In mid-November, local physician Russ Rentler will lead his 13th medical mission to Haiti.  Russ is a parishioner at St Joseph the Worker in Orefield.  Hearing God’s Call asks for your prayers as he and his team bring medical assistance to the poorest among us.

Dr. Rentler guest-authors this narrative about his work:

In 1996 I made my first medical mission trip to Port-Au-Prince Haiti with my evangelical church. The sights, sounds and smells were overwhelming and I developed a pretty good case of Aristide’s Revenge while there. The roosters crowed all-night long and the sounds of the barking dogs and my grumbling stomach kept me up most of the night. The  poverty of this country was beyond anything I had ever seen or heard of and I felt completely useless not having  modern diagnostic equipment, a laboratory, electricity or clean running water . I looked out the window at the mountains of Haiti as we taxied away on our return to the states and thought “I will never come back here again.”

God has a way of changing our plans and making them His. Shortly after I returned home from my first trip God worked in my heart and I knew I had to go back to Haiti again. In two weeks from today, I will be returning to Port-Au-Prince Haiti for my 13^th trip in as many years with the support of St Joseph the Worker Parish in Orefield and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Doylestown, PA.  We will be working in a Catholic parish, Sts. Simon and Jude, where we started a new medical mission last year. Five years ago my wife and I returned to the Catholic faith we were baptized into, but that is yet another story!  My wife joined me on one of the trips several years ago and as a result she obtained her LPN degree so she could work with me on future trips.  She will be making her fourth trip with me this November 14^th.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.  Only a few hours from the richest nation in the world, the needs there  are tremendous. The majority of patients we see have never seen a doctor and just a few physicians have one very short week to provide the general medical needs of a parish of several hundred families, as well as others in the area who hear about the “blanc medikal” and hurriedly line up to get into the clinic.  Through the generous donations of multiple parishes and individuals we take about 1400 lbs of medications… equivalent to a small portable Rite Aid Pharmacy.

With the grace of God and good translators provided by a Catholic mission in PAP, we attempt to hear the multiple complaints of soft-spoken humble Haitians who have just a few minutes to tell us of their many maladies. There is a fair chance they are also complaining for other family members but we gladly give them as much medicine as we can to match the symptoms and findings we are presented with.

Despite the grinding poverty and the completely devastated countryside, the beauty of Haiti lies in its people and their tremendous faith in the God they trust to provide all their needs. I have always felt that I get much more out of going to Haiti than I could ever give and surely there is no other place in the world that one can be closer to Christ than in His poorest children.  “Whatsover you do for the least of these, that you do unto me.”

Would you join us on this mission by your prayers and offering up your sorrows and difficulties in union with Christ for the sake of his body, our brothers and sisters in Haiti?

Thank you and God bless you.

Russ Rentler, M.D.