Thursday

Just dropping a quick note tonight. Another great day at the clinic. We have really settled into a rhythm in the clinic. It was fun to watch the third year students taking charge more and more and the second year student getting more involved. The clinician were able to step back more and only consult as needed. 

God's hand continues to be at work from team members giving away their own shoes to meet needs to another team member praying over a  Vudu priestess in Jesus' name. 

Prayer requested tonight

- safe travels forJessica L, Josh, Vlad, Jordan, April, Jake, Kelli C, and Jesse as they will be traveling to a new site and staying overnight. The rest if the team will follow on Saturday.  

- energy to finish the last clinic day. 

- a smooth and efficient finish and equipment packing time. 

Traveling home

The main group (everyone except Vladimyr who is staying a couple more days) is checked in at Port-Au-Prince and waiting in our flight to Atlanta.  The team is tired but everyone is well. Pray for safe travel home. 

Wednesday photos

Wednesday

Wednesday. 

A small group of us were able to go back to Mephibosheth Orphanage to deliver pediatric wheelchairs with the hope of being able to adjust and fit some of the children in the chairs. The trip to the orphanage turned into about a 2 hour tap-tap (Haitian taxi) in order to get there and, at least for me, frustrations began to arise. But as soon as we arrived and I saw the smiles of the kids, those frustrations and selfish thoughts completely washed away. God had a plan and knew exactly what the children would need. We picked out a chair for the first child, Stephenson, and we did not even need to make any adjustments! Stephenson had never been in a wheelchair before, yet he was able to climb up in the chair figure out the breaks and how to move around in it all on his own. God is SO good! We continued working with what we had and in the end 5 of the kids (Dadoo, Kiki, Stephenson, Eugina, and Sarah)  had a wheelchair or walker. The joy on the faces of these 5 kids is something I will never forget. They were so excited to have a means to get around other than crawling on the ground and you can bet they will never let the wheelchairs out of their sight. :) We were all brought to tears as we prayed before we left. We know that these kids are loved and we pray that we will be able to, one day, walk with them in Heaven.

-Jamie 

Today, I was paired with Vladimyr and we worked on all sorts of patients. This afternoon we saw a lady who came in with joint pain in her shoulder, knee, and ankle due to "The Fever." Usually we give these patients a few exercises to practice at home but there is not a whole lot we can do. However, Vlad decided to do a few joint mobilizations before she left.  He started on her shoulder and after a few minutes the lady was laying there just saying over and over "thank you Jesus." Then she told us that her pain had gone away and was moving her shoulder. He moved to her ankle and she could barely pay attention to what he was saying because she was amazed by her shoulder and was still moving it around. What we thought would be a quick session turned into an hour. The lady left basically pain free. She even got up from the table a few times throughout the session to give Vlad hugs and kisses saying, "thank you Jesus." Today was a success! God is good :)

-Katie T.

Yesterday, a man came through that had more pain than anyone I think that I have ever seen. We pretty quickly determined that his pain was likely an infection in his abdomen and nothing that we could help with, so we referred him to the Zion clinic that we have been sending a lot of people to. The catch was that he had to make it within 15 minutes, so we asked our go to guy, Ryan if the man could take a tap-tap to the clinic, and The Lord orchestrated it so that I was on lunch duty that day. Lunch duty people ride the tap tap back to the house, so I got to be in the same tap tap with him before when he was in so much pain and after he left having received meds and blood work. He looked so much better! I was amazed and relieved. The tap-tap was taking him home and dropping us off at the clinic, and as I was getting out he grabbed my arm, and in English he said, "thank you so much, and God bless you!" I was definitely blessed by those words and by the opportunity just to be here. It was very encouraging to realize that he understood that it was God! It's been said and I'll say it again, God is so so good!!! To Him be all the glory forever and ever!

- Cortney 

Please continue to pray for us

- pray for continues strength, energy and health

- pray for hearts to continue to be softened

- pray for continued safety and good rest each night

- pray a prayer for thanks for God showing him mighty hand again and again on this trip

-pray that we would be able to effectively communicate the importance of feeding babies breast milk (instead of flour water)

-pray that we would be able to effectively communicate the importance keeping blood pressures lower 

Tuesday photos

Tuesday

Day two at the clinic was amazing, just as overwhelming, fatiguing, exciting, stressful, rewarding, humbling, and about every other descriptor rolled into one. Once again we had a church full of people waiting to be seen by the time we arrived. We got rolling pretty quick and overall the logistics went smoother. We rotated some of the students around to let them see a different variety of patients.  Once again it has been impressive to see everyone willing to be flexible and do whatever is asked of them.   

Here are a couple quick stories to share from the day. 

We had a lizard make an unexpected visit. At first it was climbing on the pant leg of one of the patients. Then in the process of attempting to shoo it away, the lizard decided that another patient's skirt looked like a good binding place.  Once the lady was able to understand what happened, she calmly shook the lizard free and told the team it was not a problem because she was not afraid of the lizard. 

