Junk for Jesus

Last Saturday a container showed up at the hospital from a well known and helpful Non Governmental Organization. Because the hospital doesn’t have anyone from the administration here on the weekends, John was the person who had to take care of the problem. And it was a problem. The truck backed up to the front of the hospital gate, and stretched all across the street, blocking the street to through traffic. The news spread quickly. Soon, a crowd of noisy, pushy people gathered, thinking that the container might contain food. John sent word up to the guesthouse to stay out of the way until he was able to convince the crowd that the container was filled with medical supplies.
The immediate need was someone to unload the container. John chose 12 men from the crowd to help unload the boxes, agreed on the pay, and the work started.
A container holds a lot of stuff. And this container was stuffed to the top with stuff. As we started unloading, we noticed many of the boxes were marked the same way. We opened one box and it contained paper disposable surgical pants, the kind that doctors might wear in the operating room. But the box we looked at contained 50 pairs, size XXXXXL. Unfortunately, there were many, many other boxes of the same thing, same size. After we had all the boxes unloaded, we realized that we were the proud owner of 5,000 pairs of paper surgical pants size XXXXXL. AND another 4,000 pairs of size XXXXL paper surgical pants. Similar boxes of size XXXL, XXL, and XL, for a total of about 15,000 pairs of paper disposable surgical pants. When stacked in a room that once had 5 hospital beds in it, it filled half of the room.
There were other interesting things. Almost as many plastic, disposable surgical pants and tie back shirts. A stack of cartons of adhesive tape 5 feet high, and 8 feet long. 32 cartons (not boxes) of Baby wipes from Target, several hundred disposable isolation gowns, long sleeved, with knitted cuffs. Cloth scrubs that filled the other half of the room that held the disposable pants. 28 large cartons of alcohol swabs. Some ‘flushable’ body wipes. (Even toilet paper is not usually flushable in this hospital.) About 50 cartons, each holding 2 small bent tubing pieces, and another 50 larger boxes with coils of plastic tubing.
There were some things that we might use. There were 22 cartons of 50 each plastic water bottles left over from TanFest. Maybe it rained that day. We swiped a box to use in the guesthouse. Some padded, washable, waterproof pads to use under patients. Enough patient gowns to take across town to use in the 50 bed tent hospital (500 of them in varying sizes). We already have 3,000 packed away for use one day in our hospital. There were about 15 cartons of shampoo and body wash to put into some kind of dispenser. No dispensers were included, however.
After the truck was unpacked, we had filled 4 ward rooms, each of which would hold 5-8 hospital beds. In the week since the delivery, we have used none of these items. This practice of receiving unnecessary items has been labeled “Junk for Jesus” by folks in the mission field. It seems that the idea may be, “Although I can’t use this, someone else may be able to do something with it”. And because Haitians have so little of the necessities of life, they are afraid to throw anything away. So the hospital, which was cleaned out after the earthquake, is slowly refilling with unneeded items.
Another problem that shows up often is that we will receive a piece of equipment that needs repair. Getting anything repaired in Haiti is difficult, and parts for broken medical equipment are nonexistent. Haiti is a land of proverbs. A former director of the hospital once coined a new one. “If something doesn’t work in the United States, it will NEVER work in Haiti.”
I have developed a few guidelines for people wanting to send things to the mission field. Before you send something overseas, ask yourself all of the relevant questions:
1. Has someone asked for this?
2. Is this something that is needed where I am sending it?
3. Does anyone know how to use what I am sending?
4. Is the technology appropriate for where I am sending it?
5. Can it be disposed of when it is no longer usable?
6. Does anyone in the country know how to maintain or repair this when it breaks? Because it will.
Joy and Peace to all this Spring!