Haiti 2015 mission
- Thread starter SixFive
- Start date
Departure day 12/27.
trying to work out now how I'm going to get power to my cpap while i'm there :mj07: I think I can run it off a car battery, but I'm not sure yet how to "plug" it in/convert it to work.
several here have given me money for goats. I think I might have enough for 3-4 pairs of them. :0074 I'm super excited about that, and I'll post pictures of course. I don't think I'll be able to have contact when I'm there, so it will probably be a huge amount of pictures here after I get back to the States.
thanks for all the good wishes, money for goats, and continued good will my way. It's going to be a memorable experience.
trying to work out now how I'm going to get power to my cpap while i'm there :mj07: I think I can run it off a car battery, but I'm not sure yet how to "plug" it in/convert it to work.
several here have given me money for goats. I think I might have enough for 3-4 pairs of them. :0074 I'm super excited about that, and I'll post pictures of course. I don't think I'll be able to have contact when I'm there, so it will probably be a huge amount of pictures here after I get back to the States.
thanks for all the good wishes, money for goats, and continued good will my way. It's going to be a memorable experience.
First leg of 3 down. In Miami now waiting to take off again. Sitting in first class this leg (my first time ever). First class AA u can check 3 bags that weigh up to 70 pounds a piece. We have 9 bags lol. The first class tickets were actually cheaper too for some reason. We will get to Port-au-Prince, claim all those 9 gigantic bags, stay the night, then fly to the mission in the morning. Hopefully I can keep a running update here while I'm away, but this might be it. I'm not sure yet exactly what will be available.
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I have some brief wifi
Day 1
We arrived in Haiti in a thankfully uneventful fashion. The ride to the airport was fine, the flights were on time, and we didn't have any layover. Actually, we were a little late for our connection which meant we had to check our carry-ons. AA does not have enough room on their planes for every person to bring on a carry on item. Lame! Anyway, we have 9 bags full of supplies, and they each weigh 68-70 pounds
so 65 has a bit of a sore back tonight.
We went to the local supermarket and bought almost $300 worth of foodstuffs for the mission. Ten Haitian dollars are approximately worth $1 US dollar, but most of the food was more expensive than at home by about 10%. The most expensive thing was a box of Graham Crackers which cost $8 US for some reason?
Port-au-Prince where we flew in and are staying tonight is much different than my last trip in 2007. After the earthquake, many millions of relief $$ flooded the country, so much of it has been rebuilt, so it is actually nicer. Sweet Mickey has also proven to not be as corrupt as his predecessors, so more money is going where it should. There still are no traffic signs or signals of any kind, so driving in the city is very scary and unsafe. The rule for pedestrians is that if the automobile honks before it hits you, it is your fault bc you didn't get out of the way.
We had chicken, goat, a salad, rice and beans, and bread for dinner, and it was all quite good. It is only 8:30 now, but I'm in bed. He have to get up around 5:30 in the morning to prepare for our flight on the 3 person plane to the Mole which will be our destination. That in itself should be an adventure! Mom's pilot last year was only 18 years old
Update. It's 11:30, and I forgot to mention earlier that out hotel (The Coconut Villa) is next to an outdoor night club. The music started playing and dusk, and it is loud, and it hasn't stopped. It's mainly Caribbean type music with a few American dance mixes thrown in. There is a guard here walking around with a sawed off pistol grip 12 gauge, and I'm pretty sure I just heard that or another gun fire. The music never stopped, so I guess it's all good. Tomorrow should be a whale of a day if I can't get some sleep. Music finally stopped at 1 so I got some sleep [emoji3]
Menu last night
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Day 1
We arrived in Haiti in a thankfully uneventful fashion. The ride to the airport was fine, the flights were on time, and we didn't have any layover. Actually, we were a little late for our connection which meant we had to check our carry-ons. AA does not have enough room on their planes for every person to bring on a carry on item. Lame! Anyway, we have 9 bags full of supplies, and they each weigh 68-70 pounds
so 65 has a bit of a sore back tonight. We went to the local supermarket and bought almost $300 worth of foodstuffs for the mission. Ten Haitian dollars are approximately worth $1 US dollar, but most of the food was more expensive than at home by about 10%. The most expensive thing was a box of Graham Crackers which cost $8 US for some reason?
Port-au-Prince where we flew in and are staying tonight is much different than my last trip in 2007. After the earthquake, many millions of relief $$ flooded the country, so much of it has been rebuilt, so it is actually nicer. Sweet Mickey has also proven to not be as corrupt as his predecessors, so more money is going where it should. There still are no traffic signs or signals of any kind, so driving in the city is very scary and unsafe. The rule for pedestrians is that if the automobile honks before it hits you, it is your fault bc you didn't get out of the way.
