After The Quake: Patients And Healers
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By Dan Grech and Kenny Malone, with help from Sammy Mack
Dr. David Chan and Jose Iglesias also contributed to this piece.
- Dr. Richard LaMour, a third-year orthopedic surgery resident/ Courtesy of Dr. Dave Pitcher
This piece reconstructs an inspiring moment amid tragedy and pain, at a makeshift hospital tent in Port-au-Prince. In it, four medical professionals from South Florida recount their experience landing in Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake, and struggling to meet a desperate need for medical help.
One describes the situation as “a war zone.” Another describes a feeling of worthlessness, given the scale of the catastrophe.
But then something happens that surprises them: a man begins to play a guitar in the corner of the tent, and patients begin to sing. Soon every Haitian in the tent is singing or clapping or dancing. The song: “Jesus, thank you for loving us.”
For those present, it was a tipping point. Asked for her impressions, physical therapist Carmen Maria Romero says, ”It’s extremely humbling to be around a people that, in the worst time of their life, have it in their hearts to give gratitude for what they have left– which is dust.”
The hospital tent, set up near Port-au-Prince’s crippled airport, was run by the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Jackson Health System and Project Medishare. To learn more about Project Medishare’s ongoing work in Haiti, click here.
The health workers in this story share more about their experiences.
For more from our Haiti episode, click here.
Tags: audio, Dan Grech, Earthquake, Haiti, Kenny Malone, Medical, podcast, Sammy Mack
I had my ‘driveway’ moment this morning with this wonderful piece. Thank you for sharing this work.
This piece tounched me in the most unexpectedly wonderful way… Thank you!
Wow, thank you for this powerful piece. Well done!
You made me weep on my way to the office. And also made realize so many things we take for granted that we should be thankful for. Let’s be thankful for what we have, and hopeful for what we don’t.
Music has an amazing power to transform and unite us, giving us hope in the most dire circumstances. As a worship leader, I am very interested in finding this song to teach my congregation. If anyone knows where I can find it, I would appreciate any information.
Michele, We haven’t been able to find a studio recording of this song, but if you do please let us know. But what that song shows is the extraordinary healing power of faith and music.
Thanks….for your great work.
Very touching, very praiseworthy. Thank you for persevering to bring to the fore this example of the power of music and hope. The Haitian people deserve so much better than they get.
I heard this piece on “The Story” today and was deeply moved. We Americans, myself included, so often complain about petty things rather than remembering the many ways that God has blessed us. I plan to direct many people to your site so they can hear this piece. Thank you for sharing it with us!!
Yes, please spread the word! This is a labor of love for us.
Thank you for all of your comments. We appreciate your listening to Under the Sun. It always means a lot to us when our listeners are moved to leave us feedback.
This was so touching. The power of music and the power of gratitude - so great to be reminded of how blessed we are.
I heard this piece today and was so moved…it shows the spirt and strength of the Haitian people, something I have observed myself. It made me ask: Why am I not more grateful for all I have and why do I focus on what’s wrong in my world rather than what’s right.
Thank you for sharing this humbling piece with me.
I would not have believed that a radio piece could so capture the smell, sight, temperature of a hospital tent in Haiti and plunge me to feel the despair and bewilderment of the medical volunteers as they experienced the pain and suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake. Then to miraculously convey the feeling of hope brought on by one person who understood the healing power of music and of a thankful heart to lift all that despair. I cried and then I raised my face toward heaven and said “Thank you!”
Susan,
When Kenny and I produced this piece, we very intentionally wanted to contrast the smell of the tent when the doctors first arrived with the sound of singing during the moment. We felt that the sensory contrast would enhance the piece — that it would plunge you into the trauma and then the uplift. So we’re glad you noticed!
This piece brought me to tears. Thank you!
Touched? Moved? Take your pick. I was in tears as I drove to work this morning. Great work you did putting this together. Thanks. Some of your listners credited the power of music. To some extent, I agree. However, I doubt that those patients would have responded similarly if pop music was being played. But the name ‘Jesus’ has power to make strange things happen. What a response! Somehow, in this discourse the guy with the guitar seems to be forgotten. However, here is an example of how God can use one ordinary person to touch the lives of others in an extraordinary way.
It’s interesting, because the doctors talked about not understanding the words but knowing the sentiment immediately, almost instinctively.
Incredible. The story was amazing and the way you told it was so powerful. I was moved to tears.
Thank you for sharing the depth and caring that physicians are giving to Haiti and for reminding us that the this work of hope continues in Haiti. I am so humbled by your work and by the ability to hear this report. My mother was from Haiti.
