End of Summer

Mom, I'm bored...

If you have children, I am sure you have heard it too.  After we returned from the USA in late June and until school started at the end of August, this was a common refrain at our house.  Mostly, I heard it from Krae as Mara has learned that if she says those words, I suggest washing dishes, sweeping the floor, dusting and lots of other cleaning type duties. Needless to say, it was challenging to find enough things to do when we live in mountains of Haiti without access to a swimming pool, summer ball leagues, the library, the park and just all those things that we do in the summer when we live in the USA.   So, we played lots of games, read lots of books, cleaned out closets and tore apart and scrubbed bunk beds.  Here are a few pictures of some other fun activities:

Selah playing dress-up

She called this the Cowgirl Princess outfit with the shot bad-guy thing.

Sledding - the sled is a piece of Palm Tree Bark and the grassy hill is just behind the 

Guest House.

Krae, Conrad and Hadley "skidding" down the Klop's hill.

They ride down this steep hill using the brakes and sort of skid down.  

Apparently, this is really cool and great fun for boys.

Selah pretending to Surf    

Mara and her friend Caitlyn in  the foreground building something.

Krae and some buddies in the background having a "sand war".

Austin Fehr was here with a Medical Inventory Team in July.  He spent some time  building with the kids.  This was heart-warming for me as Austin was a student in the Sunday School class I taught while living in KC.  He was a special buddy to me and we enjoyed having him with us in Haiti.

Selah has discovered how to take "Selfies" on my phone.  

This is one of about 100 Selah selfies that appeared on my phone this summer.

Rip-Stik fun at the ball court.  If you can't tell, the kids are all moving in these pics.  

A meeting of the minds to plan a Rip-Stik routine.  

Mara's Birthday

Mara turned 12 years old on August 17th.  She requested a Pizza Potluck and Cheesecake. After eating and opening gifts the kids played a game of Telephone Pictionary.

School Starts

   

The Bonne Fin Geckoes returned to school on August 27th.  This year, we have 8 students in 8 different grades.  Our youngest is in second grade and the oldest is a senior in high school.  Right now, I am teaching one class (writing strands), two days per week.  Selah and I are doing preschool activities at home with our main focus on writing her name.  She loves the one-on-one attention with Mom!

Last year in Social Studies, the students studied American History.  At the end of last year, they were unable to have a planned Civil War Camp-out, so they started this year with this fun activity.  In the above picture, they are enjoying some camp food including Hardtack.  They slept out under the stars with the girls in a tent and the boys under a makeshift shelter of blankets.  The students will continue to study American History this year so the camp-out was a great bridge from one year to the next.  

Farewell to the Hartzler Family

After serving at Hopital Lumiere for 3 years, the Hartzler family returned to their home in Sardis, OH.  We hosted a farewell BBQ for them at the end of August and they departed from Haiti on September 10th.  We are missing them, but we are thankful for their time here and for God's guidance in their lives.  Prayers for their family as they transition back to life in the USA are needed and appreciated.  

I will mention that Eric's position of Patient Care Manager is still vacant.  There are applicants, but at this writing, no one has been placed in this position.  We ask for prayers for God's leading and provision for this position as well as many other medical positions.  The ACWR website has a full listing of the medical positions that we would like to fill with missionaries. http://www.acworldrelief.org/long-term-service-opportunitie/

Welcome Leah Bertschi!

We are thrilled to have Leah Bertschi (right in photo) join our missionary team in Bonne Fin as a teacher for the missionary children.  Leah arrived on September 13th.  Her sister Lydia (left in photo) and her parents, Rich and Bev, came with her to help her get settled. Leah will soon be joining Desma in teaching at the missionary school.  Our prayer is that God will lead her to stay another year and continue to teach, but we leave it up to God to provide guidance within His will for Leah and our missionary family.  

Hospital News

It seems that the staff and general culture of the hospital has become more positive and energetic in the last few months.  The clinic and hospital census' are both continuing to increase and the staff seems to be more positive and focused on the goal of giving excellent care.  It is hard to capture the culture of an organization in a picture, but here are a few of my attempts.

