Golden Key Member Taking Time to Help Haiti
After the recent disaster in Haiti, Golden Key member Yvette Pegues, from Kennesaw State University, left her home in Georgia for a Haiti Relief Mission trip with First Baptist Church of Woodstock. In regards to the trip, Yvette says, “It was my first mission trip and a God-sized experience that I’ll never forget. It has forever changed who I am and how I see the world. While my team is glad to have made it home safely, it broke our hearts to leave. We left everything we brought with us including medical supplies, food, water and even the clothes on our backs. Fortunately, our church has already launched additional teams with more leaving every week. There is still so much work to do there.”
The church was able to secure assistance from local sponsor SCORE International. There were 32 members of Yvette’s core team that had two assignments. Each team left SCORE for a six or seven-hour drive to their assigned locations. One team went to a church-based (CCPAP) orphanage in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to rebuild the surrounding wall and the other team was sent to the medical center in Jimani, Dominican Republic. The medical property is located just six miles off of the Haiti/DR border and is owned by a local business man who allowed the team to turn it into a relief compound. On the grounds there was the hospital, an orphanage and what we referred to as a chapel. Yvette’s responsibility was to translate French, Creole, English and Spanish at the Medical center for operational patients and their families. Because there were so few translators, she found herself working with the local Department of Health, Department of Census, media members, local and state officials in addition to her triage/intake assignment. Please note, Yvette has absolutely NO medical training or experience. Nevertheless, she was in make-shift operating rooms on several occasions during amputations, wound dressings, child-birthing and more. They helped deliver a set of twins born naturally and later an emergency c-section. They were among her very first live, spectator birthing experiences.
The picture shown is of Yvette getting off of the military owned C-Stallion helicopter that made a few stops at the hospital to airlift some of the acute Haitian patients to Sacred Heart Hospital in North Haiti and to the US Comfort. The medical building is on the left and the orphanage is on the right. The tent city is behind the helicopter. She worked in the medical building for the duration of my stay and made several trips to the Port-au-Prince Airport, returning on a Black Hawk.
Yvette’s story is just one of many regarding Haiti Mission Trips circulating the world and inspiring all of us to do more to help those in need. Golden Key is proud to have her as a member of the Society.
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