photos - medical cases

Angelo Lafortune is now in the United States for a post-op check-up with his neurosurgeon. He needs to be monitored every year to determine if his brain tumor is growing back. He's a friendly boy who has a good family.

Daphka Saintvil has been in the United States for several months already for orthopedic surgery on a deformed lower leg. This is her and her host mother. It is great how these families open up their homes to provide a home away from home for children in need of medical care.

Daphka recently had an additional surgery on her leg. She has an external fixator in place. Pray the bone heals well.

Solyvien Favra had a fractured ankle that was never set and this resulted in a deformity for him.

Because his foot is twisted he walks on the top of his foot. He will need a couple of reconstructive surgeries to set the ankle properly. His father was happy with the news that a doctor and hospital have been found that are donating this care free of charge.

photos - various

This is a picture from the last time that I saw Phara Simeon which was in January 2009. Her hair was turning an orange color from malnutrition. We heard from her family that she died in the province at her family's home. Her mother did the best she could to look after her.

Ketline Andre is a young woman who has one leg that never developed normally. As a result her good leg became crooked to compensate for the differences in leg length. Her spine also developed scoliosis because of the imbalance in leg lengths. She now gets around the best she can.

Manu went shopping downtown the other week for used clothing with Jn. Eddy. The children have worn out most of their clothes and the mice have chewed up a few too! Here he is modeling one of his outfits he picked out.

We received a food donation from Love a Child of Feed My Starving Children rice meals through being part of ODEO. We use these meals to feed the children in the school program here at Coram Deo.

Marie is cooking on a haitian stove.

VIDEO - Praise You In The Storm

Casting Crowns has a song/video entitled "Praise You In The Storm". Our walk with God is not always on easy roads but He is there with us even through the stormiest of storms. Follow the link to:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHdcyue0bSw

