Memoirs and reflections of a returning and rehabilitating Haiti Cholera Crisis Worker

I was asked to write an update about the “Memoirs and reflections of a returning and rehabilitating Haiti Cholera Crisis Worker” (quote from Steve) …and so, although I’m not exactly sure what all that includes that I should write about…I’ll just put down a few of my most memorable times in Haiti…for whatever they’re worth for the reader to read! 

The very next day after my arrival in Haiti, I started my first shift at the CTC…I found out very quickly that working there is very character building! Virginia Rudolph was my teacher for the first couple weeks, until the teams got switched around again…she was very patient in teaching me the basics of how to run things…marking charts, giving medicine, spraying people down with bleach water, filling ORS bottles, etc. There's really nothing that quite compares to seeing the Haitians come staggering in, or brought in on stretchers and then a few days later, to watch them go walking home with joyful faces so glad to not have died from cholera.  It's really an  addicting and rewarding work, being in the CTC…and one thing that I’ve thought about a lot since coming home, is the testimony that’s left behind for each one of the Haitian people I was in contact with…did they see Jesus living in me?  Obviously we weren’t there just because it’s a fun thing to work with Cholera! Did the Haitians get the bigger picture of what the whole Mission is about?!  For me, I didn’t know much Creole while I was there, so I had to speak more with my actions than anything…and I trust that God used me and the other staff workers for His glory while we were working there in the CTC!

One of my first memories of working with Bleach…or Clorox…was spraying out that yucky bucket, gritting my teeth and trying to not gag, as I had previously been informed “if you gag the first time, you might not be able to stop!” And the next day after my unforgettable experience of dumping the first bucket, I actually heard someone singing (might as well say who!) …yes it was Jared singing as the contents of the bucket got dumped out and then he sprayed it with bleach…I don’t remember if I ever got to the point where I could actually sing while dumping buckets, but I think I developed a good set of lungs from all the times I held my breath till I got the job finished. You just take a deep breath, keep your face back, aim, look away, and DUMP!  

Going on to the more serious side of things…I’ll write about something that has left a deep imprint on my mind since coming home…………….I was in the CTC working – actually all the work was done, I was just on shift taking a break in the Nurse’s Station, Kirsche (my partner at the time) I think was running an errand somewhere in the house or something, and she had left on Garment of Praise music…the song playing wasn’t exactly my favorite…actually, I had thought of it in the past as a rather shallow song…but anyhow, I was feeling so very tired just then and I decided to maybe try and take a little nap with my head on the table while there wasn’t anything else going on…so I lay with my head in my arms…only! That music playing! How could a person ever sleep with such music going?! I closed my eyes sleepily…too tired to care anymore. After awhile, through the haziness of my mind right then…I don’t know why, but I suddenly started listening to the words as my mind was shutting down…”this could be the moment! This could be your opportunity, just run through the open door…this could be the moment, brother that you’re created for!!!” I thought about it a bit…then as the words registered in my mind, I groggily peeped my eyes open and looked through the open door from where I was sitting, out to the front porch of the CTC…and there! Sitting right in front of the door with a little child on her lap watching me with big eyes, was a mother looking for all the world as though she was searching for something from me! Whew! I hadn’t seen her there before! And here I had been soo wanting to sleep…what would I do for her? I didn’t know Creole well enough to strike up a long conversation with her. Ah!! Those handy little “25 Bible Stories” booklets!  I asked her if she knew how to read…she didn’t but the lady in the next room over did! So I gave them each a booklet, which they were both very pleased about, and then I gave the rest up to the Lord…I don’t know how much a person can pick up from just the pictures in those books, but I trust God that somehow through all that He had a plan…I had done all I knew how and I knew that God would give the increase. Maybe someone else will have the privilege of leading one of them to the Lord some day! 

To this day, I have an alarm on my phone that makes me want to jerk. Well…let me reword that! Amanda and I shared a room together, and so we shared the same alarm, which was on my phone…and when it would go off, it was usually just before my midnight shift, and I felt sometimes like I had just closed my eyes and suddenly! There was that alarm ringing on the other side of the room blaring out the fact that it was time to awake and start my next shift…and I would bolt out of bed to quickly shut it off so it wouldn’t wake anyone else up (the walls are pretty thin, and you can hear about anything from the other side of the house!) …whenever Amanda or I would hear that sound, we’d have to wrench ourselves from a deep sleep to go turn it off. Once we were up for awhile it wasn’t bad at all…but it was just that initial first shock of getting out of bed to such a sound! 

