Medical Ministry at Watermark

Our first team to Haiti returned on Friday and Saturday, praise God.  In the words of one of the members of the team, “It was raw.”  And it was also a tremendous honor to be part of God’s expression of love to the people of Haiti.

Our medical team members came in two waves and partnered with an orthopedic surgery team from Austin that was sponsored by Hill Country Bible Church.  We worked on the ground at a ministry called “Mission of Hope”, that was located about 10 miles outside Port au Prince.  The surgeons set up an operating room at the mission and cared for a large variety of orthopedic cases from the surrounding areas.  As word got out, the General Hospital in Port au Prince also started to helicopter in patients from downtown.  To Handle the extensive post op care, our team also helped to create and staff a post-op ward.  Also we helped to triage and care for many non-surgical cases that happened on the clinic, at one point essentially running a small ICU.  Needless to say we were all stretched in our skills and had to lean heavily on the strength of God.

The Haitian people demonstrated a deep faith and enduring hope, ministering to us as much as we did to them.  At one point when two women were having leg amputations done under spinal anesthesia, they broke out in Gospel song to each other.  In the post op ward, Haitian families of the patients were diligent nurses aids, changing bed pans and feeding their loved ones while also singing and encouraging all of us.  There were also some stories of Haitian conversions to Christ-followers, and we all celebrated them greatly.

Todd Wagner and Jeff Ward also visited Haiti and will be working through how Watermark can best get involved in both relief and long term development.  In accord with Watermark’s mission to be and make disciples, the long-term strategy in Haiti will ultimately also be about offering opportunities for our members to be Christ’s disciples while we help to make disciples in Haiti.

As we work to see the specific next steps in Haiti for our medical ministry, we will keep you all informed.  Right now there is not a specific follow up trip to Haiti through Watermark, though I do expect that to come together soon.  If you would rather not wait for the next trip, please let me know, and I will help connect you to other groups that are going.

Chris Berry,

cristoforo.berry@gmail.com

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This entry was posted by Chris Berry on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 8:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.