haiti update - june 14, 2009

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” John 14:1

Hi! My nephew John is finally getting the opportunity to have surgery for clubbed feet caused by his hydrocephalus. John is 13 years old now. We found him in the abandoned room at General Hospital when he was only a month old. Doctors and other people here in Haiti wrote off John as having no brain and not helpable. My sister Tanya contacted a neurosurgeon in London, Ontario and he was willing to perform surgery to install a shunt and remove the pressure on his brain. This surgeon believes the brain of an infant is very adaptable. At 6 months of age John’s head circumference was 83 cm when he had his first surgery. Now, after a few surgeries his head is around 67 cm and will stay this size. The Shriners are sponsoring his surgery and Tanya, John and my mother travel to Montreal Sunday afternoon by train. The Shriners are paying for transportation, hotel and meals. On Monday he will meet the doctors and Wednesday will be his surgery. Pray that all goes well. John is a talkative boy and enjoys being around people. He has been a part of my sister Tanya’s family since his arrival in Canada 13 years ago.
Daphka Saintvil is a young girl who is currently in Ohio for orthopedic treatment of a deformed leg. She just recently had another operation and now has an external fixator in place. Pray the leg heals well.
The Smile Train plastic surgery team conducted 35 cleft lip/palette surgeries at Bernard Mevs Hospital. On Tuesday one of the plastic surgeons examined Magalie Toussaint. Roberta is trying to find someone to help Magalie. She is a 2-year-old girl with an encephalocele growing between her eyes. This is causing her eyes to be pushed to the side. The plastic surgeon has a contact in Dallas who specializes in this type of surgery. Pray he will agree to do the surgery. The University of Miami plastic surgery team also performed around 30 cleft lip/palette, burn scar surgeries. We give the Lord thanks for this bountiful harvest of surgeries! Another Smile Train team is coming to Haiti in September to the Baptist Mission Hospital. The University of Miami plastic surgery team will be planning another round of surgeries at Hopital La Paix sometime in December coordinated by Project Medishare.
Friday morning was busy making a couple of trips with people who had surgery on the USNS Comfort Hospital ship to the Angel Missions Surgical Center. A team from Maine made post-op evaluations. This Maine medical team was co-ordinated by Angel Missions. On Saturday they did a medical clinic at Roberta’s mission and saw about 100 patients.
Phara Simeon is a young hydrocephalus child and she died at her family’s home in the countryside. She was one of the children who went to the United States for surgery. When she came back to Haiti her head circumference continued to increase and she had a second surgery at Hopital La Paix when the University of Miami Neurosurgery team came in May 2008. When I last saw Phara, her hair was turning an orange color (which is an indicator of malnutrition). Her mother is a good mother who loved her. I am sure that she did her best in taking care of Phara.
Ganna and Aldai are 2 brothers who are friends of the children here at Coram Deo. I usually have to make them leave the yard every evening. Their 21-year-old cousin was robbed downtown and the thief stabbed him in the chest. He died right there on the street. This happened in the middle of the morning and there were people who saw what happened. The onlookers grabbed the thief and held onto him until the police arrived. He is now in prison. Pray for Ganna, Aldai, and the rest of the family.
The student protests continued again this week. Several students were arrested at the end of the prior week and the students concentrated their efforts by protesting near the courthouse area to demand their release. Most of the actions happened during the beginning of the week. On Tuesday afternoon, around the hour when students are heading home after the end of the school day, the state university medical students and their supporters started throwing rocks. A UN vehicle had their windshield damaged and the UN and police were firing tear gas back at the students. This all happened when the streets near General Hospital are the busiest with pedestrian traffic. Young school children and others were in the middle of the tear gas. A journalism student was found dead on the street after