Canada

Hi,

One of the reasons you haven't heard from me for awhile is because I'm not in Haiti right now - I'm in Canada! So if your interest is Canaan, please wait till middle of September, and Canaan should reappear again. Meanwhile, if you want to hear about my trip, keep checking every so often.
I've spent a busy week here, getting rid of a lot of my stuff, as well as seeing quite a few friends. And now tomorrow, I'm off to Eastern Europe (flight's to Frankfurt, then I'm taking the train) to meet my sister and travel with her for a bit.
God's been good - answering two specific problems for me this week. One was my headaches - They were almost constant for about a week, then one day different people prayed, and next day they were almost all gone. The other answer was the arrival of my eurail tickets. They were suppose to come today but when I called at noon to see if it would, (since I needed to leave early) they said it wouldn't arrive till tomorrow. I almost panicked. After 3 or 4 calls I gave up. Half an hour later a lady from Fedex called back and I realized they were actually trying to help me, to see if the carrier could meet me some place special to deliver it tonight. As I came around to find the cell number of my friend that I'd be with, the guy was at the door!! Today after all!! What a relief.

So blessings to all and till later!
Elsie

New Canaanites

This is kind of an exciting week for me because it’s my last in a while. Next Wednesday I’m heading for the North – I guess it still exists? Sometimes you wonder here – it tends to feel kind of isolated, and narrow focused. The other night we went to Club Indigo for internet, and their’s was down too, so we sat and watched TV for a bit. It felt so strange! Guess it’s not a bad vice to not have here.
Canaan news:
We have 5 new children here. They’re siblings. The dad died a little over a year ago in a gravel pit accident. Years ago he worked at Canaan, and S. Gladys really felt called to take the children. The mom died more or less in January. The oldest two are boys, and then 3 girls. So Canaan finally has a baby. That child will have problems learning to walk. Everybody wants to hold her. Actually, they’re doing very well; she even gets to crawl sometimes.

Rolancia (11 months)

Mackenson (13) Diuner (10)

Jolette (8) Lina (4)

An interesting challenge for me this week has been Louinel. He is 4 months old and weighs 2.5 kg (about 5 pounds). I’ve had him come for about 2 weeks, giving the mom milk to take. His little feet are all swollen from malnutrition and he was barely peeing all day. Well, he just wasn’t gaining. So Tuesday, when I saw he would gag every time he drank something, I decided something else had to be done. I put an NG tube into his stomach and now we’re feeding him by tube. The mom comes and spends all day. WE NEED A HOSPITAL! He actually gained weight today. One of the girls on the nutrition team is a huge help with that. The mom isn’t feeling comfortable doing it, so I think this is going to be a working weekend! When clinic is closed, we bring her up to Canaan. Please pray he’ll do OK. Little ones like that you have to be careful of not overfeeding him, and I’m not too sure where the balance is (Stephanie???). At least now he’s peeing ok finally. Amazing how much better that makes me feel!

St Mark MM

Why am “I” in Haiti?
I often ask that question. First, I know there are so many people that could do the job better, sometimes it frightens me. Sometimes I feel the reason He has me here is because He loves me so much - there are so many blessings. Then at other times I feel like God has me here for punishment – it’s not an easy life. At other times, I think it’s because there are so many lessons that I still need to learn about life that He plunked me down where I’d have to learn or else...
Whatever the reason, I am often (usually) grateful. After all, those are all valid reasons. In knowing others could do things better, it keeps me humble. In experiencing God’s love, it’s worth it all. In punishment, it’s probably needed then. In other lessons, well that’s the purpose of life, right? Learn what you need to learn. For me, relationships is probably the top of the list there. It’s what you can pray for me personally the most if you want to pray for me. Living here, you can’t avoid it. It’s always around you – the Canaan kids, the Canaan staff, the clinic staff, patients, teams coming through – short or longer term, friends; And then the people of Haiti...
I often pray that God would give me a passion for the people – after all, that’s who I work with. After a day like today, I feel a bit lost in that area. I’m not sure where my place is, or what I’m to do, because I feel so helpless. There is such a big need, and I have to turn my head the other way. Is that really God’s way, or do I not see something I need to be doing?
We went to St Marc, where a pastor said he had a village of 60 malnourished kids. A team of 9 of us (incl. translators) went. It was an interesting place, seeing how to get to the place we basically walked up a mountain of rocks. About the width of a narrow road, it was solid rock – probably 200 feet or more steeply up, with houses all around. Pictures don’t show depth very well.

The walk up

Starting down

Pastor Galile

Almost down



Something close to a fight broke out over tracts.

It was a wonderful view, since the ocean is right there. When we got there, they handed us a list of 120 people waiting. What makes that difficult is that the majority of those don’t qualify for our program – either they don’t fall into the age bracket that we have, or they’re not malnourished enough to admit.

Getting ready to weigh and measure

I had the difficult job of initial screening.

