Story and photos by William Haun
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TITANYEN, Haiti – The heat index is 115 degrees. Two Baptist volunteer physicians from North Carolina have spent the last seven hours working with Haitian Dr. Francise Milien to see more than 150 patients in a sweltering clinic.

Each one has only taken one five-minute break to eat a melting peanut butter jelly sandwich.

When asked how she feels at the end of the day, Milien replies with a tired smile.
“I’m happy,” she said. “We saw everybody who has come.”

Titanyen, a small village on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, has seen more than 250 volunteers from North Carolina Baptist Men (NCBM) come and go since the earthquake. Francise and her older sister Dr. Merline Milien have worked with every single one of the 22 teams.

Every weekday they split the volunteers into two teams, Alpha and Omega, and lead them to different locations to hold a medical clinics. They set up in churches, school houses, orphanages, and outside in tent cities using whatever is available: pews, desks, buckets, and tattered tarps.

They have seen over 15,000 patients with ailments ranging from general aches to malaria to elephantiasis.

“What we are doing now is very hard. But it is something we wanted to do six years ago.” Merline said.

Six years ago Merline was in her first year of medical school in Port-au-Prince. Her father, a Baptist pastor in Les Cayes, took $50 a month from his meager salary to pay for her tuition, leaving only $12 a month to cover the rest of the family’s living expenses.

The following year, Francise also felt God calling her to serve the Haitian people as a doctor. She was accepted into medical school, but it was impossible for her parents to pay both sisters’ tuition at the same time.

The sisters give their father credit for teaching them to rely on God – and Francise put that into action when she decided to attend medical school anyway. She prayed daily that God would provide a way to pay off her the mounting bills.

God did provide – through a sponsor in Indiana who gave them both full scholarships to finish medical school.

After they graduated, the two sisters were ready to serve the neediest in their community.

“We really wanted to do free community clinics,” said Merline. They volunteered 7 days a week at a clinic in Titanyen and when they would raise enough money, they would hold free clinics at their father’s church.

When the earthquake hit on Jan. 12, the two immediately rushed to help. Their clinic was destroyed, but the burn center across the street run by Global Outreach International was still intact. They worked tirelessly for nearly three days straight attending to hundreds of critically injured earthquake survivors.

On Jan. 15, the sisters joined the first Baptist medical team that arrived from North Carolina. They worked alongside the American doctors and nurses, helping them to overcome language, cultural, and logistical barriers in the chaotic aftermath of the earthquake.

Five months and 22 teams later, the two are still going strong.

Dr. Fred Loper, Executive Director of the Baptist Medical-Dental Fellowship, worked with the Miliens in mid-May as part of the 22nd NCBM team. That medical team saw a record 1,516 patients in a mere four days – proving that the demand for medical care has not abated six months after the quake.

“They are a source of personal encouragement. They are professional, competent, and highly committed to their people.” said Dr. Loper. “We get to go home at the end of the week, but they continue working.”

Merline admits, “Sometimes I am so tired when I wake up in the morning that I feel I want to cry. I think ‘I cannot do it,’ but I just pray and God gives me the strength to continue.”

The Milien sisters are not the only Haitians joining the Baptist disaster relief volunteers to help rebuild their communities. The construction workers on the 22nd NCBM team were amazed at the number of Haitian believers joining them in their work.

“Every single day 20-25 local volunteers come out to help us build these houses. They aren’t even getting paid!” said volunteer Eder Dadul, a member of First Baptist Church in Mayodan, North Carolina. “It’s a beautiful thing seeing a village come together to rebuild and sing the praises of the Lord.”

Despite the immense need surrounding them, Francise and Merline are also praising God for the help He has sent via the Baptist volunteers.

“We are so grateful for the American volunteers’ help. There is a big job ahead and we need help to help ourselves.”

But Merline hasn’t forgotten a lesson she learned about the true Helper when she had an opportunity to shadow doctors in a hospital in the US.

“They took us into the emergency room,” she recalls. “While we were there a man came in and the doctors tried to save his life. I thought ‘They have all the machines you need to save a person’s life and this man still died!’ God is in control. He decides who lives and who dies.”

She smiles and adds, “I don’t have any machines. All I have is my stethoscope and my two hands. But I am willing to serve and God can use me.”

Get Involved

Want to help Haitian believers like Merline and Francise make a difference in Haiti? Find out how you can get involved through these reputable Baptist organizations:

Baptist Global Response – http://www.gobgr.org/
North Carolina Baptist Men – http://www.baptistsonmission.org/
Baptist Medical-Dental Fellowship – http://www.bmdf.org/

Haiti Story: “God is in Control” is a post from: William Haun Photography, Video, and Web Development

I’m going to be honest. I’m a bit of a Scrooge. I don’t like to spend money. It took one visit to a Georgia State Park after our move from Florida for me to figure out that I’d get the biggest bang for my buck with an annual pass. Little did I know at the time how much of a bang that would be!

With our annual pass hanging from our rear-view mirror, we pulled into Indian Springs State Park on July 17, 2008. A few weeks later we visited Sprewell Bluff, then Georgia Veterans, then Jarrell Plantation, then Panola Mountain… before I knew, it I had gotten my money’s worth. I also got an idea – why not visit all the parks and historic sites before my annual pass runs out?

My son and I began criss-crossing the state visiting one park after another. My wife joined us on weekends when she was not working and we would hit 3-5 parks in just a few days. Road trips to visit our extended family in Tennessee and Florida were planned around what sites we could visit along the way. An entire week of vacation was spent visiting the sites along the Atlantic coast from Savannah to the Florida state line.

After visiting each park, we would post a story and photos on our family blog to allow friends and family to follow our adventures. Several months into the project, my brother-in-law asked me if I was almost done. We must be close, I thought. I pulled out a list of all the parks and started marking off the ones we’d visited – a total of 24. Georgia had 63 State Parks and Historic Sites – we weren’t even halfway.

Road trip after road trip, adventure after adventure, our family got to know our new home state better than we’d ever imagined. We hiked down into the deep gorges of Providence Canyon, we climbed to the peak of Black Rock Mountain, and we explored the salt marshes of Sapelo Island on a grey and foggy day.  We wandered the grounds of New Echota as its trees exploded with autumn colors, we chased little crabs on the shores of Skidaway Island, and we made a movie with big movie stars Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray at Pickett’s Mill Battlefield.

On July 11, 2009, we finished our tour of all 63 State Parks & Historic Sites with a celebration cookout attended by over 30 friends at High Falls State Park. That day’s gathering summed up what the State Park system is all about to me – friends and family from all sorts of backgrounds enjoying each other’s company in the great outdoors with which this state has been blessed. Some of our friends spent time photographing the falls, those with kids enjoyed the playgrounds, a few went hiking along the river, others just socialized around the grill – and everyone had a good time!

State Parks Article Published is a post from: William Haun Photography, Video, and Web Development