It is was a full day, and hard to capture fully in words.  I will try and just relay what we did. Everyone on the team is in good health, and in good spirits.

Church

We started the day with breakfast at the guest house, and before long we were off to Chambrun for Church.  Pastor Gary was just doing some exercises with the children.  He was quizzing kids on certain Bible verses, and if they were able to stand in front of the church and recite the passage from memory, they were able to pick a stuffed animal from a large cardboard box in the front of the church.  We found seats along the side and back.  Most of us ended up with children on our laps, much to our delight.  The service was mostly in Creole, and the worship was dynamic, full of passion and life.  Some of us commented on how we recognize the tune of the songs and would sing in English, if we could remember in light of the strong Creole being sung.  The sermon was preached from one of our team members, and was translated on the spot by Pastor Pierre.  After the service, every person there went home with a meal that we help hand out.

A Trip to the University of Miami Hospital

After church, we went over to the clinic with the Mom and the young baby that we treated yesterday.  The baby was not doing well, and so they started to treat her again at the clinic.  We did all we could medically, we prayed for the child and for the Mom, and then we sent them home.  But our hearts were really heavy because things were not looking good.  When we realized we could take the child to the hospital at the airport, our spirits were immediately lifted.  One of our teammates ran and got Mom with the Baby, we all loaded up the bus, and headed to the airport hospital.

Our Doctors were able to get the baby in and seen at the Pediatric ICU. He Baby’s name is Daschka.  Daschka was Septic (strong blood infection) and was being treated.  Deanna and Jon stayed with them and got them settled while the rest of the team took the bus into downtown Port-au-Prince.

Port-au-Prince

This is the part that is hard for words.  We saw buildings that were five stories high originally, and now not 10 feet tall.

We saw tent city after tent city, too many to count.  10,000 were in one camp, another couple thousand in the soccer stadium, everywhere we looked it seemed.

We stopped by the Presidental Palace, the one building that seems to be in lots of the media pictures.  We saw the school where Pastor Pierre was supposed to be the day of the quake, the building where over 200 died.  We saw the Police headquarters, where over 200 died.  Every government building was damaged, most destroyed.  And almost every worker that was in the government buildings at the time perished as well.  Three of our translators were professors at a University.  They were three of six people who survived in the whole school…260 died, only 6 survived.

We took some pictures…but even that was tough.  The words tell some of the story I suppose.  But the words are hard in coming to describe what we saw and experienced.  Many of us heard many more stories that are too hard to tell on a public blog.  Perhaps I will try again later in the week to tell of our journey to downtown.

Preparation for Tomorrow

After swinging by and picking up Deanna and Jon at the hospital, we returned home.  After dinner and a few hour break, we had our team meeting, worshiped (we made a dog howl, apparently we are gifted in many other areas OTHER than singing), and now are preparing totes and medications for the clinic tomorrow.  Tomorrow we will be doing our first mobile clinic at and IDP Camp (Internally Displaced People).  And there will be some people at the clinic in Chambrun as well.

Thanks to everyone who is praying for our team.  Keep praying.  We can feel them and need them!
Aaron