The last few days have been challenging in that the generator has been going on and off, on and off. That makes the internet more difficult to use.

It has been completely awesome to see how God has worked through people and in Sonel’s life and how things are coming together for him. Just to name a few. . .

· A couple of the guys here rigged up a pull bar over his bed so he could move easier.
· It seems every day that I go change his dressings that he is able to move more effectively than the day before.
· I have heard from many people with ideas about how to help treat his ulcers.
· I have heard from physical therapists about what exercises to do or not to do with him.
· One therapist is working on getting in touch with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who comes to Haiti
· I just heard that a wheelchair cushion has been donated and it will come with the October surgical team.
· We have a brace coming with the orthopedic surgeon who is also coming with the surgical team.
· Others are going to bring Sonel some activities for him while he is unable to move around as easily.

Today we started out on our walk a bit early because we were going to try to beat the rain. Unfortunately we were right in the middle of it! So we went slipping and sliding in the mud and everyone was talking about us and laughing with and at us! When we got there all soaking wet, Sonel told us that he wasn’t happy with us at all because we came in the rain, that we didn’t need to have gotten wet! Matt one of the interns here took a new chair to Sonel, which was a challenge, but Matt was determined. This chair was much better because the leg rests are better and the back leans back and that way it is easier for Sonel to sit in for longer periods of time. His ulcers appear to be slowing healing. It can be the slow part that is hard for me, I want them to be better tomorrow, but at least they are getting better.

I am praying that God works in the same way for Claudette (the housekeeper from the birthing center) whose house burned this week. Basically about $1,000 will completely finish her new house, get doors and windows in and she will be able to have a new and much nicer place to live. We have about $200 committed and so have started to get her doors and hopefully she can move in soon!

(I wrote this yesterday. The top picture is Sonel, Me and his cousin John Wendy who is completely adorable!! The bottom picture is Sonel after he got his new bar.)

claudette

for some reason my computer and i are not getting along tonight. i can't get any pictures uploaded. so i will write more later, possibly do a post tomorrow. depending on our generator which has been having fits today. i just wanted to ask for prayers for claudette.

she is one of the housekeepers in the birthing center. she has had a new house built for her this summer, but hasn't moved into it yet because it still needs doors and windows. and this morning she told me that the house she is living in had a fire.

i just looked at her. this woman has been through so much in the last couple years, i could hardly believe it. a few of us went to the house that burned and saw her meager belongings all strewn about and smelled the smoke from the night before. there was a pile of ashes that had been some of her families clothes that were in a suitcase. there was a mattress that was completely ruined. there were a few pieces of clothing they were able to salvage so that her children could still go to school in their uniforms. that was one of her biggest concerns this morning, that her children weren't going to be able to go to school.

better!!

this is little miss willangina much better today. her IV came out today and instead she got two shots in the legs for her antibiotic and let me tell you she DID NOT like them. but i was really glad to see her getting so mad!! yesterday she was almost unresponsive most of the day, so crying and kicking and screaming never sounded so good. thanks for your prayers!

whirlwind. . .

i haven't posted in a few days because things have been a bit crazy!

this little one has been part of it. her name is willangina. wednesday morning she was so dehydrated that she hardly responded to our attempts to start an IV on her. one of our resident physicians and a lab tech and i were basically all sticking her. she finally responded when i stuck her in the scalp. i was able to get her IV by no skill of my own, and we started running in fluids and a few hours later she opened her eyes and began to move again. she is still rather sick and we can't figure out exactly what is going on with her.

two of our main nurses are gone with family emergencies this week. one, magdala, had a niece who died in a car accident and the had to go to port-au-prince and the other sylveste had a daughter who was extremely sick and in the hospital. so things have been a bit crazy with both of them gone. i am so thankful to God that sylveste's daughter is better. i went to visit her today in the hospital and sylveste was talking about how sick she was that they were putting ice over her whole body and her temperature just kept going up and up. . . she had typhoid! it seems to be going around, it could be what willangina has. . . who knows it doesn't show up on testing usually for a week or so. we have a mom who had her baby monday night and tested positive for typhoid today, she has been with us since then and even last night still had a fever of 102.2.

needless to say i am washing my hands alot!

ups and downs. . .

