Update from Cody

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? Psalms 27:1. This is a verse that has been comforting to me here the last couple of days with some of the unforeseen events that have happened here recently, but first let me introduce myself and get you up to date. I am Cody Martin from northern Indiana. I did construction and was on the fire department back in the states...so
life here is a bit different, but I love it so far. I feel like I am learning fast and I have a great bunch of people to work with.

We've been doing some grilling, which is always good. We went to a beach one Saturday which was a nice break, we also occasionally go to a waterhole a little hike down the river.

Brandon and Mali (who both previously served here), Lorrayne's sister Marline, and Brandon's sister Heidi came on Saturday, May 29. Brandon was  going to be administrator while Trent's went on furlough for the month of June, and had a group of guys coming to pour the pad for the birthing center floor. Brandon, Mali, their little boy, and Brandons sister Heidi left for Port early Thursday morning June 3 to take Tent's to the airport and pick up the concrete crew. Verlyn and I were on our way back from a hospital run. Little did we know that the night before was the last we would see of them. Gangs have been causing havock in several places around Port, and as the group of nine people were heading back to the mission at 5:30 on Fri the 4th, they came on a road block. As they turned around and were heading back, four shots were fired. Miraculously three missed but one went through the drivers side door, hit the steering wheel, broke apart, and lodged in Brandon's chest and shoulder. Mali got a bit of shrapnel in her knee, but thanks be to God the wounds were not life threatening and nobody else was hurt. They went to the police station and they took them to the hospital where they removed the bullet. They stayed in Port for the weekend trying to decide what to do. They decided to all fly back on Tuesday the 8th. Please pray for them!

His injurys were not life threatening and he was little more than sore the next day.

 Lorrayne's sister, Marline came with  Brandons and will be staying for a month.  Trent's come back in July, so your prayers for wisdom, guidance, and protection will be very much appreciated. Thank you so much - Cody

Below are a few pictures taken the last few weeks. 

Update from Mis Marcile

The verse of one of my favorite songs kept running through my mind... "You give and take away, my heart with choose to say Lord, Blessed be your name".  This verse comes to my mind every single time someone dies, and this time it especially seemed to ring. Earlier that day we had delivered a healthy newborn baby, cleaned everything up and left a healthy momma and baby resting on the hospital bed. Later that night we were at clinic checking on the patients in the hospital and finishing up a stitch job when I got a phone call from one of my friends saying that they're brining in her uncle.  This man had been into clinic a couple times in the last 3 months. He was diabetic and this time he came with obvious heart problems. We tried to stabilize him but were not able to make any progress so after contacting one of our doctors we loading up the oxygen tank and our very sick patient and headed to the closest hospital.  I had discussed with the family that he is not in good shape at all and I would be surprised if they would make it to the hospital but we would do everything we possible could to get him there fast. 

He died 10 minutes away from the hospital. 

•God gave us a healthy newborn baby and chose to take away another soul•

Sadly we found out later that the man that died was a witch doctor.

The funeral was so sad. We cried out to God for his presence to hover over us and it did. There were people standing around one of the 3 wives, shaking a banana leaf over her head in an attempt to call in the demons as she was yelling and I believe it was because people were praying and God was there. 

Gloria and Cody have been doing an amazing job with the burn bandage patients and wound care. 

This is Daniella's little girl. She came in malurished, extremely dirt and stinky and with a bad eye infection. The family situation is a mess with the parents not living together. We sent her to another hospital with a good malnutrition program. 

More birthing center progress. This is so exciting but we still need your help for tge project to continue. Please consider helping financially.

Please keep us in your prayers. We need it. -Mis Marcile 

Update by Mis Marcile

Clinic life had slowed down for a couple weeks which gave us the break we needed! 

Clinic days have been ranging from 30 to 45 patients a day which is on the small side. Rainy season and bean harvest always seem to keep people from coming even if they are sick!  But the night birth/emergency calls have picked up again! 

Every bed in our hospital room had been filled but today we were able to send everyone home except 2. Saint Luke went back for his randevou and will stay at the hospital for a week doing therapy. He is such a fun guy to have around. Sometimes during the night when we get a night call we find him down at clinic joking with the other patients and make them laugh, sometimes till the tears run! 

Ou diabetic girl that we talked about in the previous post will be going home this weekend with a appointment to come back every other day to rebandage and check her blood sugar. 

I'm amazed over and over how God created our bodies to heal. Its such a rewarding feeling to send patients home that came in very sick and we see them walk back out on their 2 feet with a smile on their face! God is an amazing God and I'm so thankfully that we get to be his hands and feet. 

