March 17, 2004

Deliverance

Dear Friends,

I’m not sure if I even glanced up from my patient’s chart when I first became aware of a truck grinding up the hill outside the front of the hospital and entering the town. Vehicles are uncommon in Mombin Crochu on Monday—market day isn’t until Wednesday—but the morning was otherwise sunny and routine. The disorder and killing we had heard were taking place as armed “rebels” occupied several small towns in northeastern Haiti seemed distant and unreal to us in our isolated little town at the end of the bad road. What first really caught my attention was a mounting and sustained rush like a strong wind, and then I realized that people in the street were running, talking loudly, and pointing. I thought maybe they were bringing a severely ill patient to the clinic. Then people were running in the hospital and shouting, and I began to hear the screams from the nearby church school, a high-pitched roar rising in intensity as the men with guns who had dismounted entered each classroom and scattered the children from their desks and out onto the street. Edlise, the hospital secretary, found me in the clinic.“Dr. Paul! Dr. Paul!” She sputtered her Creole amid the rising pandemonium as patients and staff alike began running and shouting, awakening at last to the reality of what was happening. “Don’t stay here!” she called. “Leave! Hurry! Go down to your house!” She shoved the money box into my arms and pushed me toward the back door of the hospital, and I remember deliberately reasoning that this was probably a good time to do as I was told. Joan saw in my eyes as I came in through the main door of our house that what we had talked about and dismissed as unlikely was happening. “They’re here,” I told her. And there was that sound as of the wind.

As it turned out, the rebels did not attack the hospital or hurt any patients or employees. They chased the kids out of the school, burned up the police station, roughed up the judge, and “questioned” a few citizens they thought might be politically important. They mounted back into the bus they had comandeered to make the trip and left town. But they had made their point. “All of you are powerless before us. We have weapons and you will do what we say.” We heard next day that their leader had been killed by his own people.

Joan and I began again to consider our position, as incidents of this kind and far worse were sweeping the small towns of our region, symptoms of the rising revolutionary fervor in the whole of Haiti, and of disruption in the essentials of the society—order and security. We had been receiving news emails fr om our kids—the country was out of control, on the verge of civil war. Now even Mombin Crochu was affected.

Three of the possible four escape routes for us to leave the country were now blocked and under rebel control. We wrestled with concerns about our safety as foreigners, and with fears about abandoning our Haitian friends and co-workers. What about the work we were doing? What was our responsibility to the healing mission of the hospital? We thought about the disciples and Jesus at Gesthemane when the Roman soldiers came. We prayed for guidance.

The decision came clearly, like the ringing of a bell. It was God’s will that we leave Haiti at this time. Our supervisors at PC(USA) affirmed our decision and gave us tremendous logistical help by securing airline tickets for us from Port-au-Prince to the United States. We were able to make a plan with the pilots of Mission Aviation Fellowship to fly us out of the small airstrip which only a few days prior had been the scene of trouble with the gun-toting rebels. We made hasty decisions about what we could reasonably carry—which things were important and which were not. After all, they’re only things. Our Haitian friends and co-workers were supportive and loving, agreeing it was best for us to take an absence while their country was in such turmoil, yet expressing their desire for us to return in better times. A few shed tears, whether at our leaving, or just at the plight of Haiti.

And so God opened for us a path of deliverance from evil in this tragic and troubled little Caribbean nation. Our road trip to the airstrip and the MAF flight met no resistance. Although Port-au-Prince airport was mobbed, a man came out of nowhere and took our cartons to the front of the line. Our tickets were ready. Departure was a few hours late, but we arrived the next day into the loving arms of family in Florida. Breathless, safe, humbled, grateful for the prayers of all, and most of all thankful to our merciful and provident God, who delivers His people, so that He may use them again in His purpose.

Paul and Joan McLain

The 2004 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 136