The Most Emotional Day So Far

My favorite image from the week so far – this precious little girl in the village of Limonade, where we did our mobile medical clinic on Saturday.

Saturday has been the most emotional day for me so far on this trip.  The best thing about the day is that I get to do my all-time favorite clinic job – the prayer station.  As the very last stop before leaving the clinic, I ask each patient if they’d like me to pray with them before they leave.  If they say yes (which they all do – usually very enthusiastically), I then ask what specifically they’d like me to pray for, and I go from there.  This is the third trip I’ve done this on, and it always ends up being a profoundly moving experience.

A few standout moments…

• Four women bring an older woman to the clinic in a wheelchair – because of the tall steep steps they have to lift her up, wheelchair and all, and carry her from ground level up into the church building – reminds me of the story from the gospels where the paralyzed man is lowered through the ceiling on a mat by his four friends for Jesus to heal him

• There are tons of young children being seen at the clinic, some who are clearly very sick and in pain, and it’s super, super special just kneeling down on the ground to get on their level, holding their little hands and praying with them – it’s one of those things that makes you feel like you truly are standing on holy ground

• There are a couple interactions that hit me pretty hard emotionally – the first is the mother who’s carrying her 4 year old son in her arms – she tells me he’s been crippled since birth, and has never been able to walk

• The second is the mother with her 8 year old daughter, who’s been running an extremely high fever for several days – maybe it’s from having daughters myself, or maybe it’s from having so many children that we’ve known personally in Haiti who’ve ended up dying from fever and infections, but I get a little choked up and have to try to pull it together to continue praying – looking into the little girl’s eyes is what got to me – she definitely had “that look” that tells you she’s in a lot of distress, and that this could go very bad, very fast

• The preacher from the Limonade church brings a woman to me, explaining that she’s his next door neighbor – she’s never even set foot inside the church building before, but she’s come to our clinic today, asking for help and wanting to be prayed for

• Probably the coolest thing of all:  Where I’m positioned for the prayer station is right outside the church building, in clear view of anyone passing by – when people start realizing what I’m doing, many of them who aren’t even going through the clinic come over to me and ask to be prayed for

As an aside, one thing I’m very thankful for is that even over the past two years when it’s been harder for us to make trips, I’ve continued spending about an hour a week working on my Creole – I still have a really hard time with listening comprehension, but I’m now able to navigate my way through a lot of these interactions with little or no help from an interpreter – makes a huge difference, at least to me, in feeling like I’m able to make a much more personal connection with people.

So all in all a pretty awesome day – definitely my favorite so far.