St Joseph's 2 months later

Pierre and his assistant are working steadily to knock down St Joseph's piece by piece. They work by hand with sledgehammers and wire cutters under the blazing sun (the cool streak has ended and it has been painfully hot this week). The chunks of concrete and rebar being dropped directly in front of my house. It's a little bit terrifying...kind of like another earthquake actually.

The camp

Two weeks ago, I was approached by my next door neighbor, Lucy. "I'm a teacher," she said. "And I'm bored. Do you have any school supplies?"

One duffel bag later I had emptied my house and sent every spare pen, piece of paper, crayon, sticker, and coloring book that I had to Lucy. Later that week, I got a surprise delivery from Colonel Hershey, the commander of the mission I did in Jacmel with the US Army in September. Some of it was for me and some of it was medical, but the bulk was school supplies! Four boxes went up the hill to Lucy.

She has been holding school 4 or 5 days a week for all the elementary school children in the camp. What makes me particularly happy is that she does not discriminate. There is one little girl at Lucy's school who I suspect is a child slave and who, under normal circumstances, would not be permitted to attend school.






Rumor has it that the owner of the field is going to kick everyone out soon. He showed up today and was taking measurements around the grounds, as if he will actually start building something soon. One of my neighbors told me angrily that the owner has ignored the field for the past 20+ years. Why would he suddenly decide now to build?

I hope that it is nothing more than rumor. The people are truly settled in with sturdier structures made with wood frames, tarps and tin roofs. They have moved their gardens to the tent city and one man even has his DJ equipment set up there! Some people have houses that they could go back to if they were not so scared, but several families are genuinely homeless. Where will they go?





Each week, I send Alix and Tchouko, my new right hand men (slightly more respected and experienced than G) out to buy rice, beans and corn for the camp. They distribute it to each family on Sunday afternoons and it feeds everyone for 2 or 3 main meals. The city has been giving water through the pipe system every week so water has not been an issue.






If you're like me, you've probably seen movies or read books where an impoverished individual brings a chicken or a goat or something wild to pay off a debt or to express gratitude. It's a cute and quaint custom that died after the Industrial Revolution, right? Wrong! In the past week alone, I have been given the following from grateful neighbors or patients: a bowl of porridge, 2 plates of rice and beans, a plate of Creole spaghetti and a soda, and a 20 pound sack of plaintains! Now, what exactly am I going to do if someone brings me a live chicken...

Can I say "God is good"?

When I talk about the earthquake with my youth group kids, my neighbors, my friends, I often hear the same phrase: “God is so good because He spared my life.”

Yes. I think God is good because He spared my life too. In fact, if I look at my earthquake experience, there are a million things that make me say, “God is good.” But there are also a few that don’t make me say that.


When I came back from Christmas in the US, I met Ben Larson, his wife Renee, and their cousin and best friend Jon. They were seminary students staying at St Joseph’s, working with the Lutheran church in Haiti. I don’t usually get to know the guests at St. Joe’s very well, but these three were an exception. Perhaps it was our proximity of age, perhaps it was our common interest in the Haitian church, or perhaps it was their curiosity about everything in Haiti. It wasn’t me. They were the ones who saw me passing by on my way to the roof and pulled me into conversation. They were the ones who invited me to play cards and to eat watermelon in the evenings. They were the ones who came knocking at my door and spent 2 hours sitting around my table telling hilarious and embarrassing stories about each other.


On January 12th, the trio came with me to walk the Ravine. They gave out worm pills, washed heads of tinea capitis, and took photos. Renee had a parade of children following her the whole time and Ben got the chance to be a fake doctor and help me convince a young mother that she had to breastfeed her baby day and night or it would die. When we returned from our walk, I took them to Petionville for lunch at a Chinese restaurant, Ben’s choice. At the top of the hill of Delmas 91, we separated ways, them going back to St Joe’s and me going to meet a friend at Quisqueya Christian School. The earthquake struck less than 2 hours later.


Ben, Renee, and Jon were on the dance floor, 5 stories up. Ben immediately moved away from the edge and close to a large supporting column. Renee and Jon watched as the concrete from the two upper stories collapsed around them and crushed Ben. Somehow, they ended up in a little pocket and were able to punch through a weak spot and climb out.

Shortly after I arrived at St Joe’s that night, the boys brought out a ladder and got Renee and Jon off the roof. I remember so clearly running to them and grabbing Renee in a tight hug. She sobbed on my shoulder and I tried not to cry too, for Ben and for Bill, who at the time was also presumed dead. Jon joined us and for a few moments, we made a tiny circle of grief. But then the first injuries arrived and I had to leave them.

