Update from Mis Marcile

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Cor.12:9

God is so faithful... this verse has been my favorite go to verse this month. This month It literally felt like God was giving me more than I could handle but over and over he showed himself faithful. In the previous post Gloria shared some about what we have been seeing and experiencing. But thankfully things have slowed down and we have been able to get out a little bit more. Today we went out to visit one of our blood pressure/blood sugar patients. He had been coming to the clinic monthly for meds but because he got sicker he's not been coming. So we went to visit him and found a very sick man. We quickly realized he was in bad shape and told them to get a cot and bring him to clinic. He is now under the care of our doctor.

An update on our burn guy... on day 6 of his stay here in the hospital room and having his bandage changed twice a day, he made a turn for the worse... we discussed his situation with the family and told them we need to transport to a bigger hospital. But the family refused. They begged us to take him home to die. We prayed and discussed our options. We felt peace about taking him home and the next day he died. 

This is difficult as we do everything we can to help our patients and sometimes the family refuses to take our advice on the situation and we are left with one choice... to respect the family.

Some of Gloria's family and 2 of Verlin's friends came for a visit. We had a really good time with them here. They helped with alot of jobs around the compound and also at clinic. On Saturday we hiked up to Fort Gary.

Thanks so much for praying for us! 

Mis Marcile 

         The group who hired to Ft. Gary 

                         House call 

St. Lukes amputation

Hello everyone!
  Many of you who have visited our clinic probably know St. Luke (pronounced Senleek). Anyone who has worked here knows him. He's very friendly and easy to get to know. He's "papa" to many, including myself. 😊
He lives about 45 minutes away (walking) and started coming to clinic in 2010 or before with an infection in his leg. The story was that his infection started with an itch and continually got worse. It smelled very bad and was severely infected. "It started with an itch" is something that we commonly hear and it's difficult to know exactly what the cause is but in most cases we may never know. What we do know is that most of us wouldn't go to the doctor as soon as we should either if we had to hike over mountains to get there.😁
Over the years, St. Lukes infection was treated and bandaged daily by many different clinic staff and really improved several times but when it was starting to really heal up, he didn't come back for his bandages like he needed to and it got worse again. This has been very discouraging for everyone involved. In 2018, (if I'm remembering correctly) Ben took him to a specialist who confirmed that he had a tropical venous ulcer. They did an operation to remove a vein from his leg. After that he was moved into a small house right beside the clinic so we could care for him more effectively. Ben spent hours and hours taking care of him and bandaging his leg. He lived there for over 6 months and it was getting quite a bit better when he decided to move back to his house. After that he still came for bandages but the progress which had been made declined again.
In the recent months, it has gotten very very painful for him and he had a very hard time walking to clinic so he often comes on a donkey. Bandages are very painful for him and he has become resistant to some antibiotics and pain medications.
In February Trent and Daniella took him to a hospital to check into doing an amputation but it didn't work out.
Last week, Mis Leda went along with him to another hospital and they were  able to successfully amputate his leg! We're so excited! He was in severe pain for several days since the pain meds aren't very affective for him. He's doing better now tho, Praise the Lord!
Unfortunately, he is very poor because he hasn't been able to work the last several years. He owns basically nothing and has no money to pay for the surgery. He has some family but its a really sad situation. I'm not sure about all the details but they're not willing to help him.
Would you be willing to help out? Any amount of money would be extremely helpful! You can send it via PayPal HERE 

I'm also posting a QR code that you can scan if you prefer to do it that way. 

You can also send it via Cashapp, using the cashtag $GospeltoHaiti 

Or, mail a check to 

Gospel to Haiti

E4846A Meyer road

Reedsburg, WI 53959

Remember to specify that your donation is for St. Lukes amputation! 

Please pray for him!  He has a long road of recovery ahead of him. Pray that he wouldn't get discouraged and that it would heal well! Thanks so much!

-Mis Emma

 

busy!

