As I scooped up a handful of beach pebbles the other day, I stopped and looked at them closely. All about the same size, and rubbed smooth. A red one, a yellow, brown ones, and white ones. Together creating a mosaic that from a distance looks like uniformity. Is this the way God wants his children to live? Each complimenting each other’s abilities and beauty. Races of people living blended together in unity.....
I need to thank some of you for your generous gifts to the clinic. We now have an ultrasound machine! (but waiting for more training). We have a suction machine that has already definitely saved the life of a newborn that was plugged up so badly with mucus. We thank you all so much! Our new clinic is almost complete. We have only some cabinets and some plumbing to finish and we are ready to move in. The clinic is beautiful! The Haitian “boss” we hired to do the construction did an amazing job. A big thanks to the CSI boys too for their expertise and help at different times. 150 locals collected and carried rocks on their heads for the project, 24 did mason work, 7 painted, 32 hammered big rocks into gravel, 12 dug cistern and toilet holes and also footings. It’s been a big help to have our older son Trevor back here in Haiti again, helping to finish up the clinic. Seems I am pulled away to a thousand other things each day, so much so that it makes it hard to get any big things done. So many needs, and people needing to talk, or show me their gardens... or damaged houses etc etc. But we are excited that our move in date and inauguration for the new clinic is Feb 15th. It will be amazing to have all this extra space.
We have also been able to build some houses with money that some of you have sent in. The house recipients say a great big THANKS to Scott City, KS church for the houses we were able to build with their special donations. CAM too has been able to bless some people in this area like this. Another project that we have been involved with is a work for food project using CAM food boxes. We have had 9 teams of 20 men each working at building and repairing roads that were damaged in hurricanes this past year. This is amazing how much this kind of manual labor 180 men can do. This now enables trucks to get back into the more remote places and haul produce out to market. So much just rotted away earlier.
The clinic is running fine and being very effective. Heather patched up another 4 guys who got into a motorcycle wreck again. Lots of stitches. One of them has been in to be patched up and stitched so many times!!! We get upset at him, we bawl him out for driving so fast, we threaten him that next time we may not even help him, but each time he comes back with this crazy mischievous grin that we can’t resist. Each time he promises to quit being such a crazy driver. A women came to the clinic yesterday who looked about dead. Her blood sugar was basically zero. With quick action and IV meds she came back to consciousness and in a couple hours was ready to go home. Heather has done really well at delivering babies too. Two of them this week and one is only 4 lbs. No intensive care units here and no incubators. We pray that this little kid from a first-time-mom will make it. A week or so ago, a lady arrived carried on a motorcycle but as she got to the gate, she slumped off the moto and fell down dead. She likely died en route. A lowly poor person is taken out and buried quickly, but a pastor’s wife like this is often made a big deal of, and taken to a morgue in the city in preparation for a large funeral with all the trimmings. Our patient numbers keep creeping up. Last week Heather said she alone saw 325 patients that week. Each Wed. we have PG day where Heather is busy all day looking after the health of lots of pregnant ladies. Checkups, classes, and giving them their monthly vitamins, etc. She has close to 300 women on the program, and the results are obvious. We do NOT have the infant or mom death rate that there used to be in this area! Not even close. We aren’t even taking as many women down the mountain for the 3 hr. trip to Port for labor and delivery complications anymore. Thank you God for being able to make a difference in these women’s lives! Our new clinic has a room to specialise in maternity issues more so we are hiring a Haitian RN to work for us. Clinic operating costs will rise some, but her expertise and help is very much needed, so we trust God to provide. Other than that our staff will remain the same. Our Haitian nurse assistant has changed because our former one, Se Willy, had her baby, but we are super happy with our Haitian sister, Mirlin, who is now helping our nurse Heather Isaac (from Alberta). Mirlin is fluent in English as well.
Our household is a busy one. We have Mirlin, Heather, and Sallie, (our children’s teacher) all living with us. Sallie is a first time teacher but is doing a awesome job. We and the kids all love her happy face. We have had and are continuing to enjoy lots of visitors as well. We had a nice couple from Milwaukee, WS, spend a few days here. They want to come sometime and start a clinic in another zone called Gwo Cheval. We are excited for Jesse and Kirsten and their plans. Now we have Russ and Monica Giesbrecht and their 4 children here visiting. Russ has been a good help putting finishing touches on the new clinic. Russ and I went exploring some new far off country under peak La Salle (Haiti’s highest mountain). Next day we took a horse ride along some steep mountain trails and down into some valleys, and visited a bunch of our church members who live farthest away. We have been having forest fires here in the pine forest too. The hills were red with fire all night the other night.
We enjoyed revival meetings and communion with our church here and now there is another 20 in Bible doctrine classes. I am trying to help out there more this round. The class is being led and directed by our Haitian brethren though. It is such an encouragement to watch them do these classes. I am inspired by the soundness of faith and with the conviction with which our brethren here teach these classes. I am also inspired by the convictions of the ones taking the classes and their desire to learn. We have had more people recently who have started coming to church and express their desire to “mache ak ou” (Walk with you). Sunday had 308 people. Clinton, want to come build another church? J We had 2 devil worshippers recently who became born-again. They invited the church people over to assist them in burning their idols and symbols. So we walk down narrow mountain trails to their houses. It was touching to listen to their testimonies, pray with them, and watch them burn their stuff. Another faith booster I had recently is when our foster daughter Ketli was sick with the flu. She coughed bursts of 3 coughs together every 2-3 minutes all night long. We gave her all the meds we could give... but to no avail. I hardly slept at all and I had to get up and leave early that next morn. At 4 am, in desperation, I placed my hand on Ketli’s chest and prayed God to take the cough away and let her sleep. She stopped coughing immediately and went to sleep. Candace said she slept without a single cough for the next 5-6 hours! Thank you Jesus! How can people not believe in God?
Help us pray...
· For the poor people here, for their health both spiritually and physically.
· That the clinic workers can be blessed with wisdom to heal bodies and that we can show Jesus to the unsaved
· That we can live in the center of Gods will and that He can steer our lives.... and our future
Keith Toews
Administrator- Confidence Health Center
Oriani, Haiti
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