April 28, 2010: John Welcome knows the meaning of service. Germany was his home while serving in the US armed forces. He currently serves as Chaplain with his local fire department and volunteers with Hospice. He has participated in countless Hope Force disaster response operations across the country and most recently in Haiti. “I’ve seen carnage before,” John says, reflecting on his recent trip to Haiti. “As a volunteer fireman we see all sorts of automobile wrecks, fires, emergency situations. But Haiti was extreme – the destruction was on a scale I had never seen before.”

John was part of the Hope Force group of Chaplains sent to the University of Miami hospital at the Port-au-Prince airport in April. After being set up as an emergency response medical facility in response to January’s devastating earthquake, the “tent city” now serves as a general hospital serving not only the needs of those suffering from the aftermath of the earthquake but also providing services for Haiti’s daily medical needs. John assisted incoming patients during his time at the hospital along with spending time with children and adults in the various hospital wards.

“The Lord has a way of giving you the capacity to work in such extreme circumstances,” he explains. “It is possible to become incapacitated by the overwhelming feelings of compassion when you see such suffering. But God has a way of allowing a means of separating oneself from the situation so that you can do your job while at the same time still show compassion and care. Despite the challenging situations in which we found ourselves, we felt that the trip went unusually well. I would attribute this to the weeks of dedicated prayer and preparation we put in before departure.”

The hospital facility itself was quite primitive although the equipment and personnel allowed a world-class delivery of healing and care. Inside the tents, plywood covered the ground to act as a “floor” and outside was nothing more than a layer of gravel with occasional wooden walkways. The facility’s characteristics paralleled those of the Haitian people – straightforward individuals with extreme resilience. “Their strength was one thing that stood out to me,” says John. “One family brought in a girl who was able to do nothing more than stare into space. The doctors determined that she was brain-dead and there was nothing they could do for her. They live in a tent city. I was able to minister compassion to them while they were at the hospital but afterwards, they had no option but to go “home” and somehow find the means to care for this dear girl.”

John found the medical staff to be remarkably effective despite the numerous ethnic and national backgrounds from which they came and the short-term nature of the work. Even though John is a veteran Hope Force Reservist, it was still a physically and mentally taxing experience. Would he go back? “In a heartbeat” he says, with no reservation.