Reports of recent Trips and Work by Godspeed Missionary Care

• The pilot's windshield was covered with condensation, making taxing difficult. Solution: he opens his window and reaches around to clean it himself with a squeegee on a stick that he keeps just below the trim tab console.



• Our seats recline, particularly on the ground; this is a DC-3, a tail-dragger, so things don't get level until we are airborne.



• Karen and I are seated on window and aisle seats on one side of the airplane; across from us on the other side of the cabin where seats would usually be found are fifteen cases of cereal, pancake mix, and bathroom tissue, amongst other things. This is primarily a cargo plane, with room for passengers as the weight permits. For you pilots out there, the most reliable of all flap and gear indicators: on final approach, pilot and co-pilot open their respective windows and look back and down to insure things are ready for landing.



• Earlier, after we had boarded and had been given the usual lecture on exit windows and doors (all in back), restroom (please step over the life raft and emergency gear when entering), and food service (instant coffee and water available on board; place your breakfast order for ham and eggs and it will be radioed while in flight to Exuma to pick up when we land for fuel) came the most telling of differences between this and our usual commercial flight experience: the airline official in charge then prayed for the passengers and the work we go to do, for wisdom and skill for the pilots, and for the ongoing safe operation of N200MF. Amen.

• "…Do not take the name of the Lord in vain…" Driving through Cap Haitien is a chiropractic experience. The only vehicles that seem to be moving rapidly are the "tap-taps", small trucks and buses that operate as taxis of sorts. Loaded beyond imagination, each has at least one or two people hanging off the side or rear as they careen around cavernous potholes, mounds of smoldering garbage, and other slower vehicles. Many are painted with names on the windshield, most of a religious nature: "Jesus Roi" and "Maranatha" or such. I note similar Christian names on many of the ramshackle stores that line the street. Initially I feel encouraged that so many have heard of the Lord, but am told later that this has been satan's country, and he is both the father of lies and the great imitator. Most of these names are pseudo-Christian terms used for magical and distorted reasons by people deluded by evil.



• We visit the clinic, an average day of some 200 patients. I sit in on the high blood pressure clinic where a campaign to get people to reduce salt in their diet is a never-ending task. And while the high blood pressure may be the primary reason the person is there at this time, one also has to check on the chronic fevers, the diffuse gastrointestinal pain complaints, the unexplained weight loss that exceeds even what one would expect in chronic nutritional deficit. Malaria, intestinal parasites, filariasis, AIDS, tuberculosis are all rampant. At least it is now possible to ensure that tubercular patients return for adequate medicine and follow-up: portions of rice and flour are given at each visit, so the quest for food brings the patient back for the necessary medical care. A missionary nurse (there is no doctor) struggles to determine if her patient is jaundiced (the list of possible causes is long). She examines a wasted woman of indeterminate age: black skin color, anemia, faltering electrical power supplying inadequate florescent lighting in a cinderblock room painted light yellow-green, all make detection of subtle yellow-tinged skin an impossible task. Appropriate laboratory studies are difficult to obtain and expensive. She decides to treat her for malaria and hopefully will be able to see her again in a few weeks.



• A young missionary's ministry is a technical one. He is in charge of erecting and maintaining the satellite downlink sites and radio transmitter towers that allow evangelical radio broadcasts to reach remote areas of this mountainous country (solar powered hand-held radios selectively tuned to the radio station frequency are being distributed by the thousands to individuals and villages). He doesn't like to sail, yet each month must travel by car ten hours to a port where he boards a Haitian sailboat to sail to an island off the north coast where one of the satellite stations is located. The Haitian boat is without significant keel, and bags of gravel are used as ballast, transferred from one side to the other as the boat tacks. His biggest concern during the several hour sail at significant heel is that the leaky boat with lateen sail dragging in the water might lead to his expensive test equipment being damaged or lost. He hadn't told anyone about this monthly venture because he didn't think anyone would find it interesting.



• In the midst of the recent political upheaval before the mission team was pulled out, a group of armed thugs took advantage of the lawless circumstances and broke onto the mission school compound where two single female missionaries reside. The gang overpowered the guard, shot the guard dog, and began to loot the buildings. The guard was held face down on the ground with a shotgun to his head for almost two hours as the men argued whether to kill him or just break his legs. The two missionary women huddled in the back of the house as they listened for almost an hour to the sounds of the thieves getting closer and closer. The robbers finally did reach them, demanded money, looted much of their goods, but did not attack them. Eventually the thieves left and the two women reunited with their Haitian guard (each had thought the other to be dead). Now several months after the event things are returning to normal, but the emotional reactions of all involved are understandably still a bit fragile. We had opportunity to meet with both women who then asked if we would also meet with the guard. It was a special privilege to debrief this man, listening (through an interpreter) to his recollections, how he was sure he would die at the hands of the gang, and how he now is committed to protecting the compound although fearing that the thieves might return.



• And, finally, from the "God is in control" department: 200 years ago the Haitian people were desperate to overthrow their French rulers. A group of them gathered around a tree not far from our mission compound and made a pact with the devil that if he would deliver them from the French they would dedicate the country of Haiti to him. The French were overthrown and the tree became a shrine of sorts The practice of voodoo has since permeated all aspects of Haitian culture, and voodoo services, ritual sacrifices, and other evil practices still are active even now throughout the country. It had been decreed that the pact with satan would be renewed in 2004 to celebrate the 200th anniversary, but Christians both within the country and all over the world have been praying that Haiti would be freed from its bondage. Several years ago, a group of Christians gathered around the large "satan tree" and prayed that it would not live. The long-announced rededication of Haiti to the devil did not take place this year as planned. We were able today to travel to the site of the infamous tree. At the end of a bumpy dirt road we find it: a dead stump, lifeless, insignificant. The battle belongs to the Lord.