Rachel Zimmerman

It was an innocent Wednesday morning at clinic and I was in the office getting some administrative work done. At breakfast with our Medical Director, I heard wind of an emergency in the clinic. Dr. Mainviel was taking care of it. (I'd just sit in my office, our staff can take care of it, better for me to not get involved). Before too long, he was up in my office asking me if there are any ambulance services I have connections with. Fast Forward to today, Sunday, and here's where I'm at. I live in a world where babies are born falling onto their heads, where mothers don't have help or support in a maternity hospital (underfunded/undersupported, in a slum, overcrowded), where families abandon a family member when her baby dies (of no fault of her own). Where is God in this? Does it help or hurt for a 'foreigner' to get involved? The westerner has a concept of western medicine, of who and what can be saved and protected. My first job out of grad school was i...

There are moments when I talk about Haiti when I light up - inside and out. People can see how passionate I am, how much I love this country, how much I love the community of Onaville, how thrilled I am to be partnering with what God is doing through the Onaville Community Health Center and beyond. My eyes have been opened to how the rest of the world lives and I'll never unsee it and I'll never be the same. How special that God is allowing me to do something He has specifically called me to for this season..something He has hand-picked for me to do. And there are moments, though they are few, when I talk about Haiti to someone who understands Haiti and I express the deep pain I have experienced and the need for healing and rest I am so desperate for. I choke up and cry and can't even begin to express the way my heart feels. The suffering and loss I've seen, the pain I've seen, the injustice I've seen. The loss I've felt, the confusion I feel when I try to...

I want to tell you a story. We hear so many times about what goes wrong in Haiti. The atrocities of the developing world. Some of us live more closely to it than others. We hear of children being sold to orphanages for $70 US. We hear of babies, children, adults dying because of lack of medical care and lack of access. We hear of hospitals shut down and on strike for 5 months at a time. We hear of a mother killing her own new baby because her baby is starving and the mom is destitute, out of options, and has lost hope. We hear of well meaning families from around the world adopting children who have a mom and a dad here in Haiti. We hear of orphanage directors (local or expat) abusing children, even killing them, and working the system to benefit. We hear of an economy that is struggling and yet many NGOs import all of their resources rather than supporting the local economy here. We hear of mothers not breast feeding their children because of a lack of education. We hear of ...

This world that we live in is ripping me up. I can't imagine how God feels because He sees it all and knows it all. I see just a pin point of the world's suffering and it's enough to spiral me into a depression. I live in this world where children are sent to orphanges because their parents can't pay for an education. These desperate parents don't understand the vast consequences of their actions. I live in this world where 'orphanage directors' often known as 'pastors' pay for children to live in their orphange, traffic children, and exploit children to attract white people to partner with their orphange in order to make money. I live in a world where people are not able to get adequate healthcare and are turned away from hospitals in the midst of labor, severe trauma, when they are dying or simply 'not sick enough.' I live in a world where two girls in the orphange close to me are severely malnourished, sad, depressed, and chronical...

Last week was confusing, to say the least. I have a lot of confusing weeks in Haiti but this one was extra weird.  Sunday afternoon, October 2nd, we started gearing up for Hurricane Matthew, the Category 4 hurricane to make landfall in the middle of the night on Monday night with anticipated devastation throughout Haiti. Haiti is the size of the state of Massachusetts. It was a small country on the western third of the Island of Hispaniola. There are roughly 10 million people who inhabit this island.  I think because Haiti is so small, the media portrayed the Hurricane as hitting the entire country, and in all fairness, the entire country was within the path of the hurricane. Also, not many outside of Haiti know the geography of the country or where I live (a distant suburb northeast of Port au Prince). Photo Credit:  http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3753352 I was overwhelmed by the concern of friends and family and acquaintances in the s...

What to do when you feel alone and need someone to fight for you? This past year has been quite a balance of fighting my way through but also falling into the arms of God and allowing him to fight the battles for me. I wrote this blog to process many of the times I've felt alone and wanted someone or a group of people to come through in a situation. I needed to have some time between moving here and hiring an entire clinic staff and starting a clinic. I needed some time.... I needed you to fire the employee when he stole thousands from us. I needed to be protected and valued... I needed you to tell me I was doing a good job in the midst of the transition and the position I held that was more than 3 people could handle. I needed you to recognize the non-stop effort. I needed you to be culturally sensitive to me. Here I was trying my darndest to be the most sensitive person I could possibly be to avoid offending anyone and getting called a 'hypocrite' and...

A friend messaged me recently and kindly mentioned that she thinks of me when she’s taking hot showers. It was sweet and I’m glad that I’m thought of (sometimes it feels like you’re forgotten on the mission field from your former life, friends, etc). But it also got me thinking…. Thinking about the troubles on the mission field and the daily struggles that I face. It is not a lack of hot showers. I don’t think, ponder, or waste time with thoughts about my cold shower. I don’t mind the shower. I don’t mind the ‘physical discomforts’ if you can call them that. I don’t often (sometimes I do) think about the things I’m missing out on from my previous life (good food, starbucks, being able to pick up a smoothie at the corner). The things that I do think about, talk about, that do keep me up at night: ·          Relationships : just like the relationships that you have at home are complex and challenging, cross-cultural relationships can be cha...