This is the fourth 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 third day of work.

Kentucky doctors minister to a little girl brought to the hospital by ambulance

Another great day in sunny Haiti! Every day is different. We got to the hospital this morning and right after we got there a beautiful little baby was born. Kind of like Jesus in the manger, he ended up in a copy paper box.

Big prayer request: about 50 of the hospital staff left today to go back to their respective countries.

We probably saw about 600 patients today. We will have 10 new folks helping tomorrow. It could be a really, really busy day tomorrow.

Our team is essentially going to be heading up most of the areas in the hospital tomorrow. What’s really great is how well these guys and girls will handle it with a Christlike attitude. This is one of the finest teams of any kind that I have ever had the opportunity to serve with.

We had some U.S. Army Rangers from Fort Bragg come by today to get a doctor and some nurses for some undisclosed purpose. I got to talk to them a little bit and I don’t think the Haiti tour is their favorite posting so far, but they were pleased that they got to make a difference.

The view of the damaged Haitian presidential palace from the hospital

We had some guys from the International Missions Board communications office come today. They followed several of us around and a few of us got to do interviews. Keep an eye on the IMB Web site and some of the material may be up soon.

We also went walking around downtown Port au Prince with an armed police officer and got to see some of the damage up close and talk and pray with several people. I really wasn’t scared at all until the officer started looking around and told us we needed to go in another direction because this was a very bad part of Port au Prince. I personally had no desire to tour a very bad part of Port au Prince so we took his advice and left.

We went by the Catholic cathedral that was destroyed and the amount of devastation was amazing. Just as we were leaving, this long convoy of cars went by (I mean so close that they almost brushed us). Our guard told us it was the Haitian president.

The Florida Baptist Convention did a small food distribution outside the hospital. The people were truly appreciative but we saw first hand why there are very specific rules in place for our disaster teams. Experienced Haitian pastors were distributing the food but when it ran out the crowd could very easily have turned into a mob.

Fortunately some police pulled up and kept anything from happening, but we were all reminded why we couldn’t randomly hand stuff out. These guys new what they were doing and things still almost got out of hand.

The tent city near the hospital

The CMBH (Confraternite Missionnaire Baptiste dHaiti) house where we are staying is packed tonight. Tomorrow will be pure chaos as two teams that just arrived will be going out for the first time. Please be praying for them because the culture shock from an American hospital to a temporary Haitian hospital is immense. Be praying as they make the transition to being creative and trying to provide as sterile an atmosphere as possible in the midst of absolute filth.

The lady who is heading the hospital right now, Omayra Alvarez, loves Southern Baptist Disaster Relief. She was here several days after the earthquake trying to help a friend from the Dominican Republic find a loved one. She saw the need as the tent city began to grow up in front of the capitol building.

It was Southern Baptist Disaster Relief folks who provided her with the funds to get up and running. Everytime she sees one of our yellow shirts she smiles a mile wide smile. Pray for her as she has been on site since the beginning.

Well, it’s almost 8:30 and I got a little too much sun today so we’d better shut down. We really covet your extensive prayers tomorrow as it is a day of great transition. These are the type of days Satan loves to play havoc with, so please intensify your prayers.