Timing can be everything, or so it's sometimes said.
Dr. Joe Boyle, a 1983 graduate of St. Mary High School in O'Neill, discovered some truth in those words when he volunteered to help in Haiti after the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Boyle went to Haiti for a week-long stint caring for the injured. He returned to his Colorado Springs, Colo., home with an addition to his family - a son Boyle and his wife, Ann, had been trying to adopt for three years.
When Boyle received an e-mail about volunteering in Haiti, he thought it would be a miracle if his son - 4-year-old Sebastian - could come home with him. He and his wife had been battling one processing delay after another since April of last year when the adoption was finally approved, he said, and were just waiting for a visa to be issued.
But what is usually a six-to-eight week process had turned into almost nine months and the Boyles, while always optimistic, had no reason to believe that process would soon be complete.
Although he knew he'd see his son while in Haiti, providing medical care for the Haitians injured in the earthquake was the focus of this trip. Getting his son home probably would be for another time, he said.
That other time turned out to be a few days later when Boyle arrived back home Jan. 24 with a traveling partner - Sebastian, who was greeted by his mom and introduced to his three siblings - sisters, Katie, 14, and Fritz, 11, and brother, Danny, 7.
And the new Boyle family member is doing just fine, Boyle told the Catholic Voice.
"He was very attached to me while we were in Haiti," Boyle said. "But now he really likes his mom and the kids.
"He's a lot more happy whenever the kids are around."
The adoption process began when the Boyles saw Sebastian - then a 1-year-old - in a photo from the orphanage. Family friends who operated the orphanage for a Christian ministry sent the photo along with a story about the boy's birth mother, who was dying of AIDS.
"We knew as soon as we saw the picture he was our son," Boyle said.
Processing for the adoption was expected to take a year or so when they started, but changes in Haitian law to address the problem of trafficking children, as well as new Homeland Security regulations, made for a much longer process.
Boyle learned he'd be taking Sebastian home late in the week when final approval was granted for a total of 17 children already in process for adoption under terms of what is called humanitarian parole.
He had seen Sebastian throughout the week he was in Haiti since the medical clinic where he volunteered was set up in one of the buildings at the orphanage complex where Sebastian lived.
The same friend who brought Sebastian in the Boyles' life also gave Boyle the opportunity to help in Haiti. His friend was in Florida at the time of the earthquake, raising money for the orphanage.
Learning the orphanage had escaped significant damage, he focused on getting back to Haiti as soon as possible. Day after day, small charter plane trips were cancelled because of air traffic congestion into Haiti. Then he booked a larger plane - 30 passengers - and decided to organize a medical team to help the local residents.
The call went out Jan. 16 to Boyle and others, and by 4 a.m. Jan. 17, they were loading more than two tons of medical supplies and preparing to take off for Port-au-Prince. By the end of that day, they had set up their urgent care in one of the buildings on the orphanage grounds.
In addition to getting the medical operation organized that first day, Boyle said the volunteers toured the area around the orphanage to get an idea of the damages.
That gave them a sense of the magnitude of the destruction, but "we tried to keep focused on the mission of helping people."
And for the next six days, that would be their focus, with the volunteer group treating more than 1,000 patients. In addition to Boyle, a Creighton University School of Medicine graduate who specializes in emergency medicine, the group included one ER resident, an anesthesiologist and nurses, paramedics and a local nurse practitioner. More personnel arrived by midweek, including a podiatrist and an orthopedic surgeon.
While many of the patients came to them, the volunteers also drove out to the tent cities to bring people back to the treatment center. Boyle said the urgent care facility had evolved into a hospital of sorts because they had limited access to the hospitals that were operating.
Most of the people were treated for some type of what Boyle called "crush injuries" to the extremities. Some amputations were required, but battling infection was the biggest challenge.
Access to safe water was limited and dehydration often created and compounded the medical problems, he said.
Boyle, whose parents - Ed and Betty Boyle - live in O'Neill, expects the need for the center to continue for some time. Hundreds of medical personnel are volunteering to serve in the country, he said.
The Haitians were very grateful for the care and offered to help however they could, Boyle said.
"They were always ready to smile and say thank you," he said.
Boyle also smiles about his experience.
"I feel much more at peace today," he wrote in an e-mail that was posted on a St. Mary School Web site. "I appreciate your prayers and support. I am convinced that I am where God wants me to be this week. There is constant and specific prayer here ... and they have been answered faithfully."
The Boyles also had another prayer answered ... Sebastian finally made it home.
