The baby

 

Had a great day.  Here is the sonogram from today.  The baby was kicking and moving all over the place.  We were excited.  We had a relaxing day and even ate a cheeseburger!  On the way home I met up with dad and we sorted though some medical supplies for the clinic.  We ended up with a whole truck load full.  I am just getting to read all the comments and emails so I will work of them first thing in the morning.

Se lavi

Enoch and I decided to send our boys back to the USA after the recent earthquake here in Haiti.  They were scared, we were scared and we all thought it would be better for them to stay with family in the USA for awhile.  On Jan 22nd we traveled in the US embassy in Port-au-Prince.  We we hoping that Enoch might be able to get a visa to travel with me to the USA to visit the kids.  Enoch and I have been married for 10 years.  I have lived in Haiti for 15 years.  Enoch has tried twice to be approved for a visitors visa. He has three children that are US citizens.  He has been denied twice.  So when we got to the US embassy we tried to talk to someone their to see if they could help us.  There were many US troops guarding the outside of the embassy.  A few actually answer you when you spoke to them.  Most just screamed at everyone and told them to move and get away and stop standing.  I got the attention of a federal agent and explained my case.  He assured me that Enoch would be able to leave with me.  They let me inside because I was pregnant and said they would help us.  

 A woman in charge came out and talked with us and was very helpful and nice.   We  were placed in with a group of people that had waited since the day before to be seen.  All had been promised the day before that they could apply for a visa.  When we arrived inside they said they the visa department was closed and we could only apply for humanitarian parole.  I was not sure what this was.  We sat inside the embassy and the US troops came and gave us water and food.  We got up to the window and talked to a very nice woman.  She normally worked in Mexico and the American embassy there.  She spent time with us and answered all our questions.  She told me there was no reason that Enoch would not be approved.  We just had to wait three days to be approved by the state department.  They asked me to go to the airport right away and said Enoch would be able to leave in three days. I decided against this and wanted to wait and see what happened with his case. 

We returned on Jan 25th (three days later).  The embassy took those with the cards they had given us inside the front yard.  They lined us up we each had to go through a line.  When we got to the front a man took Enoch’s passport and said they were requesting the passport so that they could put the visa inside.  I tried to tell him that we did not apply for a visa but he said they needed Enoch’s passport anyway.  We left that day and they told us to return on the 1st of Feb.  We returned bright and early that morning.  The troops were the only ones outside.  They were yelling and pushing and cussing at everyone.  I showed my US passport and they laughed at me and said what do you want us to do.  I said can you please answer a question for us.  They told us no.  After talking to about 5 different US troops and walking back and forth I finally got one to tell me that the State department had not made a decision and we needed to again return on Feb 5th.  On Feb 5th, we again left before daylight and traveled for over 1 hour to get the US embassy.  When we arrived there were lots of very mad people.  Everyone was yelling at everyone else.  We tried to make our way up to the US embassy only to be yelled at by the US troops to get back!  Don’t stand there!  Move!  I made my way through the crowd and finally got around to the front of the embassy. 

There were about 6 US troops members there.  I went up and asked one a questions.  He said to move the F–k back and to not talk to him.  I moved on to the next troop and he said he did not care if I was a US citizen to move back!  We went down to the other end of the embassy and tried to talk to someone there.  I told them that I was pregnant and just wanted to talk to someone.  He laughed at me and said you see that line over there.  Everyone of them people are pregnant-even the little kids and men and laughed.   I said can you please just answer a question for me please.  He said move the F–k back lady.  I said please and he pushed me with his gun and said you move or I will move you.  Enoch said you cannot treat a US citizen like that.  He said watch me.  I turned away and he then pushed Enoch into the street where traffic was.  He then said he hated all the Haitian that were there and did not want to talk to any white US missionaries.  He then said a string of cuss words.  The Haitians standing around were mad at him for treating us like this.  They started yelling at him and told him that they would not treat their own like he was treating the US citizens there that day and he should want to help the US citizens.  They said you treat your own people like animals.  He laughed and again said a string of foul words.

I was so shocked I just walked away.  So very shocked.  There was a line of about 2000 people.  Not a joke.  many had US passports, all were being treated just like I was.  The troops were nasty and laughing at everyone.  They were making so many mad and making the whole situation worse.  It was sad, and not right.  Many waiting in line were children, small babies, and other pregnant women.  We left there Friday, confused and defeated.  Enoch returned today.  He got in line at 1am.  They took people in today 10 at a time.  They told them no US citizens spouses or children were arroved for humanitarian parole.   When he finally got to the front of the table they looked in a box and told him his passport was lost.  They handed him two printed out papers that they were handing everyone.  He said what do I need to do to get my passport back and they said they did not know. He asked when he needed to return to pick it up and they said they did not know. 

