Dr. Steve Nelson's Update as he was leaving Haiti . . .

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Nelson [mailto:snelson@hcjb.org.ec]
Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 2010 9:28 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Sent from home ... Quito

Day 11 Jan 25, 2010

We have been listening to generators for the whole time we have been in Haiti … at least during the hours that we were working. I don’t know when the lights will get turned on in Haiti again, but they aren't yet.
The Haiti International airport is no exception. We got the disappointing news yesterday that the only time we could get out of Haiti would be Monday (today) or Saturday … our flight to Ecuador was scheduled for Friday … and we all have a full week planned next week in Ecuador so after a little bit of whining and scrambling around to see if we could get another flight, we decided to come out today. We are back in the airport … full of generators … waiting for the flight back to Florida.

We are back to a place where perhaps the news about Haiti isn’t getting old yet, but even this small step towards normalcy seems strange today.
We are going to miss our Haitian friends … both the patients in the hospital and the ones who worked right along-side us the whole 10 days.
With many of these fellow workers we didn’t even manage to exchange much in the way of words … just gestures and smiles and I was a lot closer to teaching them to say “good morning” then they were in the effort to get me to say “bon jour” correctly.

You were praying for a new way to get patients up to the hospital last time and while we were hoping for something slightly more comfortable than a truck, it was indeed a truck we settled for. They came four at a time – closed femur fractures most of them – receiving 11 new patients for surgery that next day. Five came the following day as we finished up some of the cases that had been here since the beginning but that we had put on hold until we had the hardware to do things right. We did rounds this morning and then headed off down here to the airport. Word was four more closed femurs were on their way to the hospital. This pace could go on for weeks as hospitals unload those cases they can’t handle in house. Samaritans purse is committed to the long haul here and four more new medical people are on their way in to arrive this afternoon.
They will replace our orthopedic surgeon and anesthesiologist that are moving out with us. Pray for more Family Practice docs and nurses as we spread our patients out onto the lists and “plates” of those general medical folks who stayed behind.

I went through the wards and said goodbye to my patients last night.
Brave little kids with amputations and fractured limbs and pelvis … the most hurting ones squeezed out a smile anyway, while the one’s that were feeling better had a glowing one fixed on their beautiful faces already.
Not-so-brave Phoebe with her fractured but now repaired femur, didn’t want to give up her bed last night pleading that she still “didn’t feel well”. We explained that there were some people who felt worse … and wedged her out. She was happily camped on the floor a half hour later and wobbled off on crutches this morning. She always wanted to be pray before dressings changes … “our pleasure Ma’am”.

We didn’t get the stories of these folks … except here and there … there just wasn’t time (nor translators). Still, stories we read later will
fit correctly/sadly with the faces and folks we remember. One amazing
thing about being here is we haven’t seen the news about what is going on here … the big picture that is. “The forest for the trees” I guess.
The Billy Graham people told us this morning that amidst all this pain and chaos, amidst all this suffering and loss, about 70 people got a good look at the loving, compelling face and person of Jesus and decided to follow him. Some of those 70 might get to see Him face to face in heaven soon. There are lots of complications to come. We lost two young men this week to pulmonary emboli after successfully treating
their injuries. More will follow so it’s a joy to add these 70 to the
equation regarding why this is sooo “worth it”.

We are now in an airplane headed to Ft. Lauderdale. It will probably be this evening before I get this out. People will be talking basketball and super-bowl … or is that over already? My oh my what a change this will be.

Thank you for praying.

update from Haiti

This email just arrived to my inbox from Dr. Steve Nelson - part of the relief team from HCJB Global who is in Haiti right now . . . please continue to pray!

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Nelson [mailto:snelson@hcjb.org.ec]
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 8:02 PM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Day 8/11 == 8 for us, 11 for the dear Haitians

I'm listening to beautiful Haitian music roll up from the hills below us. Amazing ... the people in Indonesia were singing the night after the earthquake too. It both soothes and brings tears through the day in the hospital too as we move from ward to ward. Seems everybody in Haiti knows how to sing ... ahhhh .. Africa, right?

