gathered there. I backed up to the door and Sue came out and told me what was going on. A young woman in the community, Esperansia Damas (age 22), had been attacked by her boyfriend with a machete. She had a bad laceration on the back of her head and on both hands. In fact, one of the hands was almost cut off completely. Sue said it was mostly dangling by skin. Obviously she was bleeding a lot and needed to be taken immediately to the hospital.

We laid out some towels and a tarp in the car, got loaded up with the patient, a few family members, Sue, Antoine, and myself. I drove quickly but carefully to the city and headed down the now-familiar streets to the ER. This time when we arrived it wasn’t too busy, which was nice. There was a little girl on a cart shrieking as she got stitches for something, but other than that we weren’t fighting the traffic.

We carried the girl inside and got her situated on a stretcher. She wasn’t passed out or anything, but not completely coherent either. When Sue had asked her if she needed pain medication at the clinic she said, “I’m alright.” Wow, these people are tough. Some technicians and nurses came over and began the examination. It wasn’t too long before they could tell they needed extra help.

Pretty soon a couple of off-duty doctors drove up on motorcycles to help assess the situation. After gaining better access to the head laceration by shaving away some hair we could all see that it was much worse than we had thought. It was very deep and possibly into the bone and affecting the brain. The hand was in sad shape as well, and the doctors agreed they were going to have to transfer her to Port-au-Prince for blood transfusions and a more thorough examination by a neurosurgeon.

All this time they kept sending Antoine and me to buy the necessary supplies for the patient. This is how it works in Haiti. When they need anything, I mean anything, from a bandage to medication to a syringe, they write a prescription for it and you have to go buy it from the pharmacy. Amazing. Conveniently, the hospital pharmacy (which consists of one small cabinet and a fridge) was closed for the day at mid-afternoon, so we were literally out wandering down gravel roads with open sewers, looking in nearby pharmacies for the supplies. It was surreal. I could see God at work, though, because the cost of the supplies she needed came out to almost exactly what I had in my bag after our missed lunch earlier in the day. If we had bought lunch, especially at the fancy restaurant, I wouldn’t have been able to buy medicine and bandages. Thanks, Lord, for making me Dutch!

The next problem was to find an ambulance to take her to Port-au-Prince. At first they were having trouble with this, so then we got on the phone to ask Pam if we should just drive her there and meet Kiki, our main contact in Port, for extra help. Pam agreed to send us and assured us she would find some way to cover the cost of the medication, gas, hospital bills, etc… Right about that time, however, an ambulance driver was found, so we were off the hook. He saw us and asked for an exorbitant price to take the girl, but we negotiated it down a little bit. I wish we had gotten him lower on it, but we were in a hurry at this point.

We still don’t know what happened to her the rest of that day and through the night as she road all the way to Port-au-Prince and hopefully got help there. Pam was planning to work with Kiki to get everything paid for. We are anxiously awaiting more news. As we drove back into the village late that afternoon it was memorable to see faces on both sides of the road looking towards Les Cayes, waiting for us to return. A few hundred people were out talking along both sides of the road, just like back home in small-town American when everyone gabs at the end of their driveways whenever something crazy happens in town.

Sue had blood all over her dress, and she was ready for a shower. It was a joy to see her at work, because you could tell that she truly loves these people and will do anything for them. She and Antoine make a great team, and I always enjoy tagging along to help in any way possible. After all that action I was ready for some peace and quiet, and some special time with Elizabeth.

The rest of the day was uneventful other than enjoying the pizza (with only parmesan cheese, which was surprisingly good) and brownies and some time of playing cards and hanging out with the kids and a few neighborhood characters. Rumors were flying around the village at this point about everything that had happened. For one thing we are waiting to hear if the boyfriend will survive or not. People here take their own retribution when something like that happens, so he is probably on the run or hiding.

We finally collapsed in our beds, thought about and prayed for Esperansia, and thanked God for letting us play some small role in helping the people here. Every day is an adventure in Haiti, and Elizabeth’s birthday was even more so than usual! Like I said, you really can’t make this stuff up.

One thing I want to make clear in this post is that I got reimbursed from our medical fund for the money I personally spent for the patient. This is a good opportunity, though, to put in a plug for that fund which is administered by Sue and Pam. This particular emergency, for example, will probably wipe out our medical budget for a couple of months. With Sue’s new role as a full-time nurse down here we are looking for regular supporters to give to the medical needs of the people here, which are extensive. If you are interested in partnering with us in this way, please speak with Pam our Director or send a gift to the address listed to the right, designating it for the “medical fund.” Thanks!


God Bless You and Yours!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers