Haiti days

Time for an update!
We made it back to Haiti Oct 26th. It was so great to be back home to our own house and our own beds and our dog Trigger! We of course were not naive to what may be in store. :)

Our dog: Conveniently thought he would sport fleas for our return. Thoughtfully, he thought he would share those fleas with us by sleeping on our beds in our absence. How nice.

Our house: During our absence a few inhabitants thought they would move in for a while. A small cockroach family under our sink, a mouse family in our cupboard (mama thought she would surprise us with her new babies that day), another mouse family behind the stove and 2 sets of mouse families in our Christmas tree box. The last unwelcome guests; a cupboard full of termites in the wood.

Work for day one after a long flight home: Spray all beds for fleas. Wash all sheets and covers, kill mice, kill cockroaches, kill more mice, spray termites, kill more mice, set traps for the rest of the mice, throw out mouse peed/pooped on Christmas tree. Whew!

Ahh home sweet home.

Since then many of you have been asking about how things have been going here in Haiti with all you have been hearing on the news.

Cholera: Yes it is all around us but thankfully has not hit our immediate villages too hard. It is to the North of us, to the NW of us and now to the East of us. We have been on standby but have not had to open a cholera treatment centre in our immediate vicinity. We have seen cases in our clinic and transported them out to treatment centres and we have been actively sending personnel and helping in cholera treatment centres close by. It is a terrible situation and already over 1600 people have died because of it. People are scared for sure.

Hurricane Tomas: Our other welcome back to Haiti was Hurricane Tomas. At first it was heading straight for us but then as prayers went up, it turned and went West of the island. There was some damage in western parts of Haiti for sure but it was not nearly as bad as we all expected. Praise God. The people in tents just would not have survived.

Paramedics, Laurens and I braving the winds in Tomas

Community Health: This is my new focus this year in Haiti. I was coming back knowing that I will be creating and launching MOH's new community health program. The goal is to have a program Haitian run and lead by the time I am done. Little did I know that it would be life saving with an immediate impact.
We have educated over 7000 people in 9 different villages over the past 2 weeks on cholera prevention and treatment, hygiene and sanitation. Ears were more closed to these messages before but God is using this horrible epidemic to open the ears to sanitation information. Thankfully Cholera is an illness where we can literally save lives by teaching prevention education. People are so eager to learn and I have great Haitian nurses and community ladies to work with and through. I am so fortunate to know the language and to be able to work with national people to get the message across in a culturally relevant way to them.
Yesterday and the day before we travelled to the mountains to teach in the schools. It was music to my ears to hear students, parents and members of the community all singing our hand washing song at the top of their lungs with smiles on their faces. Of course.....I forgot my camera.....man!

Site Management: Laurens is working to put systems in place to help the whole mission run more effectively. He is working with a Haitian counterpart to empower proactive thinking with operations of the site. He has a full time American builder who is now here full time who is dealing with the construction side of things so this is a huge help for Laurens with all the post earthquake building etc that needs to be done. We are both enjoying working mostly with only Haitians now.

The Elections: We have been fine here and there have been no problems in our area. There are parts of PAP and Cap Haitian that have had demonstrations and many people are frustrated with the corruption surrounding the elections yesterday. Today no one showed up to work as people are afraid and the tap taps are not running. The next few months will be unsettled for sure and our movements will have to be limited but time will tell depending on how things pan out over the next few weeks to months. We are keeping a close eye on the situation.

The boys and their new friends on a mountain hike

Family: The twins had their 7th birthday in November, my (Cheryl's) parents came for a week visit and we celebrated American Thanksgiving with our staff yesterday. The kids have settled back into school and home well and they are all doing great. The kids have 2 new boys in their class this year and that has been a blessing for Grayden and Bridgely. Laurens and I feel like a weight has been lifted after our break in Canada (it was so great to spend time with family, friends and our church family) and we feel God's healing power over us. We feel refreshed and ready to continue His great work here in Haiti. We know that this past year will be with us always in more ways than one and some days are still difficult with memories but we have learned and grown so much from it.

Ana and Mina's 7th birthday in Haiti

Our Car: Well someone smashed into the back side of our car but thankfully everyone was fine. $2700 dollars in damage to squeeze out of insurance that we hope they pay. (I don't know anyone that has gone longer than 5months without at least a bump like this.) Such is driving in Haiti. Those of you that have been here and seen the driving are nodding your heads saying, "yup, I can see that".

Thanks to all who are continuing this journey with us and please pray for safety and the end to Cholera over the next few weeks/months.