From Adrianna Bivens’ kitchen window northwest of Wellington (Colorado), there’s a wide vista of farmland, lake and blue, blue sky. It’s a stark contrast to her nine-day “home” in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where she volunteered last month as a registered nurse following the massive earthquake that devastated the country.

In Port-au-Prince, Bivens’ home was a tent. Her team of seven medical responders shared the backyard of a church with hundreds of other people and a cyclone of emergency activity.

A small family of survivors — a mother and her three children — camped under a makeshift shelter consisting of a plywood roof and floor supported by makeshift poles.

A large tent served as a temporary medical clinic, with lines of patients waiting to be seen — most of whom had had no medical treatment since the earthquake.

In the same churchyard, Haitian volunteers operated a soup kitchen for the neighborhood, cooking huge pots of rice, beans and soup daily for 100 to 200 people. Bivens’ team sometimes joined them for this traditional meal.

The little courtyard community had its own goat as well, and a rooster that crowed “good morning” at 3 a.m.

The churchyard was cramped and hectic, yet Bivens insisted she was in “paradise” compared with other medical volunteers. She had a toilet and a place to change her clothes.

And, there was beauty amidst the chaos. Every morning about 5:30, the Tabernacle Gloria de Dios, home to the clinic, held a church service. A choir sang beautiful Haitian music — “such a pleasant thing to wake up to,” Bivens remembered.

Bivens’ medical response team was sponsored by H.E.L.P. International, a faith-based humanitarian aid organization based in Loveland.

A nurse with 37 years of experience, Bivens retired from McKee Medical Center in 2008 and now works part-time at a Loveland clinic. Dr. Tom Bruns of Loveland, with whom she worked previously, recruited her for the volunteer work in Haiti.

“I was passport-ready, and being semi-retired made it easier to go,” Bivens said. “I’ve always wanted to go on a mission, so I didn’t hesitate.”

Nonetheless, it was a very quick pack. She got the call at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday. She spent part of that day at the H.E.L.P. warehouse in Loveland, helping to pack supplies for the Haitian clinic. She showed up at the warehouse again on Wednesday morning, ready to go.

After a flight to Florida, the group boarded a private jet owned by Rick Hendrick of NASCAR fame, who donated its use for medical missions to Haiti.

Upon arrival in Port-au-Prince, the first order of business was to remake the churchyard into a clinic. Because the neighborhood had no other medical facilities, the team saw more than 200 patients its first day, nine days after the quake.

Each hour at the clinic was filled with serious wounds like broken legs, deep gashes and partial amputations of legs and arms. Many patients also suffered from pneumonia and dehydration.

Haitian homes, Bivens explained, are built of cement block, with minimal mortar to hold the walls together. The roofs are made from thick slabs of concrete, so when buildings collapsed on their occupants, the concrete often cut off limbs, fingers and toes.

Because of the concrete, Haitians needed heavy equipment to free victims trapped in the rubble, but such equipment was scarce. One woman treated at the clinic had been buried for 10 days.

The most heartbreaking cases, Bivens said, were children with partial amputations and open wounds. To minimize their pain, the clinic had only ibuprofen and Tylenol. Many babies brought to the clinic were listless and feverish, suffering from high temperatures brought on by dehydration and starvation.

There were no patient beds in the churchyard, so most patients had to be sent home after their wounds were dressed. An immediate concern for the new clinic was finding other medical facilities for patients who needed surgery. The team finally located a clinic about five miles away, and H.E.L.P. director Jean Kaye-Wilson managed to procure rental vehicles for transport. The director “worked miracles,” Bivens said, to solve problems faced by the clinic.

Procuring enough potable water was also a constant challenge. Every other day, the church pastor sent people to the outskirts of the city, where water supplies were not tainted, to fill the clinic’s three containers.

Following each day’s clinic, Bivens’ team transported patients and made “house calls” to streets and alleys. The team cared for one woman who had lain nine days on the ground with multiple pelvic fractures and a broken hip. Bivens was finally able to get her transported to the larger clinic for treatment.

The medical team received help from Haitian nurses and “youth battalions” in official uniform. The youth battalions were similar to scouts in the U.S., Bivens said. They spoke several languages, so they interpreted for the patients and nurses who spoke Haitian Creole.

One day the team visited a Haitian orphanage, whose classroom had been destroyed by the earthquake. Most of the children were uninjured, she said, but they needed “some extra hugs and love” as they recovered from the trauma. Afraid to reenter the cement block buildings, the children slept outside in tents.

The clinic at Tabernacle Gloria de Dios was made possible not only through the generosity of H.E.L.P. but also the ingenuity and dedication of the church pastor, Gerald Batalle. He offered the use of church property for the clinic and also made arrangements to get food from relief agencies. He made sure the distribution of food and medical services was orderly and safe.

Transporting food safely to the churchyard was tricky. To avoid hijacking, volunteers went to distribution sites at night and used covered pickups to hide the food.

Bivens described the Haitians she met as very helpful, kind-spirited people. They are also optimistic about the future, she reported.

“They’re looking for a new and better Haiti to come out of this,” she said. “It’s an uplifting thought, that out of this devastation, the people are finding hope.”

Haiti was Bivens’ first medical mission, but it won’t be the last. Asked whether she would volunteer again, she answered: “Absolutely. When God calls, you say ‘yes.’”

Bivens insists that she gained more from the experience than she gave. The gratitude on the faces of people she helped, she said, more than compensated for her work.

H.E.L.P. International plans to send demolition and rebuilding teams to Haiti, and the organization also hopes to build a tent school for 1,200 children whose school was destroyed. H.E.L.P. welcomes volunteers and donations to assist with those efforts.

Since its founding in 2000, H.E.L.P. has sent aid to 65 countries and has helped with all major disasters, including Hurricane Katrina. For more information about the organization, call 970-481-2531 or visit www.helpint.org .