February 2008: I take my first trip to Haiti & see what a "med clinic" is first-hand. I am in absolute disbelief that there are still places in this world where health care is considered waiting outside in a line in the scorching heat for days upon days to see a physician; where no one feeds you while you are hospitalized, and unless your family brings you food- you go without; where when a physician finally does see you, he writes a script and leaves it next to your bed of what prescription you need but could never in a million years afford, and walks away. My first experience in a med clinic was in St. Marc where I witnessed a little boy in his final days suffering with AIDS. He was completely emaciated and you could see every bone in his body. There were bugs crawling on him, and he just kept staring into my eyes. Kim don't cry. Kim don't let him see you cry. Kim he is suffering beyond human belief, how is your crying going to make the situation any better at all? okay, get it together Kim. What can I do? Let me dig vigorously in my backpack to see what I can give him. yes- that's got to be the answer. I was able to retrieve a punching ball, a blow pop, and a nutri grain bar. Wow- that's all I could come up with? By American standards, that is completely lame. This little boy was thrilled. He smiled so big and was thrilled beyond belief. I held his hand for several minutes and prayed silently over him, and left. The bus ride back to Mariani-Carrefour where the orphange I was volunteering was a long ways away, and the entire ride back I was determined to figure out a way to prevent someone like this little boy from ever having to spend their last days like this. Dr. Franco, the director of the orphanage at the time, made an annoucement on the way home from the hospital that basically went like this, "We need nurses in Haiti. I will open a clinic one day, but I will need nurses to help run it. I want someone to get other nurses in the states interested in coming down to Haiti to volunteer and help out in this clinic....I tell you, nurses can have such a profound impact on a patient's care." There was my answer. I was to quit my job at Channel 3 and go back to nursing school.
That idea seemed great on the ride back but then reality set in. What school would I go to? How would I afford it? I hate sciences (chemistry, biology, ect) how the heck would I pass these classes?
all this doubt streamlined my thought processes. Kim you cannot just quit life and go back to school..you just can't.
The woman who started the orphanage, Eleanor Workman, had everyone who stayed at her orphanage come in for devotion every morning at 5am (yes, I said 5 am). It was very hard to get up when it was pitch dark and you had only gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before. The morning after we visited the medical clinic, Mom Workman (that is the nickname the children gave her) spoke about how with God absolutely anything is possible. She gave specific examples in her own life where the impossible had taken place, and how the only reason we don't see it happen more often in our lives is because we don't let it. We use all our resources available to us in the states, and logic and money, and advice from friends and psychologists that we no longer turn to God for help for anything. Her message felt like it was meant for me, and spoke directly to my heart.
I went home after staying in Haiti about a week and began researching nursing schools. I found an accelerated program at Southern Connecticut State University where you could get a BSN/RN in 12 months! It all sounded amazing, but I was in no way prepared for how difficult the program was going to be. I gave my 2 weeks at work, and decided to go forth with all of this whole-heartedly. I applied as soon as the application was available, and began taking the 8 pre-requisites required to be completed if someone were to be accepted. Several months passed by and I had heard nothing. I began to get discouraged and thought possibly I didn't make the right choice.
I traveled down to Haiti again when I had completed the pre-requisites and was in this waiting period to hear back from school. I went down the first week of January 2010. I stayed after the rest of the team left to head back home, and that is when the earthquake struck. My life would never be the same. I would never know such fear and terror that I did on January 12th, when I felt the earth move beneath me and felt so incredibly helpless. We immediately traveled through the destruction to get back to the orphanage to make sure the kids were okay, including my little guy, and what I saw on the way will be forever engrained in my mind. We drove over dead bodies as if they were speed bumps, and there were people begging me to take their children and help dig out loved ones. I believe I had to have been in a state of shock because I had no reaction to any of this. Upon arriving at the orphanage, all the children were unharmed (again, another absolute miracle since the orphanage was located at the direct epicenter of the earthquake), and my little guy was sleeping in a tent. It was that moment when I found out he was okay that I decided I just had to move forward with trying to adopt him.
Upon returning home, the transition was incredibly difficult. Nothing seemed real, and it was difficult for me to relate to anyone. I was out with my friend Allanah one night, and my phone rang- it was my mother on the other end of the line telling me there was a package in the mail from Southern with my name on it. My heart had never beaten faster. Here was the moment - I told her to open it. She did, and I was accepted into the nursing program. Again, I was in absolute disbelief. This program was incredibly competitive, and I had sacrificed so much just to apply! With the application information was a couple scholarship applications as well that are offered through the University. I immediately jumped on filling them out since I still had no way how to pay for nursing school. The program was so intensive we were all told not to try to hold a job during it, so finances were definitely heavy on my mind. I filled out this entire application without reading the cover page, and then realized the scholarship was strictly for males and minorities. Oh man- do I still hand it in? I showed my dad and I can remember clear as day in my mind: he was toasting a piece of corn bread and getting ready to butter it. I said "hey dad, this scholarship I applied for wasn't really meant for me to fill out...should I still hand it in?" Corn bread pops up out of the toaster, and he begins buttering it. "Kim, what does it say?" Me: "It says it is for males or minorities." He literally starting choking on the corn bread. "Kim, you cannot hand that in- what if one of your future professors gets it...it clearly looks like you cannot read instructions! do not hand that in." I contemplated his comment for a few minutes or so. But then, side note, I began researching adoption in Haiti since I had absolutely fallen in love with this little boy GayePaye at the orphanage. After spending some time researching it, I added up all the expenses and it came to nearly $10,000 to adopt. whoa. And how was I going to pay for nursing school, adoption, and not work? I went back to the scholarship packet, and was reading over the fine print. It said it was for exactly $10,000. Coincidence- I think not. Now I just had to send it out in the mail, I had to. And so I did. I sent the scholarship away in the mail and didn't think twice about it again. I headed back down to Haiti about 2 months later for another volunteer missions trip when my mother called me crying. Oh man...did someone pass away? What did my brothers do? Mom...hello?!?! Her voice cracking, "I opened your mail...YOU GOT THE SCHOLARSHIP!!" I was absolutely speechless. I got the $10,000 scholarship that was going to be a check written in my name that was meant for a male or a minority?? no way. She read the letter to me over and over again and it was all true. She hung it on the bathroom door for my father to see when he woke up after working third shift at work. God is so incredibly faithful, and again, what appeared absolutely impossible financially, became completely possible.
Nursing school started in august of 2010, and it was the toughest year of my life. I was able to travel back and forth to Haiti three times throughout the program, bringing along classmates of mine and helping jump-start the non-profit. And here we are today. I graduated nursing school last Friday, I am in Haiti with one of my classmates, and will have a total of 34 volunteers here by next week. Again, the impossible became possible in what seemed overnight.
I will continue to blog day to day about what is taking place here and what we are trying to accomplish. Please keep the team, myself, all the children here, and Dr. Franco in your prayers.
Hey Kimmie,
ReplyDeleteI love reading your blog updates! So glad to hear that all is going well so far during this installment of your life's adventure.
Be safe. Have fun.
:) Love, K