The Adventures of Nate & Cecilia: Port Au Prince: SUPPLIES!

In October 2010, we went to Haiti with Mercy Ships as part of a short term medical team. We went to work in a clinic that is part of a larger organization called Mission of Hope. Since the earthquake, this ministry has been instrumental in distribution of food and medical supplies, and in providing healthcare to the Haitian people around Port-Au-Prince.
On our 2 week trip we learned more than we could have imagined. Please enjoy the following short account of just one aspect of the work we did there.

Mission of Hope arranged our transportation from the airport and we piled into the back of a big, white, dusty box truck. Our team leader, Gary, referred to it patronizingly as the “new, box limousine complete with side bench seating, rear entry, louvered sun shades and forced air 'conditioning'”, and he assured us that there's a few major bumps in the road so just think, Disneyland ride and go with it. It put the team a little more at ease with the dusty and hot journey that took us across the plains north of Port-Au-Prince, skirting past the tent cities that creep up the hillsides, past the mass grave of earthquake victims, to the quiet little town of Titanyen.

The medical teams worked hard alongside the local doctors and nurses in the clinic, and we non-medical people found a niche working with the mountains of medical supplies that continue to come to Mission of Hope as donations after the earthquake.

After acclimating to our new surroundings, we met Dr. Lex (name changed for anonymity), the clinic administrator. He's a big Haitian man, a doctor and a keen manager. He has a booming deep voice and a kind smile. He seems to be constantly busy and clearly not afraid to get his hands dirty to work hard despite the shirt and tie he wears every day at the clinic. While walking with him through the biggest of the supply tents, Nate asked, "what exactly do you want us to do?" Dr. Lex didn't give a straight answer. He told us we could work to sort and organize the supplies how we thought best.

Nate pressed the issue, "We are here for you. We want you to tell us exactly what you want us to accomplish."
After some further convincing that we were, in fact, not going to just do whatever we wanted, Dr. Lex's face brightened, he stood up straighter, and snapped his hand out to shake Nate's. "Yes, I like you," he said, "I like you very much."
After that little breakthrough, he told Nate what he really needed to have done. Scanning the huge cache of un-sorted supplies in various boxes of all shapes and sizes, some toppled on one another, some crushed, some wet and moldy, Dr. Lex told us he was extremely frustrated that he knew he had a valuable wealth of medical supplies that would last the clinic a very long time, but he didn't know exactly what he had.
He told us, "I want you to start here," pointing to a formidable pile of cardboard boxes in various stages of disarray, "and tell me exactly what I have and how much."

With our new-found direction, we went to work sorting and counting alongside the long-term supply guy, we'll call him Mr. C. We found everything from band-aids to neurosurgery equipment to bedsheets to prescription medications. It seemed like you could outfit an entire hospital with the endless piles of boxes that various doctors offices had packed up and shipped shortly after the earthquake hit. We went to work sorting, labeling, stacking, and distributing supplies to the clinic as they needed.

We also generated quite a large pile of trash. It was mostly expired medical equipment and drugs that the government has forbidden the hospitals and clinics to use. If they did an inspection and found expired stuff even on the shelves in the clinic, they would be able to shut the whole place down. It's an extreme measure under the circumstances, but also understandable. It seemed to us that the people of Haiti are tired of receiving the world's thrown away stuff. In fact, some of the medical supplies we saw had expiration dates of 2002 and 2003, and the most expired item we found had an expiration date of 1998! As the days wore on, Dr. Lex seemed pleased with our work as we gave him some progress reports.

At the end of two sweat-soaked weeks in the greenhouse heat of the supply tent, we managed to finish searching through every single box in our pile, and utilizing a simple cataloging system we all devised, we could tell Dr. Lex exactly what he had, how much, and where it was (generally). We did some work, and we thought it was good, but we didn’t know the real importance of it until Dr. Lex, on the last day after lunch, sat us down in the only air-conditioned room in the entire campus, and thanked us. He told us he never takes time to seek out and thank a short-term team, except one that came right after the earthquake, and us. He said he’ll never forget that we came not only to work, but to do what he asked, and we did it well. He said we were a good example for the other workers under him, and he will remember us forever. He invited us to come back as soon as possible with a wink, and an expression that seemed to say, "I know you will be back." We will never forget that encounter. We saw the true value of humbling yourself and truly become a servant.

An epilogue to this short success story:

One night at dinner with some of our teammates, we were talking about our work in the supply tent as the doctors and nurses were recounting their life-saving work with patients in the clinic, and someone mentioned this bible verse to which we all burst out laughing:

"The share of the man who stayed with the supplies is to be the same as that of him who went down to the battle. All will share alike." - 1 Samuel 30:24

We thought that was a fitting synopsis of our time there. We doctors, nurses, Americans, Haitians, and others all shared alike.