I have no faith in anyone here.  I have no faith in anyone to help us.  I have been down this road before when we worked on Carmelo’s adoption.  Broken promises, lies and hurt.  We have contacted two Senators in Indiana.  One office was contacted last Monday (Feb 1st) they wrote on (Feb 3rd) they asked Enoch’s name and passport number.  I wrote them two more times with no answer.  We are defeated, we are hurt, we are tired.  Anyone that thinks it is not “God’s will” after 10 years of married and three kids that Enoch does not get a chance to have a break with me is total an insane person. 

Have I given up on God.  NO!  Are you kidding me.  There is just something about being on the front lines so to speak.  You get used to these things, you just go on, you just live.   We do not know where to go from here.  I would like to try and apply for an immigrant visa for Enoch.  Some say I can while living here in Haiti due to working for an NGO.  Some say I cannot and have to go live in the US until the process is complete.  We do not want to live in the US.  We just want Enoch to be able to travel with his family.  So simple but so impossible at times. 

Tomorrow we go to the OB/GYN doctor.  We are hoping for a relaxing day away.  The road to the doctors office is blocked off.  They are trying to remove debris from the road where his office is at. So we will park and walk there. We talked to him and he is still up and running.  Pray for us.

Proverbs 21:30-31 (The Message)

 ³⁰ Nothing clever, nothing conceived, nothing contrived,
   can get the better of God.

 ³¹ Do your best, prepare for the worst—
   then trust God to bring victory.

Tell Obama to Fast-Track Visas for Haitian Earthquake Survivors

If you would please click on this link and sign a petition to fast track visas in Haiti.  Our personal story coming up soon!

Medication needed

You may remember several month back that we had a patient that was being treated for breast cancer.  This is the first patient that we have been able to help with this treatment in Haiti.

She is doing well and recovering from surgery and chemo.  She has been taking the medication below.  We are unable to find it here in Haiti now.  If anyone would be able to find this medication for her please let us know.  We would let you know the quickest way to get it to us.  Email us at licia@realhopeforhaiti.org

A hero helping those with TB-God bless Mr. Monfort

Haiti Hospital’s Fight Against TB Falls to One Man

By IAN URBINA

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — At a fly-infested clinic hastily erected
alongside the rubble of the only tuberculosis sanatorium in this
country, Pierre-Louis Monfort is a lonely man in a crowded room.

Haiti has the highest tuberculosis rate in the Americas, and health
experts say it is about to drastically increase.

But amid the ramshackle remains of the hospital where the country’s
most infected patients used to live, Mr. Monfort runs the clinic alone,
facing a vastness of unmet need that is as clear as the desperation on
the faces around the room.

“I’m drowning,” said Mr. Monfort, 52, flanked by a line of people
waiting for pills as he emptied a bedpan full of blood. All of the
hospital’s 50 other nurses and 20 doctors died in the earthquake or
have refused to return to work out of fear for the building’s safety or
preoccupation with their own problems, he said. Mr. Monfort joked that
the earthquake had earned him a promotion from a staff nurse at the
sanatorium to its new executive director.

In normal times, Haiti sees about 30,000 new cases of tuberculosis each
year. Among infectious diseases, it is the country’s second most common
killer, after AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.

The situation has gone from bad to worse because the earthquake set off
a dangerous diaspora. Most of the sanatorium’s several hundred
surviving patients fled and are now living in the densely packed tent
cities where experts say they are probably spreading the disease. Most
of these patients have also stopped taking their daily regimen of
pills, thereby heightening the chance that there will be an outbreak of
a strain resistant to treatment, experts say.

At the city’s General Hospital, Dr. Megan Coffee said, “This right here
is what is going to be devastating in six months,” and she pointed to
several tuberculosis patients thought to have a resistant strain of the
disease who were quarantined in a fenced-off blue tent. “Someone needs
to go and help Monfort, or we are all going to be in big trouble.”

A further complication is that definitively diagnosing tuberculosis
takes weeks. So doctors are instead left to rely on conspicuous
symptoms like night sweats, severe coughing and weight loss. “But look
around,” Dr. Coffee said. “Everyone is thin, everyone is coughing from
the dust and everyone is sweating from the heat.”

Dr. Richar D’Meza, the coordinator for tuberculosis for the Haitian
Ministry of Health, said his office and the World Health Organization
had begun stockpiling tuberculosis medicines. “We are very concerned
about a resistant strain, but we are also getting ready,” he said,
adding that he is assembling medical teams to begin entering tent camps
to survey for the disease.

“This will begin soon,” he said. “We will get help to these people
soon.”

For Mr. Monfort, it is not soon enough. He scavenges the rubble daily
for medicines and needles. He sterilizes needles using bleach and then
reuses the bleach to clean the floors.

In his cramped clinic, eight of the sickest and most contagious
patients lay on brown- and red-stained beds. He said he had lost count
of how many more were sleeping in other pockets alongside the hospital.
Hundreds come daily to pick up medicine.

Outside the clinic, the air is thick with the sickening smell of
rotting bodies. Occasionally a breeze carried a waft of char from small
cooking fires nearby, offering a respite from the stench and the flies.

