“Like a bad tooth or a lame foot is reliance on the unfaithful in times of trouble.” Proverbs 25:19
Hi! This has been a challenging week to find fuel for the pickup truck! There is a fuel shortage in Haiti since the end of the year. There are a lot of theories as to why but the results are long lineups at gas pumps by those seeking to purchase fuel. It is a challenge to find the gas pump that has fuel. The fuel in the truck was almost empty and we had made plans to visit a couple of places with some visitors from the United States and Canada. Monday afternoon nothing was open and I talked with an attendant at a gas station in the Delmas 19 area. He told me to get there early Tuesday morning and he would make sure I got diesel. I went out at 5:30 in the morning on Tuesday and there was already a large lineup at the pumps for vehicles waiting for gas. We went up to the attendant with our containers and the manager specially opened the pump just for us and after a couple of trips back to the vehicle we were able to get the truck filled with diesel fuel. It is good to have contacts in Haiti! The other people waiting weren’t pleased with us and some of them told me to go back to my own country but I showed them the container and said it was diesel we were after and not gas. A Haitian pastor that was in line that knew us told the people that we use the pickup truck to help people get medical care and then the insults quieted down. Some people are blaming Venezuela because they aren’t sending fuel tankers to Haiti quick enough, some people are saying the government is low on funds and can’t pay for the tanker and others say that the low gas prices are too low for the owners and they don’t want to sell at the lower price and more money is being made on the black market. Hopefully the fuel shortage stops soon.
We visited Cite Soleil on Tuesday morning. One of the visitors, Anita, is a pediatric resident and she examined a few children from Willy and Joel’s school who had medical problems. Cite Soleil has 34 districts. The school is in the wharf area. We also visited the Ti-Haiti district. This area is along the shore and the people live in tin shacks. One woman showed an area where her burnt out shack was. She is staying with friends until she can build another shack again. The children there were happy to see the visitors. Pray for the people who live in Cite Soleil in difficult circumstances.
In the afternoon we visited Bonnett, the village that Paulna is from. We checked up on a couple of families that we knew to see how they were doing. Instead of tin shacks the visitors got to see how the rural Haitian people live. Most of the houses in Bonnett are “kay pays” (mud/stick houses with thatch roofs). There were some children with malnutrition in the village. Anita examined a few of the children in this village as well. We left the village late in the afternoon.
Chrisno Jeudi is returning to Haiti this weekend after his surgery in Virginia for hydrocephalus several months ago. He has made good progress. A custom designed brace was designed for him to help him support his head and back. This will also help him in building strength in his legs for standing and eventually walking. We give the Lord thanks for these healing mercies. There were a couple of news stories this week about Chrisno. If you want to see a couple of news videos they are at the following sites: www.wset.com/news/stories/0109/586419.html and at www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=9689016. Chrisno is a happy little boy! Today Lukner is on his way to get Chrisno’s parents to Port-au-Prince. They are in Camp Perrin, which is in the Southwest area of the country. The last time I spoke with Lukner the bus was in a gas line at a fuel pump so it might take him a while to get there. Pray for traveling mercies for Lukner, Chrisno’s family and Vanessa, who is escorting Chrisno back to Haiti.
The Smile Train will be co-coordinating cleft lip/palette surgeries at the Baptist Mission Hospital in Fermathe at the end of February. Patient evaluations will be done on February 28th and surgeries will be performed by a plastic surgery medical team on the following days. Pray for the plans being put in place by this team and that lots of patients can be helped. We will register Samuel Jean and Yvenson Joseph for these surgeries. They missed out on the last plastic surgeries because of ill health.
A father came to the house this week with his one-year-old girl. The mother died a couple of months ago and he is not able to raise her. He asked for help in finding an orphanage and wants to put her up for adoption. Pray we can find an orphanage that can help this father out. Jimmy Jean and his mother visited the house this week and brought something for me. Jimmy was the boy who recently had plastic surgery on a burn scar on his upper chest and shoulder. He has more mobility in his shoulder now and the surgical site is healing well. When I came out of the house to see her she showed me a basket covered in a cloth. She said that she had a surprise. The first thing I thought was that it was another abandoned baby but when she pulled back the cloth it was several bunches of bananas that she had brought as a gift of thanks. Everybody enjoyed eating them!
This week I was at HIS Home for Children to give Chris a package from an adoptive parent and I was able to see Grace Hope, the baby who was abandoned in the Delmas 31 area a few months ago. She is a healthy and content baby and has a great smile. Chris also has found an adoptive family for her in the United States. Pray for Grace Hope and the other children at the orphanage and that the adoption process goes well for the adoptive family.
The school program at Coram Deo has started the second semester again and the afternoons are also busy with outside students being tutored and study groups using the chalkboards. The yard finally empties out when evening comes.
The Governor General of Canada, Michaelle Jean is in Haiti right now for a 4-day visit. Haiti is Canada’s biggest development assistance beneficiary in the Americas, and the second largest in the world after Afghanistan. Haiti is in a continuing need of assistance. Haiti’s economy shrank 15% in 2008.
That’s all the news for today. Have a good weekend!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo
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