Haiti wrecked my life.  I was a perfectly content 23 year old, living on my own, working my dream job at the fire department, happily oblivious to the world outside of my demographic.  My only window to the rest of the world was the plasma screen tv airing CNN at the firehouse.  From the comfort of my chair, looking over my macbook, I could peruse through the outside world and momentarily sympathize with the subjects of famine, genocide and injustice,-mostly taking my emotional cues from the news anchors. 

 I had never been outside the United States, save for one cruise to Cozumel, Mexico when I was in high school.  I swam with dolphins.  I bought a hat.  My world view consisted of America and tourist-ville Mexico.  The lens from which I viewed the Gospel and scripture was confined to my little world around Austin, Texas, and life was good. 

In January of 2011, I was chatting online with Angela, a close friend of mine who was staying at RHFH.  She was the teacher for the Betor boys.  Angela, mentioned that I might enjoy coming down to Haiti to put my medical/fireman skills to good use and consequently pay her a visit.  I was mildly interested at most.  I had a car payment, insurance for my bike, rent, groceries, and for Heaven’s sake I even dropped 20 dollar bills in the offering basket occasionally on Sunday!  I wasn’t hurting for money, but a plane ticket and expenses for an international trip were just too inconvenient for me.  Plus, I had heard of how unsafe Haiti could be at times.  I easily reasoned myself out of the trip. 

I clicked on a random website link Angela sent me.  Protected.  Burn Patient.  Password: Clinic1.  

My life was forever altered that January night as I scrolled through photos of the little girl burned up and down her body.  Her limp figure lay on an exam table and the oozing wounds of partial thickness burns wrapped around her body.  She wasn’t some CNN news story. This wasn’t an article I read in the paper, or an obscure blog entry of a friend-of a friend-of a friend.  This little burned up girl was more real.  Too real.  My spirit revolted, tried to dismiss itself politely, but it was too late.  I ended up on the floor- a sobbing heap of fireman. 

Claudette wrecked my life.  It was no longer an issue of money, or safety, or convenience.  I was going to Haiti.  When I learned of her story, of how she was overcome by flames when running to get help after her clothes were ignited, it messed me up.  I mean it really messed me up.  If your clothes catch fire, STOP, DROP, and ______.  You know how to fill in the blank.  We’re all taught at a young age what to do if our clothes catch fire.  The little 4 year old kid that lives next door to me knows how to stop drop and roll.  I taught him that.  I went to his school, rolling up in my fire engine, and I taught him and his classmates all about it.  Firefighters all over America do the same thing in their communities.  We take it for granted.  I know I did.

Nurse Yannick treating Claudette, early spring of 2011.  Yannick is probably the most patient nurse in Haiti.  She was constantly working to pick up my slack, but she always had a big smile.   

“They don’t teach stop drop and roll over here,” Angela tried to explain.  That made absolutely no sense to me.  Ignorant me.  I tried to grasp the concept of Haiti and it’s non-existent fire department.  The more I tried to find information on the fire service in Haiti, the more dead-ends I came to.  I was furious, enraged, confused, heart-broken, and convicted to action. 

Spring Break 2011.  I’m freezing my penny-pinching butt off, trying to fall asleep in the terminal of Miami International airport.  I’ll tough it out and save money by skipping a hotel and taking an overnight layover.  I packed for the tropics but it had to be 65 degrees in that airport.  I was there for 10 hours.  Idiot. 

Several sleepless hours later, I was walking down the terminal of Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport.  I had arrived.  One doesn’t really arrive in Haiti all at once.  My body was there, but my mind was in some alter-reality elsewhere.  It must have gotten left behind in Miami.  This was unreal. 

My first day in Haiti is a blur.  I meet some guy named Enoch.  We pick up some nurse named Lori from the US embassy.  We run some errands and pick up supplies in the city.  Several times we nearly have an accident because the traffic is insane.  I should have packed the jaws of life in my suitcase because I will undoubtedly be involved in a motor-vehicle collision before this day is over.  We never crash.  Thank You, Jesus.

 As we make the drive out of the city and into the country, I take in the sights.  Bumpy roads.  Earthquake rubble.  Trash.   Street vendors.  Mango trees.  Burning trash pile.  Naked person.  Really bumpy roads.  Police Station.  Mass grave.  River.  Mountains.  Collapsed bridge.  Motorcycle taxis.  Ridiculously bumpy roads.  Enoch is talking the whole way.  I’m asking what I presume to be the most ignorant and narrow-minded questions a person could ask, and he and Lori are patiently explaining to me things that I could never grasp about Haiti and the culture.  Enoch could drive the entire way to Cazale blindfolded if he ever wanted to.  As our SUV slows to a halt in front of a blue and white gate, I tell Enoch he’s an amazing driver and he could come drive my fire engine any day of the week. 

It’s a Monday afternoon in Cazale Haiti.  I find Angela and give her a big hug.  I get settled into my room and meet my roommates for the week- Matt and Bo, two medical students from Tennessee.  Most of the afternoon I don’t recount.  My mind was in a different place.  I couldn’t catch up with reality.  

I do remember ducking into a tattered camping tent that afternoon.  The air inside was warm and still.  It smelled like sweat and diapers.  On a cot to my right lay an impossibly small 10 year old.  Her tiny frame was bundled in white blankets and she stared back up at me with dull, medicated eyes.  I knelt at her side and tried to come up with some expression that would bridge together her world and mine.  I was face to face with that little girl but her reality and my reality were infinitely far apart.  There was nothing I could do to close that distance.  I mustered a smile that she returned with a sigh.  Reality check.  How selfish of me to presume our meeting would be a joy-filled Kodak moment.  I felt the guilt and frustration start to well up behind my eyes.  My life wrecked once again, I retreated from the heat of the ICU tent. 

