Last week Donavan and I made the trip in to Port au Prince to pick up supplies and make an airport run. We dropped off Darwin and his son Delavon at the airport along with Alex, our mechanic guy. Alex is returning to Tennessee after an all to brief three month stay here at the mission. Thank you Alex for the many ways you blessed us all here in Haiti! You will be missed! One of the rough things about living and working closely with a team like we have here at Alegue is the continual staff turnover. It's like having close family leaving every several months never to come back.
 

During the time that Darwin was here for the teachers' conference we had a rare opportunity for all the clinic staff to come together for a meeting and discuss some issues and encourage each other. Listening to stories of years past and hearing how long some of our Haitian workers have been faithfully helping out was an incredible inspiration to me. I am tempted to get feelings of burnout and compassion fatigue after only 22 months of dealing with the problems and frustrations that we face and yet our one nurse, Miss Leda, has been working at the clinic since 2000. That's 16 years of service! I want to express my heartfelt appreciation for all of our staff  both past and current that have shouldered the burden and continued to show the love of Christ through some of the most trying and difficult circumstances.

Miss Leda, consulting one of the many patients that she sees each day

 

 

Miss Joselaine with a patient and a young nursing student that volunteered for a couple weeks and Bridgette in the background cutting gauze.

Doc consulting a patient

Zitha, Rachel, and Mdm Leger keeping up in the pharmacy

Direk at the front desk is very pleased to finally have a mic hooked in to the PA system so he no longer has to shout above the noise outside to call people to the window.

Ellamae and Alyssa busy at their respective jobs. ( I know, not a great photo but it's what I had!)

counting and bagging meds in the gazebo, one of our favorite evening pastimes!

  Among other news, we've had the regular flood of patients this last week with their sniffles and coughs and hypertension and the occasion seriously ill or injured among them. While Donavan and I were in Port au Prince on Wednesday two babies with femur fractures arrived at the clinic within an hours time. I don't understand the frequent occurrence of broken femurs in children around here but I'm guessing it has a lot to do with a lack of basic nutrients and vitamins in their diets. It's not something that is seen very often in US hospitals. Poverty indirectly causes many health problems that we are not able to fix simply through medical treatment.
   During one of our clinic mornings last week a very pregnant lady strode in saying she was in labor. Approximately an hour later she delivered a very alert little girl who rolled over on her side within 10 minutes of birth and was scowling at everything around her. I had to get a couple pics of the faces she was making!

5 minutes after being born, this little gal doesn't seem impressed by the world

A better picture of the same baby

  There is still a nationwide doctors' strike going on in many of the state run hospitals in Haiti. I hope and pray that once the presidential elections have been accomplished the government will finally turn it's attention towards it's broken healthcare system. Until then, we will continue to try to fill in the gaps along with the other charitable and non government organizations here.

  Please keep us in your prayers!