It didn’t take them long to notice one of the first things I do is check their upper arm circumference. I had a dozen moms shove the arms of their little ones to me – some even grabbing my hand and putting it on their child’s arms. Honestly, that hurts because I can at a glance see that their child is too old for the program. Then they say, I’ll give my child to you. One actually pushed her thin 10 yr old to me and stepped back, begging for me to take her; many of them saying ‘this one has no dad, or no mom and dad’. And all I can do is look at them and be sorry. Is that really all I can do????
In two weeks (July 1) I’m taking a break and going back to Canada, and some other traveling for 2 ½ months. I’m hoping the time away will renew my energy, and give me some wisdom to see what my place here is.

Till next time!

Elsie

A day for me.

This has been an intereting day! My first patient was our friend Chris, who cut his finger and needed 5 stitches. Maybe after a little bit I'll actually become good at this! Then while getting ready to see another patient, I hear a commotion outside and a 4 yr old boy is having a seizure. I brought him in. I must admit, I'm not too comfortable with seizure patients yet. I did a malaria test and it was positive, but I still sent him to a hospital. His fever went from 101 to 104.5 F in about half and hour. I kept thinking "cerebral malaria", so better safe than sorry. I gave them money and sent them off. Then I got a little 4 month old baby boy - heartwrenching. He weighs 2.6 kilos (about 5 pounds). His poor feet were SO swollen, and I think his face too, though mom said that was normal for him. So we're starting him on a milk routine. He's too young for our Medika Mamba. He's from the mountains so hopefully mom will bring him every week. Made me want to just take him home with me! So cute and small! A75 yr old lady came in - had a stroke on Thursday; left side is paralyzed. Don't thing this is it for her! A lady I had once was in church 2 months after her stroke. Pray this one will recover. Thankfully I had a wheelchair given to me by Christian Aid Ministries, which will make this easier for the family. And then of course, others: teaching them to take blood pressure meds correctly, etc etc.
Well, I thought I had more time to finish this but I have to stop - go home. I'm at Club Indigo, since our internet wasn't working. Probably due to the nice storm we had tonight.
Thanks for praying! Please continue.....

Estrella

Hello everyone,
So not all that much has happened this week but I want to remind you I’m here, so here’s a little note. Ha!
Thursday afternoon, Bobi and I took Sister Gladys to the airport (after being here two days after a 2 week absence), along with two of the older guys. We barely made it, we had such a hard time getting sister Gladys away from everyone here, and then ran into the worst traffic jam close to the airport I’ve seen). They’re on their way to Convention. The boys are training to become leaders in the ACE school, have worked hard this year, so it was good they were able to go. This is the first year in many that none of the students went. It seemed time to make the kids realize going to the States every year isn’t something they can take for granted. It is a privilege for working hard in school, and since very few seemed to make that effort it was decided to not take the kids this year.
Friday Bobi and I went to Port again. With Jamil traving, I sat in the driver’s seat of a car being towed to Port. Now that was a challenge for me, but it went very well, I must say. I kept having these visions of ramming into the back of the truck, so my breaks got a good workout, as well as my leg muscles. Since we had to wait till 4 p.m. to pick up Lydia (a girl that was here for 2 months last fall), we were able to use Jamil to drive us around Port. We went to different car dealers. Yes, we’re still looking for a vehicle and feel (in faith) the money will be there when we find the right one. Man, but they’re expensive! We want to try getting it before I leave end of June. Pray the money will be there, and we’ll find the right one. It takes time, so we have to go back again, but we covered quite a few places. Then we also looked around for some patio furniture/plants. Shopping is definitely more challenging here. Don’t for a minute envision yourself shopping in North America for these things. This took from 10 to 4 p.m., rushing it.
The guys of the team got a huge blessing today. You should see how they work! One of their projects they’ve been given this week is levelling the ground in front of the new boy’s dorm, across from the cafeteria. It’s the closest to discouraged I’ve seen them. They’re dealing with TOUGH ground – the normal rocky, then also where they’ve done a lot of cementing, so it’s also got concrete in the ground. Well, after church they were watching the ESTRELLA road construction people drop off one of their huge machines (sorry don’t know the name of it, but it has the thing that goes into the ground to break it up and can lift out dirt). They’re like “wouldn’t it be cool to use that thing!”. One of them’s like, “would it be okay to go ask them if we can?”. I said they speak Spanish, if you can and want to, all they can do is say No. So off they go. About two minutes later they come back saying, Yea! They just went up and asked and the guy said yes, he’ll be back in 20 minutes, they can have it that long. Tyler, one of the guys, knows how to drive it, so they quickly started working; saved them at least half a week’s worth of HARD labour for the three, if not more. The road is becoming SO nice. Those of you who have been here, you’d be amazed. They are almost to Canaan with building it up, which alone smoothes it tremendously. The pavement is almost to the detour already. They’re going through Montrouis, even if the bridge isn’t fixed, but they’ve also smoothed and tarred the detour, so it’s more bearable. Now’s the time to pray!!! We want to ask them to fix, possibly pave our whole entrance too. God can do it, right? I think He loves to do special things for us, if we ask Him. Just look at my little story of the rain! So please pray for that this week!!!!
God bless you all!
Elsie

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