Posted on 01/22/2010 2:59:11 PM PST by colorcountry
Dr. Robert Whittaker spent Tuesday afternoon rummaging through boxes of medical instruments in the Nashville, Tenn., offices of Healing Hands International.
The British-born physician left most of his tools back in Africa, where he served for nearly 25 years at a mission hospital. He leaves Wednesday tomorrow for Haiti — five months after he suffered a gunshot wound to the arm during a 48-hour kidnapping ordeal in Nigeria.
Whittaker and Dr. Mark Pearson, a former missionary in Haiti, will arrive in the Dominican Republic and join a convoy of supplies headed across the border into Haiti. Whittaker, still recovering from a nerve graft back in November, said he and Pearson plan to work in a suburb of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.
Church members traveling to Hispaniola — the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic — face a herculean task. Estimates of the death toll in Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake have reached 200,000, according to news reports. Hundreds of thousands more are injured. Many have received no medical attention since the 7.0 quake struck near Port-au-Prince.
Dr. David Vanderpool, a physician and member of the Harpeth Hills Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tenn., is lending his skills to a hospital in Jimani, a city in the Dominican Republic near the Haitian border. Vanderpool, who oversees Mobile Medical Disaster Relief, makes regular trips into Haiti and brings backs truckloads of patients for treatment, said Randy Steger, chairman and president of Healing Hands International.
Several ministries, including Healing Hands and Louisiana-based White’s Ferry Road Relief Ministries, are using the northern Haitian city of Cap Haitien, undamaged by the quake, as a command center for funneling supplies to the south, Steger said. The ministries are distributing filters that will provide clean water for 12,000 people, and hope to provide additional filters for to help at least 200,000, Steger said.
“Without help, contaminated water will cause more deaths in the long term than the earthquake,” Steger said.
‘WE JUST REJOICE AND KEEP ON WORKING’
In Florida, Christians from Haiti continue to wait for news of their families and friends near the quake zone, said Pierre Etienne, minister for the Church of Christ of Sunrise, Fla.
Before he moved to the U.S. about 16 years ago, Etienne was a minister for the Delmas Church of Christ, a congregation of nearly 2,000 members in Port-au-Prince. The church’s building was damaged badly in the quake, and its members met outside for worship on Sunday, Etienne said. At least nine members died in the quake. The Sunrise church, a congregation of about 80 Haitian immigrants and their children, is collecting funds to help the Delmas church.
“At this point in time it is very painful to even think about asking for financial help,” Etienne said. “But, as Christians, we cannot close our eyes on this huge catastrophic disaster that hit Haiti.”
Roberta Edwards, who oversees an orphanage and feeding program near Port-au-Prince, returned to Haiti recently. The Haitian-born Christian was in the U.S. visiting relatives during the earthquake. A wall of the Son Light Children’s Home and Nutrition Center collapsed, killing Nicky, a 15-year-old boy who lived at the home.
“I was able to get some cement so we could properly bury Nicky,” Edwards said in a recent e-mail to friends and supporters. She also has started making trips to the Dominican border, meeting workers with groups including Manna Global Ministries and loading food and supplies on a truck to take back home.
Thomas Edwards, the oldest of the children living at the home, accompanied Roberta Edwards on one of the supply trips, As they approached Port-au-Prince, a bag of dog food fell off the truck.
“Some men came by, picked up the dog food off the ground and ate it in front of us,” Thomas Edwards said. “So that can show you how hungry people are.”
Roberta Edwards said she’s also trying to help treat her neighbors’ wounds. Many Haitians sustained cuts during the quake that have become infected. Hospitals are open, but have little or no medications and supplies.
“We are doing what we can do,” Roberta Edwards said. “I continue to praise God as I look around at the destruction and disaster. … I know it is hectic and crazy, but things are coming together — and for that reason we just rejoice and keep on working.”
ONE DOCTOR’S STORY
Back in Nashville, Whittaker said he’s eager to “clean up wounds and start healing.”
The physician has seen — and lived — his fair share of trauma in a quarter-century at Nigerian Christian Hospital. Car wrecks are common along the busy road that runs past the medical mission in the West African nation.
The doctor himself was a patient at the hospital in August, after enduring two days in captivity at the hands of kidnappers who held him for ransom. As he was abducted from his home, a bullet damaged a nerve in his arm.
He spoke to his own doctor recently about the proposed trip. “I told him, ‘Is there any reason to forbid me to go?’” Whittaker said. His doctor gave him the green light.
Whittaker said he’s still unsure whether or not he will return to Nigeria full time to work in medical missions. Right now, he’s concentrating on the task at hand.
“We’re going over there to save lives and take care of suffering people,” he said. Whatever happens in the future, “that’s good enough for me.”
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bump
The words in post #1 are those of the Religion Moderator.
Ping!
I know it is hectic and crazy, but things are coming together — and for that reason we just rejoice and keep on working.”
___________________________________________________
As a Trinitarian Christian I will reply...
Thank you ...
God bless and keep and help these wonderful Christian doctors and nurses giving their time and talents to help the Haitians...
The words in post #1 are those of the Religion Moderator.
Ping!
The various stories coming out of Haiti are both heart wrenching and glorious as we see life and death happen side by side. For this I cannot help but feel deeply for those who are working to help...some overcome by the vastness of injuries, which came in too late to fix, and the plight of the people in general as they have no idea of tomorrow. An then there is the destruction oand rubble which blocks the way...we cannot know what the workers are enduring there.
May God fully equip them to stand under it all....amen
What a blessing these great Christians are, who dedicate their time and energies in love to those who have suffered such a tragedy!
You won’t see them hyping themselves in Mainstream news outlets, or wearing T-Shirts that identify them, but they are humble and tireless in their Godly pursuits. We thank God for them.
Trinitarian Christians are not bound by doing the Lord's work in the name of an individual religion. We daily reach across the arm of our denominational pew to our fellow Trinitarians and together provide a huge force to provide aid and comfort to those in need.
Reach across the arm of the FR pew now, and ping your fellow Trinitarians to this caucus.
May God bless the work they are doing. They do it out of love of Christ, not wearing t-shirts supporting their “church” or for brownie points.
If you DON't let us NON-trinitarian rastafarians in this thread; then YOU'LL get the point!
--MojoJoJo(Why can VOODOO hurt ya, but not HEAL ya?)
You can’t post on this thread, you disruptor you! Be Gone!
LOL....
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