Madelene is….

still alive and doing fair.  She is asking for every food that you can imagine.  She wants eggs, potatoes, bread, soup, oatmeal, rice, meat, etc.  He skin is healing in some places and getting worse in others.  She loves to have her hair braided and fixed up.  Please continue to pray for her and her papa.

The girls have graduated

The girls have all graduated from the medika mamba program after 7 weeks. Check out weeks 1 thru 6 here

week #1

week #7

Daphna- lowest weight 25 to 30 pounds

Lysemene-lowest weight 29 to 35 pounds

Fabienne-lowest weight 24 pounds to 32 pounds

Loudia-lowest weight 28 pounds to 34 pounds

I am telling you the lowest weight because you can see in the top picture they are all swollen from the kwashiorkor so they all lost some weight before they began to gain.

Special thanks to Med & Food for Kids, World Wide Village and Troy & Tara Livesay.  And to all of you that believe in us, support our work and most importantly lift us up in prayer.  Your reward will be great.  You are a part of saving these beautiful kids lives.

For Anna and all those that love this little guy

True miracles do still happen. 

We never told you how close to death Darlens was.  He was taking his last breaths when I put a request up for prayer.  Jess and I ran up the hill to the Cholera house to get help for him.  We were all crying and believed he would die soon.  I said to myself dear God–not Darlens.

 Our prayers together worked and by only a pure, true miracle I can post these beautiful pictures of this sweet boy who has stolen the hearts of so many.

 

Anna stop crying 🙂 To God be all the Glory!

Cholera update

We wanted to give you an update on the Cholera in our area.  We have been seeing a decrease in patients this past week.  Many of the beds are empty.  We of course are excited about this!

Carloine and Lori getting an IV started.

Lori has truly saved hundreds of lives.  We love her deeply.  We cannot explain to you all that she has went through in the past month.  Many days she was by herself with over 20 patients.  She has done her best.  Many people are telling us that she has a great cholera house and is doing wonderful care for her patients.  She has told me several times that she has never worked this hard before in her life.  Even with the earthquake and flood.  We know that Lori’s reward will be great in heaven.

Those that can get up sit on the porch together each morning.  They sing, pray and move about a bit.

This is Ginette.  She has been helping Lori since the beginning.  She thinks and works just like Lori.  Her husband is currently in Venezuela.  He has been looking for pictures of his beautiful wife on the blog.  Men foto you Bennet!  Nou sonje ou anpil!

Some patients come in and are given ORS to drink. 

We want to thank each of you that have given and prayed for Lori and the staff during this past month.  We are very thankful to each of you.  We are thankful for the education that has gone out to many areas with RHFH health care workers.  We believe that this has prevented many cases in our area.  We are making plans to downsize soon but will still have an area to receive patients in.   We have had three volunteers these past two-weeks here at RHFH.  They have been giving Lori a break which has been nice.  We are thankful to Jessica, Nichole and Paul for their help.

7 weeks on Medika Mamba!

The difference 7 weeks can make with medika mamba and a lot of Jesus love.  Updates on the four girls coming up soon, but for tonight I am going to stop working early and get our clothes ready for church.  We are so excited to be able to travel to church tomorrow morning for the first time in our new vehicle–as a family–God is good!

The kids

OH MY…..

My heart  is leaping with joy tonight.  Madelene is still alive and YOU are making a difference.

$7797 donated on paypal (includes the matching gift)

$1090 pledged to go to RHFH office $1000 pledged for school help.

$10 given by a missionary friend here in Haiti

A grand total of $9897.00 rasied in 24 hours for these beautiful children.  Updates in the coming weeks on how  families from the RC will benefit from these donations.  God is so good.  Keep praying for Madelene and her papa, Andre.  We are working on a plan for their family as well.

A challenge….are you in?

Someone wrote today from TX.  They are willing to match $1000.oo to help families like the one below.  They are giving us 24 hours to meet this goal.  What a huge blessing it would be to bless many families this Christmas season.  I would love it!  Madelene is eating!  Today we gave her a plate of rice with chicken.  She looked at me and said “you are only giving me one plate I need two”  She is a fighter.  We are hoping and praying that her body will be able to recover.  Ready set go!  8:20pm (Haiti time)

Madelene eating this AM

How was your Tuesday?

This is Madelene.  She is 5 years old and weighs 26 pounds.   Her mother died when she was giving birth to her younger sibling.  Madelene was just a baby herself then, not even 2 years old yet.  Her mother gone.  Leaving her dad to raise her and 9 other siblings.  Three of those siblings have died.  Madelene’s dad needs to work.  He has to.  He has to feed his family.  He does not have time to take care of Madelene and work at the same time in the fields.  He made a hard decision to pass her around with family members.

