@ The Coffee Company, Lancaster PA

(m.) Megan: Chai Tea Latte

(e.) Erik: House Blend

You: (grab a hot drink and enjoy the conversation!)

Brief Background:

Erik travelled to Haiti with Megan, a Registered Nurse, a few years ago. Erik describes the trip as interesting and exciting and included being in the midst of political turmoil, civil unrest which brought with it: “black hawk helicopters, UN tents, and an armed guard escort, but I’m dying to go back!”

Interview:

e.

I’m here to talk with Megan about her work in Haiti; she has continued to go back and was actually there before our trip…get her views on passion and global awareness. So first of all, Megan, the most important question - we always like to start off with

the most important question

: if you were a breakfast cereal, what breakfast cereal would you be and why?

m.

Wow! I didn’t prep for that question. Maybe a fruit loop, enough said.

e.

That’s…yes. I could see that!

m.

We’ll leave it at that. Colorful, fun, always a good time.

e.

Always a good time! Different every bite! ..So first off Megan, why Haiti?

m.

It’s a valid question; I have to say Haiti wasn’t even on my radar before the earthquake happened two years ago. I mean I always had a heart for missions; I always had a heart for specifically going internationally to third world countries and things like that. But really, I didn’t have a whole lot of experience. I had been to Africa once and it spoke volumes to me, but there wasn’t this connection. And after the earthquake, literally the day after the earthquake when I was in the Intensive Care Unit I started calling red cross and started calling a lot of other disaster relief organizations looking at a way to get down to Haiti. And when God actually made that a possibility months -months later in September - 24 hours after I had been there it was almost like this epiphany. I just knew that that was my calling in life and why I was created and that I would serve forever down there.

e.

Yeah, I should have mentioned this earlier, but Megan is a Registered Nurse and so her trips down to Haiti have been primarily for medical reasons. Tell us about some other things you have done down in Haiti as a nurse…a little background.

m.

Things I have done as a nurse in Haiti…well, the hospital that you and I traveled to is exactly that, an established 75-bed hospital and might be slightly higher than that that has been around for the past 30 years. And so that provides me opportunities to work in much more structured hospital setting, with the ICU’s and the ORs, PACU which is where you go to recover from your surgery and things like that. So I’ve done the typical “nursing stuff”, but then also working out with the earthquake victims in the MASH style tents, army tents, the cholera tents which you were - wow I can’t believe that that was actually your first experience with me because cholera is something that I think about now daily. I’ve helped with machete wound victims and now the organization I work with we lead just basic clinics - no established hospital. We just triage patients, bring them in, see what they’re suffering from and try to treat them and send them back out into the community.

e.

Wow, that’s great. How many times have you been down to Haiti now?

m.

I’ve been five, my sixth trip will happen in two weeks and my seventh trip will happen two weeks after I get home from that.

e.

Wow! So you can tell that Megan is completely committed to the people of Haiti. So after your first trip and actually any of your trips, how would you say your life is different now? Here in the states when your back here, do you look at life different, do you look at driving cars different or commercialism – all that other stuff, how do you view life now differently?

m.

Being in Haiti has touched every aspect of my life; there is not one thing that has not changed. I view who I am as a person and my role and responsibilities, not just as a Christian, but just as one person to another person living on this planet that we share. That my neighbors are not the ones that have a house beside me, but my neighbors are across the continent and the way that I am a consumer, the way that I conduct myself, the choices that I make, the president that I vote for, that all greatly impacts those that will be nameless and faceless for my whole life. But that matters! It doesn’t matter if they are actually in my “realm of reality” or not, everything that I do actually does make an impact and I’m not saying that in an egotistical way - just in an awareness, there’s a huge awareness, even in a hospital setting. I no longer go and grab a bag of IV fluids and take that for granted. I don’t think I take anything for granted anymore and I feel incredibly blessed by the opportunities that I have and that’s why it’s even more important to me to serve and to help raise levels of awareness to everybody else who haven’t had a chance to volunteer to serve and maybe don’t feel that call.

e.

Yeah, I don’t look at a bottle of Gatorade the same way…

m.

Or a bottle of bleach…

e.

