Nelson came into the mobile medical clinic at a village in Haiti. He and his grandmother waited most of the day to see us. Nelson is 4 years old and weighs 20 pounds. His grandma said he wasn’t able to eat anything for eight days, because he kept throwing up.
Our supervisor, Jenny, determined that Nelson he needed an IV. Nelson started squirming while a practitioner tried to place it. It became infiltrated, and we had to take it out. Jenny immediately scooped up Nelson and carried him around the clinic while calming him down. We were able to pray with his grandma and surround her as the body of Christ while all this was going on. It was such a sweet time to encourage and love on her and Nelson. Eventually, we determined he had a parasite, and Nelson was referred to a doctor in town.
Praise God for how he was able to give us the time and abilities to see this boy. Praise the Lord for starting this clinic so that Nelson was able to get medical care while waiting on a doctor. He was so seriously ill when we saw him. Praise the Lord we were able to surround his grandma and him with the love of Christ and serve them.
Kimberlie is a 14-year-old girl we saw at the clinic. She came in by herself and had nothing wrong with her, medically speaking. We were honestly kind of confused as to why she was there, but then God revealed why.
She just needed someone to listen, talk with her and validate her. She needed to make sure she was OK and was told that by another human. We got to talk with her a while (with the help of our translator, of course) and made her feel loved. It blew my mind that she would wait in line to be seen when she had nothing wrong with her physically, but it occurred to me how the body of Christ needed to be more present to her, and that we were able to do that at the clinic.
She has been on my heart since we saw her. I’ve been wondering how she is doing. God did not place her there by accident. He allowed her to come to the clinic, where shecould be heard and listened to and loved by her sisters in Christ. It was such a sweet tim e. It made me wonder how much she really gets that from people around her. It made me realize how blessed I was that God knew she was coming and set us there for a divine encounter. I loved every second of it.
We served a week in Haiti with Go Now Missions. It was a fantastic time to learn the culture quickly and pray for the people here. Haiti is another level of poverty. It’s almost 10 years post-earthquake and it looks almost the same as if it had just occurred. Families of eight to 10 people are living in tiny shacks. There’s trash everywhere and people everywhere and animals everywhere.
But as I looked closer, as the Lord opened my heart to what he wanted me to see, I saw something so beautiful. There was the joy of the Lord present. The people were smiling and laughing and loving life. Throughout the week, we asked people about all that we saw. They told us, “Life is hard, but God is good.”
These people need the body of Christ to come serve them. These are our brothers and sisters. I am blessed to have spent a week providing them with medical care that they can’t get anywhere else. God taught me the importance of the body of Christ. God allowed my team to show the people we met the face of Jesus through the medical clinics. God taught me—just as much as he taught the Haitians—that all we need is him, and we should be totally content in the Lord.
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Gabby Stokes, a student at Midwestern State University, served in Haiti with Go Now Missions.
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