When school psychologist, Dr. Dave Carter made plans to volunteer in Nigeria, after trips to Haiti in 2007 and 2008, God called him back to Haiti instead after the devastating January 2010 earthquake. Dave shares here how God used him, surprised him, and stretched him to serve 'The Solid Rock' and His children in Haiti.
Our pastor was preaching an excellent sermon from Acts 16. He described how the apostle Paul had planned on a mission trip to Asia but God had other plans. A dream showed Paul that he was not to go to Asia but to Macedonia. A “last minute change.” The best laid plans of a man were diverted for God's purposes.
As the sermon was preached, my wife Sharon gave me several gentle jabs with her elbow and smiled.... “just like you and Haiti” she whispered and then grinned broadly. I understood what she was telling me. I was being “diverted” in my plans too – from three weeks in Nigeria to a month in Haiti.
In 2007, I was called by Christian Reformed World Missions (CRWM) to work at Quisqueya Christian School in Port-Au-Prince. I went on my own and had a wonderful experience doing my work as a school psychologist. I assessed the learning needs of children, wrote reports, and made recommendations to parents and staff. This kind of service is commonly available in schools in North America – but not in Haiti.
In 2008 I returned to do more work with children and also to provide a course for the teachers while my wife helped at the school and accompanied Mary DeKoter, the school nurse, as she worked with sick children in the “ravines” of Port-Au-Prince.
In the summer of 2009 I was asked by CRWM if I would travel to Hillcrest Christian School in Jos, Nigeria to do similar work. I was thrilled to be asked and the plans were made. The month of March, 2010 was “protected” from competing work; we purchased my airline ticket, applied for a visa and got all the shots required.
Then on January 12, 2010 came the news of the earthquake in Haiti. As the news came in, the scope of the disaster got worse and worse... the death toll soared. We sent emails trying to find out if our friends and colleagues in Haiti were alive and well. We saw the pictures of the destruction and pain... and recognized so many places that we had visited. We cried for Haiti and prayed for Haiti. I told my wife “I wish I were a medical doctor or an engineer so they would need me....”
Then, serious rioting broke out in Jos, the school there closed and I was put on “hold”. Within a week I received an email from Steve Hersey, the Director of Quisqueya Christian School. It said “we urgently need you here – to do counselling with our staff and students.” Carol Sybenga at ServiceLink contacted the folks in Nigeria and they agreed that the work there should be delayed and Haiti was my new priority.
There was a scramble to clear my work schedule early, and on February 25 I headed for Port-Au-Prince. Travelling to Fort Pierce, Florida, I had the happy adventure of flying with Missionary Flights International in one of their ancient DC3s into Port-Au-Prince.
My work began. Quisqueya Christian School had withstood the earthquake – in God's providence all buildings were fine, even though severe destruction was all around. Of the almost 300 children in attendance before the quake, 65 remained (most having been evacuated to the US and Canada). Quisqueya School had become a major relief centre. There were as many as 250 doctors and nurses from around the world living there - sleeping on the classroom floors and in tents pitched in the flower beds and being fed from the school's kitchen. U.S. Army command and control soldiers were in the administration building, and dozens of Haitian staff from the school who had lost their homes and many family members also lived there.
The grounds were covered with tents, and the voices of relief workers from around the world could be heard – almost all of them having come in Christ's name. Interpreters were at a premium, and several times I wondered if this was what the day of Pentecost had sounded like.
My month in Haiti was complex and emotional, and I am still sorting through it. To hear the stories of terror and loss, of courage and faith, and to see the massive scale of destruction in the city and to smell the smells of the unrecovered dead were all a challenge. Some surprises were ready for me – I ended up doing three two-hour live radio and T.V. Broadcasts for the Christian broadcasting network “Radio Lumiere.” My first live caller said “...I am in a tent city and my daughter is lying here – both her feet are cut off – what do you say I should tell her?”
Hard questions abound in Haiti and giving answers is at times even harder, but I would not trade this month for anything. I know it was the best month of my life both as a believer and in my profession.
The best part was feeling so close to God. I have been a believer for more than 35 years, but I have never felt so close. Repeatedly He showed me His presence. He showed Himself in the people of Haiti – who struggle to survive and who do not blame God but thank Him for being spared. He was in their courage and their smiles. He was there when I felt too tired to work on – after 15 hour days when I craved my bed but someone needed my time. He spoke to me in the blunt terms a loving father uses... “I called you here to do this work – now get on with it!” I was revived.
I saw miracles. I saw money for drinking water arrive within minutes of it being needed. I heard a child who told me of being trapped in the dark and dust of her collapsed home – who, with her injured mother prayed “God show us a way out” and the next aftershock opened a hole through which they called out for help and were heard. I heard stories of fear and courage, of faith and doubt. I sat in the dirt at a tent hospital and talked with a man who had lost his entire family – three generations - and whose leg was being rebuilt by skilled Christian doctors – who asked if I would pray for him, and when I did and began to gently weep for him, he took my hand and prayed for me.
I taught 55 Haitian pastors about traumatic stress and how to help their congregations. When I was done they asked “permission” to bless me – and did so in 55 loud, strong voices calling out simultaneously for God's blessing upon me and my family back home in Canada.
I heard God's voice in a little girl – who had lost her beloved father when his office building fell on him. When I ended my sessions with her, sitting in the shade of a tree by the basketball court, she looked at me and said “Dr. Carter, may I ask you a question?” “Yes, of course,” and this ten year old girl looked deeply into my eyes and said “...are you afraid to die?” And then we talked about Jesus.
I left Haiti with very mixed emotions. I was happy to return home to my wife and wonderful family. My family who had supported me on a cushion of their prayers. But I looked down on Port-Au-Prince dotted with the blue of tent cities. A country and a people who have been knocked down from their knees onto their faces. A people who are struggling to get back up again. A country that shows remarkable strength and courage. A country where church attendance has soared since the earthquake.
In the first week that I was there, after yet another aftershock, I listened as the people living in tiny shacks in the ravine behind my bedroom spontaneously and strongly sang out “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand... All Other Ground Is Sinking Sand.”
I am so thankful that God sent me to Haiti!
Read Dr. Carter's Haiti 2007 Story
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