This is what Madelene has been doing for the past 5 years of her life.  Going back and forth between different aunt, uncles and cousins.  She has been neglected.  She has had a hard life for these past five years.  I am not sure how long she has been malnourished and suffering from kwashiorkor.  Her skin is split open in several places around her eyes, stomach and legs.  She has a terrible fungal infection. Her hair is falling out.  Many of her teeth are rotten.  Her fingernails are long and full of dirt.

 I went into the room to talk to Madelene’s papa.  I looked at him and told him “I am not mad at you.  I understand.  I understand.”  You see Madelene’s papa gets up each day to work in the fields.  He gets up before day break and heads for his small plot of land.  He has his hoe and pick and he works the land.  The land that already does not produce much.  He works all day long.  Some days he does not even have food to eat.  He plants, harvest and then sells his crop.  No tractors to help.  All of this is done by hand.  No vehicle to travel to the market in.  He uses his mule to carry his load down the steep mountain path.  He cannot afford to pay for a tap tap (taxi) to carry his load once he does reach a road that can be traveled on.  He saves every gourde (penny) that he can for his family.  He loves Madelene dearly.  He loves all of his children.  He wants so much for them.  So when I told him I was not mad at him and that I understood.  He began to cry.  I began to cry.  The staff began to cry.  We all together understood that there is no easy solution to his problem.  But his love for his daughter runs deep.  I asked him if he was a christian and he was.  I told him to go to his church and ask them to pray for him and his family. Pray that God will heal Madelene.  I also told him that I had many friends that would also pray for her.  If she does live, by the grace of God, we will have to help her papa find a new solution for Madelene.

Someone came to the gate yesterday and wanted to see me.  She needed some advice on a problem she was having.  She has 5 children.  Four of them are currently living with her.  The two older children are on the school sponsorship program.  The two younger children are in school but got kicked out of school this week because they could not pay their bill.  The mother was very discouraged and told a few of her neighbors about it.  That afternoon someone came to her house and told her that she could put her kids in an orphanage.  She told me many other promises that were told to her if she would give them up for adoption.  She was thinking about it and wondering what the best choice would be for her kids. She wanted to know my thought and if there was anything RHFH could do to help her.   I asked her why she would consider putting her children in an orphanage to be adopted.  She said that she cannot feed them a plate of food each day.  They cry and are hungry.  She cannot pay for their school.  She cannot buy their uniforms or books.  She lives in a stick house that is falling apart.   All these things she could not do for her children were promised by the orphanage.  I asked how she really felt in her heart.  “I would rather know that my kids had a plate of food to eat each day and get and education than to hear them crying.” was her response.

I have never known this pain.  I have never had to make this decision for my children.  I have never been in the place that Madelene papa has been in.  These are only 2 people who I have talked to in the past 24 hours.  I sat and listened to them and their stories.  It is easy in our western lifestyles to think and judge.  Why do they have so many children?  Why don’t they get a job?  Why don’t they feed their kids?  Why do they live like that?  Why don’t they have a bed for them to sleep on?  Why is their so many problems?  Why don’t they this and that….  I have heard it so many times from so many people.  But not one of us has any idea the daily pain that many go through here in Haiti.  RHFH has a unique ministry to be able to offer help to many of this families.  We are not againist adoption at all.  But want to keep as many families together as we can.  I want each of you to be in prayer for both of these families.  Maybe someone could sponsor the two children in school for the year.  Do not think “that is so sad” and do nothing.  Pray for them and ask God what He would have you do. 

We fall down
We lay our crowns
At the feet of Jesus
The greatness of mercy and love
At the feet of Jesus
We cry holy, holy, holy
We cry holy, holy, holy
We cry holy, holy, holy
Is the lamb

My Jesus, I love you
I know thou are mine
To thee all the follies of sin I resent
My gracious redeemer
My savior, art thou
If ever I’ll love you
My Jesus tis now

KUTLESS LYRICS

(all pictures and stories used with permission from parents)

New Medika Mamba grads

  As always we want to thank World Wide Village, Troy and Tara Livesay, and Meds and Foods for kids.  Without your help we could not be helping these kids below.

WADNER

23 pounds                                    32 pounds

TEVESE

20 pounds                                          25 pounds

CHERONY

18 pounds                                                   24 pounds

DASEME

28 pounds                                     34 pounds

NAOMI

15 pounds                                             20 pounds

FABIENNE

29 pounds with kwash down to 24 back up to 29 pounds

LYSEMENE

29 pounds                                             38 pounds

ROSITA

21 pounds                                                  26 pounds

DIEULOT

12 pounds                                               17 pounds