We had chicken, goat, a salad, rice and beans, and bread for dinner, and it was all quite good. It is only 8:30 now, but I'm in bed. He have to get up around 5:30 in the morning to prepare for our flight on the 3 person plane to the Mole which will be our destination. That in itself should be an adventure! Mom's pilot last year was only 18 years old
Update. It's 11:30, and I forgot to mention earlier that out hotel (The Coconut Villa) is next to an outdoor night club. The music started playing and dusk, and it is loud, and it hasn't stopped. It's mainly Caribbean type music with a few American dance mixes thrown in. There is a guard here walking around with a sawed off pistol grip 12 gauge, and I'm pretty sure I just heard that or another gun fire. The music never stopped, so I guess it's all good. Tomorrow should be a whale of a day if I can't get some sleep. Music finally stopped at 1 so I got some sleep [emoji3]
Menu last night
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Day 2 arrival
Lots of pictures today. We flew on a 4 passenger small airplane today to our final destination at Mole St. Nicholas today. It was a very enjoyable flight even though I was apprehensive about the plane being so small. The airstrip where we landed was lined with cacti, and one had a hummingbird nest which made for some cool pics.
We met all the staff we didn't already know and collected our bags which arrived later. We went to the orphanage and played with the children. There are many orphans in Haiti, and most of the missions start with an orphanage. The children love attention, and since they are rarely around men, me and another guy on our team were mobbed by them. Their attention seems almost insincere because it is so great, but of course it is very genuine, and they love company.
We are staying in a tent, and we brought a big King sized air mattress. I also have readily available power for my CPAP, so no more worries there. We turned in fairly early and are ready for a big day tomorrow.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Lots of pictures today. We flew on a 4 passenger small airplane today to our final destination at Mole St. Nicholas today. It was a very enjoyable flight even though I was apprehensive about the plane being so small. The airstrip where we landed was lined with cacti, and one had a hummingbird nest which made for some cool pics.
We met all the staff we didn't already know and collected our bags which arrived later. We went to the orphanage and played with the children. There are many orphans in Haiti, and most of the missions start with an orphanage. The children love attention, and since they are rarely around men, me and another guy on our team were mobbed by them. Their attention seems almost insincere because it is so great, but of course it is very genuine, and they love company.
We are staying in a tent, and we brought a big King sized air mattress. I also have readily available power for my CPAP, so no more worries there. We turned in fairly early and are ready for a big day tomorrow.
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Day 3
Our day started at 7:45 with a devotion and then breakfast. Supplies were gathered, and we headed to the mission clinic. When we arrived there at 8:30, there were already well over 50 people waiting to be seen. We have a Pediatrician here, so he will see the bulk of the children. I have a room set up for me to see patients as well. Most things I can handle, and I'm functioning very much in the role of a physician. I see the patients, assess them, get their history, figure out a treatment, write out a prescription, and they then go two rooms down to the pharmacy to get the medications. This is a free service to them, and it not only provides a very useful service to the community, but also is an opportunity for evangelism to take place.
After the clinic was empty of patients, we went to the beach. It is gorgeous and unspoiled by people or pollution. After supper we had a very touching testimonial from the mission director who has lived in Haiti her entire life outside of going to school (in Haiti on every school break, and her parents were full time missionaries here). I'll write about that more later. She told us some incredible things that centered mainly on culture, voodoo, and those intertwined experiences and conflicts with the attempts to plant the seed of Christianity in this environment.
Food for tonight.
My wife has a ton of pictures, but we can't get them from her phone to mine, so I will have to post later.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Our day started at 7:45 with a devotion and then breakfast. Supplies were gathered, and we headed to the mission clinic. When we arrived there at 8:30, there were already well over 50 people waiting to be seen. We have a Pediatrician here, so he will see the bulk of the children. I have a room set up for me to see patients as well. Most things I can handle, and I'm functioning very much in the role of a physician. I see the patients, assess them, get their history, figure out a treatment, write out a prescription, and they then go two rooms down to the pharmacy to get the medications. This is a free service to them, and it not only provides a very useful service to the community, but also is an opportunity for evangelism to take place.
