Palm Sunday 2010

Palm Sunday 2010. We knew what to expect. The congregation, mostly dressed in white, met at the chapel behind the hospital. After a short opening service, palms were passed out. Incense was lit. All of the deacons were dressed in white robes, with candles lit on long candlesticks. The cross led the way out of the chapel area, through the main gate of the hospital and into the street. The deacons spread out across the street, and the congregation followed by the choir and priest, proceeded down the street in front of the hospital, turned the corner and went down a long block, singing ‘All Glory, Laud and Honor to Thee, Redeemer King!’
This year was a little different, though. There were people on one side of the street with sledge hammers, manually tearing down a building. The congregation on the left side had to move into the street to walk around a pile of rubble. A couple of the members of the congregation met us at the entrance gate to the church. They were on crutches and couldn’t walk the three blocks. And, instead of processing into the church building, we walked past the badly damaged tower and past the tent village onto the basketball court where church is being held. But all work stopped, and traffic pulled off the road to let us pass, and all the pomp and ceremony and reverence of the beginning of Holy Week was present. And Haitians are very, very good at pomp and ceremony.
At our home church in Austin, the youth make crosses out of palm fronds, and pass them out to the congregation after the service on Palm Sunday, to remind us that the week starts with joy and enthusiasm, and turns into an angry crowd and the crucifixion. Today, several members quietly wove crosses and made necklaces from their fronds. During the passing of the peace, I admired one lady’s cross, and she took it off and gave it to me. So I quickly made a University Presbyterian Church style cross and gave it back to her. Even without a lot of language skills, friends can be made.
May your Easter season be filled with grace and joy.

3/21/2010

Friends,

HSC is progressing. The most exciting thing that has happened is that we may have our first ‘real’ guests booked into the new guesthouse area. Pere FanFan, the hospital administrator has made contact with a group from Stamford, CT that is interested in sending groups of doctors to help in the clinics that are going on at the ‘old’ hospital. We are hopeful that the first group will come in 2-3 weeks. That means that John and I must get the water and drains working in the 10 bathrooms on the floor, put some cabinets in the kitchen, move in the fridge and hook up the stove and washer and dryer. Plus find some silverware and do a second cleaning on all the rooms, wash the linens salvaged from the old guesthouse, etc. Exciting, but daunting. Janine, our guesthouse cook will come back on the 22^nd. She has been working at the Canadian clinic tents, and they are leaving on the 21^st. She may need to do double duty for a couple of days. The Canadians have been very friendly from the beginning. After raiding our pharmacy and orthopedic supplies, they invited John and me to dinner and brought out their satellite phone so we could make a phone call to our family, the first contact we had with them.

One of the hospital employees had an accident last weekend on a moto. That’s a motorcycle taxi that will take you anywhere in Leogane on the back for 25 gourdes. John and I haven’t had the nerve to try one yet, but with our vehicles serving both the ‘old’ hospital and the annex hospital, we may resort to one before long. The injury turned out to be a cooperative venture. Simeon went first to Medicines sans Frontiers, working behind the hospital. They sent him over to the Japanese clinic, working out of the nursing school building, because they had an x-ray unit. Ours was damaged during the quake, and we haven’t repaired all the broken pipes, yet. After Simeon had his x-ray, we took him around the building to have the American clinic associated with the annex hospital put the cast on and give him a set of crutches. We had used an old wheelchair we found at the hospital to move him around, and while we were at the nursing school site, we shared the wheelchair with another elderly gentleman who also had a bad leg. And, while I was there with Simeon, I traded some extra Omeprazole that HSC had for some Amoxicillin that we were completely out of. Both pharmacies were delighted. Patient received good care. Ecumenism and multiculturalism at its best!

Friends,

HSC has been busy this week! We have seen 893 people during the week at our clinics held under the trees and in the chapel. There was also a vaccination clinic one day and the yard was filled with crying babies. The laboratory is working in the back of the chapel, and Radio Ste. Croix has been broadcasting every day while the generator has been working and until the inverter runs out of power. Bob Sloan, a surgeon from Ft. Worth visited and along with 8 Haitian helpers, we sorted and cleaned the 4 operating rooms, the incubator room, the central supply room, and the hospital supply depot. Plus a couple of other rooms in the 3-story hospital. We discarded all the outdated and broken items, and saved the machines and tools that will be packed away or donated to other groups, getting ready to demolish the one story part of the building. The hospital annex took one of the functioning operating tables. Old time visitors to the hospital wouldn’t know the place!

Last Sunday in church was a delight! It was Scout Sunday, and the young people were all in their uniforms. They participated in the service in the same way our youth do in the USA, reading scripture, leading responsive readings, and doing an anthem. But their enthusiasm was infectious. They were led by a guitar with all the amplifiers, drums, etc., and before they were finished, the congregation had all joined in. One song led into another, and the place was like no Episcopal (or Presbyterian) church that I’ve ever been in, with folks clapping and dancing in the aisles. All this was going on at a basketball court surrounded by tents. The church tower has cracked and the people are afraid of buildings, even if they are safe.

The second morning after the quake, a gentleman who had lost his wife walked sobbing out of the tent city. I walked up to him, put my arms around him, and he grabbed me with ferocious strength and sobbed on my shoulder. After about 5 minutes, he let me go, and thanked me. The same man was helping serve communion the following Sunday, and our eyes met as John and I went forward. This last Sunday, he was at church again with his 4 year old daughter. She was insistent on being with Daddy at all times during the service. No Auntie for her! So during the singing, Daddy was holding daughter, dancing in place and joining in the joy of being in church, in community, and in praising God. We Americans, with our easy lives, can learn from the Haitians.