The story
Jonathan Graves was at ground zero within days of the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that levelled Port-au-Prince in January 2010, providing emergency medical services with Mission of Hope: Haiti. He remembered it as chaos in every sense: victims, rescue workers, hospitals, and people wandering and crying. "It took the country from bad to worse," he said. "It's trying to get back to bad."
Four years later, from July 5 to 12, 2014, Graves and a team from the Pure Works Foundation EMS SoCal operation returned to provide emergency treatment, medications and general care in coordination with Mission of Hope: Haiti. According to MOH, 96 percent of the country lived without basic medical coverage, and the organization ran mobile clinics in nine villages. Graves, who had worked as a paramedic for 25 years and on medical outreach teams for nearly 20, called it unfinished business: when the 2010 team left, it had felt like abandoning people.
The goal was two-fold: to give medical care, and to make the trip a pioneering effort that began a consistent rotation into Haiti, with a regular medical presence and training for medical professionals in third-world conditions. Not every trip would need a medical team; Graves talked of evangelism trips, vacation Bible schools, teaching, pastoral training and worship. The team sent daily reports home under titles such as "Day 2, 7/8, Emotional and Effective" and "Day 5, 7/11, Keeps Eye on Future". Haiti Missions is one of the funds on the giving page, and a gift to it goes to this work.
More stories and photographs from Haiti are on their way. If you were part of this work, write to us.