After the clinic was empty of patients, we went to the beach. It is gorgeous and unspoiled by people or pollution. After supper we had a very touching testimonial from the mission director who has lived in Haiti her entire life outside of going to school (in Haiti on every school break, and her parents were full time missionaries here). I'll write about that more later. She told us some incredible things that centered mainly on culture, voodoo, and those intertwined experiences and conflicts with the attempts to plant the seed of Christianity in this environment.
Food for tonight.
My wife has a ton of pictures, but we can't get them from her phone to mine, so I will have to post later.
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Day 4
Another day in the clinic. As mentioned, the clinic is free and an outreach of the mission. Some common things you see here are as follows:
1) Headache. Probably the most common complaint and can be related to the bright sunlight exposure very day, poor non-corrected vision, oppressive dust that is present in this country, and exposure to smoke from cooking over charcoal. We can refer patients to the eye teams that come in three times a year, so I did that a few times.
2) Stomach ache/"acid". Frequent complaint. Tums usually helps. If not, we start them on Pepcid then move to Prevacid.
3) Vaginal infections, UTIs, STDs. We see this all the time. We have a lot of Diflucan now we can give for yeast infections, and antibiotics we can give for the infections.
4) Breast lumps/mastitis. Common with moms who Breast feed to get an infection. Most lumps even in the States are not cancer. Can be successfully treated with antibiotics.
We use antibiotics in Haiti that are often not effective in the USA because most here are antibiotic naive because of poor healthcare. It's not a good thing that many ailments go untreated, but it is good that the older cheaper antibiotics work well here.
Sometimes, patients will have ailments we can not fully treat because of lack of materials and supplies. A woman yesterday claimed no BM for 6 weeks she was seen 4 weeks prior with the same complaint and given stool softeners, but those had not helped. She was having bad abdominal pain, and I wanted to give her an enema, but we didn't have it available. I gave her a big jar of Miralax and had her drink some in front of me. We instructed her to come back the next day if she had no BM, and I didn't see her here today. Hopefully that means she was able to go, but I'm not sure of any outcomes unless they come back. If she presents again, I'll figure out something else to do for her. Sadly, I would guess she probably has some sort of colon/rectal cancer. UPDATE : This lady came to the clinic today just as we were leaving. She was still in incredible pain. We still had no enema, and there is no where within 6 hours to get one. We did find some children's glycerin suppositories. We put her in an exam room. I examined her, and she does not have rectal cancer or any sort of distal blockage like I thought she might. After the suppositories, she was able to go a tiny bit, and I think she will be able to go more later. I feel much better about that situation now.
Another patient presented with joint stiffness and severe pain. He had a slight fever. We are pretty sure he had a mosquito-borne disease called Chicquengaya (no idea how to spell this one and can't reference at this time as I am just writing on my notepad). Since this is a virus, the only thing to do really is supportive care (Ibuprofen for pain and drink plenty of water). It's usually better after 10-14 days.
I brought some medicines. One I brought was Flomax. It belonged to a friend's uncle who is a sort of hoarder. She gave me his medications to sort thru, and he had almost 200. In Haiti, we always are having contact with middle aged/elderly men who can not pee or complain of frequency. This is a perfect drug for them, and it was perfect in this situation. Hopefully he will follow up, and it will help him.
Voodoo is a powerful force in Haiti, and it is no joke. One of the missionaries shared last night, and I'll try to include some of the things I learned. When she first moved to the Mole and they were finding suitable land to buy, many local voodoo practitioners came to her house. They had with them almost 200 animals. During the night, they slaughtered these animals, and literally, the street in front of her house ran red with their blood. They banged their drums over 24 hours straight and finally left without scaring them off.
She went to a voodoo service once. She said the service started with the voodoo priest biting the head off of a dove. He swallowed the head then slung the dove around showering the close members of the crowd with blood. His assistant then did the same thing. This was supposed to be a good thing for the crowd members. She said there were many children at the service in a similar way that we might take our own children to church. Near the end of he ceremony, the priest told the crowd that if their family was in need or sick or hurting they should sacrifice their youngest child (to some particular god; there are many gods in voodoo). The next day, the community had 4 dead children.
Curses "work" most of the time often because the voodoo priest will hire someone to physically harm the person who is cursed. I have been in a voodoo house more than once, and the pure oppressive evil you can feel there is overwhelming. It can't be described. Voodoo priests do some healing at times too. They have access to malaria medicine in particular, and they are often skilled with herbal remedies and treatments.
The children endure some very scary things, and some will even immediately wet their pants when they hear the drums. There is also some terrible abuse in Haiti. There is child slavery. There is child prostitution. There are many instances of terrible child abuse. Sometimes tourists will exploit the children, and if the parent has given permission, it is considered a legal contract, and there is no recourse. Children as young as 8 are forced to make money by selling themselves. One child told her that each time a tourist took advantage of her she made a dollar and her mother told her she could not come home until she had $4 in her pocket.