the last couple times i have been to sonels to change his dressings he has mentioned how the floor he was laying on was so hard. (he is the guy who fell from the mango tree in june) i couldn't blame him for saying that i know he wanted a bed, but he didn't ask. he was laying on a piece of carpet on a dirt floor. no wonder he has horrible pressure ulcers. it is so hard to lean down and change his dressings, move him, or get him into his wheelchair from the floor. so yesterday we made the trek to his house. i had some help because i don't think there was anyway i could have carried a bedframe or mattress to his house. two guys carried a bed for him up and down the hills to his house!

matt (an intern here) carried the frame, ceremond one of the haitians who works here carried the bed, and erin and i went along to encourage them!!

before and after

a life well lived. . .

what really do our lives consist of?

what is the measure of success?

i have been thinking about this since spending friday and saturday with miss pat in the far west. miss pat has lived in haiti for over 25 years. she just started a mission in the far west about 3 years ago. she is in her seventies. (i won't tell exactly how old :)!) many of us at her age would be looking at how we can be wrapping up our lives, not how we can start a new mission. she always has and continues to meet each day and face the challenges it holds, to meet each person where they are and do what she can for them. she sees around 20 patients a day in a small clinic, has a feeding program for the elderly in her area, and has started a kindergarten. there is hardly a person in this area who probably wasn't influenced by her life here in haiti one way or another. i can't but help think that she has lived life well.

these little guys were at the bottom of the stairs yesterday looking up and calling - rolgard, rolgard!! this is john, stephen and den. they are three children who stay in our home for disabled children. they can't talk, but each of them are able to make the sounds to call for rolgard one of their caregivers who does therapy with them. to me that shows that he has shown them love and compassion, that he has touched their lives. his is a live well lived.

i hope that each day i can look back and say that i have accomplished that day what was set before me. i hope that when i look back over my life it will be with the mindset that it was a life well lived. not what program i have started or ran, but more whose lives i have been involved with. whether they were shown love, gentleness, patience, kindness. if i had lived with goodness, peace and joy. i hope that mine can be a life well lived.

this journey. . .

This trail is part of the walk that takes you to Sonel's house. (He is the guy who fell from the tree in June.)

Today as we walked to go change Sonel's dressing and check on him, I started thinking about what our lives are like. That we walk down many paths, some chosen wisely and others not so wisely.

I think this mindset was perpetuated because I had a visitor after lunch. It was someone who I care about and have known here in Haiti for years. I have walked throuhg life with him as he lost his wife to probably AIDS and TB and then the loss of his infant son who was HIV positive and finally testing the father and he was positive. We have had talks about what this means to the rest of his life, living HIV positive. Sometimes when I come he is sicker than others, sometimes better, always thinner.

Today after lunch he wanted to introduce me to his new Madam who was four months pregnant. He was excited. I wasn't. I didn't know what to do or say. I gave her some vitamins and told her that she must come for prenatal care. I hope and pray that care doesn't reveal that she is also now HIV positive. But who knows.

We all make choices. I don't know if my response to this news was what it should have been. I didn't say much. But I know that the continued journey with this person will be hard and I am praying for wisdom for how to walk alongside him.

I am heading to the far west tomorrow for Friday and Saturday so I won't post for a few days.

a few of my favorite things. . .

a beautiful flowering bush. especially in the midst of a place where beaty can so easily be overlooked, yet it still flourishes.

a cold coke after a long walk in the mountains.

children who make me laugh and smile. this is gerry!

the mountains that surround me here

whew. . .

today was one of those days where it is evening and i am not exactly sure what happened to the day, some of them seem to pass so quickly. . .

i am so impressed almost everyday by the people of haiti. we live in america with health insurance, car insurance, renters insurance, life insurance, on and on. we have banking accounts, savings accounts. . . people here live day to day. i am so impressed by a mother who doesn't completely lose her mind because she doesn't know how she is going to feed her children next week, or how she is going to send her children to school. she still smiles and sings to them and loves them like any mother would. a father who will carry his newly paralyzed son for care and doesn't ask, what will he be able to do in the future, but cares so gently for him. i can't believe the spirit that people here live with, what they face day after day. they teach me so many lessons, about endurance, about faith, about living for today! i try to remember what their lives are like when i get frustrated by being asked for things, everything from my shoes to surgery for a child. . . i try to remember that they may see this as their only chance. with that in mind i try to respond as best and as patiently as i can.

