Rainbows are frequent here and are a vivid reminder of God’s promises to us.
I would love to have you spend a week here to see the Oriani clinic, have devotions with us, experience the bustle, see the patient suffering of the patients, take in the many varied smells J, and experience the blessings etc. Each patient has their own unique life and story that is intriguing and sometimes inspiring.
Dalia is a 33 yr old mother of 5 children who all appear to be under 5 yrs old. When I asked her for the children’s age she gave me wildly varying numbers that were obviously years from reality. After I suggested that maybe she had forgotten, she laughed and said “Yes, I never know how old they are.” Apparently she doesn’t even remember what month OR year they were born. One is crippled and rides on the back of her brother who is maybe 6 at most. Dalia and her children are just in survival mode since her husband left and went to the Dominican, having taken a prettier Dominican wife.
We have many many such “Dalias” in the area here. Children red-haired with malnutrition and suffering from sickness and parasites, gardens and crops completely failed every season for the last 2 years, and existing on credit or charity from anyone they can while living in houses that are deplorable. They don’t even have the physiological needs covered as outlined on the first quadrant of Maslow’s pyramid. We help them with basic health issues and give some education on the advantages to be had in sanitation. I could talk a long time about such a family to try to describe the reality they live in, but it’s hard to convey it, especially the damaged emotions and despair that comes from living without God, morals, and money. We are talking about children half naked and groveling in a parasite-laden dirt yard where there is not one “nice” thing to look at, no flowers, no decorations, no picture books, often not even basic needs like an outhouse available. There is no river, and most people don’t even have a cistern to get water from or to wash in, but just every day… having to beg a bucket of water from some neighbor who may have a little left in their cistern. Often they lack a pattern or example of how to live cleaner, healthier and better. They just exist. The sad truth of the matter is that too many of the women like this end up allowing themselves to be used sexually in exchange for sustenance. They shrug their shoulders and say, “We need to eat”. This numbs the conscience while further tearing down morality, courage, spreading more disease and suffering in the wake.
The clinic sees an average of 80 patients a day, keeping the nurses pretty busy. And then we get called on 24/7 for emergencies. Two nights ago we helped a lady in labor and a healthy little girl was born. Last night’s call was for a man who got shot in the foot by a Dominican border patrol officer. We could see an entry and exit wound, so we are sure the bullet passed through, but the whole foot was grotesquely swollen. With repeated antibiotic injections and faithfully coming to the clinic every 2 days, we feel we can take care of him here. This morning we received a young boy who fell into a 10 ft deep cistern (which was dry), breaking his forearm. Splinting it was easy enough and then we offered to take him down to Port au Prince for setting and casting. The closest X-Ray machine is a bumpy 3 hr ride away. But the family is refusing to go. It’s very aggravating that while it will heal, it likely will be crooked. Every Wednesday is still prenatal care day. The ladies line up to have a class, get weighed and checked, and given the vitamins and medicines they may need for the month. One of the practices these Oriani mountain people have is to give a woman 5 baths after she has delivered her baby. These five baths are still a little mysterious to us, but they involve herbs, other ladies beating the woman with sticks, etc. Then the new mom is wrapped up in many layers of clothes, jackets, scarves and head cloths. Mom is confined to her room for the next 30 days to sweat and suffer. All of this is to ensure that the mom does not ever encounter the most awful thing of all…. “fredzi”. It seems like this “fredzi” (cold air) is what they think is the root cause of half their sicknesses, when the truth is that the overheating and sparse oxygen they endure is what often causes them to lack milk and succumb to more problems. Ancient customs and old wives fables are hard to dispel, but we keep working on it, at least where they negatively affect them. Speaking of fables… I just learned another one. Apparently if a baby is born with the cord around the neck (representing a tie), then that is a symbol from God that he will be a very important person like a minister etc. If the cord is wrapped around the body like a bandoleer, then he will be a soldier or a policeman.
Another clinic story that I want to share is about a young couple named Jean and Sanania. They both have syphilis. His symptoms were minor, but she had huge infected patches all over her body where the skin was rotting off. Her ear was hanging with pus, her shoulder and back had almost no skin. 80% of her body was affected. She was so weak she couldn’t walk. Basically she was just about gone. They had tried witchdoctors and herb people, and now her hope and money were about gone. It truly was one of the more pathetic sights we have seen. Mirlene (bless her heart) donned protection and took this lady into the shower to clean everything off. We then gave them the prescribed Penicillin G shots and told them to come back in a week. After 7 days here they sat. Waiting their turn to come in. What a miracle sight they were! I have never seen someone heal so fast. She was walking and smiling and almost every inch of her body was re-growing skin and there was no infection or open sores left! I still can hardly believe it. They both were a charming picture of hope, excitement and life again. Encouragement was given them to seek God now that He has given them such an amazing recovery from the brink of death. We want to follow them and do what we can to promote continued full healing of both body and soul.