A variety of interesting stitch jobs and births have been keeping us awake at night! We had a mom come in, In labor. I had been following her on the prenatal program and everything was looking normal. She showed up one morning 3 days later and we were unable to find the baby's heart beat. I did a quick ultrasound just to confirm the baby had died. It was difficult telling the family that their dear little baby had passed. Labor continued, once it came to pushing I knew that this was not going to be easy. Baby was large and mama had an extremely difficult time pushing baby out. We prayed and prayed and God gave this dear mama and the midwives the strength and the grace we needed. 

Tuesday night we had a sleepless night! 3 moms in labor kept us nurses running from room to room! We had 2 babies born 3 minutes apart and the next one was born 3 hrs later. We had some tired nurses at clinic the next day but very very thankful for good deliveries with healthy moms and babies. 

We are very excited to have our new "clinic guy" here. Cody Martin, from Indiana joined us about a week ago. He'll  be helping with the bandage patients and all the other little jobs that us girls and some others had been filling in since we didn't have any guys here. Jobs like classing the dossiers at the end of the day,  taking the vitals of each patient before they get their consultation and anything else that needs to be done.

This little guy is our miracle boy. He's been on the malnutrition program for several years. He started out very  malnourished and mentally handicapped. He's 4 years old now and we began giving up hope that he'd ever walk and a couple weeks ago he came in for his appointment walking by himself! 

3 babies born within 4 hours, hence the tired smiles. 😁

Update from Mis Gloria

Hello friends,

       Greetings to you all! It's a beautiful day in Haiti .I'm laying out in a hammock under the gazebo and swinging in the cool breeze. There's a beautiful bright orange butterfly floating around the hibiscus bush beside the gazebo here, a bird perched up in a tree just singing to his hearts content,  the skies are blue with white fluffy clouds just floating lazily around and the mountains are covered  in green. It's another day all created by God! After a whole week of rain everyday, there's nothing like a couple beautiful days like this! It lifts up my  spirit and brings a new song to my heart! 

  We had another busy day at the clinic today.  Last week when it rained everyday, we saw very fre patients, since most of our patients walk to clinic. Who wants to travel on a slippery muddy trail and a great chance of getting rained on? We enjoyed those slow days and were happy for the chance to catch our breath a little. On Monday, the sun was shining and I don't think there was an empty place to sit on our benches outside the clinic till probably about 12 oclock. I guess everyone that didn't come the week before decided to come this week! 

    April 1st Trent got to be one of our patients after getting his finger smashed between 2 rocks while him and one of the neighbor boys were unloading rocks for our new birthing Center . It was open down to the bone Marcille put 5 stitches in and he went right back to work. It healed up really nice with no infection which we were very thankful for! 

    Right now one of our patients that is staying in our hospital room is a 26 year old lady who came in with very high blood sugar and a badly infected diabetic ulcer on her foot! She was so weak she couldn't walk so her family often carried her around. We worked hard to get her blood sugar down. After several days of treatment, she is now hopping around on crutches all by herself. It's just amazing to see the healing take place. It's things like this that make us wanna keep on fighting even when it seems what we're doing isn't making a difference! 

"With men this is impossible,  but with God all things are possible." ~ Matthew 19:26~

  Today we had a mom and her 6 week old  twin boys come for a check up! She was followed here at the clinic during pregnancy than due to living so far away from the clinic and a fast labor and delivery, she didn't make it to clinic in time so she just ended up having them at home! They're both doing great! 

       Pray for our team's safety as we labour here! God bless you all.   Love, Gloria Nolt

               Mom with her twin boys! 

               The day Trent was our patient 

What the waiting area looks like on a busy                                  day

Birthing center update

We're very excited about the birthing center progress that is happening! 

It feels like a huge step of faith to begin building when we don't have near all of the funds needed to finish but we believe God will provide as he has done countless times in the past. Here is an aerial photo that shows what's happening! The footers are nearly finished and Lord willing, a team from the states is coming in June to pour the floor. 

Here, you see how much money we have to work with at this point. If you feel led to donate, it would be very much appreciated! You can send funds via PayPal HERE or if you prefer, you can send it thru Cashapp using the cashtag $GospeltoHaiti. 

If you prefer to send it some other way, feel free to contact us. 

Be sure to specify that the funds are for the birthing center building project! 

Thanks so much! 

In the previous blog post, we talked about St. Luke, our friend who recently got his left leg amputated. Please continue to pray for healing for him and also that he'd be able to get a prosthetic leg as soon as possible! He still needs about $1,200 to pay for everything. Please consider helping him out! If you choose to do so, please specify that your donation is for St. Lukes amputation. 

Again, thanks a LOT! Your donations matter and we truly couldn't function without them! 

-Mis Emma 

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