…or a bottle of bleach! I mean just in dealing with the folks down there with cholera and the fact that people die from dehydration and Gatorade can save their life and we have Gatorade in abundance in every store that you pull into to get gas - it’s eye-opening. You mentioned, briefly, politics and how you’re time in Haiti affects everything - even who you vote for and right now that’s a big issue right now in the country, the debates were last night…you know one of the hot topics right now is health care in our country. How do you respond to people who say, you know, because I’ve heard this: why do you go to Haiti when there’s stuff to be done here, I mean there are health care needs right here in our own community so why do you go hop on a plane to go to Haiti when there are people here that need your help?

m.

yeah I’ve wrestled with that question a lot because I’ve been asked that very question multiple times and my immediate reaction is because I am called to go. Some of us are called to be in Lancaster County, some of us are called to be in Africa, I think we all have callings. My calling is Haiti without a doubt, but having said that it kind of reflects back to my earlier statement too, that I view the world as my neighbor so when Jesus is calling me to serve my neighbor: do unto these…the least of these - all of that, I see the Haitian as my neighbor, I see that person in India caught up in a sex trafficking ring as my neighbor. And I am just blessed and lucky enough to be in a country that I have to sort of make the first move because I’m the one that can buy that plane ticket and go. And yes, definitely, there are a lot of needs that are happening right in our homes and churches and I don’t diminish those at all and I’d like to say that I am still aware of those and trying to partner in a lot of those areas as well, but for me this is just what I’ve been called to.

e.

Can you think of a specific instance or person maybe you met in Haiti that focused your perspective a little better, or what it just Haiti in general? Can you think of one specific moment of that epiphany where you’re down there?

m.

I think it was the first 24 hours, the first patient that I really got a chance to interact with. It was our second day technically in Haiti - we’d already landed and had gotten a tour of the compounds and the hospital grounds the previous day and that next morning its seven, eight o’clock in the morning and I’m seeing this frail Haitian man being wheeled back , in a wheelchair, being wheeled back into tent city where the quake victims were housed and he looks fairly unclean, fairly unkempt and he’s got an amputated leg wrapped in, we call it “chuck”, it’s this like blue absorbent pad, and he’s got a full-length catheter that his urine is draining into. And just kind of looking at him, I’m like what’s going on with his leg here? So the Haitian nurse wheels him back into his bed and I go over and remove the pad and there’s just a stump, not to be completely graphic, but wide-open, sutures open, it looks like it was just hacked off yesterday, the flies are landing on it and I’m telling you it was that moment that I was like I will serve here because there is such a vast need - he needs something! I got to be honest, a couple days later he went unresponsive and ended up actually not making it which really I struggled with that for a long time and still do. A lot of the situations you see down there and a lot of the people you meet you get a chance to have a relationship with who maybe are facing a fate that they wouldn’t have to necessarily face if they lived in a better part of the world. They had won that lottery at birth that so many people sort of talk about.

e.

How’s your time in Haiti and your commitment to the Haitian people - how does that change your view of success?

m.

Hmmm, that’s a nice question! Let me think about that for a second. You know, I guess I don’t view success as that American dream, 2.5 kids, white-picket fence, air conditioning, luxury car, you know that’s not – you’ve seen what I drive, I mean it’s clearly not what I’m living – my success is being the person that I want to be. Last year I started this little motto that just sort of continued to run around my head: live intentionally. Am I living the way, and in alignment with, the values that I say are most important to me. And being in Haiti helps me to honestly pursue that. Because that is the person I want to be, that is what is most important to me and that is where I feel most connected to who God created me to be.

e.

That’s awesome! May I steal your motto?

m.

Live intentionally?! Absolutely! Please! Let’s get bumper stickers!

e.

Alright – you heard it right here, start now… Couple last questions: what would you tell somebody who wants to make a difference but is scared to take that first step? Because obviously there was a point you talked about seeing the effects of the earthquake and feeling immediately like you wanted to do something, but I’m sure, and I know, when we first talked about me going there’s that moment where you’re like ok, can I do this? And me going as a non-medical person and you know because we talked about it, I’m like, what am I going to do? Why am I doing this? And I use that as an excuse to go: maybe this isn’t a good idea; maybe I shouldn’t leave my family to go to Haiti where things are scary and unknown. So what do you say to that person who’s like they want so bad to make a difference in the world they want to go to Haiti, they want to go to Africa, they want to go next door but are kind of struggling with the fear?

m.

