Monday, November 16, 2009

haiti update - november 15, 2009

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe.” Proverbs 18:10

Hi! This week was a week of surprises! The cleft lip/colostomy baby was released from the pediatric surgical floor at General Hospital on Thursday and is now being cared for by Hal and Chris Nungester and staff at HIS Home for Children. It took some planning and paperwork by social workers at the hospital and at Bien Etre Social (Haiti Social Services) before Mangui could be released. In the end the director of Bien Etre Social was the one who officially declared Mangui abandoned and allowed him to leave the hospital. His name is officially “Marcos Giovanni”, a good Italian name! An adoptive couple has already been found. The husband was born with a cleft lip and his wife has a colostomy. This couple is ideally suited to adopt Marcos. We give the Lord thanks for all those who have come into Mangui’s (Marcos) path. Chris didn’t even have to pick him up from the hospital. Bien Etre Social brought him to their house. Another surprise is that an orphanage has been found for the other colostomy baby, Marvens who was the other baby abandoned on the pediatric surgical floor. Bien Etre Social brought him too to the orphanage that will now be responsible for his care. Thank you for your prayers for these two babies. They now have a home.
Kimosabee had some service work done last weekend (oil, fuel filter changed and u-joint replaced on the drive shaft). Monday morning, we were all set for a busy day driving around and the truck wouldn’t start. The tester showed the battery was discharged. I called the mechanic who serviced it and told him the truck wouldn’t start and he responded that there is something wrong with the battery. I told him that was strange because before it was serviced Kimosabee never had any trouble starting in the morning. We had no choice but to buy another battery. Next time I’ll make an identification mark on the battery so that I will know if it gets removed and switched with a bad battery. This happens a lot here in Haiti. Instead of driving we took a tap-tap over to Tabarre to change Jonel’s dressing and when we were in the tap-tap we met a mother and her 3-year-old girl. They had just come in the prior day from Jeremie and were seeking medical care. This girl was born with a deformed hand that sort of looks like a foot. They were going to the Nos Petits Freres et Soeurs Children’s Hospital on Tabarre. I told the mother that if they couldn’t help her to come and see us. A couple of days later I received a phone call and they weren’t able to find medical care at the hospital and they will be coming to the house next week. I wasn’t frustrated with the mechanic anymore after seeing this girl. I concluded that God wanted Kimosabee not to start so that I could meet this family on the tap-tap! Sometimes you can see the providence of God and how He has his own plan for what He wants us to do.
Our Sunday security guard (we don’t have one for the other days of the week) was sick. He was one of the people who benefited from the medical team from Canada that was at Adoration Christian School on Monday and Tuesday. He was diagnosed with malaria and was provided with medicine. He is now feeling better and ready to take his post with baseball bat in hand again! It was good that a lot of people in the community could get medical care from this team. This wasn’t the only team that was holding clinics this past week. Mission Services International comes to Haiti twice a year with medical teams and they held 6 clinics. They were able to help 2,000 people at all the clinic sites and they even had extra medicines that they gave us at the end as well as clothing, washcloths, Lubriderm skin cream for Manu and peanut butter! The teams come from churches in the Kentucky area. There were 35 people on this team and they also did evangelism and VBS activities with the children at these clinics. Pray for their efforts as well. It is great when medical teams come to Haiti to hold clinics!
On Thursday I went with Patty to take her adopted daughter Valerie, to pick up her medical report for the visa interview downtown. They live in the upper Delmas area and we decided to take Delmas 60. Traffic was backed up at Rue Pan-American and we decided on plan B and went up to Petionville. It was strange that traffic was busy going up to Petionville and when we reached the Canape Vert road traffic was backed up there too. I have never seen traffic backed up that far to head downtown and then we decided on plan C and went down to lower Delmas and took Delmas 18 to the Cathedral area. There was hardly any traffic there. We got to the doctor’s office and picked up the medical report. On the way back we took another detour by the Delmas 18 area and ended up with a flat tire but we finally made it back home. The next day I read in the news that the university students downtown were protesting and burned tires on Ave. Christophe and that traffic was paralyzed. That sure was a good word to describe the traffic jams! It’s amazing what burning tires can do to traffic circulation! The CIMO (swat police) broke up the demonstration and when the fire department didn’t show up they put out the tire fires themselves with buckets of water.
A hydrocephalus child was abandoned at Dr. Joey’s clinic this week. We know this child and his mother. Carmilo was born with an already developed hydrocephalus and was delivered c-section. He had a ventriculoscopy surgery from the Miami team but the head continued to grow. Carmilo is now around 2 years old and his head has grown to be very large. His mother is a young mother. She was raped in the Carrefour Marin area when she was 15 years old, which resulted in the pregnancy with Carmilo. She has done her best to provide for him but it got to the point where she decided she couldn’t do it anymore and left him at the clinic. He is now with another mission. Pray for their efforts. It is a difficult task as his head is so large. He may be able to get surgery this coming week. The Miami Neurosurgery Team will be doing hydrocephalus surgeries at Hopital La Paix on Delmas 33 starting on November 18th. Pray for all those who will be receiving surgery to treat their hydrocephalus. These surgeries give the mothers hope for their children and an end to suffering in some cases. Shania Reme is one example. She was born in February 2002 and had surgery to place a shunt in June 2002. This was before the involvement of the Miami neurosurgery team. Dr. Seino, a Cuban neurosurgeon performed the surgery over at Bernard Mevs Hospital. Shania has done well since her surgery and now is 7 years old and is walking, talking and going to school. You can hardly notice that she has hydrocephalus. It is good to see these success stories. When I first came to Haiti it was almost a 100% death rate for hydrocephalus babies and now with opportunities for surgery we see children surviving. Pray for the neurosurgery team and that more surgeries can be done in the future. Pray for Haitian neurosurgeons to be trained so that more hydrocephalus children may be helped.
A premature baby born at 7 months was brought to Dorothy, at Faith, Hope, Love Infant Rescue. He weighs only 2 pounds and is very tiny. The baby is from Gonaives and the mother is only 13 years old. The grandmother is with the baby. On Saturday morning we drove them to General Hospital in search of an incubator. Because the baby had been born one week ago he didn’t qualify for an incubator and is now in the pediatric emergency room with other children. The doctor says the chances for survival are very low. Pray for this baby and for strength for the grandmother as she sits with him in the hospital. It was an interesting trip driving to the hospital with Dorothy, grandmother and baby. When we reached the stoplight by the intersection of the Champ Mars public park we saw a man run by our truck heading in the opposite direction. Then we saw a couple of policemen running too in a different direction. We were wondering what they were running after and then saw two guys running through the park. The police gave up the chase quickly. It wasn’t serious because the police made no efforts to shoot to stop them. The light turned green and we went forward. At least it wasn’t a boring traffic stop!
That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo

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