Five Shuttle Trips!

It's hard to believe what God hath wrought in just one week. One week ago today, four days from the quake, our first team was working on the people of Haiti. Many large organizations are just getting started. Bryan estimates that we were able to significantly impact between one and two thousand people...food, water...medicine. And our people are still on the ground...still working. It's a sobering thing now to think of those first words, "What are we doing just sitting here?"

We cried at the airport, Bryan and I cried this morning when the first phone calls started again, (because he can't get through one of these stories from the field without breaking down). I'm crying now, listening to him weeping and talking on the phone to Rodney, who lost so many friends.

I asked Kate how many wounds she had to clean before she got used to it and could perform without hesitation. She said, "One."

Many injuries had been treated with home remedies like coffee grounds and then wrapped with pieces of dirty sheets. Some bandages had hardened into the wounds because they hadn't been changed. These had to be softened and pried out, wounds re-cleaned, treated with antibiotics and re-bandaged. Who knows how many people were saved from eventual amputation because of these simple treatments?

One day, she spent alone, going from person to person outside an injured camp, treating anyone who called on her. Everything from crushed feet to gaping head injuries, to burns. One little baby had fallen into hot, cooking oil when the quake happened.

I am going to try to relay some of the stories from my family in the following blogs. They also have photos and video footage (on a camera that Kate left on the plane). AAARGH! She's been in contact with them about mailing it, but they are closed on weekends. Frustration station. I'll post links to all of this as we get it.