Last Night

One of my worst fears as a missionary happened last night. It was one of my worst moments and not as bad as I imagined, all at the same time.

I was with the team of 6 people. We were in the truck, just finished souvenir shopping. I was driving them to the nicest hotel in town for dinner out. While driving from Cyvadier to Cap Lamandou an older woman ran out in front of the truck. I slammed on my brakes, laid on the horn, tried to miss her, but I still hit her. Unfortunately it is a dark part of the road right after Sesanet. To the right of the woman was a moto and to the left was a crowd of people that had spilled into the street. I can still hear the 'thud' and see her in my mind's eye going up on the hood and flying off. I immediately called Danny, who I didn't reach because he was in an important Stateside phone meeting. I then called Mikey. Getting out of the car I saw that a group of Haitian had carried the older woman over to a safer spot. I told the team to stay inside the truck and to not get out.

To say the least, I was terrified. Bluntly saying, a white person hitting a Haitian is not good no matter what the reason. Since moving to Haiti several years ago Danny and I had heard stories of missionaries being mobbed by angry crowd, put in prison for months, beaten, their trucks flipped and burned, etc. I told the woman to stay laying down and talked with her family that was there. I explained that she ran out in front, that I had tried to stop, but could not avoid hitting her. (Thinking back now, I'm surprised that I remembered so much Creole. That was a God-thing, because when I am emotional I forget my Creole.) They were trying to figure out what to do with her. I was told to take her to the hospital. So we loaded her up, I prayed for strength. At this time Lubens, an English speaking Haitian I know, showed up and told me that the family or witnesses were not angry and to just go to the hospital. This helped me a lot. I drove to the hospital, passing Mikey who turned around to follow us. I drove incredibly slow. I was shaking a lot and trying to not hyperventilate. We got to the hospital, St. Michel. At this point, thank God, Mikey took over. He carried the woman in, called in favors after we found out no doctors were there. The woman's face was bleeding and I was afraid of internal injuries from hitting her side or a broken hip because of her age (70). Danny called Pastor Placide to come. Once Danny showed up I broke down. Her family actually tried to comfort me, telling me it wasn't my fault. "Madanm, ou pa bezwen kriye. L' ap pale! L' ap chita! Li pran medikma docte ba'l." (Maam, you don't need to cry. She is talking! She is sitting! She took medicine the doctor gave her!) Pastor talked with the family for several minutes. They said they knew that it wasn't my fault. That we didn't need to call the police and involve them. They said that because of my great driving, I had hit the grandmother, but missed the boy that was following her. They said I didn't need to stay. At this point I left. The doctor did look at the woman and say she is fine. They kept her over night and did some x-rays to make sure that nothing is broken and released her. We covered the cost of everything.

The team that was with me did amazing and immediately listened to everything I said. They prayed for me as I was driving to the hospital. None were injured even with 3 people in the back, they were able to brase themselves knowing what was going to happen and even yelled at the woman to stop.

Please pray for the woman that she will heal quickly.
Please pray for the family.
Please pray for this situation that can become very bad in little time.
Please pray for me. I am shaken up, but doing better.

Praise God for watching over me and the team. For being there in a very scary time. For calming the crowd and helping me to drive safely to the hospital. For helping me remember my Creole.