Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: TRAVEL (07/08/21)
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TITLE: On Haitian Shores | Previous Challenge Entry
By Dolores Stohler
07/15/21 -
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Arriving at the hospital, small children ran up to us crying “bonjour, bonjour” and pointing to our cameras, hoping to pose for a picture or two. And I, as coordinator of a program called MAP-Readers Digest International Fellowships, was eager to to observe for the first time the life of a missionary doctor serving in a 3rd world country. And so we spent our first day getting to know the staff and hospital and it was a great experience for me.
On our second day we walked through the streets of a Haitian village where little girls ran up to me, giggling as they ran their hands along my white skin, beginning to burn in the baking sun. It was evident that white people were a rarity in this village but they were very friendly.
It was a whole different story later that day when we walked down to the beach on a path from the hospital. Here we found homeless people living in tents perched on the sand. Their suffering was evident in the sunken eyes and swollen bellies of the little children. As we passed, they clung to their mothers in fear. Suddenly there came the sound of wailing, a keening so absolutely wrought with pain that I stopped in my tracks, unable to move. My friend Jeannie, a former missionary nurse, moved up to whisper in my ear “A child has died. It happens often down here”. Averting my eyes to the aquamarine beauty of the sea, I told myself to keep on walking, past all the sobbing mothers and fishermen mending their nets before putting out to sea.
Two of the mission directors returned to the states at the end of the first week of our trip, which included a mission conference with a witch doctor as one of the speakers, but Jeannie and I spent another two weeks visiting hospitals, clinics and missionaries across the country. I was also able to visit with some of the medical students serving externships at hospitals through the fellowship program run by me.
When Jeannie and I continued on by ourselves we had a great time, spending several nights with a team of nurses running a clinic where we were able to observe the birth of twin Haitian babies. They gave a party for us one night where we met a number of neighboring missionaries. Then one of the nurses announced that, for the very first time, she would be able to visit Good Samaritan hospital at Limbe because I had a student working there. It proved to be a great barn of a hospital and smelled like a lion's den before they disinfected it but Dr. Bill Hodges, who ran the place, was most gracious and invited us to have lunch with them. We sat at a long table filled with hospital staff and ate Haitian food while my student related his experiences in the hospital with praise for the medical staff.
As we made our way across Haiti, transportation wasn't always easy to find. On one occasion Jeannie and I went over the mountains laying on sacks of rice in the bed of a truck. The ride was bumpy but my friend made me laugh by telling stories of her life as a nurse at a leprosy hospital in India, which she ran with her doctor husband. In conclusion I have to say that I've always remembered this trip as one of my greatest experiences. I learned so much about mission work and I really loved this colorful country with its little houses painted in bright shades of torguoise, yellow and rose. But it was 1984, long before a hurricane devastated the island, and it may have changed a great deal since then.
In conclusion, I would recommend a mission trip to anyone wanting to make a difference in the world. And if you're ready for a great adventure, you won't be disappointed.
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