Thanks be to God for providing a few short term nurses to keep us going for the last while. After Ang Toews (from Grifton, NC) left in February, Kay Wedel (from Brooksville, MS) came for a month, then Rosalie Nichols (Inman, KS). Then it was Linda Unruh (Greensburg, KS), after that Gina Dirks (Halstead KS). Each spent a month with us. Now on July 15 Kay came back, so we feel blessed and happy to have her back here for a as of now… unlimited longer term. Every one of the nurses who spent time here brought their own valuable insights and help for the clinic, and we enjoyed each of them living with us. We have had an awesome Haitian nurse hired for the last 3 years and now we beg you to help us pray for her and her husband as they are on the verge of splitting up. Likely this will mean she will leave us to go back to where her family is from. We are very sad for them.
Cam, our 16-year-old son, broke the radius bone in his right forearm last week. He jumped over a yard wall to unlock a door and had a bad fall onto concrete. We spent a miserable afternoon and night in the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Port. By 5am we were able to leave with Cam only to see with dismay that the cast was poorly done and would need further attention. Since the DWB hospital had treated us so rudely, crudely and then hadn’t done a good job, we opted to go instead to a private Haitian hospital this time. Readily they took us in, quickly x-raying the arm, resetting and then recasting it very nicely. We were obliged to pay full price for everything at this private hospital. They listed all the supplies used, like gloves for the doctor, swab gauzes, the antiseptic wash, the cast material… everything had a price. The x-ray was $20 and all the cast supplies with the doctor’s fee, came to another $20. The grand total was $40 for a nice job with a brilliant blue fiberglass cast. But sadly, a private hospital costing $40 is often beyond reach for many Haitian families.
A nice little God-moment I can relate is this… When Cam broke his arm, he was 2-3 hours drive from where we were. We gathered our stuff and headed down the mountain to meet with him at the hospital. We had thought our fuel gauge was working and we had 1/8 tank left, but… an hour from home the Ford started sputtering and then stalled. We coasted to a stop within 50 ft of a house that sells diesel from gallon jugs beside the road. And this place is the ONLY place that has diesel for sale within an hour and a half drive.
Another God-moment was when we wrote out a cheque for clinic supplies and mistakenly wrote it out for 212 instead of 312. We just paid cash for the remaining 100 dollars. Later we found out the balance in the bank was 22 dollars after the 212 cleared the account. If we hadn’t made the mistake… we would have overdrawn the account and had the bank as well as our supplier furious at us for bouncing our check. 22 dollars is not a very healthy balance. We did get some donations come in to get us going again, but we urge you to see if God touches your heart for the clinic needs. We feel we are providing very good first line health care at very low cost. We have many needs. We are worried about the clinic funding situation, but we trust God that it is His work and He will supply and direct. Help us pray.
Help us pray for direction and wisdom for the many many requests and frustrating situations that present themselves to us. Sometimes it’s very difficult living here. People come to us every day telling us how their children haven’t eaten today, or they are pleading for help to build a cistern to collect rain water, or for money to buy 3 bags of fertilizer because without fertilizer they won’t be able to get a crop. Sometimes it takes me 2 hours to get to the clinic in the morning because of all the people lining up in our yard or along the road who “neeeeeed to have a few words” with me. I must confess that it is a bit taxing at times. I have to deal with my “self” to just have the patience to listen, encourage, and pray with them even if we can’t help them monetarily. I have sometimes felt like going into hiding till the hard times pass again, but we don’t know when that will be. The Caribbean drought that is affecting everyone from Cuba to Puerto Rico, is seriously affecting most all of Haiti. It’s not only in Oriani. Pray that after 4 dry and lean years now, that God will send rain and 4 fat years ahead.
Our family is looking forward to Jenna Toews from Pincher Creek coming in September to teach our children. In June we said goodbye to April Koehn, who taught last year. One of the joys of being here is all the many girls and teachers who live with us. Our family has been enlarged immensely and we have family in many places now.
Ok have a good night and let’s live like we know the Lord is returning soon.
Keith and Candace Toews
Director – Confidence Health Center
Oriani Haiti
Telephone 001-509-3783-9058
Keithtoews67@gmail.com