The reality really sank in for me as we checked in our first serious case at the GTH cholera treatment center, or CTC.
Last Friday morning at 6:45, during our furlough time in Wisconsin, I got a call saying that things were looking serious right in our home area here. By Sunday evening, when I arrived back home to Ailegue, there was already a 4-tent CTC set up on a piece of level ground a half-mile from the mission.
We worked on finishing up all the countless details into this afternoon, and in fact are still working at finishing up even as we begin to admit patients. The need is just too great to take the time to get all our ducks in a row before diving in; I'm sure there will be more wrinkles to iron out before we're through. But thankfully, we're "standing on the shoulders of giants," as Sir Isaac Newton famously put it; there have been a lot of people who have walked this way before down here and whom we have relied on heavily for advice. Jeriah Mast from C.A.M. put a lot of effort in already, organising equipment and supplies and bringing them up for us. Pastor Levy has found a group willing to donate supplies to fight the epidemic. Others have given valuable advice, so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel during this whole process but rather can learn from others successes and failures in the cholera battle.
Cholera is an interesting infection. A lot of people get it during a major epidemic, and never realized they had it. Only the ones who have a truly serious attack realize that they in fact have the dreaded disease. And of course, those are the only people we ever see. So it can look pretty scary, "Oh no, I might get cholera and die!!!" Very true; you might also cut your leg off with a chainsaw or tumble off your bicycle in front of a speeding Schwan's truck. Just getting cholera doesn't give you a death sentence; HOWEVER, getting severe cholera and not even having the most basic treatment options available- basic medication, pure water, and oral re hydration supplements- COULD very quickly turn grave. And it is often deadly. Several people from our church have already succumbed to it, and others we know (and many we don't) are suffering right now from the horrible effects of this infection. In an area not far from Ti Guave we learned today that 80 some people died in the past few days, and hundreds are in CTC's. I hope it doesn't strike Ti Guave. That could be very serious.
Right now it would seem that weather certainly isn't cooperating; today drizzled on and off for literally the entire day. (Except for when it flat out poured down...:-) And that obviously isn't helping; cholera thrives in this moist environment, where the water from the clothing people wash and from the people washing themselves, together with human waste, so easily can spread to surrounding areas via the medium of moisture. Pray that God's will be done through even the weather- He's the One in control, and we're grateful for that!!!
The man we checked in this afternoon was 30-something, healthy looking (except for the sunken cheeks that go along with the dehydration); you wouldn't expect to see it in someone like that. Maybe someone really old... Or weak.... Or an infant..... But not a strong man!
None of us are promised tomorrow. Pray for the Haitians, not just that the plague of cholera could be stopped. Don't get me wrong- PLEASE pray for that!!! But pray that those who see would turn to Christ, the Fountain of eternal Life!!!! Being kept safe from cholera is only a small part of the story, to a believing Christian.
And to God.
Steve
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