Monday, April 28, 2008

haiti update - april 26, 2008

“ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 1:3,4

Hi! This past week was a busy week with the medical program. We give the Lord thanks that Dieuna Philippe, a 7-month-old hydrocephalus baby traveled to the United States on Saturday morning. A couple of visiting Canadians escorted her to Miami and the host family picked her up from there. One of the visitors grew up in Tillsonburg. The other was from New Brunswick. She was visiting the child she is adopting from His Home for Children here in Port-au-Prince. Dieuna is very fragile. Her condition deteriorated some over the last couple of weeks. Keep her in prayer. Currently she is in hospital receiving care before she will be operated on. Her head is really tight. If not for the opportunity of traveling on Saturday I don’t think that she would have lived much longer. Pray for those who are looking after her and planning her medical care.
On May 2nd the Miami hydrocephalus medical team is coming to Haiti to evaluate hydrocephalus children and select children for surgery. The operations will again be held at Hopital La Paix on Delmas 33. John Charles and his mother who has been staying at our home since January will participate in this process. I hope that he gets selected. Neurologically he is quite active. His father came to visit this week. He brought with him a gift of a sac of charcoal and mangos. These people don’t have much but they wanted to give a gift as a thank you for helping them.
This week we had a clinic here at Coram Deo. 70 children from the community were seen by a visiting doctor and nurse from Florida on Thursday. They provided medicine as well. This doctor and her husband are planning to do mission work full-time here in Haiti starting in 2009. On Friday I brought them to a couple of hospitals and also a local Christian school where their child would attend. Her husband is an anesthesiologist. At the clinic we also shared the gospel message with the families. A devotion and prayer was done before the clinic day opened. This was done by Jn. Eddy Alexandre. We had the Heidelberg Catechism available for those who wanted it. We ended up handing out 50 copies during the day. One woman who was at the clinic with her child had 2 of her children come by the house after they were done school. She asked if they could be seen too. I let them into the yard. Most of the people had already been seen. The boy went to see the doctor and she had this cube on the table, which is called an Evangecube. This cube has pictures, which presents the gospel of Jesus Christ. He was really interested in it and she spoke with him through the translator. They talked a bit and he said that he wanted to follow Jesus Christ. We got the pastor from across the street to come over and pray with him and he invited the boy and his family to attend church on Sunday morning. We give the Lord thanks not only for the medical care and medicines that were provided on this day but also for the “spiritual medicine” that was given that day.
Mario, the boy with the heart problem was discharged on Monday morning and that evening Carole called and asked if I could go to the hospital and find out if they could bring him back in. He was having trouble with his heart again. We were able to see someone and Mario was put back in the hospital. Pray for him as plans are being made by Love a Child to arrange medical care for him in the United States.
We also went early in the week with a couple of missionaries to celebrate the birthday of one of their children at Dominos. Manu, Benson and Jacob went too and enjoyed the food! When we sang happy birthday a UN policeman from Turkey came up to the table and asked us to sing the happy birthday song again. He recorded it on his cell phone and when we were finished he said “God bless you”. Manu also turned 10 years old on Thursday.
Jn. Eddy had some trouble with the school he was working at as a teacher and as a result he will no longer be working there. We give the Lord thanks because now we have our first teacher for the school program. We are keeping him busy working with Junior here at the house. Jn. Eddy is a caring person. His students and others from the school he was at came by to visit and see how he was doing and to give their support. Sometimes a bad thing turns into something good. God is in control of all.
The rice prices are starting to go down a bit on the streets. Now the government is worried that the subsidized rice prices will lead to this cheaper rice being exported outside the country. The subsidized rice price makes rice cheaper than the international market price and this is why the government is concerned. I have been reading that part of the reason for higher food prices is due to farmland being converted to make biofuels in other parts of the world. Corn prices on international markets are higher because there is less corn for consumption. It is being used to make ethanol. Pray that something is done about food controls because this is a big problem not only in Haiti but also in other areas of the world.
19 Haitians drowned off the coast of the Bahamas this past week after the boat they were in capsized. Their goal was to reach the Bahamas and then the United States. This problem of people risking their lives at sea will probably keep increasing as people struggle and look for a better life.
President Preval has proposed Ericq Pierre, who is an economist working at the Inter American Development Bank as the new prime minister of Haiti. His skills as an economist should help in advancing the economy of Haiti. This nomination must be ratified by parliament before he can officially be prime minister.
The problem with criminal gangs in the downtown area still continues. One person was killed and another 12 were shot in less than a week. Pray that the Haitian police and UN can come up with a plan to secure the downtown area.
Around midnight on Friday we had problems again although this time nobody entered the yard. There were a couple knocks at the gate and the dog started barking. We woke up right away and just at that time we got electricity, so we turned on the light to show anybody outside that we were awake. After a while the dog settled down. This week we will be looking at acquiring some barbed wire. We found out some information too about the night when the solar panels were stolen. There were 5 people involved. 2 were on the street in front of our house and 3 were in the yard. That is why I heard noises from the front and in the yard. The dog was kept occupied by the noise at the front while the thieves operated by the side. I am thinking of maybe getting another dog to help with securing the yard. Another thing that happened is that the thieves entered from in the neighbors yard and left by the neighbor’s gate and locked it behind them. The owner of the property next door lives in the United States and has a groundskeeper living there to watch over the property. He didn’t even come out to find out what was going on that evening. I think that the groundskeeper is part of what happened. We are going to contact the owner and let him know what is going on inside his property. Pray for security and that the thieves decide to leave us alone.
That’s all the news for this week. Have a good weekend!

Karen Bultje, Coram Deo

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