Witnessing the Hand of God move

As the holidays come and go let’s be prayerful for those who experience pain in a way most of us are unaware of as we share in the joy and fellowship of being with family or at least knowing we are loved by loved ones.

 Friday December 21^st. was a very painful day for one of our single acquaintances here, for various reasons that only she one day would be able to explain, and after some deliberation she decided she would be better off taking her life.

 There were a number of people calling her about normal business as usual with out a clue as to what was happening in her heart. Frantz Clotaire from SEED ministries was the last that I am aware of to talk to her on the telephone, which was around 1pm. He needed to get a check to her and wanted to bring it right over to her, which she refused and said she was sending a driver for it instead.

 She then gave the driver a full day’s errand list, one of which included picking up the check. The driver arrived shortly and picked up the check. In the mean time she locked herself in her house, left a note for the coroner as to what she did, swallowed a few pills and gave herself an injection of poison.

  This is where our incomprehensible Father stepped in and was answering previously offered prayers by many people like you who pray for the safety and protection of the missionaries here. Thank you for all your prayers, because Satan truly does not like the good work of God being done here.

 The driver returned back to the house needing to get the check signed and happened to have taken a key to the house with him. Val Gutwein called about this time to get an earful of WE NEED HELP NOW. Val, Tess, Alisha, Kara, Taya and Joan took off in a scramble to go help in what ever way they could. They then met our acquaintance’s vehicle driven by the Haitian people coming to the hospital with her in it at around 3 pm.

God had moved the heart of Dr. Todd Perla, his wife Brenda and two children, from Lake City FL. to come to Haiti for a first time visit of a little over a week. Dr. Perla was there to receive her and gave her oxygen. No peripheral pulse could be found. She was gray looking, had no blood pressure and had minimal respirations. It was then that, in a miraculous way, God used a Haitian nurse named Catherine to, within seconds, successfully put in two IV ports in the same arm of our patient who had extremely poor veins with such low blood pressure.  With the IVs in place, her blood pressure and pulse improved with hydration. A couple of hours later the note she had left for the coroner was found explaining what she took which was helpful.

Earlier that same morning, Brenda Perla and her children decided to do some cleaning out and organizing in the Harvest medical warehouse. They came across a bag ventilator and an antidote kit.  The amazing thing was that she was going through about 60 bins of stuff and happened to find these things there having no idea that in just a few hours then would be greatly needed.  Eventually when the word got around to Brenda, she remembered seeing them and knew where to go find them in this other warehouse.  A portion of the antidote for the pills that were taken was in this kit, but not for the injected drug. Many calls (and prayers) went out trying to locate some of this other antidote, but it seemed there was none around. One Dr. stated that if she didn’t get dialysis by midnight he wasn’t sure we could save her. Without the antidote and or the possibility of dialysis here, there were desperate calls, (John Vrooman was our communication star), about trying to get a Med Vac from the states to come and get her in Port-Au-Prince if we could get her that far.

 The American Embassy said they saw no possibility of the idea of getting an air ambulance from the states at this time of day, as they have not seen that happen before. God was moving and a multitude of people were put in motion. The U.N. stepped forward and started helping us. Somebody, I’m not sure who, contacted the Air Trinidad Med Vac. They called John and said they needed confirmation in 10 minutes whether we could have her lifted to Port-Au-Prince or else forget about them coming. At the same time a high up official of the U.N. (who was sick in bed) in Port-Au-Prince made a decision and authorized the air lift by the U.N. to take her to Port-au-Prince.

 The next problem however was the airport was now closed. Nobody was there for traffic control or the possibility of refueling Air Trinidad.  Again groping for courage in a country where organization does not seem to be a strong point, God was moving countless people at the same time. Arrangements were made by someone to allow the plane to land and purchase fuel.

 There was a U.N. air ambulance doing maneuvers in the vicinity which headed back into Port to pick up two Chilean doctors and returned to Cayes at 11:10 pm to pick up our patient. Rod Wray, Jan Gutwein and I were asked to help carry her to the ambulance along with other local help.  Then Jan & I helped Dr. Perla along with one U.N. employee, stabilize her on the rough road to the U.N. base to meet the helicopter. They continued to work through a stack of paper work and worked on our patient for quite a while and around midnight lifted off for Port.

 In the mean time our embassy came back with a problem. The problem they presented is they said our patient would have to be transported to a hospital in Port after arriving because nobody is going to come at night to take her to the states. With further perseverance they said if you could possibly find someone, the planes could not land anywhere close to each other, one being military and one civilian. Our very tired looking Chilean pilot expressed a little different thought, and we later learned they got clearance to land within 7 meters of the other plane to make the transfer.

 In view of the massive administrative bureaucracy and mountain of paper work that needed to take place including waivers of release of liability in the event our patient didn’t make it, it could not be denied only God could cause so much to happen as it did. My view of the U.N. was raised as I witnessed first hand through action their kindness expressed. We had with us a most pleasant, helpful, cordial, polite group of people reaching out to us and making decisions in order to do what needed to be done to save a single life. We had a chief administrative officer from Pakistan, a chief of security from Egypt , another chief in administrations from Italy and an assistant from Switzerland  to name just a few that really went out of their way to help us. The chief administrative officer from Pakistan said God must really want this person to live in order for all this to come to pass. Another officer said one needs to have Faith.

 Our patient arrived in Ft. Lauderdale received the antidote needed and today Dec. 22nd 2007 is able to talk again. Please pray for the healing such a traumatic thing as this can have on one’s life.

Love in Christ,

Tim

[Home] [Reinhard News] [Joan's Journal] [From the Kids] [Photo Album] [Prayer Requests] [Answered Prayer] [Special Requests] [Team Photos] [Calendar of Events] [Contact Us] [Links] [Site Updates]