Searching for Donkeys (Part 1)

PART 1! These last two weeks have been so full that it’s going to take two blogs to write about all that has gone on.  Here’s a start to how God has worked these last two weeks. 

Every week day morning is started off with Haitian staff devotions.  I cannot think of a better way to start a work day than with prayer, singing, and a short message.  Every day a different department is assigned to lead the devotions.  A few weeks ago it was my turn to share, and I chose to share a devotion about 1 Samuel 9.  In this chapter, Saul was sent out to search for some missing donkeys.  I explained how this was not in Saul’s original plans for his day.  While this was probably an annoying task, he had no idea what God had in store for this search.  This search took him much longer and farther than he had planned on going until he ended up in the town that Samuel lived in.  1 Samuel 9:15-16 reveals that God had told Samuel to anoint the man coming from the land of Benjamin as king.  That would be Saul!! God used missing donkeys to anoint Saul as ruler over the Israelites!

Wow! God has made the truths of this devotion so apparent in our lives these past couple of weeks.  Two weeks ago the eye surgery team arrived.  We had planned that they would use our one working anesthesia machine.  (We have been praying for the acquisition of a second machine.) However, when the team arrived, we were informed that now this anesthesia machine was not working either.  This was a major hiccup in our plan and a bit of an annoyance.  Not knowing what else to do, we went out looking for donkeys (or anesthesia machines) at a hospital about 30 minutes away, but God also had much more in store for us.  While there, we were introduced to an anesthesia machine technician.  This is a job pretty much unheard of in Haiti.  Over the last month, I have asked many organizations if they knew of anyone who could fix medical machinery.  Even places in the nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, did not know of anyone.  The fact that this man was trained to fix medical machinery AND was way up in the Northwest zone, OUR zone, of Haiti could only be a God thing.  He was able to come fix both of our machines and countless other machines on campus (plus they gave us an anesthesia machine to borrow while ours were being fixed)!  While I was originally upset that we were having to search for donkeys, I am so thankful for this now. 

While sometimes we have to search for donkeys, sometimes God sends them to us.  The day before the eye surgery team arrived, we also had an unexpected visitor arrive on campus.  The director of the Haitian National Police (along with all his body guards) showed up and informed us that he would be having surgery the next day.  This turned into chaos as we tried to quickly prepare a place suitable for him to stay.  While we were all a bit frazzled by this, God once again had bigger plans.  When the team arrived the next day, they had a lot of problems with customs.  Customs took all of their bags with medical supplies and said that they could not bring them into the country.  Since this meant that the Haitian National Police Director would not be able to get his surgery, he quickly started making phone calls to get the supplies released from customs.  Without his help, we would not have been able to get the bags released, and the surgery week would not have been possible.  Only God could have used something potentially dangerous to bring glory to Himself. 

The last two weeks of surgery were insanely busy.  The eye surgery team saw nearly 800 people in the eye clinic and completed about 80 surgeries!  The day that they left, an orthopedic surgery team arrived.  This team was able to complete 22 major orthopedic cases and 30 minor procedures.  One thing that I loved watching during the busyness was how much the Haitian staff stepped up.  They stepped into roles that needed filled whether that was welcoming visitors, organizing the large amounts of people on campus, or simply praying for others.  I found one of the ladies who works in the orphanage in the surgery wing one day.  I was wondering what she was doing until I heard her going up to people and asking, “Do you know Jesus?  Have you accepted him as your Savior?  Do you have a church to go to?”  I am so thankful for a staff that wants to pour into the spiritual needs of the community as much as we do.  Another example of service I saw was one of the night security guards leading a blind elderly lady to where she was supposed to sit.  I asked him why he was doing that, and he said, “She looks like my grandmother.  I just wanted to help her out a little.”  Even though he was probably ready to go home and go to bed, he stopped to help this lady first. 

All in all, I am so thankful for the last two weeks.  I am thankful for God sending us searching for donkeys.  I am thankful for God sending us unexpected donkeys.  I am thankful for the surgery teams and all they accomplished.  I am thankful for the Haitian staff and how they demonstrated Jesus.  I am thankful for the individual patients that impacted my life.  Be watching in a couple days for part 2 which will go more into details about these patients!!