Day 4

I met with the director last night at 11:00 to discuss the day and talk with her about the the teams role for tommorow. I informed her that we led a group with seven children today using a translator with a mental health background. She was interested in the outcomes of the groups and beginning to feel more comfortable with the team being here. During our conversation, we started talking about post traumatic stress and how the earthquake affected her staff when it happened. I asked to go to the orphanage to see the sleeping arrangements and although it rained pretty heavy this afternoon the children and mon tons were all sleeping on the porch because of continued fear. As we were walking to the sleeping quarters, I overheard a wheezing noise from a distance and we eventually found an infant who i soon found out was 2 having a difficult time breathing. The director is a nurse and she felt that she immediately needed to see a doctor and we went to his room to ask for assistance. He instructed us to take her to the on site hospital and wait for him to arrive. The doctor arrived and after evaluation determined that she needed to start antibiotics immediately. I had the opportunity to hold Mari and give her comfort while the doctor and nurse mixed her medication. After Mari was stable i spoke with the doctor and nurse and found out that she was three years old had cerebral palsy and brain damage. She is at the orphanage because her parents did not make it through the quake and there are no other family members to take care of her. I would ask that everyone pray for Mari and that she can feel the love that God has for her and the orphanage. I am truly blessed to be here and will follow up with Mari in a few hours. It is now 2:00 Haiti time and i am going to bed.

I woke up at 7:30 to cloudy skies with a cool breeze and the smell of burning plastic and trash. There are some sounds of home that give me comfort for instance the roosters crowing all night. After breakfast we had our first meeting with the multidisciplinary team to begin establishing rapport with the doctors, nurses, and support staff. The meeting was successful and Dr. Cassandra a Haitian doctor gave me the names of seven children that may need an evaluation for potential mental illness. Dr. Looby and Dr. Scott took our translator with them to begin talking with a girl who had her leg amputated and did not want to wear that sock that would assist her with getting a new leg. I went with Dr. Doria to the nursing station at the orphanage and began looking through records to assess possible abuse, mental illness, or physical disabilites. The charts were partially written in French and we used an intrepreter to assist with reading. I took notes for each individual child and will begin putting records together with our assessments for the mental health team coming in next week. I spoke with my contact in the states tonight and she will be coming next week to follow up on what we started. It is great to be a part of a program in the inital phases and i look forward to the eventual success of children at the orphanage having access to mental health providers. Lunch is not provided here and we took a break for lunch where i ate an MRE. The afternoon consisted of taking a break from mental health and assisting the orphanage in unloading a truck full of donations from the United States. I have never seen any kids work as hard as these kids today they worked in the back of an 18 wheeler truck for hours unloading 1000s of bottles of water and clothes. During this time i got to hang out with the disabled children of the orphanage and color with chalk and crayons. It was great to see how clothes are handed out when they are donated and again i was almost brought to tears when i saw the children sacrificing their needs to help me find clothes for the babies and the amputees. After dinner we attended praise and worship on site and i had the opportunity to hear a message spoken in English and translated in Haitian. The praise and worship was outstanding and i was humbled by seeing kids with amputations who had just lost their parents raising their hands and praising Jesus. When i see this i wonder what reason do we have to complain about things when we have everything we could ever want. The smell of smoldering garbage fills the air and it is currently pouring down rain and as the country approaches the rainy season this will soon be an every day occurance. I will have the website of the orphange up soon and want to encourage everyone that has not been able assist with earthquake relief to adopt a kid here monthly for 30.00 which will pay for housing, food, water, mon tons (nannies), school which starts next week and medical assistance. One last thing i will be leaving the premises tommorow to tour the devastation first hand in order to attempt to put myself in their shoes and see what they have lived with daily. This will be thereapeutic and humbling for me as well. Thank you to everyone for following and i look forward to seeing you soon as well as sharing many stories about my visit. I miss my family and excited about seeing them as soon as possible. Jeremiah 32:17 (Pictures were used with permission from Childrens Home)