A small group of staff members just returned from Haiti. They were so moved by their experience, they had a hard time holding it together as they spoke to the rest of us about it.
Their trip took them through Gonaives where Cross Catholic flew in food and supplies last year when roads were wiped out by four major storms in row that battered the country. Today the town is still devastated. In fact, there’s now a permanent lake where houses used to sit. Our guys were amazed by the people’s resilience.
The final destination was Cap Haitian, where a team of visiting doctors worked under primitive conditions to help children with clubfoot and other crippling, but treatable, deformities. When the team arrived, a crowd was waiting outside the clinic. Some had been waiting in that spot for two days for the chance to see a doctor who might be able to help their children!
Tom Lewis, one of our staff members, said, “The first child to run up to the doctors was a very beautiful 7-year-old girl. Because of her condition, though, she ran on her knees. That’s how she’d been getting around her whole life. The good news is, the doctors said they could fix her legs!”
A few of the doctors were volunteers from the U.S., but the core group came from a children’s orthopedic hospital the Dominican Republic that we help support. Just watching them work, their love for the Lord and their tender compassion toward the poor is evident. Click here to read more about their work in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere.
In reflecting about all the people he met on the trip, Tom said, “How many of us, with our three-bedroom homes, stuffed closets, and two-car garages are embarrassed when someone drops by? These people had absolutely nothing, but they proudly opened their tiny, dirt-floor homes to us and welcomed us in; they were willing to share what little they had. It was incredible.”