Josh, Tori, Charity had an opportunity (thanks to Vladimyr sharing a need that was shared with him) to visit a person that was not able to come to the clinic due to immobility. They were told that Fernand was bent on the left side, could not walk or leave his room and had been that way for four year. It sounded like it could be a stroke so they grabbed a few pieces of equipment, jumped into a taptap (the Haitian version of a taxi) with Pastor Pierre and went to Fernand's home. He was basically living in a tin box with a bed. His left arm was flexed and he had no use of it. His left leg was weak but he could move it. The team worked with him and his family and showed him some exercises and stretches. They gave him a cane and with one person's help he was able to stand and walk out of his house and down the alley about 30 feet.  It was amazing to see scriptures come to life and being a part of helping the lame to walk. 

Continue praying for us. 

- pray for continued strength, energy and health (during and after the trip)

- pray for safe travels as again a couple small groups break off to meet needs in other areas

- one request that has been answered but not in the way we expected - April's luggage appears to be lost for good but DJ (a lady at the house we are staying at) took April to the market and was able to get her the things she needed most. 

Monday clinic 5

Monday clinic 4

Monday clinic 3

Monday clinic 2

Monday clinic

Monday

It was our first day in the clinic. We originally planned to setup the night before but the timing simply did not work out so we decided to delay the start of seeing patience until 1pm. Thanks to God's faithfulness and Pastor Pierre's team we actually got started a little after 10am. It took a little time to find a rhythm but we were soon rolling steadily with one group running triage and multiple teams treating patients. We saw all kinds of issues. Lots of stroke, hypertension, various musculoskeletal injuries, several kids with CP and a few mystery cases. The students did an amazing job stepping up and working together to take care of everything they could with just a little help from the clinicians. 

God continues to show up in small and big ways. A couple examples are one patient had a wheelchair that had no leg rest and he needed elevating leg rest. The team brought a chair that just happened to have the leg rest and was a perfect fit.   Several times children needed braces and we have ones that fit with minimal adjustments. It was exciting to see each individual playing a role and everyone flexing as needed. The team handled the sometimes overwhelming need with grace, compassion, and patience. Praise God for his staying power. 

Tonight we were able to move half of the group to the second house and we should now have "reliable" power as well as a little more elbow room. 

Continue to pray for us

- pray for rest and continued energy as we move to the second day of clinic. 

- pray for safe travels as small groups split off to meet specific needs around the community. 

- pray that God continues to fill us as we pour ourselves out on others. 

Sunday

This has been a wonderful and overwhelming day. After spending a little time at the museum we picked up Jaimie (our last team member has arrived safely) and went to a home for disabled children in Tabarre.  It is a little over an hour from where we are staying. There, the team identified several more opportunities to serve and we are now challenged with identifying all the what, when, and how's.  

God's hand can clearly be seen in several ways. One example is we brought several pediatric wheelchair and walkers that at first appeared to be impractical to use in the terrain around our primary site but today we had a specific request for those very items from the home for disabled children. 

Continue to pray for the team. See the specific requests below.  

- Josh Lawson is sick with the chikungunya fever. Pray for a speedy recovery, safe travels home (leaving Monday morning), and protection for the rest of the team

- April's missing her clothing bag. Pray for us to find it quickly

- Pray for the second day of the clinic. That hearts be open, hands be prepared, and Jesus be praised

- Pray for restful nights of sleep for the team as the exhaustion of a long night and day of travel is setting in but with a full week ahead.

- Pray for clarity on which needs to focus on. The opportunities are endless and we want to be sure we stick to God's plan. 

Sunrise from the roof

Playing soccer in the street

Photo from church

We are in Haiti

We have not had access to the net for a while so I will try to quickly catch everyone up to date.  We made it and everyone is safe!  We have landed in Haiti and have spent our first night in our house for the week. We were delayed getting in and we didn't get settled until after 11pm.  There was no power when we got to the house so we have to unpack in the dark.  All but one bag made it through (pray for that we located it today when we pick up our last team member at the airport). Everyone is doing well and being flexible as God is stretching and teaching us patience. 

Early this morning we went to church and got to see where we will be setting up the clinic tomorrow. The service was great (even though most of it was in creole).  We have a little time this afternoon and are visiting a museum a learning a little about Haitian history. 

Traveling to Haiti

Well we are off to an exciting start on our journey to Haiti. Everyone made it to the airport safely and all the extra medical supplies have been checked.  A big thank you to the KC Delta team that checked us in. They handled the massive amount of luggage as fast a possible and made sure we all made it on the plane.  Praise God we had no extra fees for the checked bags. 

We have landed safely in Atlanta. Our flight to Haiti has been delayed so we are hanging out in the airport for a while.  Keep praying for safe travels.