Something I had to think of…reading Myron’s update and what he wrote about the diesel generator giving out…reminded me of a few embarrassing memories of dealing with that contraption myself… ;)

I had the “privilege” on my 4pm to midnight shifts to shut off the generator…when Steve was first showing me how to shut it off and everything, he said if I ever had any problems with it just to go knock on his and Shana’s bedroom window, as the front door is always locked at night…I don’t think when he said it he realized that I’d actually end up taking him up on doing just that! Well…he had made it look nice and simple to shut it off, so I thought this would be easy as pie! I think it was the first night I was to shut off the generator…my shift was ended, and being the responsible person I was;) I dutifully went to go shut of the generator as I had been shown. Whew! Steve had made it look easy. I turned the knob, I pushed it. The lever would NOT budge! I pulled, I twisted, and pushed again. I applied more of my Keller strength to it (ha!;)…still it wouldn’t budge…finally, not knowing what else to do, and knowing the generator should be turned off…I did what I had to, or what I had been told by Steve to do.  I went and knocked on Steve and Shana’s window…knock knock knock ”you awake?” well if they hadn’t been before, they were now!!! Imagine someone knocking on your window at midnight while you’re in the midst of a deep slumber…I think Steve was too out of it to respond, but Shana woke up thankfully! She told me to go around to the front door…so that’s where I met her and told her my predicament. She said sometimes you need to use pliers to loosen the lever a little and then it will turn over…so she went and got me some from inside the house somewhere…and handed them over to me. I thanked her and feeling pretty awful for waking her up, I apologized profusely about it…of course she was very gracious! :) We said goodnight and she headed back for her bed. Meanwhile I headed back for the generator, pliers in hand…feeling very much—although probably not looking so much—like a mechanic. I got to the door of the room where the generator is kept…only to find, to my horror and dismay, that I had shut the door…how or why had I done that??!! Maybe because it was midnight and my mind was already starting to shut down for the night…but anyhow, the door automatically locks once it’s clicked shut, and I didn’t have the key!! The generator was still running…and I was on the outside with no way in but to humbly go back to ask Shana for the key.

 The second time I went back, I think it was a little amusing for Shana…at least I’m hoping I read her right! ;) I told her about my newest dilemma, and she showed me which key to use from the keychain…this time I don’t know how much of an apology I managed to splutter out, but I headed back, not feeling so much like a mechanic anymore. I unlocked the door, used the pliers on the lever, and finally! It was music to my ears to hear the beautiful silence that followed after I finally got the motor shut off!

I guess Shana had decided not to wait for a third problem to generate itself from the generator, so she kindly stayed by the door till I got the motor turned off and brought the key back to her with another apology.

Yes…after that time, things went a lot better with the generator!  The only other problem I remember having out there was the next time I shut it off, I didn’t see the open can of gasoline and as I reached over to turn the lever, the hem of my dress somehow went down and whoop-tee-doo! Right into the gasoline it went…oooops!!!! Why did that happen to me? And especially right after my last big episode out there with the generator? Now I had a dress that smelled like gasoline even after soaking it in bleach water several times, and I needed it too! The poor person (Kirsche) on shift with me in the CTC next time I wore that dress…it probably almost fumigated both of us!

I could go on and on about my time in Haiti, but I think I’ve written more than enough already! Once I got my mind to thinking back to my time working in the CTC, I couldn’t stop all the memories from flooding in!

On my way home across the ocean I sat between a Haitian guy who only talked a little bit of English, and another man who was a Baptist from Cuba on his way back home from teaching a class he held for adult Haitians…most of the time he just sat circling questions in his teacher’s book he was reading, or drawing lines with question marks at the end of them…but we did talk a little bit and he asked me, “aren’t you a little young to be out travelling all by yourself so far away from home?”…well...it was kind of the way it had to be for my trip back, but I’d already had the same thoughts myself! Then I remembered something I had been told right before I left for Haiti while visiting Gospel Light in WI…”you won’t have to be alone! God is going with you!”  I told the man…”well…I’m notreally by myself…God is here with me!” He replied “Yes. That is very true! He is with you.” And right then I was so thankful to God for His Spirit within me…truly I couldn’t have made the trip at all without God’s hand of protection over my life!  Looking back now, I see so many times how God was with me…showing me which way to go and bringing verses to my mind while I was in that airport by myself…”ye are the light of the world…a city that is set on an hill cannot be hid”…yeah! I felt like a stranger all right! Even a Roman Catholic was asking me if I was a Nun. But although all those feelings were going on inside me of being strange, in a strange place, with strange people, I knew God was there… “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”….

-Meredith Keller