Special needs children are considered outcasts and very often exploited. She talked about one child they would see in the village who was severely handicapped with cerebral palsy. Her parents would not clothe her, and she was often left to wander the street. The parents see the child as a curse from God because they did something very bad to deserve it. The child is often exploited physically, sexually, and emotionally. This particular child was rescued from a neighbor raping her in the front yard and taken to their orphanage.
One of the mission employees was punished as a child by being stripped of her clothes and made to sit on her stoop from 10 am until 5 pm with no water. The local people would walk by and spit on her and make fun of her for being naked. She thought she would die from having no water and being exposed to the sun. Another mission employee told of being beaten until she agreed to let the man have sex with her because beating a woman incurs only a day in jail while raping a woman has stiffer penalties. Since she agreed (after being almost beaten to death), nothing could be done to the offender.
As an outreach, the mission here decided to hold a cookout on the beach at dusk with a big bonfire and free food. Nobody came. The reason was they were scared the Macondas would snatch them up and take them to hell because the Macondas frequent the beach at night. Macondas are a kind of evil spirit. The mission also shows movies at dusk fairly often either in the town or at the mission. A boy came up to one of the missionaries after the movie and thanked her. She told him he was very welcome, and he told her that because of going to the movie, his daddy would not touch him that night (Haitians go to bed early because there is no power and get up early to start working when it isn't so hot).
The mission here has made a huge difference in curtailing many of these horrible acts and hopefully will continue to do so. I'll try to write later more stories that I have been told about. One group of 10 that is here is doing a VBS (Vacation Bible School) for the local children. I have a picture of one of the men working with that ministry being mobbed by the kids. Another group is working on some construction projects. We will be doing clinic tomorrow and then possibly going by boat to a nearby fishing village to do another clinic.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Another day in the clinic. As mentioned, the clinic is free and an outreach of the mission. Some common things you see here are as follows:
1) Headache. Probably the most common complaint and can be related to the bright sunlight exposure very day, poor non-corrected vision, oppressive dust that is present in this country, and exposure to smoke from cooking over charcoal. We can refer patients to the eye teams that come in three times a year, so I did that a few times.
2) Stomach ache/"acid". Frequent complaint. Tums usually helps. If not, we start them on Pepcid then move to Prevacid.
3) Vaginal infections, UTIs, STDs. We see this all the time. We have a lot of Diflucan now we can give for yeast infections, and antibiotics we can give for the infections.
4) Breast lumps/mastitis. Common with moms who Breast feed to get an infection. Most lumps even in the States are not cancer. Can be successfully treated with antibiotics.
We use antibiotics in Haiti that are often not effective in the USA because most here are antibiotic naive because of poor healthcare. It's not a good thing that many ailments go untreated, but it is good that the older cheaper antibiotics work well here.
Sometimes, patients will have ailments we can not fully treat because of lack of materials and supplies. A woman yesterday claimed no BM for 6 weeks
she was seen 4 weeks prior with the same complaint and given stool softeners, but those had not helped. She was having bad abdominal pain, and I wanted to give her an enema, but we didn't have it available. I gave her a big jar of Miralax and had her drink some in front of me. We instructed her to come back the next day if she had no BM, and I didn't see her here today. Hopefully that means she was able to go, but I'm not sure of any outcomes unless they come back. If she presents again, I'll figure out something else to do for her. Sadly, I would guess she probably has some sort of colon/rectal cancer. UPDATE : This lady came to the clinic today just as we were leaving. She was still in incredible pain. We still had no enema, and there is no where within 6 hours to get one. We did find some children's glycerin suppositories. We put her in an exam room. I examined her, and she does not have rectal cancer or any sort of distal blockage like I thought she might. After the suppositories, she was able to go a tiny bit, and I think she will be able to go more later. I feel much better about that situation now.Another patient presented with joint stiffness and severe pain. He had a slight fever. We are pretty sure he had a mosquito-borne disease called Chicquengaya (no idea how to spell this one and can't reference at this time as I am just writing on my notepad). Since this is a virus, the only thing to do really is supportive care (Ibuprofen for pain and drink plenty of water). It's usually better after 10-14 days.
