Work and play in Haiti!

Well, what a week! I am energized and humbled, amazed and at peace, overawed and confident more than ever before in the Almighty God we serve. Where to begin?
The clinic was a huge success. We have seen 623 patients so far: the quota we prepared for reached already. Our examining room nurses are unbelievable! (At times I have almost felt a little useless) They are so competent that they are able to see and manage the majority of patients independently. The more tricky ones I help with. I also had to do a few procedures and we had one dehydrated pregnant lady on an intravenous. That’s of course not counting poor Annette who earned herself an intravenous by playing host to some unknown intestinal bugs and getting totally dehydrated! We did not have the meds I would have liked to give her so I finally just said we have to pray again and finally she recovered. Just one more faith-building event. Rita and Lynnise did fantastic replacing her in the clinic. Today Carlene is down with something similar and we are keeping a very close eye on her. Please pray she will recover quickly.
A large portion of my day is spent helping with dispensing medicine in the clinic. We have run out of some supplies and are scraping together whatever we have to make do. We are also out of ointment and medicine containers and are down to using smaller pill bottles and our own pill containers! Every time we put our hand in the bag for a container we pray that there will be one more. We have also been using the same 2 bottles of liquid children’s vitamins for the last day and a half. We have probably poured around 1-2 L of vitamin syrup out of the same two 150ml bottles already. You do the math!
Yesterday we went to “The Mall” Imagine an area maybe the size of a standard outdoor children’s park. Put some haphazard tarps over poles some places. Then plant a few hundred vendors there with little footpaths the width of a wheelbarrow to walk in, scatter some donkeys, goats and chickens around and finally add about a thousand shoppers and you have West Ed Mall, Haiti style. The sights and sounds were overwhelming. We did actually buy some vanilla, spices and hats. We were warned Haitian money is dirty and that was an understatement! One of the Haiti Arise Haitian men acted as purchaser and translator and led the single file row of Canadian women. One of the long term missionary ladies from Canada kept up the rear. They warned us in advance that donkeys and wheelbarrows have right of way. Which Canadian man will take 11 Haitian women shopping, buy their stuff for them, translate when needed and do it all with a smile?!
The afternoon was spent at the beach with beautiful blue-green Caribbean water and lots of sun.
We are so refreshed and ready for the last day and a half. We decided to see all the patients who were booked for Tuesday even though we were not originally planning on seeing patients the last day, leaving time to pack up the clinic. This will mean less sleep and more fatigue, but we are committed to the task God gave us and to finishing well.
To all our families and friends: we love you all and see you very soon. Amelia