This is the fifth of several guest posts from the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s disaster relief team in Haiti. The 10-member medical team arrived in Port-au-Prince Monday and began ministering through a makeshift hospital on the edge of a tent city on Tuesday. In this post, Butch Vernon, pastor of Thoroughbred Community Church in Nicholasville and the chaplain for the group, shares about the group’s fourth day of work.

A Haitian brother and sister at the hospital

What a day! We thought the hospital was losing 50 staff today but it ended up being more like 90. Yet we saw as many patients as we did any day this week. When we found out this morning how many people were gone and how thin the ranks were, Glenn Hickey, our team leader, and I went aside and prayed.

Before we got here another medical team had shared a testimony about how they prayed for God to stretch their medicines and God never let the suitcase run out of what they needed, although they kept track and knew that they had given out considerably more than they ever could have had. I felt led to pray the same thing for our two medical teams. I asked the Lord to let it be like we had extra doctors and nurses and to send in extras as we needed them. It was amazing! God allowed us to do more than we could ever have imagined and then when it seemed we were going to have to turn people away, He sent fresh doctors from nowhere! It was awesome. Our God rocks!

We got in this morning and there was a little baby who had just been born under a huge mosquito net. What a blessing. Then we had another gunshot victim come in that we were able to stabilize in the parking lot and get to another hospital. The docs think he will probably make it.

A Haitian child

We also did several amputations and wound cleanings today that were pretty nasty. You never get hardened to the pain, but you learn that you can’t afford to be squeamish either. We had the cutest little girl come in today and she had two huge chunks out of her leg. I’m pretty sure it was bare bone I was looking at and if it wasn’t, it was really close to it. As surgical tech John Brickey began to clean her wound she looked up at him and smiled the biggest smile of appreciation you could imagine, although she had to know how much it was going to hurt. The Haitian people are amazing.

The Florida team just got in yesterday and today we threw them directly into the middle of the fire. It was really edifying to see how God took some of their initial fear and their obvious discomfort and just walked them right through it. They did an amazing job as well and it was a joy to work alongside them.

We came here with an expectation of doing a bunch of wound cleaning and amputations. This hasn’t been the case. What we are seeing more of than anything is stress and hunger related issues. The teams coming after us really need to reconsider what they need to bring. Please pray for them that God would give them wisdom as they pack.

Dr. Thomas McKechnie and a young patient

We were so busy today I was running non stop pretty much most of the day. Around 1:00 I realized that there was something I really needed to pray about and got alone with the Lord for a short, but really great time. I cannot tell you how much everyone here appreciates your prayers. There is no way we could be doing what we are doing without the prayer cover of our brothers and sisters in the Lord.

Well, we have been in aftermeetings pretty much all night and I’m going to crash. Tomorrow is our last full day doing medical work and we will probably be slammed. Please pray that we can make a difference for the Kingdom in our last little bit of time here.