Displaying Christ’s love through medical clinics in Haiti

By Gabrielle Stokes, Go Now missionary

I served in Grand-Goave, Haiti for a week. We were setting up mobile medical clinics in remote villages as many do not get healthcare when they live.

Encouraging families

Nelson is a 4-year-old boy who came into our clinic this week. He was someone we weren’t scheduled to see, but God gave us time and the means to see him. He and his grandma waited most of the day to see us.

He was 4-years-old and weighed 20 pounds (he was TINY). His grandma said he wasn’t able to eat anything for the past 8 days, that he kept throwing everything up. Our supervisor determined that he needed to have an IV placed, and while it was placed Nelson was squirming and it became infiltrated and we had to take it out. Our supervisor, Jenny, immediately scooped up Nelson and just 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. It was such a sweet time to encourage and love on her and Nelson.

We determined he had a parasite and he was referred to a doctor in town and is hopefully doing better!

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 that we were able to surround his grandma and him with the love of Christ and serve them.

Tending to spiritual needs

Kimberlie is a 14-year-old girl we saw at our Wednesday 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. Someone to talk with her and someone to listen and validate her. She needed to make sure she was “okay” and affirmed by another human. We got to talk with her for awhile (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, 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.

It seems so small, but she has been on my heart since we saw her and I’ve been wondering how she is doing. God did not place her there by accident. He allowed her to come and be heard and listened to and loved by her sisters in Christ and it was such a sweet time. It made me wonder how much she really gets that from people around her and how blessed I was that God knew she was coming and set us there for a divine encounter. I loved every second of it.

Being the Body of Christ

When we got to Haiti, we had about a two-hour drive from Port Au Prince to Grand-Goave, where we lived for the week. It was a fantastic time to quickly learn the culture and pray for the people here. Haiti is another level of poverty. It’s almost 10 years post earthquake and honestly, it looks almost the same. The people are living in 4x4 shacks with a family of 8-10 on average. Can you imagine? There’s trash everywhere, 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 they were loving life. Throughout the week we got to ask people about all what we saw and they would tell us, “life is hard but God is good. We have everything we need.”

These people need the body of Christ to come and serve them. These are our brothers and sisters in need and I am blessed to have spent a week providing them with medical care that they can’t get anywhere else. God taught me and those people this week the importance of the body of Christ and allowed me and my team to show them the face of Jesus through the medical clinics. God taught me and the Haitians that all we need is Him and we should be totally content in Him.