Medical laboratories are unheard of in many parts of Haiti.  Sick people in remote hillside hamlets and big city slums often must walk for hours, even days to have diagnoses confirmed at certified medical labs.  Many are just too sick to attempt the difficult journey.  Those who do may not survive the ordeal. 

 “That’s why we were so excited when we learned of the Laboratory-in-a-Suitcase. At just 65 lbs, it can go anywhere,” smiled American Baptist International Ministries’ special assistant and former missionary, Herb Rogers.  Rogers is an expert on the matter.  As a certified clinical laboratory scientist and licensed medical technologist, Rogers worked in med tech and served as an IM missionary in Haiti from 1974 to 2003.

 In late October 2011 while serving as a special assistant in the IM home office in Valley Forge, PA, Rogers returned to Haiti with a team of volunteers from Lifepointe Church in Texas, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Church, to put the Laboratory-in-a-Suitcase to the test.  Rogers, together with a medical doctor, nurse and several healthcare professionals and a translator, boarded a beat-up old truck for a dusty, bumpy one-hour-plus drive and hike into a remote hamlet in Haiti. 

 For two days they confirmed diagnoses and treated over 100 sick children, women and men who have illnesses and chronic conditions that are routinely and successfully treated in the U.S., including anemia, parasites and hypertension.  But without proper treatment in Haiti these common illnesses can easily and quickly lead to death.  The Laboratory-in-a-Suitcase was able to analyze blood, urine and stool samples, helping the doctors to make accurate diagnoses.

 Rogers is grateful to the medical volunteers who served alongside him during this trip.  “Without the open and sacrificial hearts of our volunteers in Haiti, our Haitian brothers and sisters would have to walk many miles to get care.  The suffering would be great and many would die,” summarized Rogers.

 The Laboratory-in-a-Suitcase is a product of International Aid, an independent missionary aid organization specializing in medical equipment and technology.

 To find out more about IM’s global volunteer program and how you can use your skills and gifts to serve, go to http://www.internationalministries.org/topics/volunteers.