“Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” Psalm 62:8
Hi! It’s been a busy couple of weeks with visitors! My parents and Rick and Anje Boer came in on October 13th and stayed until October 23rd. It was good to spend some time with family. They brought lots of nice clothes that were donated by people at church for the children as well as towels, washcloths and vitamins. We now have a year’s supply of toothpaste! This is a real blessing. Even the children in the school program got to enjoy eating candy. Thanks to everyone who donated supplies for everyone here at Coram Deo. I kept everybody busy doing some repairs while they were here. The kitchen table was fixed. It was getting a little wobbly because the termites had eaten through one of the legs so now there is a brace in place to make it sturdier. Anje made some cushions to fit on the couch and chair. The outside kitchen had repairs made to the sink and table and the back outside rooms were painted as well as the metal doors, front gate and Marie’s hut. Rick and my father worked on the pick-up truck. Kimosabee has had some difficulties lately. The air conditioning doesn’t want to work (it needs another fan and motor). They removed it and will try to get a replacement in Canada. One of the rear automatic windows now works for the first time in 2 years! Some other repairs were made too. We have been having a run of flat tires lately but no flats while my parents were here. A couple of weeks ago one of the tires almost fell off while we were driving on Airport Road after the tire changer forgot to tighten the bolts. We are going to have to plan in the future to buy some more tires as these ones are starting to wear.
It wasn’t all work while they were here. We met with Pastor Charles Almicy. He had spoken at Rick and Anje’s church while visiting Canada in September. We drove out to his mission compound out in Cabaret. It is a large compound and a lot of building has been done out there. Inside this compound there is a church, mission team guesthouse, orphanage, school and a couple of other buildings. They were affected by last year’s flooding and are still replacing outside walls and a bridge. Pray for their efforts as they serve in the Cabaret community. We made a trip up the mountain to the Baptist Mission, Fort Jacques and to Boutillier to see the sights. There is a good view of Port-au-Prince from there. October 17th was a holiday here in Haiti. It commemorates the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian leader whose forces defeated Napoleans’ army for Haiti’s independance. He died in an area called Pont Rouge, which is near the lower area of Delmas. The holiday fell on a Saturday and we usually go for vegetables at the large downtown market. We brought Anje along to show her the area but got stopped by the palace police. They told us to take a different way. President Preval was in the area. The detour road had heavy traffic and we didn’t want to wait in the traffic jam and turned around. It was a surprise to see 2 men on horseback at Carrefour Aviation. They were dressed in costume from the early 1800’s and one was dressed up to represent Dessalines. They were stopped at the traffic light. I wish that I had my camera with me. It would have made a great photo! We made a visit to the village of Bonnette to meet Paulna’s family and some of the other people we know from that village. Paulna’s family had several turkeys running by their house and I asked Paulna if we could take the largest one home for a thanksgiving dinner. She wouldn’t let us. Instead we went to MegaMart and bought a frozen turkey that was imported from the United States. We had a Haitian thanksgiving dinner on Sunday. It was a Haitian Thanksgiving because the turkey pan that we bought had a hole in it and we ended up chopping up the turkey to make it fit into another pan to finish cooking. The visitors even got the opportunity to experience shooting on the street corner. Saturday at midnight everybody was awakened by 4 gunshots near the front of the house. There was a motorcycle too. We listened for awhile and everything was quiet. It’s a good thing that the UN Security Council voted to extend the peacekeeping mission in Haiti for another year. The UN authorized that the number of soldiers be reduced by 120 to 6,940 and the number of UN police be increased by 120 to 2,211.
We visited the abandoned children’s ward at General Hospital. My mother wanted to see where her adopted grandchild John came from. I have never seen that room so packed with children. There were 34 children inside the room and they were crammed inside the beds. Some had 3 and 4 children to one small bed. One crib had 4 small children packed in like sardines. They couldn’t move around if they wanted to. The problem of the abandonment of children is a growing one in Haiti and the government can’t keep up. There are not very many orphanages willing to accept handicapped children. We left the room and my mother wanted to take every child out. Pray for the work of missions with handicapped children and that more missionaries would help them out. The government does not have the facilities or resources to help out the children that are abandoned.
For the last 3 days of my family’s visit and until today I was also chauffeur to a medical team of family medicine doctors from Maine and Kez who were doing medical clinics with Angel Missions. They held a couple of clinics at Dr. Joey’s clinic in the Delmas 31/33 area, Cite Soleil, Wings of Hope orphanage in Fermathe and the ravine on Delmas 31 by Sherri’s mission. They helped lots of people in their time here. We also visited General Hospital with them on Sunday afternoon. Some of the children had been removed from the abandoned ward and we didn’t see 4 children to a bed like it was a few days before. There were still children sharing a small bed though. One boy was on an iv and he was not in good shape. A young handicapped girl who couldn’t move had her head lying next to his backside and diarrhea from the boy was starting to go near her head. I changed her position. We visited the rest of the pediatrics ward and met some of the Haitian medical interns. They were busy dealing with all the cases. One of the babies who had died earlier was in a crib in the hallway covered in a sheet. Another area of pediatrics is what looks like a neo-natal area but it is not functioning well. At least a dozen incubators are tossed unused in a corner of a room. We saw a woman holding a premature infant born at 7 months sitting on a bench. The baby was tiny and couldn’t have weighed more than a couple of pounds. This baby could have used one of those incubators. We also visited the maternity building and then walked over to the surgery building. In General Hospital there are only a few functioning operating rooms and all departments in the hospital need to use these rooms. As a result people can wait in their hospital beds sometimes for one month waiting for a surgery slot. One man we saw was curled up in pain with a hernia that needed surgery. He told us that he was supposed to have had surgery the prior day. Hopefully he doesn’t die from a strangulated hernia before he gets his surgery. We were walking down the hallway and a woman came up to me holding a photo of her son who looked to be in his late teens/early twenties. She told me that someone had poured gasoline on her son and then lit him on fire. Both his legs were completely covered in burns. I went to the room with the mother and there was a set of double doors. The room was air-conditioned. This room was the burn room. It was good to see that the hospital is trying to make the room as sterile as possible. I am going to visit him later in the week. If this young man survives he will probably be needing plastic surgery in the future on his burn scars. Future plastic surgery teams may be able to help him. Pray for this young man as he fights to live and for his mother as she tries to find help for him. We went up to the pediatric surgery room and the families there showed us 2 children who had been abandoned by their parents. The other parents in the room were helping to look after them. One baby was abandoned because it was born with a cleft lip. The other had already had surgery for a colostomy. Pray that an orphanage can be found to help these 2 babies. Pray for Haitian society to change their thoughts that a handicapped child is a curse.
That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo
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