Ann,
Miami doctors, nurses and medical staff have been truly selfless in their dedication to healing the people of Haiti, and we hope that this brief snapshot of their experience brings a greater appreciation for their work. Also, take a listen to the story by Under the Sun’s Niala Boodhoo about the bond between a pediatric surgeon and his nine-year-old patient. It’s aired on All Things Considered.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128470502&ft=1&f=128470502
The piece airs on Under the Sun on July 14.
I was in Haiti around this same time and I had my guitar with me and we sang lots of songs in that tent with others there. Music is such a healer and especially among Haitians. I spent all week walking around, singing favorites, and on occasion my guitar was borrowed and the Haitians would start singing Christian songs as well. I sang a few of these, but din’t know as many as they did. The ones I sang with them were “Tout Baggay Va Byen, Lakay Papa Mwen,” Everything is fine in my father’s house. I also sang Le’m Pa We Soley La, another favorite. You can see my photos here: http://www.facebook.com/mraymus#!/photos.php?id=510909000 Look for the Haiti photo albums.
Also, I have some videos from the tent. Here’s one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLHT4Cq-23s
Enjoy!
Matt
I had the deep and humbling honor of working with the University of Miami Project Medishare physicians,nurses and volunteers at this hospital. Never have I seen a people of such deep faith in God, so resilient, so thankful. I witnessed a woman singing songs of praise to God in a recovery room after her leg had been amputated. I was left to ask myself: how is it that people with so little in the physical sense have so much more than I in the spiriual sense? I am deeply grateful to the people of Haiti for what they gave to me when I sought to serve them. Please do not forget them, for your life will be blessed tenfold for everything you do to help them.
Like so many others, I too, wept while listening to this story. I am the praise worship leader at a Haitian church and am going to play this story on Sunday during the service. Congtratulations on creating such a moving testimony to the people of Haiti.
I asked my friend Kate, who lived in Haiti for years and who is married to a Haitian, what the song is and what the words mean. Here’s what she wrote:
The song is a hymn, “Marvelous, marvelous, my Saviour you’re marvelous. My words are not enough to glorify You. What would I be without Jesus? Now I’m saved. Jesus you deserve all my praise.” (rough translation….) the line they’re singing most is the last one, Jezi ou merite pou’m ba ou glwa (Jesus you deserve all my praise).
Dear Dan and Trina,
This piece is a tremendous testament to the power of “lighting one candle” when it would have been so easy to curse the darkness. Thank you for telling the story with such artistry and insight… I’ve shared this 8minute audio experience with over 300 young adults over the course of 4 nights here in the Los Angeles area. Inevitably someone comes up to get the details so they can hear it again. Good stories are like that, they reveal so much more with each telling. But above all, you allowed the great simplicity of this desperately afflicted people to tear through death’s stench with the confidence of children. I pray that through every darkness we too can say to God, thank you, we know you love us even now.
God bless you.
You have such an motivating blog! Please keep it up! God bless.
I’m conflicted but must get this out. Although, I was born and raised in the U.S., all of my family is Haitian and I have a good understanding of “Haitian-mentality”… This article has pushed me over the top- I am sickened by Haitian people’s obsession with Christianity and their delusion thought they, aside from the worst imagined vicious and gruesome catastrophe, are blessed for Jesus’ love, mercy and salvation?!? Come-on, Please wake-up. There is no excusing such fallace fairy tale. If Haiti’s prior and current condition due to the “earth”quake is Jesus’ love and mercy; watching the little that you have be destroyed before your very eyes, watching your children bleed, starve and die, constant threat of the weather washing-up your pieced together shanty for a “home”, threat of rape, kidnap and death, etc, if that is Jesus’ love I, in MY right mind, wish he’d keep it!
Haitian people, I’m sorry, I love them with all my heart and I have drastically altered my life to try and contribute to the “earth”quake recovery, but my dear Haitian people singing those songs and writing Jesus all over torn Haiti are Crazy. Simply put. But I can not blame them. Look at what they have been through and look at their condition which truth-be-told, with only 2% of promised aid money being delivered; corrupt politics, etc, they show the faintest glimpse of hope. They starve while we Americans, less than 2hrs away by plane, have enough food to have food-fights with live lavishly in comparison. Suffering Haitians have nothing to hold on to physically so they hold on to Jesus. It’s pitiful, upsetting, disappointing, painful and sad.
I commend people that are not just praying for Haitian people but working to help and empower Haitian people. Think tangibly! That’s what they need- Work, food and solidarity not fairy tales.