A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Pulpit

            “I want to go to Haiti with you!” said the voice in the telephone.  I had never met the man and had no idea what he was like.  All I knew was that he was a medical doctor and that he professed to be a Roman Catholic.  

            “Come by my office and let’s talk about it; there are some things I need to tell you.” I said.  We set up a mutually agreeable time and I hung up the phone.  I purposed to find out as much as I could about this man before agreeing for him to come on the trip.

             “Carl, there’s something you should know about us,” I said; “We are Pentecostals. We sing with gusto, we pray with intensity, we worship loudly, we talk in tongues, we pray for miracles of healing, and sometimes we even dance in worship! Some folks would call us downright weird!  Do you think you could handle that?”

            Dr. Carl looked at me and said, “Pastor, I lived in Haiti for twenty years, I think I can handle that.”  Not quite sure that he could, I reluctantly said yes.  I’m sure that my decision was swayed by the fact that I had such a valuable resource in one package in the person of Dr. Carl Butterfield.

            Despite my misgivings, Dr. Carl fit right in with our group of temporary missionaries.  Auto mechanics, carpenters, secretaries, students, lab technicians, various kinds of nurses, and now a medical doctor as well.  Except for a few of us, most of us were ill-suited to staff the medical clinic we intended to provide in the mountains of La Gonave, an island in the Caribbean off the coast of Port au Prince, Haiti.  But, here we were; and somehow we would manage to do what we believed God had called us to do.

     There were not enough donkeys for everybody so the women rode while the chivalrous men walked or led the donkeys up the mountain trail to the little village, which was eagerly awaiting our arrival.

             Over 300 people with various degrees and kinds of sickness were waiting for us.  We unpacked our medicines and quickly arranged the small church building as a makeshift clinic.  On our arrival we had met a young 20-year old pregnant woman who had been in labor for two full days!  Her husband’s face was filled with fear; he feared that he was going to lose his young wife.  He begged us to do something.

            We strung some bed sheets in one corner of the chapel to form a primitive delivery room and dragged a wooden table in to be used as a delivery table.  Meanwhile, Dr. Carl began searching for his medical bag with all his tools. 

            Panic was etched into Carl’s face as he reported to me that he could not find his medical bag with all his tools.   All we could figure was that the bag had been lost or stolen from the “tap-tap” bus on the way to the boat dock that morning.  As the trip organizer I am supposed to be the problem-solver.  Desperately I had to face the fact that I could not solve this problem; I had no idea where the bag might be, or how we could utilize Dr. Carl’s valuable skills on this trip.  If only I had realized that the Real Problem Solver was in control of the situation and was about to show what He could do!

           Just when I thought things could not get any worse, Dr. Carl dropped a bombshell on all of us.  He had performed a pelvic exam on the young woman and reported that it would be impossible for her to give birth except with a C-section. 

“She’s not going to make it unless we do something soon!” Carl said. I thought for a moment, and then reluctantly said, “I’ve been hesitant to mention it, Carl, but I’ve got a pocket knife if you’d like to use it.”

“Get it ready, Pastor, and I’ll go check on how she’s doing.”  He disappeared behind the bed sheet curtains and I began to sharpen my knife.