I brought some medicines. One I brought was Flomax. It belonged to a friend's uncle who is a sort of hoarder. She gave me his medications to sort thru, and he had almost 200. In Haiti, we always are having contact with middle aged/elderly men who can not pee or complain of frequency. This is a perfect drug for them, and it was perfect in this situation. Hopefully he will follow up, and it will help him.
Voodoo is a powerful force in Haiti, and it is no joke. One of the missionaries shared last night, and I'll try to include some of the things I learned. When she first moved to the Mole and they were finding suitable land to buy, many local voodoo practitioners came to her house. They had with them almost 200 animals. During the night, they slaughtered these animals, and literally, the street in front of her house ran red with their blood. They banged their drums over 24 hours straight and finally left without scaring them off.
She went to a voodoo service once. She said the service started with the voodoo priest biting the head off of a dove. He swallowed the head then slung the dove around showering the close members of the crowd with blood. His assistant then did the same thing. This was supposed to be a good thing for the crowd members. She said there were many children at the service in a similar way that we might take our own children to church. Near the end of he ceremony, the priest told the crowd that if their family was in need or sick or hurting they should sacrifice their youngest child (to some particular god; there are many gods in voodoo). The next day, the community had 4 dead children.
Curses "work" most of the time often because the voodoo priest will hire someone to physically harm the person who is cursed. I have been in a voodoo house more than once, and the pure oppressive evil you can feel there is overwhelming. It can't be described. Voodoo priests do some healing at times too. They have access to malaria medicine in particular, and they are often skilled with herbal remedies and treatments.
The children endure some very scary things, and some will even immediately wet their pants when they hear the drums. There is also some terrible abuse in Haiti. There is child slavery. There is child prostitution. There are many instances of terrible child abuse. Sometimes tourists will exploit the children, and if the parent has given permission, it is considered a legal contract, and there is no recourse. Children as young as 8 are forced to make money by selling themselves. One child told her that each time a tourist took advantage of her she made a dollar and her mother told her she could not come home until she had $4 in her pocket.
Special needs children are considered outcasts and very often exploited. She talked about one child they would see in the village who was severely handicapped with cerebral palsy. Her parents would not clothe her, and she was often left to wander the street. The parents see the child as a curse from God because they did something very bad to deserve it. The child is often exploited physically, sexually, and emotionally. This particular child was rescued from a neighbor raping her in the front yard and taken to their orphanage.
One of the mission employees was punished as a child by being stripped of her clothes and made to sit on her stoop from 10 am until 5 pm with no water. The local people would walk by and spit on her and make fun of her for being naked. She thought she would die from having no water and being exposed to the sun. Another mission employee told of being beaten until she agreed to let the man have sex with her because beating a woman incurs only a day in jail while raping a woman has stiffer penalties. Since she agreed (after being almost beaten to death), nothing could be done to the offender.
As an outreach, the mission here decided to hold a cookout on the beach at dusk with a big bonfire and free food. Nobody came. The reason was they were scared the Macondas would snatch them up and take them to hell because the Macondas frequent the beach at night. Macondas are a kind of evil spirit. The mission also shows movies at dusk fairly often either in the town or at the mission. A boy came up to one of the missionaries after the movie and thanked her. She told him he was very welcome, and he told her that because of going to the movie, his daddy would not touch him that night (Haitians go to bed early because there is no power and get up early to start working when it isn't so hot).
The mission here has made a huge difference in curtailing many of these horrible acts and hopefully will continue to do so. I'll try to write later more stories that I have been told about. One group of 10 that is here is doing a VBS (Vacation Bible School) for the local children. I have a picture of one of the men working with that ministry being mobbed by the kids. Another group is working on some construction projects. We will be doing clinic tomorrow and then possibly going by boat to a nearby fishing village to do another clinic.
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Sixfive,
The Haitian missionaries our church supports are Lucien and Maude Saul and their two married sons, Royden and Jetlear. They are affiliated with IPM, International Partnership Ministries, Inc.. Their compound is located in Bassin. They also run the Salem Bible Institute. Lucien and Maude have been in Haiti their entire life and are well known countrywide.
"Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;..." ~ 1 Thessalonians 1:3
The Haitian missionaries our church supports are Lucien and Maude Saul and their two married sons, Royden and Jetlear. They are affiliated with IPM, International Partnership Ministries, Inc.. Their compound is located in Bassin. They also run the Salem Bible Institute. Lucien and Maude have been in Haiti their entire life and are well known countrywide.
"Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;..." ~ 1 Thessalonians 1:3
Our tent for the two weeks. We brought a nice big King sized air mattress to use, so it isn't too bad!
Scenery from our tent. Lots of coconut and banana trees here.
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