My goal that week was to teach as many people as possible basic first aid and fire safety.  RHFH was so supportive in that effort.  As patients sat under the metal-roofed waiting pavilion in the clinic yard, I would teach them basic first aid for cuts, burns, choking, and traumatic injuries.  I also taught cooking and fire safety, and before concluding every class, I would demonstrate Kanpe, Couché,, & Woule (stop drop & roll), which was very entertaining to everyone involved.  It’s not everyday that Haitians see a Blanc throw himself down onto the ground and roll around in the dust.  Most of them couldn’t help but laugh.  With the help of Gilbert, my translator, I was able to teach several classes every day the clinic was open.  Gilbert is Legit.  I wouldn’t have been able to teach very many people were it not for his help and patience.  That was too generous- I wouldn’t have been able to teach anyone without him.  As I (but mostly Gilbert) taught each class, I hoped and prayed that it was going to make a difference.  I always glanced over to the ICU tent during my classes, knowing that Claudette was inside, within earshot of every class.

Gilbert explains to the class the steps to take when someone is choking, while Bo helps me demonstrate. 

 When there wasn’t a class to teach, there were always patients to help in the clinic.  Dog bites, cuts, infections, motorcycle crashes, and burns.  More burns than I could imagine.  It didn’t seem possible.  Unreal.  I was up against a culture, a lifestyle, and a mindset unlike anything I’d ever known.  Why can’t I just squirt some water and solve this problem! I kept asking myself.  I’m still asking myself that question.

 Each morning, Claudette had to have her dressings changed, and her burns cleaned.  That messed me up.  Having to hold her down on the table while she cried out in pain as we scrubbed and cleaned her open skin took everything I had.  Carrying her tiny body back to the ICU tent outside messed me up.  I couldn’t comprehend how she could endure so much pain every day.  How could anyone?  I did whatever I could to make her days a little more bearable.  I swatted flies away from her in the ICU tent while we watched “Curious George” on a portable DVD player.  I scratched her legs when they itched beneath the hot bandages.  I shooed away Dunn, the missionary dog.  As nice as he was, Claudette was terrified of him anytime he came near (They’re friends now).  I told her over and over how beautiful she was.

Claudette rests in the ICU tent, while I wish more than ever that I knew Kreole. 

 For as much as I wanted to stay by Claudette’s side, there were always more things that needed to be done.  Sorting supplies, seeing patients, helping at the cholera house, weighing kids at the RC, fighting very, very large rats in the guest house… the list went on and on. 

 I didn’t work every day though.  I was able to take a 24 hour break when I came down with a case of “Hatian Happiness.”  20-something trips to the toilet, fever, chills, tremors, hallucinations, sweats.  I spent two hours curled up on the bathroom floor trembling.  I recall watching a roach pace around a few inches from my face and I tried to blow him away with my breath.  I didn’t have the energy or strength to even flick him away.  Lori dosed me up on Cipro, and Tylenol. I passed out for 10 hours, and slept the whole night.  I was back to work the next day, but if you’d have asked me I would have told you I thought I was going to die.  Haiti wrecked my GI tract.

I was able to fill most of my “down-time” Dancing with this little diva, or letting her try to braid my hair

 As my week continued, I could feel a growing sense of dissatisfaction with myself, and what I had come to “accomplish” in Haiti.  Back home there is a sense of finality to everything I do.  Alarm goes off.  Get in the engine.  Go to emergency.  Put fire out.  Go home.  Problem solved.  This was not the case in Haiti.  I would be flying home in a few days, but countless kids remained who didn’t know Kanpe-Couche-Woule, and Claudette was still burned up.

 I had made this trip thinking God was sending me because he wanted me to fix a problem in Haiti.

 In reality, I had been brought to Haiti because God wanted to fix a problem in me.

God took my orderly, domesticated, suburbanized, heart, and tore it apart.  He took my comfortable, convenience-seeking spirit, and demolished it.  I was wrecked.  I was decimated.  I told you-Haiti really messed me up.  Thank God.  It was a painfully necessary step in the ongoing refining process God uses to perfect a wretch like me, and I am still very much a work in progress.

 The entire week I witnessed acts of real love.  I walked through an amazing countryside.  I smelled things.  Terrible things.  I saw real kids with real burns and horrible obstacles to overcome.  I heard real laughter.  I saw real hunger.  Real pain.  Real faith.  Everything was so real.

Sheesh, did I ever change my clothes that whole week?  No, not really. Helping Lori stitch up a motorcycle driver was one of the ways I tried to make myself useful.

 I began to see the driving force behind these crazy people at RHFH.  At first I had believed they were missionaries because that’s what they love to do.  But that’s not true.  No one loves to haul buckets of poop from a cholera clinic.  They don’t love to stitch people back together who have been hacked at by a machete.  They don’t love staying up all night to watch a dying kid take his last breath.  And they certainly don’t love having to bury those kids the next morning. 

 They love Jesus.  They love being taken up, used up, beaten up, bruised up, and then filled up by Jesus.  Servant hearts, they are.  They keep running the race.  I was blessed by my time in Haiti.  So blessed in fact that I had to go back a few months later.  I couldn’t help myself.  There was still so much work left to be done…in me.  Jesus I’m a mess.  Haiti wrecked my life.