sylveste (in this picture) is one of our nurses who led us in devotions the last couple mornings. she is one who i am completely amazed by her life here in haiti. she has an amazing singing voice, she emits strenght and power from deep within her when she sings. i know that she has been singing for a long time, will continue to do so and i can't wait to hear her singing in heaven.

a walk in the mountains. . .

this afternoon, maureen, erin and i all set out to visit sonel. he is a 15 year old who had fallen from a mango tree when i was here last. i had seen him a couple days after his fall and wasn't sure that he would live. he had a horrible fever and his stomach was hard! he hadn't been able to move his legs. erin and maureen had been trying to help care for him, they have a wheelchair for him and have been taking care of his bedsores. we were going to go visit and see how he was doing. he is in great spirits. talking and laughing. this is his little cousin in the picture above pearing around the corner to check out the "blancs" who had come to visit. the house they live in is thatched wood. we got there and sonel was laying on the dirt floor on his mat. no beds, no real furniture to speak of. his father brought one small chair for us and another small bench type thing and a sack of something for our chairs. his father had brought him to the mission a few days ago to have his dressings changed. as we climbed up and down hills i could believe how they could have gotten sonel out from there. his father said that he has taken his wheelchair out first and then carried sonel. i really don't know what is going to happen with sonel, he has some pretty serious skin infections, but i do pray that he is no longer in pain. one of his cousins had caught two little birds and tied them with some plastic strands around their legs to be with sonel.

tonight around five it started pouring rain. almost like we were in some type of hurricane (ok i may be exagerrating a bit!) but it was raining with lots of wind. as we kinda rushed around here making sure windows were closed and things were put away, i couldn't help but think of sonel there on the dirt floor in a house with no windows and really no doors. i take so much for granted. . .

Yeah! I am here in Haiti. I made it yesterday afternoon after I truly had one of the best trips from home to here that I have had in years. Thanks for your prayers. It only took me five hours to get from Kansas to Miami. I don't know how long it has been that I haven't had delayed flights, missing luggage or spent the night sleeping in a cold airport, so to say the least, I was very excited to be in my hotel room by nine thirty that night!

The above picture is of course of miss Angela. (For those who don't know, she is the little one who came to the mission in Feb. after she had been bitten by a rat on her face, her mother has died from AIDS and her father can't take care of her.) I was trying to figure out how old she is now and I am thinking around nine months. At times she is very responsive and then at others she still has times where she is seizing. I was thinking that she was possibly doing better, but today while I was holding her, she tensed up and closed her eyes and one of her arms gets all straight. I don't really know exactly what kind of seizures these are? Then she opens her eyes again and looks only one way and then gains back control of her eyes. It is kinda scary! I would greatly appreciate prayers for her!

torrential rain. . .

This afternoon my mother and I headed to Jacksonville, IL to get medical supplies from In His Service. It is always great to go there and see friends who I have served in Haiti with! It is always hard for me to be able to stop though and not fill my bags too full!!

We ended up driving through pouring rain, but at least it wasn't as bad as the last couple times I have gone with my mother. Once my car stalled out due to the horrible rain and the other time we ended up basically driving through a tornado. Hmmm, perhaps my mom and I should not travel to Jacksonville together. But she really does make great company!!

Thanks so much Theresa and Terri and the whole Jacksonville group for the supplies and for all you do!!!

Warm Sunshine. . .

This morning I was awoken to the sounds of my little niece saying hello. Of course at seven thirty in the morning I wasn't completely sure that she was as cute as she usually is to me. My sister her wonderful mother was completely awake, alert and ready to face the day, make breakfast, get packed to go home, all those things, and really what I wanted was to get some coffee!! My mother joined the group sitting around the couch where I had been sleeping and started ready Calianna her "Foot Book." That was of course great also first thing in the morning, hearing her voice reading small foot, big foot, left foot, right foot. . . then my mother thought it was funny to say that I must have read that book wrong as a child and gotten confused with my right and left foot. True, I have a hard time remembering my left from my right, what a great reminder being barely awake. Of course a little coffee in me (although they drink half and half here in good ole' Bethel) and sitting on the front porch surrounded by flowers such as these helped waken me from my stupor and enjoy a warm morning in the sunshine.