I think at some point you just have to grasp that 20 seconds of just insane bravery and just do it. I’ve got to be honest, especially after the riots that you and I went through, and better understanding the turmoil that happens in a lot of third world countries I have a level of apprehension every time I go to Haiti, that doesn’t diminish the fact that I want to be there, that doesn’t diminish my passion and my excitement to be there, but I have an even better understanding now. That “ignorance is bliss” - well that all kind of blew up on that second trip, I understood fully what I was getting myself involved with. So I would say to people that you need to kind of just grab it and go with it – it’s part of that living intentionally, if that’s the person you want to be then you need to be that person regardless of what the world’s telling you, or what obstacles you can find to use as excuses. Some of the greatest blessings that I’ve received in Haiti have been from my team members and so sometimes I think that when we want to go and serve we’re wondering what do I have as a tangible gift, offering that I can bring to someone else? In June I had a bunch of young girls with me – high school and college students - and as I triaged in the orphanage the blessing to me that day were the girls that could play with the orphans. And they would have said well, I don’t have anything I can do, I’m not medically trained and I’m just a high school student and I’m just whatever, well sometimes it’s a total blessing to be the nurse and have that medical background, but at the same time I’m sort of committed to when I see somebody that’s hurting and having a need I want to work in that capacity, but that day those kids didn’t care if they were getting de-wormed or medicine, they wanted somebody to come play with them and let them crawl all over them and be the human jungle gym and when I looked over and saw the girls doing that with the kids - that part that I couldn’t do myself, that spoke volumes to me. Everybody’s got something, something to give.

e.

That’s great! Alright, last question: what do people need to know about Haiti, right now? Because it’s kind of fallen out of the news a bit, the earthquake a couple years gone, cholera hasn’t quite splashed on the news as much anymore - so what do people need to know about what’s going on in Haiti right now?

m.

Life hasn’t changed in Haiti. It is the poorest country in the western hemisphere, it’s the size of Maryland and from a medical standpoint they have 2.5 doctors to every 10,000 people only slightly better with 8 nurses to every 10,000 people. There will be a need forever and I think when we start talking about the need we also have to understand that we need to start approaching it with the mindset of sustainability and to make sure that were not just throwing money at a situation or band-aiding a situation. And Haiti is my thing and maybe that’s not somebody else’s’ but there’s countries everywhere that could be doing more, there’s a lot of countries that need clean drinking water. And Haiti doesn’t always make it onto the front page news anymore unless maybe there’s political unrest and the negative stuff splashes across the pages occasionally but there’s needs there and the Haitians know that they’ve sort of fallen out of the front page news for the world. And cholera has killed 7,000 people so far and that’s only the numbers that are actually getting reported and that may or may not be an accurate number - probably isn’t, I’m sure it’s much higher. Haiti didn’t have cholera two years ago. Did not have it in the country and it will be there forever. There’s a need in Haiti just like there’s a need in a lot of different places and that’s why I do encourage people to go, to see, to travel, to experience, to make it a part of their life.

e.

That’s great! Thank you so much, Megan, for meeting me here and sipping on some beverages and chatting!

m.

Thanks for having me here!

e.

Last thing: any organizations that you’re working with that you want to put a plug in for?

m.

So the organization I’m currently partnering with is lifeconnectionmission.org. It’s a small organization and the great thing with them is that they’re not just medically based. So I really can take people who are interested in the medical field or interested in just hanging out with some Haitians, seeing it for themselves. They have a school of 500 kids, they do sponsorships, they have a church, they are doing these medical clinics. It’s a great organization that encompasses a lot of different areas that they are trying to touch people’s lives in Haiti. You can always reach me at

megan@lifeconnectionmission.com

if you want to get in touch!

e.

Great, that’s awesome! And if you have any questions that you want to ask Megan feel free to email her or you can email us at

TheAuthenticityProject@gmail.com

and we will definitely pass on your questions to Megan. So, thanks again Megan!

m.

Thanks for having me!

The Authenticity Project