being shot by someone. The end of the week was calmer than the beginning of the week. The UN soldiers from India were in front of the Palais National on Friday with their water cannon truck but they didn’t need to use it that day. The students never held a protest in front of the Prime Minister’s residence at the beginning of the week. They stayed downtown protesting for the release of arrested students instead. We saw UN police from China protecting the prime minister’s residence. The Chinese have these personnel vehicles that are very small. There were 5 of them, lined up one after the other, and each one had a UN policeman standing guard in the hatch opening of these small box-like vehicles. There was a photographer taking a picture. It looked like a lineup of “jack-in-the-boxes”! I wish I had a working camera. This would have been a funny photo! The president wants to consult with the business sector first before officially authorizing the new minimum wage laws. Pray for an end to the student protests.
June 14th is the International Day of the Child. Amnesty International reports that there are 500,000 children living in Haiti as domestic servants and living in poor conditions. These children are known as “restaveks” and are modern day slaves. Many poor families will send a child to live with someone with the promise that in return for housekeeping duties they will get an education and regular meals. Instead these children aren’t allowed to go to school and are mistreated. Pray for the plight of the “restaveks” and that this form of slavery will one day end here in Haiti.
Thursday was a national holiday here in Haiti. “Fete Dieu” (God’s Day) is a special “birthday” for God held every year. I think that Haiti is the only country who has this day. Businesses and schools were closed that day.
Exam week officially started Friday but most of the schools will be commencing exam week on Monday (we are too). Coram Deo has been a busy place in the afternoons lately. Between 50 and 70 students outside of Coram Deo come into the yard to use the chalkboards preparing for upcoming exams and also for state exams every day. There are state exams for 6th grade (last year of elementary school), 3rd year of secondary school and also Rheto and Philo, which are the last years of secondary school. Study groups of all these levels get together to prepare for exams. The students themselves form these groups. A few Christian schools in the neighborhood have students in these groups. In the elementary study groups are children from Adoration, Chima and Fraternite Christian schools. In the elementary study groups older student mentors from the secondary levels work with these children to help prepare them for end of year and 6th grade exams. It is great that the grounds can be used to help out other Christian schools in the neighborhood. I hope all this extra studying helps the children get good marks so that they can advance to the next level! We give the Lord thanks for having a large yard to be able to host these study groups and for student mentors willing to work with their peers.
This week I saw how God can touch someone’s heart. One evening this week a Haitian Christian woman who is very active in her church went to sleep and had a dream. In this dream she was told to go to Coram Deo and pray. She woke up in the morning and this was on her heart. She had never heard of Coram Deo and didn’t know who it was and she started asking around. Eventually she found out from someone that Coram Deo was a mission and where it was located. Thursday morning she prepared a letter and came to the gate and the people here at the house brought it to me. She was asking if she could bring a group of people over for prayer. This was set up for Saturday afternoon. 6 members of this church group came over and we got everyone together here at Coram Deo for a prayer service. This was the first time that we met. The service lasted around 1-½ hours. The evangelist spoke and his sermon was about not letting your heart be troubled by what you see and hear and not to be discouraged. Jesus has the last word and He will control everything. They sang some Creole songs with the children too. Before leaving they told us that they would be willing to come over again if we wanted. This might be a good thing to do in the school program for next year. The song that was sang after the message was “To God be the Glory.”
That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo

VIDEO - Smile Train - Cleft Lips/Palettes

The Smile Train has a team of plastic surgeons working at Bernard Mevs Hospital on Airport Rd. They started surgeries on Monday. It is great to see a changed face! Here are a few videos about the Smile Train. These videos show how remarkable the change is to a child's face. Please follow the link to the following sites:

SMILE TRAIN: HAITI
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym4VjW8NGUM&feature=channel

SMILE TRAIN MUSIC VIDEO - 2ND CHANCE
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSelMBXK9zo

SMILE TRAIN - SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5lMG7NyiTY

Pray for the work of this organization here in Haiti as they have the goal of providing surgeries and giving children a better future and also providing surgeon training so that one day Haiti will have surgeons who will perform these surgeries.

VIDEO - In Focus Haiti: House Call in Hell

An american doctor regularly makes visits to the National Penitentiary. The overcrowding of the prison is pretty bad and the conditions not good. This video shows one of his visits to the National Penitentiary. If you would like to watch it follow the link to:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w16InFSd2vc

haiti update - june 7, 2009

“The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.” Proverbs 15:3

Hi! This week was busy with the medical program. We went to the US Consulate to get a medical visa for Angelo Lafortune. He is the young boy who went to the United States a couple of years ago for surgery to remove a brain tumor. He needs to go for follow-up visits every year. His mother will also be traveling with him. They will travel on Monday morning. Pray for traveling mercies and that Angelo has a good checkup! He is a happy boy and enjoys going to school.
There are 2 plastic surgery teams in Port-au-Prince this weekend performing cleft lip and palette surgeries. One of the teams is from the University of Miami and the surgeries are being coordinated by Project Medishare at Hopital La Paix, on Delmas 33. The second is a Smile Train team and they will be operating out of Bernard Mevs Hospital on Airport Road. This is a double blessing! Pray that lots of children get help. We have been providing the breakfast and supper meals for the parents at Hopital La Paix this weekend. It’s great to see children getting their faces changed! This team will also be doing plastic surgeries on burn scars as well. A couple of people cannot extend their elbow because of scar tissue and after surgery will have a fully functional arm again. Handley Lelain is a 4-year-old boy and he will have his cleft palate repaired. We visited Cite Soleil yesterday when we heard that there was a cleft lip case there and some children in the Wharf area of Cite Soleil led us to where the family lived. This young girl is being helped by the surgical team at Bernard Mevs Hospital next Thursday. We had also heard of some people in the Petionville area but haven’t been able to make contact with them yet. Hopefully we can locate them and they can get some help in a future surgery.
We picked up Vanessa of Angel Missions from the airport this week. Next week the surgical cases from the USNS Comfort hospital ship will get post-op evaluations by some visiting doctors at the Angel Missions Surgical Center. The surgical center is still under construction. Pray that construction can be finished and that visiting surgical teams will be able to use this center to help more patients.
Near the end of this month a medical team will be holding 4 medical clinics in different locations. There will be a clinic day held here at Coram Deo, in Cite Soleil, at Pastor Leny’s church on Delmas 19 and at Sherri’s Christian Light Mission. We went with Jim of Christian Light Foundation and Sherri to visit the clinic sites. The team will have 21 members, which means that lots of patients can be seen at the clinic sites. The total mission team has around 50 members. The rest will be organizing vacation bible school and a pastor-training seminar at Pastor Leny’s. They hope to work with 100 Haitian pastors. Pray for all the plans being put in place by this Christian Light team.
This week we saw the determination of a family in seeking out medical care for their children. Tuesday at midnight a father and mother started their walk with their 2 children from a place far in the mountains. They reached our house the next day at 3:00pm. When I went outside they were waiting on the bench and I told them that it was too late to do anything that day. They responded that it was okay. They would wait until the next morning. This family were our visitors for that evening! It is good that our house is a flophouse as well! The father explained that his youngest daughter has been suffering from swelling and this is caused by kwashiorkor (wet malnutrition). It is caused by lack of protein in the diet. Another family had told them about us and this is why they made the journey. This girl is now in the Missionaries of Charity Hospice being treated for malnutrition. Pray for those providing for her care. We gave the family a ride to Petionville and they started back on their return journey home. This family set out on the journey for medical care because they knew of a place to go to for help. But there are many families who don’t know where they can go or where all the missions are that can help them. Sometimes the children in those families die because of malnutrition and/or no medical care. Seeing the family that came to the house this week and reading something a couple of weeks ago in a news magazine from Canada made me think. If a child dies in the situation that is currently going on in Haiti, should the family suffer the judgment of God? Should they be charged with negligence or an investigation launched? I don’t think so. Haiti has such extreme poverty. If a crop is destroyed because of a hurricane, as is often the case here it takes time before another crop can be grown. In the meantime the family doesn’t have funds to purchase food. When their neighbors are also in the same situation they cannot help either. Missions and foreign aid cannot provide 100% of the needs of the people here. There is not enough to go around. Missionaries cannot help every single person who comes to their gate. God sees all and knows the situations of the families living here in Haiti. From afar I don’t think that we have the right to pass judgment on a Haitian family because one of their own dies; especially when the person who is passing judgment lives in a first world country and Haiti is a third world country. Pray for Haiti that one day the country can feed itself and provide medical care for those in need.
We got some good news this week! The electricity sub-station on Delmas is generating electricity again after only one week of blackouts!
The medical students started protesting recently because of curriculum changes. Things have deteriorated in these demonstrations and some of the other students of other faculties have joined them in their protests. It started out as sit-ins at the rectorate demanding that the dean be replaced and curriculum changes be reversed. They started with tire burnings but the last couple of days have been more disorderly. They have been throwing stones at vehicles and they also burned a state vehicle. The police in turn have been firing tear gas and shooting in the air to control them. These demonstrations are primarily taking place in the downtown area near the state hospital. The demands of the students have also grown. Now they are primarily protesting to pressure the government to implement the new minimum wage rates that have been passed by the parliament and senate. The daily minimum wage is to rise from 70gourdes per day ($1.75US) to 200 gourdes per day ($5US). Businesses are against this almost 200% increase in the wage rate. Now these student protests are not really student issues but political issues and others are now involved. The students are throwing rocks at vehicle windshields and at the police and the street children pick them up and toss them back to the students so that they in turn can smash more windows. In this way the students have a continuous supply of rocks. Other people than students are amongst the protesters. One man in the Delmas 31 area usually spends his days passing time by playing dominoes. Now he is no longer in his usual spot but is involved as one of the protesters. He is boasting that he is going to be there with them until everything stops. I guess protesting is more fun than playing dominoes! Hopefully the government can stop the protests from increasing and becoming more troublesome. On Monday protesters plan to walk to the Prime Ministers residence on Bourdon to protest so this will probably cause traffic problems in that area as well. Pray that the government can resolve these issues.
That’s all the news for today. Have a good week!
Karen Bultje, Coram Deo