Last Sunday was surreal. I (Jay) was sitting in our room working on a proposal, and Jeremy called my name, saying, “we gotta go, there has been a wreck.” If you haven’t read about it, read Jeremy’s account here: When in Haiti. I was not a part of the initial receiving team because there were about 5 injured people on the first tap-tap, and we had about 10 staff people receiving them. I do not handle blood, injury, pain, or trauma well, so I did not jump right in. But then more and more injured people flooded in (about 30 in all), and God sustained me as we spent the next 4 hours treating severely wounded human beings.
But I was really sad after all of it, and didn’t really sleep that night. It took me about 6 hours for the adrenaline to wear off, and fortunately everyone lived. But my heart kept reliving the mayhem of the day, and it triggered stinging memories of the earthquake. The influx of pumping adrenaline from seeing injuries no human should have to experience brought back many, many memories. The sense of hopelessness in someone’s eyes when they think they are about to die was exactly the same last Sunday as it was after the earthquake. I will never forget that look.
Last Sunday night I struggled to sleep as I replayed the day’s events with 30 traumatically injured people, and I contemplated how the earthquake on January 12 created that feeling of trauma for at least 10,000 times more people. But that day they had no hospital to go to as those buildings had collapsed. There was no medical treatment for loved ones as their fathers, daughters, mothers, sons, brothers, and sisters held the injured and dying. And the thought of such hopelessness made me want to cry last Sunday, and I sit here wanting to cry again.
But I still have hope for these people and this country. I know Jesus came to bring redemption to this broken world. And this world is very, very broken. The sadness is real. But so is the hope. We see people hope every day, when orphans laugh or amputees walk, when sick babies receive medicine or school children are given a meal. We see many Haitians that have hope for tomorrow, sometimes for the first time in a very long time, or ever. And it gives us hope for them too.
But I was really sad after all of it, and didn’t really sleep that night. It took me about 6 hours for the adrenaline to wear off, and fortunately everyone lived. But my heart kept reliving the mayhem of the day, and it triggered stinging memories of the earthquake. The influx of pumping adrenaline from seeing injuries no human should have to experience brought back many, many memories. The sense of hopelessness in someone’s eyes when they think they are about to die was exactly the same last Sunday as it was after the earthquake. I will never forget that look.
Last Sunday night I struggled to sleep as I replayed the day’s events with 30 traumatically injured people, and I contemplated how the earthquake on January 12 created that feeling of trauma for at least 10,000 times more people. But that day they had no hospital to go to as those buildings had collapsed. There was no medical treatment for loved ones as their fathers, daughters, mothers, sons, brothers, and sisters held the injured and dying. And the thought of such hopelessness made me want to cry last Sunday, and I sit here wanting to cry again.
But I still have hope for these people and this country. I know Jesus came to bring redemption to this broken world. And this world is very, very broken. The sadness is real. But so is the hope. We see people hope every day, when orphans laugh or amputees walk, when sick babies receive medicine or school children are given a meal. We see many Haitians that have hope for tomorrow, sometimes for the first time in a very long time, or ever. And it gives us hope for them too.
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