ESTRELLA

Canaan

Sat. May 15

Hello from Canaan
I realize I haven’t caught you all up on what’s happening at Canaan in awhile so here’s some stuff.

# 1 Sister Gladys has been gone for over 2 weeks. Her mom was having surgery and she went to be with her. This round here without her has gone surprisingly well.

#2 Canaan’s internet is down and who knows for how long. So if you’re trying to get a hold of us by email, be patient. We will go out every so often to a nearby resort or friends’ place, but it doesn’t happen every day. Apparently the dish is bad, which means the guys here don’t do anything till Sister Gladys gets back, and then some of them are planning to go to the States.... This will mean dishing out a bunch of money again I imagine.

#3 We have a team of 6 college students here since Monday. 4 are staying for two weeks, 2 for a month. They are a huge blessing, and such hard workers. We weren’t able to put them to ‘mending’ a concrete wall for lack of materials, so they’re working on making a “patio/garden’ for Bobi and me. Sounds a bit decadent, eh? But we need a place where we can hang out, relax, entertain, etc. So adjoining our house, they have rechanneled a water ditch, and levelled the ground (don’t think this is an easy job – the ground is more rocks than dirt almost!). They made a tier with rocks. We want to put a concrete floor on part of it to put out a table/chairs/hammock and have a place for laundry, and then another part with plants and flowers. They also knocked down the big concrete outhouse/shower room standing in the middle of everything and have spent hours hauling it all away. Yesterday they took the day off and went into Port and while deciding to do that, one of them asked “but we get to work on Saturday then, right?” What an attitude!! Thanks so much, guys!!

#4 Thursday, Joel Busby and two friends of his came for a week; Mandy’s coming on Sunday. Joel and Mandy were here most of last summer, so it’s good to have them back.

#5 Last night we went to Club Indigo and joined Chris and Leslie there, hanging out most of the evening. They’re doing well but have gone through a rough time. Safety here hasn’t really been a problem but they’re going through some issues. Somebody set fire to their van, and left some nasty notes – death threats. The police, together with the UN have been working hard and made an arrest this week (There are more involved). That’s left some unhappy family members, who also are starting to threaten them. Please pray for them. They work with “Clean water for Haiti.

#6 Bonnie left this week. She leaves a big gaping hole here, especially for the children. They’ve been a bit subdued these days. She plans to come back in the fall, with maybe an additional short visit with some of her family in August.

#7 We continued to have rain this week, almost every day, which has been awesome! Maybe rainy season has arrived!

#8 I’m planning to take a couple months off, more or less, in July and August. If anyone knows of nurses or doctors that could and would want to come work here for any length of time, that is a need we have for those two months. I do have two Haitian nurses to keep the clinic open, but they still need a lot of supervision and help too. We don’t have any French medical books (except ‘Where there is no Doctor’) so it’s a bit difficult for them to learn everything.

#9 Our Medika Mamba vehicle fund is still growing. We now have $16,000.00 ready. Looking at vehicles here, I think we’ll need at least $22,000.00. It’s a bit difficult for me to think of buying a new vehicle here, especially since I would never do it in North America, but things are different here. You can’t trust the second hand vehicles. Anybody could have taken any part out of it. So unless God provides a used one from a reliable source, we’re still looking at new vehicles, most of which cost at least $25,000.00. (Anybody interested in participating, please go to http://www.canaanorphanage.org/ and contact Chris Hlavacek in Missouri. Thanks!) The vehicle will come in handy for a lot of other things as well, I’m sure. Right now the only vehicle we can drive off the property is our big clunky truck.

#10 Medika Mamba is still doing good. Yesterday we graduated our last patients in Archaia. Because of the transportation problems, I don’t think we’ll attempt another distant location till we have the vehicle. I can see us attempting to cover all the surrounding areas. I think if we went to a town, and did some extensive recruiting, we could work in one town for about 10-12 weeks and then move to another area (it takes about 8 weeks to graduate). It’s exciting to think of covering a broader area. Also, what it would do is put the word out that there is help for malnourished children.

Thanks for thinking and praying for us!

Elsie

a blessing straight from God

Thursday:

and she spoke and it was so…..

I want to share a really, really cool thing God did for me today. The whole earth (at least what’s Canaan and the surrounding areas) is benefiting but I feel this is for me personally.

We’d had a long, hot day at the clinic. It was 4 p.m. and Bobi and I were walking back up the hill. We’d had a protein shake that kept us going over lunch. I told Bobi: “If God would want to give me a blessing today, He’d let it rain today.” Now understand: I LOVE rain! It’s soothing and cozy (and cool). Mind you, I grew up in a place where it rained 9 months out of the year. It’s drizzled here a few times already this year. Not once what I’d call a rain. Well, we came to our house, rested for about 45 minutes and got ready for supper. As we walked out the door, it started drizzling. By the time we were at the cafeteria, we were almost wet. It started coming down hard and strong while eating and it’s still going strong. Almost reminds me of the hurricane season…. (hopefully nobody will get flooded out!).

Also, we were out of drinking water. We’ve got a container under almost every rain spout and in about an hour must have collected close to 50-70 gallons if not more.

Thank you God! I LOVE YOU TOO!