Adventures at Real Hope for Haiti! – Bekki and Eddie Ortiz

May 2010 – this was my second time at RHFH, my husband’s first. Being there is a blessing, a life-changing time. One of the things I have always liked about RHFH is their many pronged approach to serving their community. In the six days we wer e there, we were able to love on babies, play with lots of little kids, stitch up lacerations, help restore a local school basketball court, enter pages of documents into the computer, catch up on filing, organize shelves that hadn’t been touched since after the earthquake, sort clothes and other items from the semi, visit a local church, meet the literacy class, put together an irrigation water pump, and show Lori how to perform an external jugular IV access. Our happiest moment was seeing our former foster daughter, returned to her parents 14 months previously.
Yes, it is hot. REALLY REALLY hot. Yes, it is a third-world country. No, there is not hot running water, even at the mission. Yes, there is electricity at the mission. Yes, in the treatment rooms, doing stitches at nine at night after ANOTHER motorcycle accident, with the lamps on, sweat runs off your forehead until your eyes sting. Yes, there are plenty of smells and not all of them pleasant. Yes, there is unbelievable poverty.

BUT THERE IS ALSO HOPE! There is the Zachary family – Betors and Moises – willing to be the Hands of God. There is the smile from the little boy you hand a Hot Wheels after he has been waiting with his mom 6 hours to get into the clinic. There is the shy smile of the young woman who looks like she belongs in high school but is there to check on her sick child in the RC. There is the music and laughter of the nannies and the shouting, crying, beautiful noises of the chldren. There is the beauty of the tropical plants, the lizards and chickens, the river, and the blue blue sky. There is the resilience of a people who have been struggling for generations, and are gracious and grateful and faithful.

It’s one of those places that – while you are there, it is harder than you ever imagined it would be. And, after you leave, you cannot wait to return.