I looked at my calendar yesterday
and could only think “wow we actually survived October.” Before the hurricane, October was already
deemed medical month between two surgery teams, a doctor doing mobile clinics,
and a medical trip to Mirebalais. The
hurricane just added more on top of the already busy month!
Several people have asked for a
post hurricane update. To be honest,
this zone saw more damage after the hurricane than actually during the hurricane. The last several weeks have consisted of
almost constant downpours. For our Mole
campus, the hurricane’s destruction rerouted some of the water sources. With all the rain, the river swelled and the
campus flooded. Some of the walls and
gates fell and the clinic was knee deep in water. La baie, which many of you have heard or read
about, completely flooded. Our church
there had 5 feet of water in it. Our
staff in La Baie were so desperate for help that one walked part of the way
here and one took a boat because the roads were flooded out. I met with them to find out how we could
help. I was thinking the immediate
needs: food, clothes, shelter, etc. When
I brought this up, they said, “Tore, you can give us food for a week, but then
we will just be hungry again.” We made
plans on how to help the community beyond these next couple of weeks through
buying fishing supplies that was lost and seeds to replant gardens. I sent the
staff members with money to start this plan and will go early next week to
check on things myself. My heart breaks
for this community who has already gone through so much.
La Baie |
While so many hearts were breaking
this past month, so much good was also happening. Though it was questionable whether or not they
would be able to make it with the hurricane, the iTeam arrived and went
straight to work. They were a small
team, but every member played such a vital role. They ran the eye clinic and completed 63 eye
surgeries. These eye surgeries truly
changed lives. People who had lost
nearly all of their vision due to cataracts were able to see again! It was an amazing thing to behold, especially
in the midst of all of the hurricane reports.
One week later, the next surgery
team arrived. They had an orthopedic
surgeon and a general surgeon. They
completed over 40 major surgeries and many minor surgeries as well! The rain
caused us to have to cancel the mobile clinics because we could not cross the
river. We decided to host a clinic for
our staff members and their families.
To be honest, I thought we would maybe see 25 patients. There were so many people we opened the
clinic for a second day and easily saw over 200 people. Most of these people would not have been able
to get the care they needed had it not been for the free clinic.
So many lives were completely
changed this month. Here are a couple of
my favorite examples.
During the orthopedic team last
year, an 11 year old boy came in with chronic osteomyelitis, or an infection in
the bone of his arm. He had already had
the infection for a year and had been turned away from every hospital he went
to. He came to us the last day of
surgery of 2015 and there was not enough time for the surgeon to do what needed
to be done. I have a vivid memory of both
him and his mom sobbing when they were told we could not help. We got their information so we could contact
them to come this year. We spent the
week before the surgery team arrived trying to get in touch with them. We couldn’t reach them, and I worried about what
might have happened to the boy. On
Wednesday, I was walking through the clinic and a little boy held up his arm to
show me. I yelled his name because I was
so excited to see him. His mom was
surprised that I knew his name. I
explained that we had been trying to get a hold of them and I felt broken
because we had not reached them. God had
provided. The surgeon sent them for an
x-ray and said we would do whatever we could to help. My memory of them sobbing was replaced by an
image of them waving their arms saying “thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus.”
Mike and I before surgery |
This same Thursday morning I went
down to the clinic to see which patients had already arrived. There was a young man sitting in the waiting
room with what looked like a red cast on his elbow (the lights aren’t the
best!). I was confused because there
should not have been any elbow surgery follow ups. I asked what was going on, and he said he had
been cut by a machete. The red cast was
actually blood soaked gauze. I called
the surgeons and they unwrapped his arm to find the bone protruding where the
machete had cut through the skin, muscle, and bone. He had gone to a local hospital, but they
turned him away (which usually means they can’t do anything or don’t have much
hope). The team was able to take him
back and fix his arm. God’s provisions
in this man’s life were so powerful. The surgeon said the local hospital had
tried to place stitches to stop the bleeding.
They had placed a stitch around the ulnar nerve, but thankfully they
didn’t tighten it. Had they tightened
it, it would have been a completely different outcome. If our orthopedic team hadn’t been here, he
would have lost his arm and most likely his life.
I closed out the medical month with
a quick trip to my favorite hospital in Mirebalais with one of the boys in the
orphanage. This summer the Daybreak team
detected a heart murmur on him that we wanted to get checked out. We got an appointment with the cardiac
alliance which meant we made a 12 hour trip to get there. The doctors evaluated him and gave us the all
clear saying it should go away as he ages!
Keslen and I in Mirebalais |
As I sit here and reflect on this
past month I am overcome with thankfulness.
I am thankful we weren’t hit worse by the hurricane. I am thankful for the doctors who gave up their
time and energy to come and serve. I am
thankful for all the lives that were changed because of them. I am thankful for a good medical diagnosis for
Keslen and so much more.
Trying to sum up this past month, I
am brought to Jesus’s words in Matthew 11:5, “The blind receive sight, the lame
walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised,
and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”
Jesus called us to be his hands and feet and follow in his
footsteps. These are things He did in
his ministry, but the teams this month followed his example. The blind received sight. The lame received the opportunity to
walk. We may not have had leprosy, but
we did have a case of scabies! :) Most importantly though, the gospel was proclaimed to everyone who walked in
our gates. I can’t think of a more
beautiful sound.
If you are a medical professional
and want to be part of this ministry in the future, please contact me
(tore.karenbauer@nwhcm.org). I would
love to get you connected with one of the medical teams that come yearly. We are always in need of more people from
surgeons to anesthesiologists to scrub techs to nurses. I can promise that by coming you will not
only change lives, but you will also have your life changed.
Thank you for praying through this
month with me. Please keep me in your
prayers as I have a few more weeks before I head stateside for the holidays. I
am so thankful for this life God had called me to. I cannot imagine being anywhere else or doing
anything differently.
Wow, talk about "out of the ashes", well, in this case mud. It is wonderful to hear the testimonies of the medical interventions. Imagine if the teams had canceled! God is good.
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