Mission Accomplished

Sometimes there are so many distractions in a day that even though I go home exhausted at night, I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything. After 15 years at Mission of Hope International in Haiti, I still have what I would call my American hangups. In general, we are a nation driven by the clock and our “To Do” lists. When I keep to a schedule and mark off items on my “To Do” list, I automatically feel a sense of satisfaction. But here, my “accomplishments” are often achieved by stopping my “work” and taking some time to communicate…and communicate…and communicate…

I have spent the past couple of weeks working out of the dental room. Along with Renord and Marie Ange, I have counted more pills than I’d ever care to look at again. We accomplished recording all of them and then Gardith and I put them away into the new medicine closet. Each week we will restock the shelves in the pharmacy so that our medical can always access what they need, without things getting messy.

medicine closet

The Congregational Church of W. Newbury, MA

Congregational Church of West Newbury, MA sent us a really hard working team last week!!!

This past week Aja Simon, Bob & Sally Heier joined us to work with the medical ministry. We also received a team from the Congregational Church of West Newbury, MA here with us. What a blessing they all were to us!!! And what a joy to see the two teams work together. They worked in three different specific areas.

1. They worked long days, along with our Haitian construction crew to build a home for a family in need. While they were at it, they also made some friends, both young and old.

Working hard on the house

The house from the Congregational Church of West Newbury

Dinner with our Haitian and American builders

2. They worked with our preschool teachers and students each morning. Doris directs the church’s school in Massachusetts and she also teaches at a college. Alicia is a preschool teacher in Massachusetts. Doris’ daughter, Olivia and nursing student, Acadia also lent a hand with all the projects.

Working with MOHI students

Olivia shared lots of goodies with the students. Here she is sharing stickers with the students as they head out the gate.

The preschool teachers presented a card of appreciation to Doris and the team for all the work they did with them this week.

3. They worked in the medical ministry, helping in a medical outreach in Ti Paradi and the clinic in St Etienne. They also spent many hours cleaning/organizing the pharmacy and inventorying medical supplies.

Medical Clinic in Ti Paradi

Bob, Sally and Aja cleaned and organized the clinic this week, as well as doing a clinic outreach in Ti Paradi.

Dr Lavaud and Nurse Ruth in St Etienne

Patsy was a very focused project manager, as she managed to record all of our clinic supplies and organize them into the supply room.

Wayne and Patsy Fish served with their whole hearts this week!

We truly are grateful for teams like these that come and work alongside us. It’s a bit of a balancing act trying to coordinate activities that the team will enjoy, but that are also valuable to furthering the purposes of the mission. This past week… MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Marie Ange has been registering clinic patients each morning for the past year or so. Sally and Aja worked with her this past week to expand her role to include recording vitals (temperature, height, weight, blood pressure, pulse…) She has been doing an incredible job already.

Sally began training Marie Ange to do clinic intake.

Gardith’s responsibilities have expanded, as well. She takes the patients from Marie Ange and enters their information into the electronic medical record. We are hoping to work with her more this week so that she can even record patient history and chief complaint. This will relieve quite a bit of slow moving work from Dr. Lavaud’s plate and allow him to spend more time paying attention to the patient.

Gardith enters patient information into the electronic medical records in preparation for their visit with Dr. Lavaud.

Sally has a way of capturing our attention, as she did here with Acadia and Alicia.

We were invited to dinner at the UN last week. We didn’t realize that it was another formal affair, as the General who flew in from Sri Lanka for the Medal Parade presented Lex with a carved wooden elephant. Elephants are of national significance in Sri Lanka and Lex was grateful for the honor. Oh, and yes, we thoroughly enjoyed the dinner, as well.

The General from Sri Lanka presents a carved elephant to Pastor Lex in appreciation of his collaboration.

Lex brought Bob, Sally and Aja to Port-au-Prince on Friday and continued on to the city of Archaie, north of Port-au-Prince. He spent the night so he would be available first thing in the morning to perform a wedding ceremony there.

Lex performed a wedding in Archaie yesterday.

We were excited to receive another team from Bless Back Worldwide yesterday. They are referring to themselves as Team Spring Fever. They have a full schedule this week with medical clinics, teacher training, drama club, an appreciation dinner for our staff, participation in our Women’s Conference and cosmetology classes with our high school upper-class girls.

Bless Back Worldwide’s Team Spring Fever has joined us!

We had a busy service this morning in Thozin. Maestro wasn’t feeling well, so Angie Sutton was contacted. She and the girls at the Hands and Feet Project lead worship during the Sunday night English service. They quickly prepared themselves and we had a wonderful time of worship this morning. The team from Bless Back joined us and we were blessed to hear from the team leader, Lisa McCloy and Haiti Country Director, Melissa Roper. The people were so encouraged as Melissa spoke of Bless Back’s vision for the health of our community. I translated for Lex as he gave the announcements. Everyone started laughing at me and I finally realized that Lex and I were both speaking in Kreyol. *SMILE* Pastor Laramy Brown shared a message about worship and understanding who the object of our worship is…or should be.