After spending two weeks in Haiti helping residents injured from the devastating January earthquake, Megha Vansadia says she has no reason to complain anymore.

“After I came back, I don’t ever complain,” she said. “So many things we take for granted, they are so grateful for.”

Vansadia’s journey to Haiti began after a friend who had spent time in the country told her the need was “dire.”

“My friend called and literally said, ‘You’re going to Haiti!’ I said, Okay, great!”

Vansadia, 29, of Magnolia, holds a bachelor’s degree in health sciences and a master’s degree in occupational therapy from Texas Woman’s University.

She works as an in-home occupational therapist for children with special needs, helping them to be as independent as possible.

Along with a group of three other women in the medical field, Vansadia began her trip through the Christian-based mission group Advantage Haiti Aug. 1.

The group met in Miami, and they fit “like hand in glove,” she said. “God really worked that out.”

After flying into Port-au-Prince, where Vansadia recalled being able to see vast amounts of tents from the plane, the group made their way to Les Cayes, a city where “they make do with everything,” she said.

Some structures are still standing in Les Cayes, a neighboring city of Port-au-Prince that suffered aftershocks and fires during the earthquake. The group’s mission was to help rehabilitate patients in the Centre de Sante Lumiere (CSL) hospital.

Vansadia focused on wound care, in order to help the patients get stronger so they could withstand prosthetic limbs.

A typical day began at 7 a.m. with prayer, after which Vansadia said they then “hit the floor running,” with wound care, prosthetics and therapy. The days usually ended around 6 p.m., after which additional paperwork had to be finished.

She estimated that 65 percent of the patients the group saw had earthquake-related injuries, while the rest were strokes or accident-related injuries.

Vansadia said anesthesia was in such low supply, some of the injured had to have limbs sawed off with nothing other than alcohol to drink for the pain, because infection and maggots were quickly getting to them.

Even in the midst of such devastation, Vansadia said she would hear residents singing throughout the day – inside and outside – and at night.

“They’re praying, worshipping God, praying and thanking him,” she said. “It’s remarkable.”

She said the patients she treated never complained and barely flinched in pain when doing therapy.

“They have every reason to be angry,” she said. “To see them so resilient and strong, they were worshipping God, praising him. I’ve never seen that before.”

During the two-week mission, the group often had to withstand light and water outages, but she said they learned to work with what they had.

“You make things work to get done what you need to get done,” she said.

Now back in Texas, Vansadia called her time spent there “a blessing.”

“We did nothing compared to how they enriched our lives,” she said. “I feel like I received more than I gave.”

Vansadia said she is making plans to go on another mission to Haiti in February and is trying to raise money to make the trip.

“They have so much hope in Jesus that is beyond words,” she said of the Haitian people. “They know God hasn’t forgotten them.”

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