Dear Friends,
Hello again! I’m sorry I have not written in so long, but I’ll try to catch you up on what has happened. I went home on the 18th of May, as planned, with my brother. The last week I was at HGM in Despinos, we had a team of 20 come for medical outreaches. We went to 3-4 places and saw 800 people that week. I was tired by the time I went home! Then the second week I was home, we went on a family trip which was quite refreshing! We had a lovely time, being all together for a week! I had been tentatively planning on staying in the States till the end of June then seeing if I could come to Ailegue and work in the clinic here. Well, on the trip, Daddy got a call, and the folks here at Ailegue asked if I could come down right away and help in the cholera clinic. So, I changed plans, packed up and came back to Haiti with Michael on the 7th of June. (Ailegue is back in the mountains about an hour and forty-five minutes from Petit Goave where Micheal lives.) Anyway, I flew down on Tuesday and the flights and airports were uneventful- oh, except in the Miami airport the fire siren went off! It was so loud! (I never did find out what it was about.)
We were met at the airport by two guys who had flown in that morning and were coming back here also. Steve, the administrator here at Gospel to Haiti,and some other folks who had flown in that morning, were out in Port shopping when his truck broke down. So we all got in Michael’s truck and a very small car and went out to meet them. We ended up towing the truck to a mechanics and leaving it for repair. We then left for Petit Goave and had an uneventful trip. Once there, we put some of our things and all of us except Michael (10 adults and 2 children) in two Gators for the trip into the mountains. Michael had to stay out to meet someone the next day. It was dark when we headed back into the mountains, but thankfully it wasn’t raining – yet. It sprinkled off and on later. The trip went well till we got to a river and in crossing it we blew a tire. The tires are tubeless, and what happened was that bouncing over (maybe on would be a better word) a rock bent the rim. The road was quite muddy but we had to fix it there. We had no jack, so the guys lifted the back end while one of the girls stuck in some rocks. Then with the handle of the socket wrench, Steve beat the rim back into place. We pumped it up, and praise the Lord! it held air! It was so funny degajeing in the dark and in the mud! We laughed a good bit during the whole process! We made it safely to the mission and crashed into bed at 1:00 am.
The next day we got settled, and Steve made a schedule for us to work in the clinic. Three teams of three rotating every 8 hrs but the mid-day team starts the next series of shifts. It woks out so every takes turns on each shift. Yeah, it’s confusing until you see it on paper. I was on the shift that started at midnight and went till 8 am. Lisa and Michael and I are on a team, except Michael is not back here yet. So Lisa and I went over to the clinic at midnight. There were 5 patients there, but 4 were well enough to go home in the morning. So we didn’t have that much to do till 3 o’clock when an old man came in. He could hardly stand, so we admitted him. What happens is this: The patients gets sprayed down with clorox water and put in a gown. We immediately give Zofran to stop the vomiting, and bottle of pedialyte, and a bucket. We put them on a cot and start an IV if needed. This man needed it, and thankfully Lisa got it in on the first try. Then we gave him his doxycycline, to kill the cholera. After that we had to soak his clothes for ten min in bleach water, and wash them out. We had just gotten that done when a bunch of people brought in a lady who was so dehydrated she was not responding. So we started the whole process over. But Lisa had to try three times to get an IV started. It was a miracle that she got when she did, because we couldn’t see her veins! While we did that we had to keep an eye on the man, make sure he was drinking, and keep his IV going. Then there are slop buckets to empty and pans to wash out, the floor to clean and people to discharge. It didn’t seem long till 8 am came and our shift was over. I took a nap this afternoon, and I don’t have to go back on shift till tomorrow at 4 pm. Michael is coming in this evening so it will be nice to see him. As far as I know he will be staying here for a while.
Well, that’s all for now. I hope I was able to convey a little bit of what I’m doing down here. I need your prayers and support, and am very grateful for each one of you! Please pray for our safety here and good health, and pray also that the gospel of Christ would be seen in our lives and that people would come to Jesus. Please pray also that the cholera does not get worse and that it can be eliminated from this area. I am thankful for all the other team members here, they are a pleasure to work with! God is good!
If you have a minute, I would love to hear from you!
Blessings to each one,
—
For His Glory,
Virginia
Published by