Renee and Jon spent the first night on the field with us. I know they were absolutely devastated, but they came to me every few hours to ask how Bill and TiPatrick were doing. In the morning, they walked to the US Embassy to report Ben’s death and though they did not want to leave, the Embassy evacuated them on Thursday. I was coming home on Thursday afternoon when I passed a friend. She gave me a handwritten letter – it was from Renee and Jon, telling us good-bye and promising their prayers and forever friendship.


When I think about Ben’s story and particularly about the sorrow that Renee and Jon are living with, I do not feel the urge to proclaim that God is good. A young man who loved God and who was on the road to great things in the US and Haiti died, leaving behind a godly wife and a godly cousin and best friend. What about that should make me say, “God is good”?

It has taken me weeks to acknowledge how angry and confused Ben’s death makes me. The truth that I keep coming back to is this: we have a flawed conception of God’s goodness. If God’s goodness is circumstantial, based on things that we conceive of as “good”, then God ceases to be good when “bad” things happen. In a God like that, I cannot and will not believe. Either God is good all the time, regardless of what happens, or He is not worth believing in.

I am still grateful for all the “good” that surfaced during the post-quake days, but I don’t want to point to that as proof of God’s love. I want His love to be higher than my circumstances so that when a tragedy that I do not understand happens, I can still say with confidence, “God is good”.

The month of March

is the month of cold and rain. I have been wearing blue jeans and sweatshirts for the past 4 days and sleeping with 2 fleece blankets at night. In fact, the sun did not even break through the clouds and misty rain on Friday or Saturday. Sometimes I ask myself, "Where am I? Because I am clearly not in Haiti!"

No Parking Mondays - Street Cleaning

Ever since the earthquake, my once clean street has become a trashy mess. With everyone living at the field, people are not sweeping or maintaining the space in front of their homes like they used to. It is truly repulsive, especially when much of the refuse is from food I have given the people.

This Monday afternoon, when I got home from clinic, I gathered the neighborhood children and handed out gloves. "Whoever helps clean the street will get candy!"

Over an hour later, I came out to check on them. What had started as 4 kids had multiplied to 13 and they had brooms, shovels, trash bags, and a wheelbarrow. They had decided to not just remove the trash but also the small piles of rubble! We worked for about 2 hours total before stopping to wash our hands and eat our reward.

The kids come to my house every single day now to get gloves so they can keep the street clean. I don't have to bribe them with candy anymore. They have discovered the joy of ownership and the pride of a job well done. And I have my clean street back!

Ois speaks!

It has been over a week since I saw Ois. I was worried about him; with the attention from the US team, he had made progress, but I was afraid that at his new rehab location, he would slide back. Yesterday, Lucson, Obed, Jean Marc and I went to visit him at Dr Joey’s hospital on Delmas 33. We walked in to find Ois being bathed in the courtyard by one of the nurses.

“Ois, koman ou ye?” we asked. (How are you?) Ois looked up, grinned a lopsided grin, gave us a thumbs-up and said, “Mwen la!” (I’m OK!)

It took a full second for us to realize what had just happened. OIS SPEAKS!! Lucson and I started jumping up and down and screaming and hugging each other and laughing and whooping. OIS SPEAKS!!


It was an unforgettable moment.

Ois told me what he had for breakfast. He told me that it tasted really good. He answered yes and no to the boys’ questions about what he likes to play. He told me that his leg hurt. He asked us to call his sister Giset for him. I have been trying. Pray that I can reach her – I have tried over 20 times without success. Phones are still not working quite right, but I need to tell her this news. It may very well determine what happens next to Ois.


But for now, all of that is insignificant. What matters is that the impossible happened: OIS SPEAKS!

Every day's an adventure

The Roanoke team left and was replaced by a rotating group of Air Force docs, nurses and techs. They have been running clinic 2 days a week at Delmas 24 with me. Some days, I translate for them; other days, I see my own patients in between overseeing clinic. They have been supplying us with boxes and boxes of priceless meds, more than I need. I have been able to send a truckload to Quisqueya Christian School, from whence it will be distributed to needy hospitals and clinics throughout Port-au-Prince, Carrefour and Leogane.










One of the things that has been particularly difficult for me since the earthquake has been the absence of essentially all my close friends, due to injuries, death and evacuation. But after 3 weeks of running clinics at Delmas 24, I have acquired a new group of friends. Josilien, Sendhi, Tendhi, Obed, Jean Marc, Caroline and Lucson have been my trustworthy crew and we have become not just collegues but friends. On our first day of clinic after the Roanoke team left, we went "flane" (Creole slang for hanging out) in the neighborhood, bought pate (Haitian fried food) and had a picnic. Oh, it is great to have friends again!