 

Doctors and nurses working the clinic at the new nurses station and the main corridor between the Welcome Center, Clinic and Hospital.  This area always seems to be bustling with activity, smiles and cheerful greetings of Bon Jou or Bon Swa.  

 Recently, a medical team was here to conduct a cervical cancer screening clinic.  These ladies are waiting to be seen by the doctors.  I helped with check-in and system flow (no medical skills to offer) for one morning and it was heart-warming to see how thankful the Haitian women were when their screening came back as normal.  In Haiti, when people are diagnosed with a disease like cancer, they usually die because of the lack of treatment options.  I was touched as many women thanked God and gave me hug when I had done little for them.  It helped me see that Hopital Lumiere truly is a Beacon of Hope!

I want to thank you for the prayers for the hospital, the staff and the community.  When I look back at posts from just a few months ago, we were asking for prayers because we felt the power of Satan overwhelming this mission.  We have seen this shift in a positive, God-honoring way and we give thanks to God for answering the many prayers!!

Suellen Kaeb presenting some education for our nurses.

 Dr. Debbie Sauder presenting patient education on cervical cancer.

Rick looking at some stats with two of the nursing supervisors.

Like most visitors to the hospital, I tend to gravitate to the Peds and OB wards to see the children and babies.  This little lady has captured everyone's heart recently.  Her leg was injured in the 2010 Earthquake (5 years ago) when she was 3 years old.  Because she was unable to receive proper medical care, her leg healed with her foot pointing straight down and no mobility in her ankle.  Obviously, it was very difficult for her to walk.  About two weeks ago, a team of surgical residents from South Carolina was able to surgically repair her ankle and she has hopes to walk normally again.  While she has endured a great amount of pain in the last few days, she was all smiles and giggly the morning I took this photo of her.  The other little girl is the sister of another patient and the baby is her brother.  Please pray for Civil (See-veel) and her continued healing!

More Prayers

Yrytche Jean Louis and her baby Christopher

I would like to ask for specific prayers for this young woman and her children. Yrytche (pronounced Air-eet) lives in a community adjacent to Bonne Fin.  Since we moved to Haiti, she has occasionally attended at the Bonne Fin MEBSH church.  However, many times when she came to church, she would have a "fit" during the service.  Usually this involved her running into the church, yelling and leaping into the center aisle, falling down on the floor and then writhing on the floor for several minutes as if she was overcome with an evil spirit.  Most of the Haitian people in the community believe that she is indeed plagued with an evil spirit.  

I have prayed for her often over the last two years; however, when we returned from the USA at the end of June, God put it on my heart to do more for her.  So I have gotten to know her and have been reading the Bible (in Creole) with her once a week.  She is 25 years old, has never been married and has two little boys that are fathered by two different men.  She expresses a great desire to overcome the evil spirit and stop having "fits" in church.  I'm not really sure if the fits are real or a way to get attention as it seems that other Haitian people have tried to help her.  But, at this point, God has only asked me to minister to her through His word, not to solve all her problems.  

Each week I spend time on prayer asking for guidance to know where in the Bible to read with her. Recognizing and overcoming sin with the power of Jesus Christ has been the general direction that God has led us in so far and we seem to be moving into repentance and forgiveness of sins.  

My language skills are quite lacking so this activity is also making me focus more on Creole and understanding the passage of scripture that we read.  The reality is that I may be getting more out of this than she is, but God has asked me to continue and as long as she comes, I will do so.  

I really don't know where this will go, but I ask for your prayers.  I have hesitated to share this development, but was recently admonished in a sermon given by our nephew-in-law to share my heart with others; to go beyond the newsy chit-chat and share what God is doing in my life. 

Please pray for her understanding and for my Creole vocabulary to increase.  Please pray for her her young children.  

Other Prayer Needs

This post has become much too long, so I will just list a few other areas of needed prayer.

• Pray for the upcoming Benefit Auction for Hospital Lumiere
• Pray for medical professionals to follow God's leading to serve as missionaries at HL
• Pray for continued growth of the hospital and healing for the patients