“Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.” John 12:26
Hi! This week was a busy one with the medical program. On Wednesday a medical clinic was held in Cite Soleil. Dr. Ed and a team from New Hampshire saw and treated 225 patients and 20 dental cases. Patients ranged in age from the very young to the elderly. One of the cases that came to the clinic was brought there by wheelbarrow. An elderly woman had a swollen leg from an infection in her foot and was in a lot of pain. The people who pushed her in the wheelbarrow made her as comfortable as possible. They had placed pillows under her to cushion her journey. When they arrived at the clinic they didn’t have a ticket and said that they had come with the hope of finding medical care. After last weeks incident at Wharf Jeremie having no choice but to leave a dying man behind in a wheelbarrow we were happy to be able to wheel her to the front to get care. After examining her and providing the family with medications they pushed her back home in the wheelbarrow. The clinic was held at the Maranatha church, which is on the main road of Cite Soleil. Pastor Enoch is the pastor there and encourages having medical clinics at the church. Members of “Action Chretienne Pour Le Developpement” organized the clinic day and they did a good job. The people in the neighborhood always ask when the next clinic will be. There is a great need for medical care inside Cite Soleil. We give the Lord thanks for people willing to enter Cite Soleil to hold medical clinics. The Maranatha church recently put up a new tin roof. The other roof was leaky due to the bullet holes in the tin. The church received a new coat of paint recently too. There is still evidence of bullet holes in the cement walls from the “bad times” but the changes made freshened up the look of the church. After the clinic was over we visited the Ti-Ayiti area, which is at the back part of Cite Soleil by the sea. A couple of the young men we know there asked to keep them in prayer. Their names are “Zulu” and “Fouchay”. It is a tough situation there for young people. The gang influence is strong as they see others resort to crime to put money into their pockets. Pray for youth programs to be set up inside Cite Soleil. There are a couple changes that have been made within Cite Soleil. The extension of Rte. 9, which runs through Cite Soleil, has recently been completed and is now known as “Boulevard American”. The police station in the Wharf area that was destroyed several years ago is now almost rebuilt. This sub-station in the back part of Cite Soleil will help to improve security there.
We are in the beginning of the new year 2010 and for some people the new year is one of difficulties. A mother came to the house with her 3-year-old son who was handicapped. She was looking for an orphanage to place him in, as she couldn’t care for him. Her husband died before Christmas from appendicitis and didn’t survive the surgery. He had always provided enough for the family for a roof over their head, pay for schooling for the children and food. Now a widow, this mother didn’t know what to do. She has 3 children and was in the process of being evicted from where she lived. She came looking for a place to put her children. She thought that if someone would take in her children she could look for work and get back on her feet again. It is parents like this suffering mother who sometimes make desperate and not very wise decisions.
This week along the Dominican Republic border in the northwest part of Haiti, Dominican soldiers stopped a Haitian man as he was trying to smuggle 6 children between the ages of 4-12 into the Dominican Republic. They were walking in a mountainous area. A soldier heard the voice of a child crying. The soldiers searched and found the group of children walking with a Haitian man. A 4-year-old boy was crying because he was cold and hungry. The children were walking barefoot and were poorly clothed. The Haitian child trafficker that was arrested said that he did this at the request of the parents as they were in despair because of the hunger they were suffering in Haiti. They thought that if their children could reach the Dominican Republic they would have a better life and future. The children were handed over to Haitian authorities. Pray for those who start the new year 2010 with difficulties.
The last couple of weeks we have seen how much of a struggle it is for the elderly here in Haiti as well. Pastor Octave, who has the church across the street from us came to us on Friday and asked if we could help him. One of the elderly members of the church was sick. He had visited her the prior day to pray with her and he noticed how sick she was. He asked if we could bring her to the Home for the Dying, which is run by the Missionaries of Charity on Delmas 18. She has 5 grown children and her husband died last year. She is very frail and one of her sons carried her to the truck. When we arrived at the Home for the Dying the gatekeeper said that they couldn’t help her. We suggested to the family to bring her to General Hospital. They didn’t have funds available so we ended up bringing her back to her home. While we were driving home she told the family members who were with her to bring her out to Belle Anse so that she could die there. Pray for this woman and her family. Pray also that financial support would increase in such a way for Coram Deo that we would be able to help out more people who have no way of paying for medical care.
We are preparing for the arrival of a mission team led by my cousin Jeff. 7 people will be arriving on Wednesday. Pray for traveling mercies and that they don’t get stopped by snowstorms in Canada. We are getting the house ready for them. The last couple of weeks the stove hasn’t been working and hopefully we can get it fixed before their arrival. We have been cooking Haitian style on our charcoal “rechauds” outside.
We need to organize another rat/mouse hunt through the house too. Marie and Paulna got a head start on the mouse hunting this week. In the hut that they share they have been watching the development of some “special mice” inside a cardboard box. When the mice started walking around they decided it was time to eliminate them. These special mice were “Siamese Mice” that were attached at the hip/tail. I didn’t know that they existed until it was too late. Manu and Benson came up to me near the end of the week and announced the death of some special mice. I went out to talk to Marie and she explained about the Siamese mice. She said that they met a quick end as when she emptied them out of the box one mouse wanted to go left and the other one wanted to go right and because they were attached they ended up going nowhere. I told her that she ruined a perfect fundraising opportunity for the mission and that we could have gone around the neighborhood charging people money to see the rare Siamese mice. I wanted to take a photo to at least show the Siamese mice on my blog but she said that wouldn’t be possible. Between the dog’s teeth and her stomping foot there wasn’t much left to show. I took a look and she was right. Marie did say though that while she and Paulna were watching the development of the Siamese mice the outside leg grew larger to compensate for the leg that was attached at the hip. I knew then that the story was true.
That is all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo
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