A certain semblance of order has begun to show itself at the Haiti Mission Hospital ... long days, welcome reinforcements and a increasingly steady supply of materials have allowed us to get through nearly 100 surgery cases and most of the patients that crowded the
floors and hallways of the hospital when we arrived. The last surgery
for today will probably be done by 8PM ... a welcome change from the midnight schedules we kept the first few days ... especially for our anesthesiologists who are obligatorily invited to ALL surgeries.

Still ... it's an eerie and surreal sort of calm because we know the town that borders the bay of Port au Prince that we can see from our compound still teems with untreated and in some cases unfound victims of this incredible tragedy. We are trying to open lines of transport from those areas of the city and from those hospitals where their surgeries have been limited to amputations .. limited by the sheer numbers of patients ... limited by no electricity, no equipment, no sterilization.
Meanwhile those that need surgical interventions other than amputations lay outside unattended, many dying of infections before they are ever seen.

Samaritans Purse will try to continue to equip and man this hospital and figure out ways to get patients here. In some ways ... and of course relatively speaking ... it is paradise here ... cool in the evenings, high enough to be above the malaria zone, and safe from the increasing unrest in the center. We could proabably handle 20 or more new cases a day figuring that 90% of them would have to go to surgery. We just need to figure out how to get them here. Ten trucks over a road that rocks and rolls for an hour an a half when things are open ... six if not. Or
... two helicopters and ten minutes. Come on military!! Many of those
patients after surgery and a few days of observation could go home and come back later for follow up procedures which would open beds (or
floors) for more transfers. This pattern could go on for a long time ...
it appears Samaritans Purse is comitted for the long haul.

Pray we make the right decisions for the most people. Pray for the Billy Graham Evangelism team that is here trying to make sure each person has a chance to hear eternal life-providing Good News before and during our attempts to restore life and health in this realm. We are averaging about one death a day (two today)so there is lots of sorrow and tears to deal with too.

Thanks for holding us all up so strong and tender with your prayers.

Steve

Report from Medical Team in Haiti

Sheila Leech gives a report about the ministry of the HCJB Global Emergency Response Medical team at the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital.

Getting drinkable water to Haiti

Here is a video of HCJB Global's missionary, Martin Harrison, working on the water filtration system at the Baptist Haiti Mission hospital.

Haiti Relief

It's such a privilege to be part to two organizations who are doing all they can to help with disaster relief in Haiti . . . . please pray for the leadership at HCJB and Extreme Response as they seek to use our resources in the best way we can.

Extreme Response has sent a representative from Quito - Jean David was scheduled to fly from Quito to Haiti yesterday. We have not heard if he arrived or not. The current plan is that he will assist with the distribution of aid alongside the Ecuadorian military. He is a Haitian pastor, who lives here in Quito. Another ER rep, Dr. Scott Keller is planning to join the HCJB global medical team on January 28th. For regular updates please click here.

HCJB Global has a medical/relief team who is also in Haiti at this time. They are working with the Haiti Baptist Mission hospital. Members of the HCJB Global team include Ecuadorian surgeon Leonardo Febres, German surgeon Eckehart Wolff, U.S. anesthesiologist Paul Barton, U.S. family physicians Steve Nelson and Marcos Nelson, Harrison and International Healthcare Director Sheila Leech, a British nurse who heads the group. Most have assisted after previous disasters elsewhere such as in quake zones of Indonesia and Pakistan, Lebanon after war, and flooded areas of Mexico and Ecuador. For regular updates please click here.

I have also been putting updates on our Facebook page along with other links/blogs that will give you first-hand news from people living in Haiti. Extreme Response has two partners in Haiti. They are Lemuel Ministries and House of Hope.

Please click here for the Lemuel Ministries blog.

And please click here for the House of Hope updates.

I find that both these ministries are a much better way to stay tuned in to what really is going on in Haiti and how God is working. And both blogs give us specific ways to pray!

I have many more things to post on this blog - I'm very behind on staying in touch. I apologize - can I blame my two adorable children!?!?! Thank you for your prayers and encouragement.