Joan (an amazing missionary that has come to help homeschool our kids) had arrived that week and filled in with the pharmacy, our oldest son Joseph was also visiting and filled in with triage, Julia came up and helped with scabies and triage, and David was in the pharmacy in between teaching classes at the school. They were all thankful to serve and always enjoy working in the clinic.
The team walked up the mountain while the truck went to the airport to gather the rest of the team. It was a beautiful day and everyone did a great job hiking up the mountain. It is not a small accomplishment. It really is a tough walk! We saw the cutest little goat with her baby on the way up. The first day went good and by early afternoon the rest of the team arrived with most of the supplies. A checked bag was MIA which is not such an uncommon occurrence. It actually never made it to Haiti until after the team left the following week.
One of the team members is an artist and was able to paint a mural on the wall that will be a teaching tool about clean water and other health related concerns. It shows the mountains and how the river runs down the mountain, but up above there are many things going on that you do not see such as animals in the water, people bathing in the water, etc. This should be a good tool to help educate on the fact that just because something looks clean does not mean that it is clean. Even Dr. O (from Canada) helped paint during our lunch break. I'll try to attach a completed picture later. It is really impressive!
We are so thankful for all the help upstairs organizing inventory. The team brought in many donations of much needed supplies for the pharmacy. The upstairs is looking better and better each day as we continue to plug away finding a place for everything and making that place clearly marked. We now have labels (for the most part) that are color coded so that team members can find medications easier. Our printer went down for a while, but the ministry was finally able to buy a new printer. This is also not a small thing in Haiti. Replacing things is always a challenge. We also have velcro on the shelves and the back of the labels. The problem we were having was that things would get moved around due to space and what the label or shelf says would no longer be what was actually there. Peeling off labels or painting what we written on the shelves was challenging. Unfortunately we ran out of velcro as well as the little clear badge holders to place the labels in, but we hope to get more on the next team. The simple things are often almost impossible to come by in Haiti.
The clothing closet is also looking great. An amazing team member did an incredible job organizing the clothing and labeling divider rings in between the various sizes. We're in need of more hangers, but we now have a very good system in place. Thank you Fern and all the other team members that helped with the clothing closet!
It was so fun to work together, pray together, and minister to the people of Haiti together. What I love about teams like this is seeing people from different backgrounds and different parts of the country coming together for a common purpose of loving the Lord and serving others. The whole team sang in front of the church on Sunday.
The kids all loved to visit with the team members. At the end of the week, the team signed a pink soccer ball for Naomi and the girls and gave some other soccer balls to the boys. Naomi absolutely LOVES anything that is pink!! One soccer ball unfortunately has already hit our razor wire that goes around our house, but the others are still in good shape. The pink one thankfully survived!
We miss you too, Linda. Thank you so much for your part in making our time with MTM such an awesome experience. Elnora
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you guys made it home ok even with all the extremely cold weather in the midwest.
ReplyDelete