Mr. Monfort began to explain that his biggest problem was a lack of
food. Suddenly a huge crash shook the clinic. A patient screamed.
Everyone stood still, eyes darting. A man outside yelled that another
section of the hospital had collapsed. People looking for materials to
build huts had pulled wood pilings from a section of the hospital roof,
which then fell as the scavengers leapt to safety, the man said.

Mr. Monfort looked to the ground silently as if the weight of his
lonely responsibility had just come crashing down.

“These people are dying and in pain here,” he said. “And no one seems
to care.”

The dire scene at Mr. Monfort’s clinic speaks to a larger concern: as
hospitals and medical staff are overrun by people with acute
conditions, patients who were previously getting treatment for cancer,
H.I.V. and other chronic or infectious diseases have been pushed aside
and no longer have access to care.

At the Champ de Mars, Jean-Baptiste Renauld sat on a curb, one shoe
missing, his blue polo shirt torn, his head cupped in his hands. “I
have TB, and I am also supposed to get dialysis every other day,” he
said, explaining that he was a doctor’s assistant before the earthquake
and meticulous about his treatments. “I have not had dialysis in three
weeks, and I feel my blood is rotting from inside.”

Waving his hand over a sea of tents and tarpaulins, he added, “It is
like this country.”

Back at the clinic, Mr. Monfort struggled to fix an IV that had missed
the vein and was painfully pumping fluids under a patient’s skin.
Another ghost of a man hobbled to the doorway on crutches, moaning for
help. “Please wait, please wait,” Mr. Monfort said in a tense whisper.

The biggest source of stress, Mr. Monfort said, is that his three
children and wife are living on the street because the earthquake
destroyed their home. His wife begs him daily to stay with them.
Instead, unpaid and without a mask or gloves to wear, he walks to the
sanatorium each day at 6 a.m. and stays until 8 p.m. when most of the
patients drift to sleep.

“Why don’t you just leave us to die?” asked Clervil Orange, 39. Mr.
Monfort looked offended by the notion. But he did not answer and the
question seemed to stick with him.

The ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus once wrote that there was a type
of suffering so intense that, even in our sleep, it bores into the
heart until eventually, “in our own despair, against our will,” it taps
into a terrible wisdom.

After several minutes in silence, Mr. Monfort spoke of that wisdom. He
referred to it as a “strange hope” that had sprung from the suffering
of his patients and the loss and abandonment of his fellow staff
members.

“These people here are dying, but they keep me alive,” he said. “I know
they are hurting more than me and not complaining.

“So,” he said, handing another walk-in patient a packet of pills, “I
must continue.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/06/world/americas/06tuberculosis.html?ref=world

Photo link

 
Click  here and drag your mouse over the composite image to view the destruction 
along a quarter-mile stretch of Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, one of the 
main commercial arteries in the heart of Port-au-Prince:

God Provides.

In the past couple days Zach has been going into town every day, at least once coming back with patients and supplies.  Yesterday he brought back a huge load of infant formula, sacks of rice and beans, from Mission of Hope (http://www.missionofhopehaiti.org/).  We are so thankful for it!

Christian Aid Ministries gave us 150 tarps to distribute along with shampoo, soap, and high protein shakes, and sacs of rice and beans .  Each of our staff from the Clinic and the Rescue Center received a box loaded with these things as well as a tarp.  Yesterday we handed out tarps to all of the community group members as well and they are already starting to be made into homes around the community!

The staff and community members were all so grateful… thanks to CAM, Mission of Hope, and Agape for all the donations.  They are truly making an impact!

Philippians 4:19
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

New Statistics

Some more statistics…The Prime Minister announced on Friday that the official count is over 200,000 dead (We have heard up to 212,000 so far), 300,000 injured persons treated, 250,000 destroyed homes, and 30,000 disrupted businesses.  Sixty percent of the government buildings have been destroyed, along with 90% of the schools in the Port-au-Prince area. (most schools here are privately run). 

One estimate I saw was that there were around 10,000 persons who lost at least part of a limb, not counting those who suffered serious damage to theirs.  There will be a great need for physical therapists and prostheses.

New children admitted this week

This is Monique.  She is 28 months old and weighs 18 pounds.  She has had kwashiorkor three times now.  She have 6 siblings that are alive at home.  Four other siblings have died over the years from fever and diar.

This is Maurency.  He is 10 months old and weighs 11 pounds.  His parents were killed in the earthquake.  A neighbor cared for him until family members could be found.  He has diar, vomiting and a 104.6 fever.  Both of his aunts are willing to take care of him.  He was put on IV fluids and given medications. They should return this week to take him home.  He is doing much better.

Happy Birthday Carmelo part 2!

Lamentations 3

²² The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;
   his mercies never come to an end;
23they are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.
24 “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
    “therefore I will hope in him.”

 25The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
   to the soul who seeks him.
26 It is good that one should wait quietly
   for the salvation of the LORD.