Hello everyone!
  It's March already, hard to believe! The last couple weeks we've been really busy and it feels a bit like we're running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. 😁 Maybe not that bad but there's been a serious baby boom going on. We've delivered 11 babies so far this month and its the 11th. There were only 2 days without a birth and some sleepless nights. One night, after working with a laboring mom till 3am, we decided to transport her to Ti-Goave. At 7am, when we were almost back home, we met a group carrying a cot in to clinic. The patient was a young man with a burned leg. We went back to the house and had a quick power-nap before starting a new clinic day! The man with the burn is staying here at clinic so we can keep a close eye on him and give him the treatment he needs in a clean involvement to prevent infection.
Last night we got our first full night's sleep in about a week. Even when we're very tired, God gives us the strength we need! He never gives us more than we can handle.
Our hospital room is very full at night. Family members sleep on the tile floor and all the beds are full with patients.
Amidst the chaos, there have been a lot of highlights. One of them is a 9 month old baby who is staying at clinic. We call him our little pumpkin. He weighed 9lb 6oz, couldn't sit and barely had the strength to hold his head. He had a cold and also scabies. The poor little guy kept scratching himself with the little strength that he had. He also cried a lot. Now, after 2 weeks, he's gained over a pound, his face and hands are filling out and he coos and smiles! We adore him and don't know what we'll do without him when he's strong enough to go home.
  Also, our new birthing center is getting started! It'll all marked off where it will go and we're so excited!  For Trent and the others who are responsible, it takes a lot of planning, work, and faith. There are not yet enough funds to finish it so help with that would be greatly appreciated. Please help us pray that it would all work and and if you feel led, donate to https:/www.paypal.me/gthmission.

Larayne and I planted the garden last week and we've been having rain every day so we don't need to water it. There are lots of thing pushing up through the stony ground. So rewarding.
May we all keep growing in Jesus Christ. He is the water of life. God Bless you all!
Gloria

 

Update From Mis Marcile

It feels good to get back to normal life here in Haiti after being back in the States to visit family and friends! I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my new nephew and just being with family and friends. I got to experience the cold! My least favorite thing in the states🤪. 

We've been having some pretty full clinic days and some very stressful days! I think the most stressful thing for me working in the medical field here in Haiti is finding hospitals to transfer our patients to. We are a small, out patient clinic so the patients that have needs we can't take care of here need to be sent to a bigger hospital that can take care of them. 

Right now we are trying to get one of our regular bandage patients, Selik to a hospital that can amputate his foot. He has been coming here for years with a wound that just has not been healing even after being to several different hospitals and being on tons of meds. He is in alot of pain and its getting worse, and he's begging us to take him somewhere to amputate. So within the next couple days we are going to try to get him into a hospital that can help him. 

On Thursday we had a mom come in, in premature labor. We are not equipped here to take care of premature babies and usually transfer but this time the mother was progressing quite fast and after discussing our options we decided its safer to keep her here than deliver a premature baby on the road. As the closest hospital we could transfer her to where they would be able to give her proper care was atleast 5 hrs away. This dear mother quietly and quickly delivered a premature baby girl. I was surprised at the baby's size 5lbs 5oz. I was expecting she would be smaller! We worked on her for about 2 minutes before she gave us a good strong cry and opened her eyes! We kept her on a heating pad and oxygen and she seemed to be doing fine, we checked on her regularly.  On Friday morning when I went to check on her I was alarmed at her color and breathing. We immediately evaluated to situation and decided to transport... but we didn't realize how difficult of a time we would have trying to get her to a hospital that had what she needed. We finally got her loaded on the machine and headed out to a hospital that had already said that they were too full to take her but we were out of options and couldn't lose anymore time... she died about an hour out the trail. My heart was filled with pain as I prayed for the mother and tried to comfort her. I struggled with asking God, "Why?".  When we try so hard to do everything we possibly can....but I know God has a reason for everything.

Recently we made the trip to the Fondeblanc hospital with Patrick. He had been having stomach issues and needed a new wheelchair.

We are excited about the work starting on the new birth center! Patrick's house will need to be taken down and new one has been recently built for him. So today there was a "work day" cleaning his house and around the house before he moves in.

We are having alot of patients right now with scabies... there seems to be an epidemic of them right now!  its an intensely itchy skin infestation caused by a mite. This little baby has a mild case of scabies.

-Mis Marcile