Balloon Day!

Possibly these happy little faces won't mean as much to everyone else as they do to us nurses.  We decided to have balloon day for the children and give a balloon to each child that came through the clinic.  It was fun to see their responses!

This little fellow has been coming with an abscess type wound on the side of his head.  Being only 17 months old, he has a hard time holding still and not screaming.  This day, we told him that if he did well, we'd give him a balloon.  He understood that.  He'd cringe when it hurt but hardly let out a peep!  

I 

For those of you who know our gardener Celeste, this is his youngest child

This little fellow is on the malnutrition program and got a balloon this day too!  He's 2 y.o. and quite small for his age.  

Self explanatory!

Someone had taken the knot out of this balloon.  I guess that way they could have more fun with it!  

Here is another happy face but not because of a balloon.  Do you remember that lady back some months ago had a horrible infection around her eye?  The flesh and tissue surrounding her eye were totally rotting away.  I had done basic cleaning and old flesh and tissue removal.  Then we had told her she must go out for further help.  Thank God she did!  She spent about 2 months out in Port Au Prince getting treatment.  Just this past week she came back to the clinic.  I didn't even recognize her.  It is totally healed.  She has scar tissue and I'm sure all the muscles and tissue didn't grow back as her lower eye lid doesn't close normally.  It's just amazing though!  She became a Christian too.  Fre Adolph was telling her how God gave her that eye twice, and now all she can do is use it totally for Him!  It's so exciting to see people healed physically, but more exciting yet is knowing we are touching lives for eternity!  

Madelene and I

On Thurs afternoon all of us white nurses along with Dominique, Selma, and Joatase, took off hiking to visit some friends, clinic patients, and go to a cell service in Bessenget.  We wanted to visit Elvie, the lady who had all the fluid in her abdomen as well as Madelene who lives in the same area.  We set off equipped with backpacks, bottles of water, snacks, and a small emergency kit.  It's about an hour and a half hike, but when we were over half way there, it started raining!  These days you never know when it will or will not rain in the afternoon.  Putting what needed kept dry in bags, we continued our hike.  By the time we arrived at the cell group leaders house, we were totally soaked.  They told us we should take cover, but we said we were already soaked.  The road that vehicles can travel ends there, and we continued on little foot paths going down the mountain.  Of course the trails were quite treacherous by now from the rain so we slipped and slid our way down.  About 20 min further down the trail we finally arrived at Elvie's house.  She and her daughters we so happy to see us and us to see them.  

It continued to pour rain so we were glad to be under cover.  We sat there and rested starting to get cold since we were totally soaked.  Elvie seems to be doing well in the Lord, but her abdomen is all filled up with fluid again so do pray for her.  Her husband arrived there the same time we did and was very drunk.  I'm sure it's not an easy situation.  

After a while we sang with them a little and prayed before headed back out to face the rain. It still hadn't stopped, but we knew we needed to get home before dark so didn't have much option.  Basically just across the path from Elvie's house and down the mountain side is where Madelene lives.  She came out to see us as we didn't want to take time to go in.  It was very sweet of her to also give us a sack of avocados.  Back up the trail we headed.  It was actually much easier this time because the rain had washed a lot of the mud off the rocks, and it wasn't nearly as slippery.  

When we got up to the cell group leaders house, we met up with Pastor Levy, Met Claudener, Met Girard, and his wife who had come out to visit people and have a service.  The rain kind of changed the plans, and we weren't able to go visiting together.  It seemed though that everyone had a good time.  We would have needed to keep hiking because of the lateness of the hour, but Levy had called and asked for a machine to come get us since it had rained.  We were then able to stay and enjoy a meal and a little service there before we all headed back to Allegue.  

~Mis Anita