Coram Deo Haiti Update - May 17, 2013

“Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” 
Proverbs 16:3

Hi! It is an exciting morning in our yard this morning. The school children made Haitian flags and then had an assembly, where the teachers had them marching around the yard singing the Haitian national anthem and patriotic songs. Each May 18 is Fete Drapeau  (Flag Day). We celebrated it a day early!  It is good for the children and teachers to have pride for their country and to celebrate their fight for independence from slavery into a nation. Pray for Haiti, that the country would develop and improve. We can provide a helping hand but it is the Haitian people who will need to make the changes.

This week, the community health workers from International Child Care/Grace Children’s Hospital, made a couple of visits to our school program here at Coram Deo. The first visit was to talk with the students about cholera and to remind them on how to prevent and treat cholera. May is the month of rain and we have been getting some good downpours. Cases of cholera usually increase during rainstorms as the bacteria are spread by flooding rivers and ground water.

The second visit of the week was a mobile lab testing day. One of the school shelters was used as a laboratory. The students and patients who were waiting to be treated by Ed all took blood tests checking for HIV and Syphilis. One of our students, Dadelene Vincent tested positive for syphilis. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease.  Untreated it can eventually lead to death. Ed treated her with antibiotics. Dadelene is a young adult who is also deaf.  We were concerned about how she got syphilis and sent a copy of the lab results home to her family. Her aunt came to talk with us this morning. Handicapped people are sometimes sexually abused here in Haiti. Dadelene’s family is poor and lives in the countryside. A few years ago she decided on her own that she didn’t want to live the rural life anymore and ran away to Port-au-Prince. Her aunt, who lives in our neighbourhood walked through the La Piste refuge camp where a large number of deaf people live searching for Dadelene.  It was through seeing a photo that a deaf person led her to where Dadelene was staying. Dadelene then moved in with her aunt’s family and enrolled into our school program here at Coram Deo. Her aunt told us about her problems dealing with her. Dadelene is rebelling and not listening to her aunt and sneaks out. This is how she probably got syphilis. We are going to contact Pastor Leny, who is a Philippine missionary here in Haiti. He has a church and a deaf ministry. Pray for Dadelene, that she learns how to live. Pray too for the community health workers who are visiting the schools in the area doing these mobile lab clinics. We are thankful that Dadelene’s syphilis was treated.

Raymond Saintoute, a 28-year-old man was injured in a motorcycle accident on December 24, 2011. He was brought to the Medicines Sans Frontieres trauma hospital with a displaced/fractured hip. The doctors there told him that they couldn’t help him and didn’t have the specialized equipment and supplies needed for a surgery. He then spent the next 10 months getting around using crutches. He was unable to put any weight on his damaged leg. We brought him to see the Cure International team working at the Adventist Hospital in Carrefour and they willingly agreed to do his surgery. In December 2012, almost to the day – 1 year later, Raymond finally got the surgery needed to repair and put into place his hip. His repaired hip was held in place with steel pins and an external fixator. He has lived the last 5 months with this steel appliance sticking out of him. Last week he had another surgery to remove the external fixator. He now is heading into a long physiotherapy process for his hip and leg. He needs to learn to walk again. Pray for Raymond as he endures the sometimes painful physiotherapy sessions. He told me that he would have courage to endure the pain . His desire is to be able to walk again without the assistance of crutches. We give the Lord thanks for the medical personnel of Cure International and Adventist Hospital who have surgically repaired Raymond’s’ broken/displaced hip.

Last week we sponsored Pastor Pierre and 20 other church workers/pastors to attend the 3 days of Timothy Leadership Training Seminars (May 8-10)  held at the Christian Reformed Ministry Centre. We housed 12 of them here at Coram Deo each evening.  They slept on cots and mattresses under the outside school shelters. It worked out well. Each morning we brought them over to the Ministry Centre and picked them up in the afternoon. The last time the Timothy Leadership Seminars were held was in October 2012, just as Hurricane Sandy was starting to hit Haiti. The Kenscoff church workers had to walk through the mountains in stormy weather that time. This time it wasn’t a hurricane storm but a Lavalas (translated as flood) storm/manifestation as thousands of people accompanied Jean Bertrand Aristide from his appearance at the court to answer questions about the Jean Dominique murder case. Jean Dominique was a journalist who was assassinated while Aristide was president. Aristide lives in the Tabarre area, and where the ministry centre is located is on the route that he would travel. As a result traffic was minimal in the area as a lot of people kept off the streets that day because of uncertainty. We were happy that we had quiet streets to travel on!

Our truck,  Kimosabee, is getting old and the truck is making some new noises. Poor old Kimosabee is sick again and not able to carry us around until we find a mechanic to fix him. Ysmaille has lent us one of his vehicles to pick up our handicapped teacher and for our errands while Kimosabee is under the weather. We are thankful that we were able to pay our payroll for the month of March. We are a couple of months behind because of funding problems. The repair costs in the past with the truck have affected our ability to pay our employees. I am not going to get Kimosabee fixed again, until the payroll and our teacher’s tuition is paid. This week more funds were deposited into our bank account and I will be paying the April payroll next week. Thank you for your prayers and support. Please continue to pray for funding, that our programs here can continue to thrive and grow. Pray too for the farmers, that their crops would grow well and that they will reap a good harvest. We received a good suggestion in testing the soil quality and we will be pursuing that. It will be interesting to find out how fertile the soil is in the Kenscoff area.

Have a blessed weekend and a “bon fete drapeau”!

Karen Bultje, Coram Deo