In our valley of 50,000 inhabitants there are two hospitals and a motley assortment of physicians and other health care professionals. As the pictures of Haiti on the TV sank in, Dr. Bob (I'm not using real names) felt a calling last week to go help out. His colleague, Dr. Doug, said, "I'll join you." Then they decided they needed more surgeons, so they called over to a surgeon from the Caribbean who works at the other hospital in town. Her nurse answered the phone and said curtly that Dr. Julie could not go. She was too busy.
Five minutes later, Dr. Julie herself called Dr. Bob back. "My nurse doesn't have a clue," she said. "I'm going with you." It turned out that Dr. Julie comes with a bonus: she speaks French.
"Wonderful!" exclaimed Dr. Bob. "Can your partner cover for you while you're gone this next week?"
"No, she can't," said Dr. Julie. "Because she's going to come too."
Other small town miracles fell into place. The pharmacy director at one of the hospitals never carries her cell phone, but on impulse picked it up on Friday morning. As she was shopping on Friday afternoon a call came: "We need you to come over and sign off on $5000 worth of narcotics we're sending with a team going to Haiti." She got back to the pharmacy in time to get the order through and fulfilled so it would be ready to go with the Sunday morning flight.
And so it went. One miracle after another fell in place. The supplies they needed were available in our little valley. Alaska Airlines sold tickets to the group for half price, even though it was last-minute. And they said, "You can check as much supplies as you want into baggage, and we won't charge you." American Airlines is flying them from Florida to Haiti at no cost.
Okay, you can call it coincidence or the generosity of the people of our valley, or airlines looking for good press, but when you pile one thing on top of another, it eventually gets harder and harder to explain away our small town miracles.
So about 30 people showed up at the local airport in the wee hours of this morning to see the doctors check in their luggage, pray for them, and send them off. One of the 8th graders from Husband's school showed up with two big tubes of toothpaste; it's what they use in their nostrils over there to reduce the stench of dead bodies as they breathe. A reporter from our one local paper showed up, as did a couple of guys with video cameras from the one local TV station in the valley.
The doctors will be back next weekend. It will be fascinating to hear "the rest of the story."
I am looking forward to "the rest of the story". These are the people who are needed now and I pray that they will have protection and wisdom in a difficult place.
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