Lord, today I am thankful for 2 feet

I sit here at the end of an absolutely amazing absolutely exhausting week. I am sitting in what we lovingly refer to as the "internet cafe" which really is a wooden bench in the back of a beat up clinic/emergency room (the only place around with internet access even though it is sloooowwww you won't hear me complaining). It is the end of day 6. Six crazy days of working nonstop. I smell of sweat, bug spray, and hand sanitizer.

I got the opportunity to spend this last week at a hospital in the mountains of Haiti about 90 miles outside of Port au Prince at the Hospital of Light in Bonne Fin. This place was set to close February 1 due to a number of different circumstances and then the quake hit. With so many thousands displaced out into the country side there was an instantaneous need for this place in a big way. Since the quake it has been full of patients in desperate need of medical care and it has been staffed with it's previous staff supplemented by outside teams like mine coming in with supplies and man power weekly in order to keep the doors open and the patients cared for.

Every one of these patients have a story. There was a lady who cut her own trapped arm off with a piece of concrete and dug her way out using her cell phone. There is a boy who was the only one in his classroom of over 60 to survive, the stories go on and on. They break my heart, but beyond the grief and tragedy is a spark of hope that never seems to have quite extinguished.

Ralph a 20 year old boy who has a left above the knee amputation and is always cracking a joke was playing a little game with me, he would say "hey can you do this" as he crinkles his face in a certain way then I would say hey can you do this as I show him my double jointed thumb, after a few rounds he pulled out the big guns and says hey bet you can't do this as he takes his stump and swings it out to the side, your leg is way to long for that he says and we both laugh. How he has managed to find humor so quickly after tragedy speaks so truly to the resilience of the human spirit.

Another boy has gotten the nickname of wheely boy because he (also a leg amputation patient) is constantly wheeling around in his chair running over everyone else. Today I came out of the OR around the corner and saw him confidently coming down the walk on his crutches. It put the biggest smile on my face, now he is walking boy. I smiled at him told him how awesome he was doing gave him a little fist pound and then as I walked away was terribly aware of both of my feet.

This week I saw my first amputation in the operating room (my experiences in there is a whole other entry). Now while this was very clinically interesting, I couldn't help but put myself in their shoes, what if this tragedy was me and tomorrow I was a limb short. How do you process a life change like that. I guess there is no answer but when these things occur you just wake up every morning and face the day ahead because His grace is sufficient and His mercies renew every morning.

For pictures from my week in Bonne Fin, Haiti check out my facebook album here